The Ghost of Apache Creek

Chapter 25

Sam Pace and Lake rode northward, the broad land lying open before them. The mist had lifted and the ten-thousand-foot-high peaks of the White Mountains were now visible to the east, their pine-covered slopes motionless, drowsing in sunlight.

“See it, Sam?” Lake said, his sharp old eyes reaching out over the dry grassland.

“Yeah, I’ve been studying on it for quite a spell. It ain’t smoke, is it?”

“Dust. Something mighty big kickin’ it up.”

“The deacon’s herd?”

“Seems like. Two thousand head of cattle make a heap o’ dust in their passing.”

Pace’s mind was working. Had the deacon snuck into town and taken Jess? It hardly seemed likely, but it was possible.

Lake said aloud what Pace had been thinking.

“Maybe he’s got Jess,” he said. He amended that. “I mean, your prisoner.”

“Well, she isn’t my prisoner right at this moment,” Pace said, irritated. “Now, is she?”

“Sorry, Sam,” Lake said. He smiled. “I was only sayin’.”

“Well, don’t say it, Mash. It’s starting to annoy the hell out of me.”

“That’s ’cause you’re tetched, boy. Makes you fly off the handle real easy.”

Pace let that go. Now was not the time to discuss his sanity or his lack thereof.

He drew rein and stared at the dust cloud.

“What the hell do we do now?” he said. “We can’t go charging into a cattle herd that’s kicking up dust, looking for a girl who might be there or might not.”

“No, we can’t, Sam. Anyway, if it is the deacon and we go anywhere near his woman, he’ll shoot us off’n these horses quicker’n scat.”

After bowing his head in thought for a few moments, Pace straightened and said, “Well, there’s nothing that says we can’t take a closer look.”

“What fer a closer look?”

“Because I want Jess back, and right now I can’t think of anything else to do. Can you?”

“Well, we could return to Requiem.”

“For what?”

“To plan our strategy.”

“Damn it, we don’t have a strategy.”

Lake didn’t take time to think about it longer.

“All right, then, let’s take a closer look.” He grinned. “Maybe we can cut your prisoner out of the herd without the deacon taking pots at us.”

“Mash,” Pace sighed, “there are times when you try a man’s patience. You surely do.

“We won’t waste time following the herd. We’ll ride on ahead and see if we can figure where it’s headed.”

“Seems as good a plan as any,” Lake said. He was silent for a moment, then said, “Here, Sam, you think the deacon might be throwing in with the Harcourt feller?”

“I’ve been studying on that and it seems likely.”

“Run their herds together and start a ranch?”

“Maybe so.”

“Strange, that.”

“Why?”

“On account of how the deacon ain’t a one fer sharing. That’s if everything I’ve heard about him is true.”

“I guess there’s a first time for everything, Mash.”

“Yeah, I suppose stranger things have happened. Could be the deacon plans to go respectable, settle down as a rancher, like.”

“You believe that?”

Lake smiled and shook his head. “Not a word of it.”