Ralph Compton - The Ghost of Apache Creek

The least the folks here should’ve done before they left was to tear it down. That would’ve been right and proper. It was a grievous sin to let a house of worship rot in the sun like an unwanted corpse.

Before he left he would set the church on fire and let it be consumed by purifying flames.

After a last glance at the church, the deacon drew his guns and stepped into the barbershop.

Thick dust lay everywhere, cobwebs triangled the corners and a pack rat had built its untidy nest on the seat of the chair. A bench placed against the wall was littered with sheets of yellowed newspaper, and unswept clippings of hair still covered the floor.

Santee strolled to a shelf behind the chair, picked up a dark blue bottle, and dusted it off. Lavender water. His favorite. He pulled the cork, sniffed to make sure the scent was still potent, then took off his top hat and poured the stuff over his bald head.

He nodded his approval, then tossed the empty bottle through the shop window. As shattered glass chimed around him, he smiled.

A man should smell good.

The heat of the day slamming him, the deacon began a systematic search of the town buildings. He found an unopened bottle of bourbon in the saloon, drank deeply, then carried it with him during the rest of his search.

A gun in one hand, the bottle in the other, Santee reached the marshal’s office.

He was sweating like a pig and his skin itched. He decided this was the hottest day of the summer so far, what they called a “scorcher” back east, and the bourbon was making him thirsty.

He threw away the half-empty bottle and then kicked in the door of the marshal’s office.

His gun up and ready in front of him, he followed the revolver inside, then stopped in his tracks.

Someone had been there—and recently.

And he smelled a woman.

Jessamine! It had to be. She had been here and not so long ago.

There were three cups on the table, evidence of meals, cigarette butts, and the coffeepot was still warm. The railroad clock on the wall was ticking, so it had been wound recently.

The room told its story to Santee.

After fleeing Harcourt his woman had found refuge here, and her companions were probably male. Two of them. They could be the sons of bitches who had murdered his sons.

The deacon checked the cell at the rear of the office, found nothing of interest, and stepped back into the street.

He still had a few other buildings to search, including the church. If he found no trace of Jess and the men with her, he’d scout the brush and mesquite country around the town.

Damn it, they were here recently and they must be close.

But where?

The hammering sun used Requiem as an anvil, beating the town into fiery submission. Such breeze as there was felt like a draft from a blast furnace and the air was thick and hard to breathe.

As the deacon paced down the middle of the street, a dust devil spun around his feet and lifted the tails of his frock coat. He stumbled, and then walked on. The devil spun behind him, then collapsed in a puff of dust.

Santee reached into a pocket of his frock coat, found a large red bandanna, and mopped sweat from his head and face. He squinted against the glare of the sun and rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, tasting salt.

Just ahead of him was a well, hopefully still with water, and he walked toward it.

Above him, buzzards flew lazy triangles in the sky and the hazed sun smoked like a white-hot coin. Sunlight reflected from store windows, adding more heat to the blazing day, and nothing moved or made a sound. Even the crickets had quit fiddling.

The deacon removed his coat, folded it neatly, and laid it on the ground beside the well. He unbuckled his guns and placed them on top of the coat.

A wooden bucket had been untied from the pulley rope and thrown aside. Santee reattached the bucket and lowered it into the well. He was gratified to hear a splash when it hit bottom.

He waited, then worked the pulley handle. The bucket reappeared, crystal-clear water cascading over its rim.

A rusty dipper lay nearby on the well’s limestone wall. The deacon wiped it off with his fingers, filled the dipper from the bucket, and drank deeply.

The water was cool and sweet and he refilled the dipper and drank again.

Deacon Santee had no way of knowing that he’d just tasted death a second time.

Chapter 41

“The deacon is drinking from the well,” Sam Pace said.

“Will it kill him?” Jess said.

Pace kept his eye to the railing, staring through a chink between a pair of warped boards.

“I don’t know.” He turned and smiled at Jess. “You sound hopeful.”

“I am,” the woman said. “Hell, how long does the cholera poison a well? Months? Years?”

“I don’t know that either. But Harcourt’s boys stirred the water up when they gave me a bath. If there’s still cholera in the well, I’d say they wakened it up for sure.”

“How does it kill a man?” Lake said.

“If he’s took sick in the morning, most times he’ll be dead by sundown.”

“If the deacon did drink poisoned water, how long before he gets sick?” Jess said.

“It’s mighty sudden. Three, maybe four hours.”

“Then what happens, Sammy?”

“Everything that’s inside you comes out both ends,” Pace said, “and it keeps on a-coming. Your legs cramp up and you can’t walk and you get a raging fever. If you have the strength, you’ll scream for a while, but pretty soon you die.” He smiled. “One of the good Lord’s tender mercies.”

“I wouldn’t wish a death like that on anyone,” Lake said. He looked at Pace. “My God, Sam, you saw a whole town die like that, including your own wife and wee babby? How could you stand it?”

Pace said nothing, his eyes unfocused, looking back into a different place and time.

“No wonder you’re tetched in the head, boy,” Lake said finally, a sense of wonder in his voice.

“Sammy,” Jess said, “your wife. Was she pretty?”

It was a female question and Pace accepted it with a tolerant smile.

“Yes, very pretty. She had . . . she had this yellow hair and the sun would get all tangled in it and turn it gold. And she had gray eyes, like a summer mist, only sometimes they looked blue.” His head turned to the side as he remembered. “In the dark, or by lamplight, that’s when they were blue. Dark, kinda like the night sky.”

“You loved her very much, didn’t you, Sammy?” Jess said.

“Yeah. I did. I loved her very much. I still do.”

“I didn’t want to drive you crazy again, Sammy,” Jess said.

“You didn’t. The death of his wife leaves a heartache in a man that no one can heal.” Pace smiled. “But the way he loved her, well, that’s a memory no one can ever steal from him.”

“Will you ever be able to love another woman?” Jess said.

Pace grinned, his teeth white under his mustache. “Are you volunteering, Jess?”

“Men don’t fall in love with whores, Sammy,” Jess said.

“You’re not a whore now,” Pace said.

Lake coughed. “What’s the deacon doing now, Sam?” he said.

Pace left the place where he’d been and returned to the present. “Still drinking. He must have a powerful thirst.”

“Hell, so do I,” Lake said. “But not for that well water.”

“You can drink from the canteen soon, Mash. I don’t want you filling up with water, then pissing all over the place like you said you would.”

The bell tower was open to the sun, and the small platform built up heat. Pace and the others were soaked with sweat, and even the slightest movement became an intolerable chore.

Jess moved slightly, and the back of her neck brushed the iron bell. She yelped and jerked away.