The Ghost of Apache Creek

Chapter 3

Sam Pace lost count of how many times Harcourt dragged him up and down the street behind his running horse. A lot. That much he knew. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Pace’s cartwheeling body came to a stop and he felt the pressure of the rope around his ankles ease.

Harcourt’s voice came from a long way off, from somewhere beyond the settling dust cloud.

“Boys,” the big rancher said, “Marshal Pace will take his bath now. And a shave and a haircut.”

Four of Harcourt’s grinning riders, hooting and hollering, scrambled off their horses and grabbed Pace, dragging him to his feet.

“Fill a horse trough,” one of the men said. He nodded. “Over there, outside the saloon.”

The trough was of zinc-lined wood, green with algae and slime. A couple of Harcourt’s riders took turns to shuttle a bucket from the well, stopping only when the water was an inch from the top.

Pace slowly understood what was about to happen to him. He glanced across the street to where his Colt lay, half buried in sand. He tried to stagger toward the gun. He was abraded bloody from head to toe, the front of his left thigh gouged by a broken whiskey bottle Harcourt had gone out of his way to gallop over.

Pace struck out at a man trying to drag him to the trough. His fist connected solidly with the man’s chin and the cowboy went down like a felled ox.

Pace paid dearly for that.

He was wrestled to the ground and the boots went in, thudding into his ribs and face. He tried to cover up, but the kicks found their target every time, thumping into his body, beating like the sound of a muffled drum.

“Enough. I don’t want the crazy nut dead.”

Harcourt’s voice.

Pace was hauled to his feet. Through swollen, half-shut eyes, he saw the rancher sit his horse, grinning.

Almost unconscious from the beating he’d taken, his head reeling, Pace had enough awareness to realize that he wanted to kill Beau Harcourt real bad.

“Mr. Pace’s bath now, if you please,” Harcourt said.

“Still want us to give him a shave an’ a haircut, boss?” a man asked.

“Of course. Can’t you see? It’s what the gentleman needs.”

Pace was stripped of his filthy rags and tossed into the horse trough. Somebody found a mostly bald scrubbing brush, but there were bristles enough left to shred the already sand-scoured skin of Pace’s belly and back. Pace growled and roared and fought, striking out at his tormentors, but he was weak from loss of blood and the pounding Harcourt’s riders were still dishing out with their fists and the heavy wooden brush.

After a few minutes, there was blood in the water of the trough and fury in Pace’s eyes, the black, all-consuming anger of a crazy man.

The cowboys laughed and joshed each other, enjoying the sport. Then they took out their knives. They were Barlow folders for the most part. Nevertheless, their carbon steel blades were honed sharp and their owners wielded them with enthusiasm. The punchers started on Pace’s hair, sawing at thick clumps they yanked upward and gathered in their fists. Skeletal fingers of blood trickled from Pace’s head as ragged bunches of hair joined the crimson gore in the trough, making a vile stew of the man’s misery. The keen blades dug deep as they scraped along Pace’s cheeks and chin, shaving off skin along with beard. Now his face bled and crimson drops dripped off his chin.

Pace made a lunge for a man’s knife, but the puncher hit him with a vicious left and his eye swelled closed.

He heard Harcourt’s voice.

“How’s he looking, boys?”

“Real purty,” a man said.

“Well, he’s had enough, I reckon,” Harcourt said. “Get him out of there.”

Finally it was over. Dragging him, dripping wet, from the trough, the Harcourt riders threw Pace in front of their boss’s steeldust.

“Haul him to his feet,” the rancher said.

Harcourt stared at Pace for a long time. Then he said, “Well, Marshal Pace, you don’t worry me any longer, you being so nicely bathed and groomed an’ all.”

Men laughed and Harcourt said, “You got a day to rest up, a day to get your shit together, and a day to contemplate the errors of your ways. After that, I don’t want to see you in this town anymore.”

Harcourt’s eyes swept over Pace. The man was now diminished, a bleeding, dripping wreck who was a threat to nobody, and the rancher lost interest in him.

“Do you understand?” he said.

Pace’s tongue was thick in his cracked and bloody mouth, but he managed.

“You go to hell,” he said.

Beau Harcourt shook his head. “Aw, the heck with it,” he said, resignation and contempt battling for elbow room in his voice.

He rode up on Pace, freed his right foot from the stirrup, and kicked the bloody man hard in the face. Pace dropped and lay still.

“You’ve got a big mouth, mister,” Harcourt said. “Time you kept it shut.”

“Hey, boss, lookee.”

One of Harcourt’s riders had led a tall blue roan Appaloosa from the livery stable.

“Ain’t he a beauty?” the puncher said. “He’s a two-hundred-dollar hoss any day of the week.”

Harcourt acknowledged that with a nod, then said, “Seems like Marshal Pace wasn’t so crazy he forgot to take care of his horse.”

“What will I do with him?”

“The hoss? Take him with us, of course.”

The rider nodded in the direction of Pace’s sprawled body. “What about him?”

“If he recovers, he can walk,” Harcourt said. He pointed south. “Old Mexico is only three hundred miles thataway, give or take.”