Ralph Compton - The Ghost of Apache Creek

Lake, surprised, stared hard at Pace. “You ain’t goin’ sane on me, boy, are ye?”

“I don’t know, old man. I could be. Maybe bein’ crazy for three years is enough for any man.”

“I don’t know about that,” Lake said.

“I don’t know either,” Pace said.

Chapter 23

One by one, Deacon Santee’s straggling herd emerged from the mist. The slat-sided longhorns were flyblown, infested with the ticks that carried Texas fever, and barely able to stagger.

But the animals were still on their feet and to the army and the Indian agents, that was all that mattered.

Sure, the Apaches might mind such scrawny, diseased cows, but no one paid them heed anyhow.

Ben Trivet in tow, Beau Harcourt greeted Santee like a long-lost brother and immediately gave orders to start the combined drive to the Rio Puerco.

“I’m missing two top hands,” Santee said, accepting a cup of coffee from the cook, “my sons Enoch and Jeptha.”

“They ain’t sick or shot or something?” Harcourt said.

“Nah, they’re tracking a woman that ran from my camp on our wedding eve. My guess is they found her and are dallying with her someplace.”

Harcourt, Trivet, and a couple of hands stared at Santee, Harcourt longest of all.

“I haven’t seen her,” he said finally, emphasizing each word, a warning to his men to keep their mouths shut about the woman in his tent.

Santee’s skinny body shivered with a passion born of madness.

“If they haven’t done so yet, my whelps will find her and return her to me,” he said. “I’ll cut the hide off the whore with a bullwhip and leave her corrupt flesh to be consumed by wild dogs.”

Maybe Ben Trivet was just plain stupid, suicidal, or driven by a misplaced sense of male gallantry.

Whatever the reason, it was about to cost him his life.

“A Texas gentleman doesn’t talk about a woman that way,” Trivet said, his cheekbones red. “And I mean any woman, even a whore.”

Harcourt spoke into the tense hush that followed, trying to head off trouble.

“Ben, you and the others get the herd moving,” he said. “The army won’t wait.”

“Hold up, Ben,” Deacon Santee said. His eyes glowed, like those of a cat stalking a mouse.

He took a step toward Trivet and brushed his frock coat away from his guns. He spoke to the puncher, his voice iced.

“You dare to show me such disrespect”—he waved a hand—“in front of my sons and my women? How dare you imply that I’m not a gentleman.”

“Apologize to the deacon, Ben,” Harcourt said. He looked at Santee. “He meant no disrespect.” Then he attempted what he hoped was a disarming smile. “It’s too early in the morning for a killing, Deacon.”

Trivet felt the breeze cool on his face. He heard the babble of the creek as it bubbled over blue river stones, the rustle of jays quarreling in the wild oaks, and he saw the play of sunlight in the mist.

He was twenty-five that summer, healthy, strong, and he’d formed a vague plan to start his own ranch one day with a pretty wife at his side.

Right then he was scared and he didn’t want to die.

It’s good for a man to have pride, but now and again it will turn around and spit in his face.

As it did now.

Trivet, aware that other men watched, found himself backed into a corner. He knew he couldn’t show fear or any hint of git, so he did all he could do—reach down into himself and find his cojones .

“I ain’t apologizing, Deacon, for what I think,” he said. “A man’s got a right to his opinion.”

Santee nodded, his pinched, malicious face grave. In a somber voice, as though giving a sermon from a pulpit in hell, he said, “Then the slanderer must die, for that is the law of God. Verily, he shall be destroyed for his iniquity and his bones scattered by wild beasts.”

“No!” Harcourt yelled.

The fraction of a second it took Harcourt to utter that exclamation matched the speed of Santee’s draw.

The deacon skinned both guns and the shots sounded as one.

Trivet’s face went slack and there was a strange, luminous shock in his eyes. Hit twice in the chest, he fell on his knees, his gun coming up, and Santee, grinning, shot him again.

Trivet died in that position, on his knees, all ready to meet his God.

But the deacon would have none of that.

He lifted his boot, kicked Trivet in the chest, and sent his body jerking backward.

“Fair fight,” Santee said. He was looking at Harcourt.

“Fair fight,” Harcourt said, the words bunching in his throat.

But it had been cold-blooded murder and the rancher knew it.

Trivet was no gunfighter. He was a dead man the moment he spoke up about the woman.

Still, the deacon could’ve let it go, laughed it off, and no harm done.

But he hadn’t.

And Harcourt knew the reason: The man felt the need to prove how fast he was with the iron.

Damn it, why?

The answer to that question brought realization, and with it came a chill that iced Harcourt’s belly.

He’d thought of the deacon as nothing more than a business associate, albeit a crooked one, but basically harmless.

Now all that had changed.

Santee had shown himself to be something else entirely, a man more ruthless, callous, and dangerous than Harcourt ever could have imagined.

He looked at the deacon reloading his guns, and a sense of foreboding filled him, like a man who hears the tolling of his own funeral bell.

Chapter 24

The herd was ready to move out, but the deacon took his sons Gideon and Zedock aside and led them close to his wagons.

“You know what to do,” he said. “The Mexicans I hired are all good with the iron and they’ll back your play.”

Santee bunched a fist into Gideon’s shirt, pulling him close to his own scowling face.

“I want all the Harcourt hands dead, you understand? Shoot them. Then shoot them again. Let not one of them escape you.”

“Is this afore or after we sell the herd?” Gideon asked.

He was small and thin like his father, and every bit as spiteful and mean. Even whores stayed clear of him after he marked a few, and dogs ran from him in the street.

“Damn it, where is Enoch when I need him?” the deacon said. “After, you idiot. After you get the money from the army quartermaster.”

“We come back here, Pa?” Zedock said.

The deacon let out a slow hiss of exasperation.

How the hell had he sired idiots like these?

“I went over all that already. First you send a rider on a fast horse to tell me you made contact with the army. Then you head back here your own selves with the money.” He laid on some sarcasm. “I’ll be the only man standing, so even you two will be sure to recognize me.”

“We’ll do as you say, Pa,” Zedock said. “You can count on us.”

“Let’s hope so,” the deacon said. “If you foul this up, don’t come back because I’ll kill you on sight.”

He lashed at the two young men with his riding crop.

“Why the hell are you standing there with your mouths hanging open? Mount up and git going. And make sure you keep the Mexicans in check. I’ll deal with them later.”

Santee watched the herd move out, the cattle drifting through a cloud of yellow dust.

He smiled, happy at the way things had worked out.

There were seven Harcourt riders and seven of his own—his two sons and five Mexicans fresh off the Texas border, where they’d played hob, robbing, raping, and killing.

Killing Trivet had evened the odds and he was confident Gideon and Zedock could do the rest.

He looked around the camp.

A couple of Harcourt’s punchers were holding the remaining half of his herd in a box canyon three miles to the south. Only two of his men were in camp, the cook and an older hand who had pleaded sickness from an attack of piles.