The Ghost of Apache Creek

Chapter 28

From his perch on the rise, Pace watched the Peacock brothers leave. Beside him Lake was unusually quiet, his breath coming in short, quick gasps.

Was the old man frightened?

That seemed unlikely. He’d stood his ground and got in his work during the fight with the Santee boys and there had been no backup in him.

He said the deacon scared him, but then the deacon scared everybody, Pace included.

It had been the sudden appearance of the Peacock brothers that had tipped the scales and weighed the old man down.

Pace searched his brain for something reassuring to say, found nothing, and settled for “That Peacock you shot, did he look like them fellers down there?”

“Spittin’ image,” Lake said. “He had a skull for a face and green eyes that looked right through a man.” He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “The feller needed killin’ all right, but why the hell did I have to be the one that done it?”

“Because you was there, Mash.”

“Yeah, but I could’ve been someplace else, just as easy.”

“Hell, he drawed down on you.”

“Nah, he didn’t. He had his hog leg in his hand and was shoving it into my face, like, cussin’ me out fer being a loco old coot. Well, by and by I got tired o’ hearin’ that and I drawed and gunned him. Surprised the hell out of the Peacock feller. He figured I was scared shitless and he wasn’t expectin’ nothin’.”

“Then his brothers came after you.”

“Right. And the Peacock boys don’t come at you one at a time. They hunt and kill in a pack, like wolves. Hell, I heard they even howl at the moon like wolves and eat their meat raw.”

Pace’s eyes were following Harcourt’s movement as he and the deacon walked toward the wagons.

“A man hears a lot of things from other men,” he said.

“Some of them even true,” Lake said, without a hint of a smile.

A few minutes passed. Among the wild oaks the jays were too hot to quarrel, but crickets sawed love songs in the long grass and a rustling breeze added a descant.

There was a gray tinge to the sky that could signal a weather change, but the sun burned strong and there were no clouds.

After a silence, Pace said finally, “Jess ain’t in the tent, so that means she ain’t here. Unless she’s in one of the deacon’s wagons.”

Down on the flat, Harcourt was talking to Santee and there was a woman with them—not Jess, but one of the deacon’s wives.

Even at a distance, Pace thought Santee seemed tense. His body posture was stiff and his hand movements were quick and jerky.

Could it be that his killing of the Harcourt drover was troubling him?

Pace doubted it. If all the talk was true, the man had killed so often in the past, the death of a nameless, faceless cowboy would hardly disturb him.

Then it had to be the Peacock brothers. But why would the deacon care?

Lake gave Pace no more time to ponder the question.

“Lookee,” he said. “The tent.”

Pace moved his gaze to the tent. He noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“Canvas moved. There’s somebody in there.”

“One of them Peacock boys looked and saw nothing.”

“He didn’t see what he wanted to see,” Lake said. “A feller by the name of Mash Lake. The woman didn’t interest him.”

“Jess?”

“My bet.”

A minute ticked by, and then Jess Leslie made her run.

The tent flap triangled open, and the woman stepped outside.

She glanced quickly at Harcourt and the deacon, then hitched up her skirts and bolted for the shelter of the trees.

“Hey! Stop!” Harcourt yelled.

He drew his gun and fired.

Pace saw an exclamation mark of dirt spurt near Jess’s feet.

She kept on running. Still with a hundred yards of open, broken ground to cover.

“Well, shit!” Pace said. “Now the hog fat’s in the fire.”

He pulled his Colt and fired at Harcourt, scaring the man badly enough that he dived for the cover of a clump of brush. Beside him the deacon did the same.

Now Lake was shooting.

The range was too great for accurate revolver work, but he and Pace bought Jess precious time.

The woman was almost at the trees.

Pace thumbed off a couple of quick shots, then ducked as a bullet racketed through a low-hanging oak branch inches above his head.

Lake was firing steadily, not scoring hits, but keeping Harcourt’s and the deacon’s heads down when it mattered.

He turned to Pace, his face revealing concern. “Let’s git the hell out of here, Sam. The shot that near took your head off was the deacon’s. He’s getting the range, damn him.”

A quick glance told Pace that Jess had reached the trees. Needing no more urging from Lake, he bellied down the slope a couple of yards, then got to his feet and ran.

He and Lake reached the hollow where they’d left the horses, and mounted. They galloped away from the ridge and bullets followed them.

Pace turned and saw the deacon on the rise, two-handing his revolver at eye level. The man was screaming obscenities, dancing a mad little jig, but he made no hits, though a couple of his shots split the air close to Pace’s head.

“Sam,” Lake said when the danger had passed, “don’t let’s ever do that again.”

“Suits me just fine,” Pace said.

He thought about the deacon.

Even at long revolver range, he’d come mighty close. In a spitting-distance gunfight, he’d be deadly.

It was the kind of worry guaranteed to keep a man awake o’ nights.