The Ghost of Apache Creek

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.

More lawman than a member of the gunfighting fraternity’s restless breed, he had never been numbered among the ranks of the elite. But, as a named man, Pace had had to contend with more than a few hard cases who had gone out of their way to step around him.

Now, well, he was just a dead man haunting a dead town.

Odd, that, since Pace was still alive and Leggett didn’t really want to kill him. But business was business and as far as Leggett was concerned, whatever had made Pace the man he was had died years before.

Beau Harcourt planned to tear down Requiem and build his ranch house on the site, close to the running creek.

Now Sam Pace stood in the way of progress and, unfortunate as it was, he must be forced to step aside.

Leggett, in no hurry, hooked a leg over the saddle horn and built a cigarette. He lit his smoke and watched Pace disappear into a shadowed alley.

The man appeared a few moments later, carrying a bundle of firewood as he walked toward the marshal’s office.

Cooking something, Leggett decided.

But what the hell did Pace find to eat in Requiem? Rats maybe. Plenty of those around. He was surprised; figured a wild man like Pace would eat them raw.

A man who carries a gun, even a professional, will now and again tap the handle with his fingertips, reassuring himself that his weapon is still where it should be.

Leggett did that now.

Was Sam Pace still fast on the draw-and-shoot? He doubted it.

The man looked half dead on his feet. A sick man doesn’t skin a fast Colt and he can’t take his hits.

Sweat trickled down Leggett’s cheeks and neck. The morning had grown warmer and the sun was burning the blue from the sky.

He lifted his watch from his vest pocket, consulted the time, and snapped the case shut again.

He’d wait another thirty minutes.

The condemned man deserved to enjoy his last meal.