The Ghost of Apache Creek

Chapter 31

The wind had lain low all day, but now as night fell it gathered its strength and prowled restlessly around Requiem, its wandering path delineated by creaking timbers, the dry rustle of fallen leaves, and the thud-thud of unlatched doors.

Down by the graveyard the wild oaks tossed their branches and whispered ghostly stories to the attentive, bending pines.

The moon sailed high in the sky, scudding through billows of cloud, and small, timid things scurried among the buildings and added their hushed voices to the darkness.

Sam Pace stood at the window of his office and looked outside.

“A night for dead men to walk,” he said.

Lake took a long time before he said anything, then said, “You goin’ all loco on me again, boy?”

“I saw them, old man. Out there in the street.”

“You saw them in a dream, Sam.”

Without turning, Pace said, “Was it a dream? Or was I awake?”

“Dead men don’t walk down Requiem’s street.”

“They do if they’re hungry.”

“Dead men don’t get hungry. They don’t get anything, except deader.”

A quiet fell between the two men. Lake broke it.

“Sam, you don’t go crazy in the head until you’re back in this town,” he said. “It’s time you left and never came near the place again.”

Pace turned and looked at the older man. “The people will return, Mash. They’ll drive right down the street in wagons and after that, all the dead people will be gone.”

Lake shook his head. “It’s the town fer sure, making you crazy.”

“You’ll see,” Pace said. “They’ll come.”

Lake had cleaned his and Pace’s revolvers and now he began to reassemble the oiled parts lying on the desk in front of him.

He watched Pace lock the office door, then move to the window again.

The town was evil, Lake decided, or at the very least it exerted an evil spell over Sam Pace.

The younger man stared out into the street, expecting the dead to rise. Or was he watching for the return of the scattered citizens of Requiem?

Pace answered that question.

“I can feel something, Mash,” he said. “The wind is telling me things.”

“The only thing the wind is telling you, boy, is that you’ve gone crazy again.”

Pace shook his head. “Can’t you feel it? Smell it? The dead walking in the wind?”

Lake said nothing. He put the revolvers together, then reloaded the cylinders.

He held out Pace’s Colt.

“Here, take this,” he said. “If them dead folks come after you, you can hold ’em off for a spell.”

Pace stepped to the desk, took the gun and dropped it into his holster. “You think I’m mad, don’t you?”

“You are mad, son. As crazy as a loon. But only when you’re in this damned town.”

“The dead are about, Mash. I can tell they are.”

The wind rose and the windows rattled in their frames.

Someone pounded on the door.

Pace’s face froze and he backed away from the window, his hand on his gun.

“Damn it, boy,” Lake said, pushing past him.

“Don’t open it, Mash!”

Lake turned the key and grabbed the handle.

“No!” Pace drew his Colt.

The door swung open.

Jess fell into Lake’s arms.

He half carried, half dragged her to the chair by the desk.

The woman’s face was badly scraped by tree branches and she had a huge purple welt on the right side of her face. Her dress was torn and somewhere along the way she’d lost a shoe.

Pace had recovered from his fright.

“I’ll get her something to eat,” he said.

“Get the whiskey,” Lake said. “Only danged fools like us eat peaches and bean stew.”

Pace poured whiskey into a glass and Lake held it to Jess’s mouth.

“Drink this,” he said. “It will make you feel better.”

The woman took a swallow and her eyes fluttered open.

“What damned fool locked the door?” she said. Her voice was weak, barely a whisper.

“Sam is the damned fool,” Lake said. “He’s afeared o’ dead folks.”

“Have you gone crazy again, Sammy?” Jess said.

“Yeah, seems like I’m tetched,” Pace said.

“Then God help us all.”

Lake moved to lay the glass on the desk, but the woman stopped him.

“Pour some more whiskey in there, Mash,” she said. “And bring it back.”

Pace built a cigarette and thumbed a match into flame. Through a spiral of blue smoke, he said, “Did Beau Harcourt do that to your face?”

“What do you think?”

“Was he trying to . . .” Pace couldn’t find the words.

“Rape me?”

“Yes . . . that.”

“He raped me.” Jess’s fingertips moved to the bruise. “He gave me this because he didn’t enjoy it.”

A quiet fell on the room as Pace and Lake fumbled for something comforting and reassuring to say. Women could have done it, but the men retreated into what they hoped was a sympathetic silence.

Jess smiled. “I’m a whore, remember? Every time a man pays me two dollars and throws himself on top of me, it’s rape. You could say I’m used to it.”

“More whiskey?” Pace said.

He couldn’t think of anything else to say.