The Ghost of Apache Creek

Chapter 51

“Damn it, Mash, hold it for a while longer,” Sam Pace said. “It’ll be dark soon.”

“Man can’t hold what’s not in his hand,” Lake said.

“Hell, Mash, piss over the side,” Jess said. “I don’t mind.”

“I do,” Pace said. “The Peacocks will shoot his damn fool pecker off.”

“When a man’s got to go, a man’s got to go,” Lake said.

He stood, turned his back to Jess, and fumbled with his fly. He leaned against the rail and sent a steaming stream of piss hissing over the side.

Lake talked over his shoulder.

“Had to stop an’ piss in the middle of a gunfight oncet, up in the Nevada Slate Ridge country,” he said. He nodded. “Yep, I recollect that like it was yesstidy.”

“We don’t want to hear about it, Mash,” Pace said, irritated.

“I do,” Jess said. “How did you manage it, Mash, without getting shot?”

“Well,” Lake said, “me an’ this gold miner, English feller by the name of Giles St. John, got into it over a silver watch he claimed I stole from him. He called me out and we stood in the street and took pots at each other. But, after a spell, I held up my hand and said, ‘Giles, hold your fire. I got to take a piss, get rid of some of the beer in my gut.’ Giles, he says, ‘You go right ahead, Mash. I’m a British gentleman and I won’t shoot until you’ve finished.’”

Lake sighed, buttoned up, and said, “Hell, I needed that.”

“What about Giles St. John?” Jess said.

“What about him?” Lake said.

“What happened after you stopped to take a piss and he told you he wouldn’t shoot, him being a gentleman and all?”

“Oh yeah. Well, I’m standing there, letting it go, and the damned limey took another pot at me. Damn near blew my head off. So I buttoned up and said, “Giles, you’re a no-good son of a bitch, an’ low down.’”

Lake sat, and settled his back against the rail. “I drawed my revolver again, and cut loose. Come mighty close. Then ol’ Giles, he figures he’s had enough for one day and takes off running, and I ain’t seen him from that day to this.”

Lake shrugged. “Of course, we was both drunk at the time, so I never did hold that pot against him none.”

“So the moral of the story is: Don’t drink a belly-load of beer before a gunfight,” Jess said.

Lake smiled and nodded. “Young lady, them’s words of wisdom. Beer an’ gunfighting just don’t mix.”

“Mash,” Pace said, “please, if you ever get the urge again, don’t tell us any more big windies.”

“It ain’t a windy, Sam. It happened just like I tole you.”

“I think Mash’s story is easier to believe than three people sitting in a bell tower waiting for dark,” Jess said.

“Me too,” Mash said. He eyed Pace. “Huh! Big windy, my ass.”

Night erased the last traces of daylight from Requiem.

A ghost town casts still shadows. But it makes the surrounding darkness restless, on edge, as though it’s waiting for something to happen, perhaps the misty midnight appearance of the people who once lived there.

The wind was from the east, coming off old, stone mountains, bringing with it the scent of pine and the ability to make placid men angry.

Sam Pace stood at the rail of the bell tower, his eyes searching into the night. Nothing moved and there was no sound.

Lake stepped to his side. “See anything?”

Pace shook his head.

“Then, just like you said, the cholera’s done for them Peacocks,” Lake said.

“Seems like.”

“Does that mean we can get down from here?” Jess said.

“It do,” Lake answered. He looked at Pace. “Don’t it?”

Pace made no answer, his head turned, eyes fixed on the saloon.

“Hell, boy, what do you see?” Lake said.

“I don’t know what I see.”

“Describe it, Sammy,” Jess said. She sounded tense.

“White,” Pace said. “I thought I saw something white move near the saloon door.”

“A coyote?” Jess said.

“Maybe.”

Pace was silent for a while, then said, “You know what I think it was?”

Jess and Lake stared at him.

“I think maybe it was a naked man on all fours, crawling along the boardwalk in the shadow of the saloon wall.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jess said.

“It means two things. One, all the Peacocks aren’t dead.”

“And the other?” Jess said.

“The other is that we could be in a heap of trouble.”