Ralph Compton - The Ghost of Apache Creek

Danielle took a breath and tried to regain her patience. In her attempt to convince her brothers that she was ready and able to ride, she’d almost forgotten that they, too, had suffered wounds at the hands of the outlaw gang they had fought and left dead on the ground before coming here to Newton. “I’m sorry, Tim,” Danielle said, looking from one of her brothers to the next. “How are you two doing?”

The twins nodded in unison. “We’re doing all right, Danielle,” said Tim. “We’re mostly healed up pretty good.” He nodded at Jed. “Just so you won’t think we’re not keeping busy, listen to what Jed found out at the saloon.”

Danielle looked at Jed expectantly. “Well, what is it?”

A grin spread across Jed’s face. “You remember Bob Dennard, the bounty hunter you had trouble with back in Fort Smith?”

“I remember him,” said Danielle. “He wanted us to ride with him and find Saul Delmano.”

“That’s right,” Jed said. “Well, I’ve talked to him some, and he knows a lot about Saul Delmano. He said Delmano’s family operates a large cattle business that stretches all the way across the border into Mexico. He said Saul Delmano’s father, Lewis Delmano, is not much more than an outlaw himself, except that he’s made lots of powerful political connections over the years. Dennard says if Saul Delmano is holed up with his crew along the border, he’s going to be awfully hard to get to.”

“Sounds like Bob Dennard is still trying awfully hard to throw in with us,” Danielle said. “I appreciate him giving you the information, but we’ve still got no room for him riding with us. Does he still think I’m Danny Duggin?”

“Yep, he does,” said Jed, “and so does everybody else except the doctor. We’ve done good keeping your secret. I told Dennard that Tim and I are your younger brothers, that we’re here as family helping you out. He seems to believe it. He wants to ride with us awfully bad. Said if he’s not riding with us, he’ll be going after Saul Delmano alone. If he does, let’s hope he doesn’t cause us trouble getting to Delmano.”

Danielle Strange thought things over for a moment, pacing slowly back and forth across the small room, one hand held to her tender side. Tim and Jed Strange stood quietly watching her.

Across the street, other eyes were watching her, too. Atop the mercantile store, an outlaw named Clyde Branson stood with his rifle lying across the edge of the roof. He watched Danielle each time she stalked past the dusty window. Thinking Danielle was the deadly young gunman, Danny Duggin, Branson whispered to himself, “Come on, Duggin, let’s get this over with.”

Danielle was pacing slowly, and that was to Branson’s advantage. He knew he would only get one shot, so he’d better make it count. He wet his thumb against the tip of his tongue, then ran it across his rifle sight. There was two thousand dollars riding on this shot. He couldn’t afford to miss.

Clyde Branson counted off the seconds it took Danielle to walk past the window in the light of the lantern, then turn and come back. For a moment there she must have stopped, out of sight, probably talking to someone. Branson eased down and waited. When nearly a full minute had expired, he saw her move past the window again, and he tightened his hand on the rifle stock. He would let her make a couple more passes, then he would take her down. It would take a few days for word of Danny Duggin’s death to make its way to the Delmanos. But that was all right with Branson. He would already be waiting at the Delmano spread by then. All he’d have to do was pick up his money and head over into Mexico.

Inside the room, Danielle stopped pacing again and said to her brothers, “How are the horses doing? I haven’t seen Sundown since the day we got here.” Sundown was the chestnut mare her father had ridden the day his killers had come upon him. The big mare had managed to find her way back to the Stranges’ small ranch, and Danielle had been riding the animal ever since.

“Sundown’s fine,” said Jed Strange. “All three of our horses are fine. To tell the truth, they needed the rest. We’ve pushed them pretty hard all summer.”

“Well,” Danielle said, turning and starting to pace again, “they’ve had all the rest they’ll be getting for a while—”

Her words stopped short when she stepped in front of the dusty window and the sound of the rifle exploded across the street. The shot sprayed shattered glass across the room, the bullet barely missing Danielle’s head.

“Look out!” Jed shouted as he and Tim sprang forward to grab Danielle. But she had already dived past the window and onto the floor.

“I’m not hit!” she said, crawling back hurriedly across the floor toward her brothers. A trickle of blood ran down her cheek from where a small piece of flying glass had nicked her. “Give me my guns!”

“Stay down!” Jed shouted as Tim reached over, grabbed one of Danielle’s pistols from its holster slung over a chair back, and pitched it over to her.

Danielle caught the pistol and, rising into a crouch beside the window, peeped around the edge of the frame into the darkness outside. Another shot exploded, this one ripping a long sliver of wood from the windowsill. Danielle ducked back, but not before seeing the rifle’s muzzle flash. “Quick! It’s coming from the mercantile roof!” Danielle shouted to her brothers.

The twins wasted no time. They were out the door and running down the wooden stairs as Danielle poked the barrel of her Colt through the broken window and fired three shots toward where she’d seen the rifle flash.

In seconds Tim and Jed had raced across the dark, empty street. Cutting through an alley as they saw Danielle’s pistol firing from the broken window, they turned and ran through mud and broken whiskey bottles to the rear of the mercantile store. A few feet back from the rear wall, Tim stopped and brought his brother to a halt beside him. He nodded at the ladder reaching up to the roof and said, “We’ve got him. There’s only one way down unless he makes a jump for it.” Twenty feet back in the darkness, partially hidden by stacks of firewood, a horse stood waiting, its reins hitched to a cedar post.

“I’ll get his horse just to make sure,” said Jed in a lowered voice.

“Yeah, good idea,” Tim agreed. “Do it while Danielle keeps him pinned down up there.”

Pistol shots barked from the window where Danielle stood, taking aim at the roofline. Tim ventured forward, Colt in hand, and kicked the ladder away from the wall. Meanwhile, Jed slipped across the muddy path to the waiting horse, calming it with a raised hand. He unhitched its reins and led it farther back into the darkness, noting the animal’s fancy silver-trimmed bridle and reins. “Whoever he is, he rides in style,” Jed whispered to himself, running a hand along the hand-tooled California saddle with its Mexican silver inlay.

At the rear of the mercantile, the shooting had stopped as Danielle reloaded her Colt. “You up there!” Tim called up to the roof. “You best come down with your hands raised. We’ve got you surrounded.”

There was no answer from the roof, but behind Tim came the sound of running boots, and he almost turned and fired before he recognized the red-bearded face of the bounty hunter, Bob Dennard, coming closer. “Don’t shoot, it’s me!” Dennard called out.

“You better hug this wall, Dennard,” Tim called out, gesturing toward the roof with his pistol barrel. “If he’s alive up there, he might start shooting down here any second.”

Bob Dennard flattened back against the wall beside Tim Strange, glancing up along the roofline, drawing his pistol from his tied-down holster. “I heard the shooting and came running. What happened?”