Ralph Compton - The Ghost of Apache Creek

He glanced at the sky. It would be dark soon. A single star shone in the east, heralding the coming night. It was a pleasant evening and he felt like a man taking a stroll along a city boulevard.

He walked on, leaving a loathsome trail behind him as his rupturing guts emptied again and again.

Every step weakened him, and he did not know how many were left to him.

Enough.

Soon he’d be among the savages, where he would play hob.

His voice, weak, thin, reedy, rose in song.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored . . .

Now he was marching, by God. Marching to glory.

He fired his guns. Two fast shots that racketed across the hush of the evening.

“I’m a-comin’ for y’all!” he yelled. “Hear me! The deacon’s on his way.”

Steadily now, he triggered his revolvers, a rolling thunder of gunfire from the weapons of a master.

Mine eyes have seen the glory ...

A bullet crashed into the deacon’s left thigh and shattered bone. He dropped to a knee, staggered to his feet, and walked on, gritting his teeth.

He sang his war song like that, the words wrenching out of him.

Of the coming of the Lord . . .

Two bullets now, fired with fine accuracy from .44-40 Winchesters.

One ball slammed into the deacon’s chest, the other lower, deep in his belly.

He fell to his knees, triggered his guns.

Empty clicks.

Bullets hammered into him. Shredded him. Destroyed him.

The deacon took a last look at the sky, caught a glimpse of something terrifying, then screamed and fell on his face.

His body erupted one last time, but Deacon Santee was already dead.

The Apaches left him where he lay and did not go near his body.

They knew and feared the ways of cholera.

Chapter 51

“Damn it, Mash, hold it for a while longer,” Sam Pace said. “It’ll be dark soon.”

“Man can’t hold what’s not in his hand,” Lake said.

“Hell, Mash, piss over the side,” Jess said. “I don’t mind.”

“I do,” Pace said. “The Peacocks will shoot his damn fool pecker off.”

“When a man’s got to go, a man’s got to go,” Lake said.

He stood, turned his back to Jess, and fumbled with his fly. He leaned against the rail and sent a steaming stream of piss hissing over the side.

Lake talked over his shoulder.

“Had to stop an’ piss in the middle of a gunfight oncet, up in the Nevada Slate Ridge country,” he said. He nodded. “Yep, I recollect that like it was yesstidy.”

“We don’t want to hear about it, Mash,” Pace said, irritated.

“I do,” Jess said. “How did you manage it, Mash, without getting shot?”

“Well,” Lake said, “me an’ this gold miner, English feller by the name of Giles St. John, got into it over a silver watch he claimed I stole from him. He called me out and we stood in the street and took pots at each other. But, after a spell, I held up my hand and said, ‘Giles, hold your fire. I got to take a piss, get rid of some of the beer in my gut.’ Giles, he says, ‘You go right ahead, Mash. I’m a British gentleman and I won’t shoot until you’ve finished.’”

Lake sighed, buttoned up, and said, “Hell, I needed that.”

“What about Giles St. John?” Jess said.

“What about him?” Lake said.

“What happened after you stopped to take a piss and he told you he wouldn’t shoot, him being a gentleman and all?”

“Oh yeah. Well, I’m standing there, letting it go, and the damned limey took another pot at me. Damn near blew my head off. So I buttoned up and said, “Giles, you’re a no-good son of a bitch, an’ low down.’”

Lake sat, and settled his back against the rail. “I drawed my revolver again, and cut loose. Come mighty close. Then ol’ Giles, he figures he’s had enough for one day and takes off running, and I ain’t seen him from that day to this.”

Lake shrugged. “Of course, we was both drunk at the time, so I never did hold that pot against him none.”

“So the moral of the story is: Don’t drink a belly-load of beer before a gunfight,” Jess said.

Lake smiled and nodded. “Young lady, them’s words of wisdom. Beer an’ gunfighting just don’t mix.”

“Mash,” Pace said, “please, if you ever get the urge again, don’t tell us any more big windies.”

“It ain’t a windy, Sam. It happened just like I tole you.”

“I think Mash’s story is easier to believe than three people sitting in a bell tower waiting for dark,” Jess said.

“Me too,” Mash said. He eyed Pace. “Huh! Big windy, my ass.”

Night erased the last traces of daylight from Requiem.

A ghost town casts still shadows. But it makes the surrounding darkness restless, on edge, as though it’s waiting for something to happen, perhaps the misty midnight appearance of the people who once lived there.

The wind was from the east, coming off old, stone mountains, bringing with it the scent of pine and the ability to make placid men angry.

Sam Pace stood at the rail of the bell tower, his eyes searching into the night. Nothing moved and there was no sound.

Lake stepped to his side. “See anything?”

Pace shook his head.

“Then, just like you said, the cholera’s done for them Peacocks,” Lake said.

“Seems like.”

“Does that mean we can get down from here?” Jess said.

“It do,” Lake answered. He looked at Pace. “Don’t it?”

Pace made no answer, his head turned, eyes fixed on the saloon.

“Hell, boy, what do you see?” Lake said.

“I don’t know what I see.”

“Describe it, Sammy,” Jess said. She sounded tense.

“White,” Pace said. “I thought I saw something white move near the saloon door.”

“A coyote?” Jess said.

“Maybe.”

Pace was silent for a while, then said, “You know what I think it was?”

Jess and Lake stared at him.

“I think maybe it was a naked man on all fours, crawling along the boardwalk in the shadow of the saloon wall.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jess said.

“It means two things. One, all the Peacocks aren’t dead.”

“And the other?” Jess said.

“The other is that we could be in a heap of trouble.”

Chapter 52

Sam Pace lifted his rifle to his shoulder.

He aimed just to the right of the saloon door where the wall met the boardwalk.

Levering the Winchester from his shoulder, he dusted shots along the angled shadow from the door to the end of the boardwalk. His bullets splintered timber from the walk and thudded into the saloon wall.

The racket of the rifle roused Requiem from slumber.

The Peacock brothers’ high-strung horses yanked away from the saloon hitch rail. The startled animals uprooted the supporting posts and galloped down the street, dragging the rail with them.

Echoes slammed through the alleys and town buildings, booming like muffled drums.

Lake’s eyes probed the darkness, his ears ringing.

“Did you get him, Sam?” he said, too loudly.

“Hell, I don’t know,” Pace said. “It’s too dark to see. Where’s the damned moon?”

He listened into the night, heard nothing.

“Like Jess says, maybe it was just a coyote,” Lake said.

Pace said nothing, and the woman said, “Sammy, you’re scaring the hell out of me. Let’s get down from here.”

“I don’t want to dangle from a rope with the Peacocks taking shots at me,” Pace said. “We’ll wait for a spell.”

“Damn it, Sammy, wait for what?” Jess said.

“I don’t know.”

The woman was silent for a moment, as though she’d just been slapped.