The Ghost of Apache Creek

Chapter 5

“Boss!”

Beau Harcourt opened the tent flap and stepped outside into moonlight. “What is it, Ben?”

“Deacon Santee ain’t comin’ in, boss. At least not tomorrow, he ain’t.”

Harcourt’s handsome face flashed his anger. “Why the hell not?”

“He’s gettin’ hitched, boss,” the cowboy said. “Says the lady will be his seventh bride an’ that’s a lucky number. He says he’s plannin’ a big soiree after the . . . what did he call it? Oh yeah, the nuptials.”

“Why the hell don’t he bed them ladies of his and let it go at that? Why does he always have to marry them?”

“Don’t know, boss,” the man called Ben said. He was a tall, loose-limbed puncher with the face of a kicked hound dog. “But the deacon says he won’t live with a woman without benefit of clergy, whatever that means.”

“Clergy my ass.”

Harcourt fished around for more words to express his frustration with Santee, but finally settled on “You see the herd?”

“As much as I could in the dark. Counts out to a thousand head all right. I’m certain of that. He’s rounded up a bunch of scrubs, though.”

“Damn it, a man with a rustled herd and the Rangers right on his ass stops to get hitched. I can’t figure it.”

“Me neither,” Ben said.

Harcourt glared at the man as though he wanted to haul off and punch him.

Ben caught the look and tried to deflect Harcourt’s anger. He said, “The deacon ain’t a man to be hurried, and you can’t push him too hard neither. He’s got a hair temper an’ hair triggers on his guns.”

The big rancher recognized the logic in that and let his irritation go. Hell, it wasn’t Ben Trivet’s fault that Santee was a stupid son of a bitch.

“There’s bacon and beans in the pot an’ fresh coffee,” Harcourt said. “Eat, then saddle up another pony. I’m sending you out again tonight.”

“He ain’t gonna listen to me, boss. No more’n he done the first time.”

“I know. But this time you’ll be carrying a note. From me.”

Trivet nodded. “Anything you say, boss. Maybe a note will make the difference—but the deacon ain’t about to give up his nuptials.”

As the puncher walked away, Harcourt called after him: “Heap Leggett is standing by the fire. Send him over here, will ya?”

Trivet waved a hand in acknowledgment.

“What’s the problem, Beau?” Leggett said. He took a guess. “Trouble with the deacon?”

Harcourt held open the tent flap. “We’ll talk inside.”

Leggett sat on the cot and Harcourt took his place behind a portable field desk. He reached under the desk, found a bottle and two glasses, and poured whiskey for both of them.

The rancher studied his foreman over the rim of his glass until Leggett began to shift uncomfortably, then said, “The deacon won’t be here tomorrow.”

“Why not?”

“He’s getting married.”

Leggett smiled. “Who’s gonna do the marrying? Himself?”

Harcourt shrugged. “Probably one of his crazy sons. All four of them are reverends, or so they say.”

“He bring the herd?”

“A thousand head, according to Trivet. He says they’re mostly scrubs.”

“Trivet is an idiot.”

“I know, but he knows cattle and does what he’s told. Above all he’s expendable.”

“Beau, we got three days to push the herd to Silver Creek at the Rio Puerco,” Leggett said. “It’s a ways and the army won’t wait. They’ll buy their beef from some other outfit.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know,” Harcourt said. He thought for a few moments. “But they’ll wait a day, maybe two, if they need the beef bad enough.”

“I reckon they need it bad enough,” Heap Leggett said. “I hear the Apaches are starving and the young bucks are making war talk.”

He was almost as tall as Harcourt, and just as handsome, as though both men had been cut from the same cloth.

Leggett had first gone up the trail to Kansas when he was fourteen. Later he’d been a Wells Fargo train guard, a town marshal, and then had graduated to hired killer.

For a three-month spell, two years before, he’d married and opened a restaurant, but it didn’t work out and his wife left him.

But the catering business taught Leggett one thing—honest work was for losers.

Now, as Beau Harcourt’s segundo, he made gun wages for very little effort and that suited him just fine. He’d killed seven men, and nary a one of them kept him awake o’ nights.

Harcourt was talking again, his eye sockets and cheeks shadowed by the orange glow of the oil lamp.

“I’m sending Trivet out again, this time with a note from me to the deacon. I want that herd here. Like you say, if we don’t deliver beef to the army on time, they’ll buy it elsewhere.”

“Suppose he still won’t come?”

“Then we’ll take it from him.”

“Boss, Deacon Santee ain’t a bargain, and neither are them crazy sons of his.”

Harcourt smiled. “I know, Heap. That’s why I hired you. It’s time you started earning your wages.”

The rancher pulled a sheet of paper toward him and began to write with a stub of pencil. He looked up from the paper.

“You afraid of the deacon, Heap?” he said, smiling.

“I’m afraid of no man.”

“Can you take him?”

“Any day of the week, I can take him.”

“He’s fast on the draw-and-shoot, they say.”

“I’m faster.”

Harcourt nodded, readily accepting Leggett’s word.

“Tomorrow morning ride over to that ghost town—what the hell is it called?”

“Requiem.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Make sure the wild man has moved on.”

“Sure thing, boss. And if he’s still there?”

“Kill him. I gave him his chance.”

Harcourt handed the note he’d written to Ben Trivet, who had come back to the tent after finishing his dinner.

“Can you read?” he said.

The puncher nodded. “Some.”

“Then read it.”

Trivet opened the folded note.

“‘Deacon, come on fast and bring herd. Army is waiting. Con . . . con . . .’” Trivet shook his head. He pointed to the paper. “What’s that word, boss?”

“Congratulations.”

“‘Congratulations on your . . . nup . . . nup . . .’”

“Nuptials.”

“I got it, boss.”

“Good. Now if you lose the note you’ll remember it. Tell the deacon the army is here. Tell him Apaches are gathering in the hills and they’re painted for war. Tell him I got women and whiskey waiting. Tell him anything you damn well please; just get him here with his herd.”

Trivet looked doubtful, but he said, “I’ll do my best, boss.”

“Do better than your best. I need that beef.”

After the puncher left, Harcourt poured himself a drink and lit a cigar. He wondered idly if the loco lawman was still alive after the beating he’d taken.

He doubted it. And if he was, well, it was only a minor inconvenience that Heap Leggett would clear up tomorrow.

He needed the timber from the town buildings to build his ranch house, where he’d install a permanent woman one day.

A crazy man was not going to stand in his way.