Riding With the Damned

A Look at the West’s Water Crisis Via the Arizona Trail

Mountain Flyer (Winter 2019) by Ian Catto | Images by Whitton Feer

My father would play Johnny Cash often when I was young, so I grew a liking for his music as a kid. His voice is deep and intense, but his lyrics are poetic and entertaining. One song is particularly dramatic and has been a favorite in my family for as long as I can remember. “Ghost Riders in the Sky” perils one cowboy’s encounter with hell, which is embodied as the damned chasing a herd of cattle for eternity. The song ends with the cowboy being warned by one of the damned cowboys to change himself into a better man lest he be subjected into the same fate.

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