Ralph Compton - The Ghost of Apache Creek

Jess laughed, a humorless yelp. “Innocent. Lady. Those are two for the book.”

She perched on the corner of the desk and looked down at Pace.

Pace prompted the girl. “You got a story to tell, Jess.”

“Are you asking me that as a lawman?”

“No, as an interested party. Well, maybe a little of both.”

The woman brushed the stray tendril of hair from her forehead. “I never knew my pa, and my ma ran off with a traveling man. I’ve been selling it since I was fourteen; started off down Tucson way.”

“I didn’t know,” Pace said, aware of how lame that sounded.

“How could you know, since I hadn’t told you?”

Pace said, “Yeah, I couldn’t know . . . about . . . that.” He tried to smile. “By the way you look and such.”

Jess gave him a long look, then said, “I ended up in a hog ranch in the Jacques Mountain country. Then the Apaches came and ran off all our livestock and burned the barn and smokehouse.”

“And you fled?” Pace said.

“Don’t ride ahead of me, Sammy.”

“Sorry.”

“The day after the attack a preaching man with loco eyes came in with three wagons. He spoke to Eli Shafer, the owner of the ranch—”

“Pimp, you mean,” Pace said.

“Yeah, you could call him that. Anyhow, the preacher spoke to Eli and Eli spoke to me. ‘Jess,’ he said, ‘I lost my stock, my barn, and my smokehouse an’ money’s tight, so you see how it is with me.’”

The girl uncorked the bottle and poured whiskey into the glass.

“Can’t drink the water around here,” she said.

She drank, then said, “I told Eli to say it plain and he did. He said, ‘Jess, I done sold you to the preaching man fer forty dollars and a side of hickory-smoked bacon.’”

Pace rose and walked to the window, a tall man, too thin, his slumped shoulders sagging under the weight of three years of deprivation and madness.

The morning sun had washed away most of the night shadows, but the alleys remained rectangles of darkness and the aborning light added no luster to the store windows that stared back at Pace with blank eyes.

“What did the preacher man want with you?” he said.

That was a bad mistake.

Chapter 11

A man treads on dangerous ground when he casts even a hint of doubt on a woman’s charms, and Jess Leslie was no exception to that rule.

“What the hell do you think he wanted me for, Sammy?” she said.

Pace recognized his mistake and tried desperately to undo the damage.

“I . . . yes . . . I understand. I mean . . . you being such a pretty woman an’ all. Any man would . . . I mean . . .”

Her point made, Jess let him off the hook. “The preacher’s name was Deacon Santee and he wanted to make me his seventh wife.”

Suddenly Pace was interested. “Would that be Deacon Santee from down El Paso way? Rides with four tetched sons just as ornery as he is?”

“You called that right, and when he’s in the mood he lets them share his women. I learned that much the hard way.”

“I thought Deacon Santee had been hung by the Rangers a while back.”

“You thought wrong, Sammy.”

“And you managed to escape from him? That couldn’t have been easy.”

“Well, I did, me and another of his wives. But in the dark we stumbled into swamp country and she either drowned or got caught, but I got lucky and made it to here. Then the coyotes came at me and the rest you know.”

Jess stepped to the window beside Pace. “What do you see out there that’s so damned interesting?”

“Just Requiem, and the morning light. It lies easy on the town, kinda like a blessing, but later, when the sun is full up, everything changes.”

“Changes how, Sammy?”

Pace’s smile was almost shy. “She shows all her scars and warps and wrinkles and it makes her look old and neglected and . . . sad.”

“You’re a strange one, Sammy,” Jess said. “I don’t think you’re as tetched as you say you are, but you’re a strange one. No doubt about that.”

Pace’s eyes caught and held the woman’s gaze. “You don’t think I’m tetched in the head, like them Santee boys?”

“No. You’re nothing like them.”

Jess looked around the office. “You got anything to eat, Sammy?”

“Yeah, a lot of cans back there. Jed Heaver, feller who owned the general store, just up and left with his wife and kids after the cholera started killing folks. He rode out in the middle of the night and left everything behind.”

“And you’ve been eating from cans ever since?”

“This three year.”

“No wonder you’re as skinny as a lizard-eating cat.” The girl stepped away from the window. “Let’s take a look.”

“Maybe you should rest,” Pace said. “I’ll get you something.”

“Somehow I don’t think I’d want to eat what you gave me, Sammy.”

A jumbled pile of canned food was stacked up in a corner to the right of the cell door.

Jess kneeled and picked up the cans one by one, studying the labels that were still intact.

“Armour beef and gravy,” she said. “A puncher told me about that.”

Pace nodded. “It’s not half bad. A little tough sometimes.”

“Tomatoes.”

“Kinda mushy.”

“Beans.”

“I eat a lot of those.”

“Peaches.”

“I like peaches.”

Jess looked up at him. “Where do you do your cooking, Sammy?”

Pace was puzzled. “Cooking? I don’t cook. I just open the cans and eat.” He took a folding knife from his pocket. “Here, let me show you.”

“Later, Sammy,” Jess said.

She gave Pace a long-suffering, female look, then said, “Get some wood for the stove in your office.”

“Damn, it’ll get hot in here.”

“It’s already hot in here. We’ll only keep the fire lit long enough to heat the food and bile coffee.” She frowned. “That’s if Jed What’s-his-name left coffee behind?”

“Yes, a few sacks. I don’t drink much coffee.”

Jess shook her head. “They don’t come much stranger than you, Sammy.” She rose to her feet. “We’ll have breakfast, and then I’ll be moving on.”

“You’re leaving?” Pace said.

“That comes as a surprise to you?”

“Yes—I mean, no. I just thought you’d rest up some.”

“Maybe you planned on having your wicked way with me, Sammy?”

Pace was shocked. “No, no. I never even thought about such a thing.”

“Hell, I must be losing my touch,” Jess said. “I saw you look at my tits, you know.”

“Well, I mean, you’re a very pretty woman.”

“If you don’t study me too close, Sammy. Now get me some wood and bring a sack of coffee. It’ll be stale, but any kind of coffee is better than no kind of coffee.”

Pace stepped to the office door, stopped, and turned. “You can stay, if you want.”

Jess smiled. “Thanks, Sammy. But Deacon Santee will come after me, him and his sons. I reckon you’ve got enough problems of your own without adding mine.”

“I’m still the law here.”

This time the woman smiled like a mother who’d just listened to a boasting child.

“Get the wood, Sammy,” she said.

Chapter 12

Heap Leggett sat his horse on a rise above the gently shelving valley that had once helped nurture the town of Requiem.

He kept to the cover of a stand of wild oak as he watched Sam Pace pick up pieces of wood from the street and boardwalk, shed skin from the decaying stores and saloons.

Leggett felt a vague pang of disappointment. As a matter of professional courtesy, he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to draw down on the man.

Not too many years before, Pace had been something, his name mentioned whenever westerners gathered to talk of guns and the men who lived by them.