The Ghost of Apache Creek

Chapter 46

“What do you think, Sam?”

Pace met Lake’s eyes. “Five men went into the saloon, there was a gunfight, and only one of them left. The deacon. What does that tell us?”

“Seems like the deacon done fer them Peacock boys, them as were still alive.”

Pace nodded. “Yep, seems like.”

“He was movin’ slow, the deacon. I think he’d taken a hit.”

“Could be. But he’s dying of the cholera anyhow.”

“I don’t think I seen that much shit since—”

“Mash! Please, stop it,” Jess said.

“Sorry,” Lake said.

“It’s disgusting.”

“Cholera is disgusting,” Pace said. “Everybody who gets it dies hard. Nobody passes away with dignity.”

“Then if I get it, shoot me,” Jess said. “Put me out of my misery.”

“The cholera’s down there, Miz Jess,” Lake said. “It ain’t up here.”

“Down there, up here, I don’t give a damn. I want out of this hell town,” the woman said. “I’m willing to take my chances with the Apaches.”

“Me too, I guess,” Lake said. He looked at Pace. “How about you, Sam?”

“I’ll make that decision later,” Pace said, his eyes guarded.

“There’s no decision to make, Sammy,” Jess said. “You’re getting out of here with us.”

“Jess is right, boy,” Lake said. “If you stay here it’s all up with you. You’ll always be crazy as a loon.”

“We’ll see,” Pace said. “Until I come down to it, a man never knows which way the pickle will squirt.”

Lake and Jess locked eyes, each aware of what the other was thinking.

Sam Pace continued to walk a fine line between sanity and madness. It would take very little to tip him over the edge into that hellish place where he’d spent the past three years.

“Well, this is interesting,” Pace said.

Lake joined him and they both peered over the top of the railing.

“What the hell is he doin’?” the old man said.

“Looking this way.”

“Hell, boy, I can see that.”

One of the Peacock brothers stood outside the saloon door, his back against the wall for support. The man looked ill, close to death ill, and it was obvious that he could barely stand.

“Surrendering?” Lake suggested. “Reckon he’s had enough and wants to give up, Sam?”

That question was answered when the Peacock drew his revolver and thumbed off two fast shots. His bullets stung the bell, then whined away like angry hornets.

Pace drew his Colt and fired back. He missed, but the Peacock brother staggered back into the saloon and faded into shadow.

“What the hell was that fer?” Lake said.

“He wanted to make sure we were still here,” Pace said. “That’s what it was fer.”

“I think he’s sceered, Sam,” Lake said. “I say we go down there and have it out with him.”

“There may be others.”

“Yeah, but you can bet the farm they’ll be as sick as he is.”

Pace was silent for a few moments, then said, “I don’t know. He looked spry enough after I shot at him.”

“He also hit the bell, twice,” Jess said. “I’d say that’s good shooting for a dying man.”

“For any man,” Pace allowed.

The day faded and the light changed from searing white to pale lilac. Shadows appeared in the street, and angles of thin darkness appeared in the alleys between the buildings.

Mash Lake had been sitting in silence, but now his face wrinkled in thought.

“Hey, Sam,” he said, “if we clumb down the rope we could come up on them by surprise, like,” he said. “Gun them damn Peacock boys before they even know what’s hit them.”

“Climb down the rope and we’ll take nobody by surprise,” Pace said. “The bell will ring so loud, folks will hear it in the next county.”

He reached out and thumbed off a piece of wood from the railing, then crumbled it in his hand. He let the pieces fall to the floor.

“Rotten,” Pace said. “Even if we untied the rope from the bell beam, none of the timber up here is strong enough to hold it.”

“I never thought o’ that,” Lake said. He shook his head. “I guess every jackass thinks he’s got hoss sense until he’s told otherwise.”

Jess brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. Her forehead was sheened with sweat and her dress showed damp at the armpits and clung tight to her breasts.

“All right, Sammy, you didn’t like Mash’s suggestion,” she said. “Let’s hear yours.”

“We wait until full dark, then make our break,” Pace said. “I’ll go first and then replace the ladder. If any of the Peacocks are still alive by then, I’ll hold them off until you and Mash climb down.”

“And then?” Jess said.

“And then we hightail it out of Requiem. Sometimes it’s a sight safer to pull your freight than your gun.”

“Suppose the Peacocks come after us?” Lake said.

“If they’re not dead, they’ll be almighty sick. Them boys won’t come after us.”

Pace looked over the rail and studied the saloon. There was no sign of life and no sound, only the tick-tick-tick of the batwing doors blowing back and forth against each other in a rising east wind.

“In another hour or two, we’ll have nothing to fear from the Peacocks,” he said. “They were dead men the moment they put the dipper to their lips and drank from the well.”