Ralph Compton - The Ghost of Apache Creek

“Could be, but Apaches also use mirror signals.”

“There’s plenty of dust kicking up,” Pace said.

Lake nodded. “Twenty, maybe thirty riders.”

“They’re not moving in our direction.”

“Army or Apache, seems like they found something more interesting than us to occupy their time.”

Jess kneeled beside Pace. “We could signal them, fire some shots.”

“We could,” Pace said, “if it’s the army. But suppose it’s Apaches? We’d be in even more danger than we are now.”

Jess had no answer for that and again lapsed into silence.

The long summer day burned on. The sun seared its way across the sky, and to the west buzzards lazily rode the air currents.

The bell tower smelled of pine resin, hot iron, and human sweat.

Pace sat and fetched his back against the rail.

“It’s all quiet at the saloon,” he said. “We’ll wait until just before dark and make our move.”

“What’s your plan?” Lake said.

“Apart from getting down from here, I don’t have one.”

Neither Lake nor Jess commented on that, and Pace smiled.

“If all’s quiet until dark, then I’ll reckon the cholera has done our work for us.”

“Is it really so quick?” Jess said, shivering despite the heat of the day. “Alive in the morning. Dead come suppertime.”

“It depends on the strain, or so Doc Anderson told me before he was finally took. When the cholera was killing a dozen people a day in Requiem, the doc said he’d seen the disease in Baltimore, Memphis, Washington, and a couple of other cities, but he reckoned the cholera in the well down there was the most”—Pace racked his memory for the right word—“the most virulent he’d ever come across.”

“What’s that word mean, Sam?” Lake said.

“‘Virulent’? I guess it means real bad for a person.”

“Then why didn’t he just say ‘real bad for a person’?”

“Because he was a doctor, and doctors use words nobody’s ever heard before. That’s why they become doctors, so they can use words like ‘virulent.’”

“Do you think they’re all already dead down there, Sammy?” Jess said.

“Yes. I believe they are, or close to it.”

But then the sound of gunshots gave the lie to Pace’s confident statement.

Chapter 45

Deacon Santee staggered into the saloon, bringing with him a stench that quickly filled the entire room with a noxious vapor.

“They shot at me,” he said. “That damned white trash shot at a sick man.”

He looked around, his eyes becoming accustomed to the gloom.

One of the Peacocks sat on a chair against the far wall. He moaned as pain stabbed at him again and again, vileness pooling around his feet, fed by the stinking liquids that still ran uncontrollably from his body.

Two of the other brothers stood on either side of a table, a man lying on his back between them.

The deacon took a couple of steps forward, but then stopped.

“Is that the dummy?” he said.

“He was the last born of us and frail,” a brother said. “He would not eat, fasting constantly, as though famine stalked the land.”

Clutched by pain, the deacon swayed against the bar, holding on to stay upright. He felt something vile run down his legs.

He bit back a surge of pain, then said, “A man’s got to eat or he dies.”

“Famine didn’t kill him,” the brother said. “It was you who killed him.”

“It was the brandy,” Santee said. “I reckon it had gone bad.”

“Idiot,” the brother said, “it was the water. The well is poisoned, yet you told us the water was good to drink.”

“Hell, I drank it my own self,” the deacon said. “How was I to know it was pizened?”

“You should have known,” the brother said. “We’ll all be dead soon, and this town will be our funeral pyre.” He waved a hand. “Up there, in the bell tower, we will find dogs to lie at our feet.”

The deacon was burning with fever, battered by pain, and his bowels were melting, running down his legs as a foul-smelling effluent.

He doubted that he could remain on his feet much longer, and he was in no shape for a gunfight.

“Well, see, about that dying business,” he said, his mouth bone dry. “The pizen hasn’t been made that can kill Deacon Santee.”

“Yet, rest assured, you will die with the rest of us,” the brother said. “Die now, die later. The choice is yours.”

The deacon didn’t like that last one bit. It was a pretty obvious threat. This was shaping up to become a draw-and-shoot, and, sick and trembling as he was, he wasn’t sure if he’d be the last one standing when the smoke cleared.

Then, suddenly, his mind was made up for him.

The other Peacock, who’d been standing at the table and so far had remained silent, groaned. He lurched backward, clutched at his belly, and slumped over, body fluids noisily erupting from him.

The deacon took his chance.

He drew and fired at the brother who’d accused him of knowing the well was poisoned.

“Take that and be damned to ye,” he roared, his voice exploding with pent-up anger and fear.

The Peacock brother took the bullet, a solid torso hit, and staggered, scarlet blood frothing on the front of his white shirt.

The deacon headed for the batwings, firing on the move.

Another hit.

His target went down on his knees, but the man’s gun came up, fast, but unsteady, the muzzle wavering.

Something slammed into the deacon’s left shoulder, shocking in its brute force and intensity. Hit hard, he paused by the doors and his gaze scanned the room.

Santee was not one to take a bullet and let the man who shot him walk the earth.

His fevered eyes went to the kneeling man on the floor, dismissed him, and moved to the back of the saloon. The brother who’d been sitting on a chair against the wall was on his feet, his gun straight out in front of him.

The deacon fired, fired again.

His bullets chipped timber as the Peacock dived to his right side and crashed to the floor, scrabbling out of sight behind a table.

Santee was angry, but he let the man go. His time would come later.

He backed to the door and eyed the kneeling Peacock. The man was staring at nothing, blood trickling down his chin. His gun was still in his hand, but seemed too heavy for him to lift.

“Son of a bitch,” the deacon said.

He drew from his left holster and emptied the gun into the dying Peacock. Coldly, Santee watched the man roll over and lie still on his side.

“Damn all of you!” he yelled into the smoke-streaked saloon. “Damn all of you to hell.”

The deacon staggered into the street and made for his horse at the barbershop hitch rail.

The left side of his chest was soaked in blood, he stank, and he was on fire with fever. He reckoned everything that was inside him had turned to liquid and would be gone by now. But it was not. It kept coming, running down his legs, leaving a track behind him like the slime trail of an obscene snail.

Twice he stumbled, and had to claw to his feet again.

The hot sun pounded him, baking his unspeakable stench to his body, and he had a raging thirst.

His horse was close. Not far, only a few steps.

Very soon, he’d be with his women. They’d attend to him, make him better. Wash him, give him clean clothes, set him in the shade, and quench his thirst with cool water. Be loving wives.

He smiled.

The deacon would be himself again.

Chapter 46

“What do you think, Sam?”

Pace met Lake’s eyes. “Five men went into the saloon, there was a gunfight, and only one of them left. The deacon. What does that tell us?”

“Seems like the deacon done fer them Peacock boys, them as were still alive.”