The Ghost of Apache Creek

Chapter 39

Deacon Santee was lost in the fog, and that annoyed the hell out of him.

But worse, he’d seen the tracks of shod and unshod horses all heading west and that could only mean raiding Apaches making off with their plunder.

His herd and wagons were in that direction. The women he could replace, but the cattle and wagons were too valuable to be taken by thieving Indians.

The deacon was worried. If he didn’t find the damned ghost town soon, he might be forced to return to camp to protect his property.

He had prayed for God to show him the way of course, but the deity must have been preoccupied with weightier matters elsewhere because he was even more lost now than he’d been before.

He led his horse through a thicket of oak and pine, wading into mist so thick he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.

The sun was up, but did nothing to penetrate the tree canopy, and he stumbled around like a man in a pitch-dark room.

Santee stopped and lit a cigar and stood thinking.

He must be close to the ghost town.

The vaquero had given him directions, but neither of them had accounted for fog. He felt like a lost soul condemned to wander forever in a milk-white hell.

Then he caught the stink.

The rotting dead smell sweet, a cloying stench that immediately assaults the nose and curdles the stomach. It stays with a man. If he comes across a corrupting body before breakfast, its sickening rankness will be his companion at supper.

And a horse is no friend to the dead.

The deacon’s mount tried to back away. It tugged on the reins, head high, white arcs of fright in its eyes.

Santee cursed the animal and dragged it forward through the murk.

He followed his nose.

The corpses lay together, faces blue, postmortem gasses swelling bellies tight against their shirts, threatening to burst and hiss vile foulness into the fog.

The faces of Enoch and Jeptha were almost unrecognizable, but Deacon Santee knew his own.

He did not kneel, or pray (he reserved his prayers only for himself), but he threw back his head and shrieked his anger at a trembling heaven.

He called curses down on the one who had murdered his sons. He demanded of the vengeful God of his own creation that the man’s get be damned until the end of time, seed, breed, and generation.

Even in his more placid moments, Deacon Santee was a cold-blooded, vicious killer. Now, in his blind rage, he was dangerous beyond all measure.

He raised his hands above his head in supplication and demanded that the fog lift.

“There is killing to be done,” he yelled, cigar clamped between his teeth. “All the powers of heaven and hell, disperse ye now this damnable mist.”

The deacon removed his top hat and fetched his back against a tree.

The stench of death in his nostrils . . . he waited.

An hour later, the fog began to lift and gaps appeared in the solid grayness like rips in a curtain.

Below Santee, deep in a shelving valley, the curtain finally parted, revealing a town.

The deacon swung into the saddle and rode down the rise, bringing hell with him.