Ralph Compton the Ghost of Apache Creek (9781101545560) Read online

  Chapter 20

  Jeptha and Enoch Santee were camped north of Requiem in a stand of wild oak and pines tall enough to brush the stars.

  The hunt for Jess had worn them out and they were dirty, tired, and mean enough to kill anybody or anything just for the hell of it.

  “Damn it, Enoch, there it goes again,” Jeptha said.

  “I hear it.”

  “You reckon it’s Apaches?”

  “If they was close enough for us to hear their flute, they’d know we were here. And if they knowed we were here, we’d be dead.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ain’t we gonna find out? Maybe the girl is with the flute player. Women cotton to . . . what do you call them?”

  “Musicians.”

  “We got to find that damn . . . musician, Enoch. I’m pretty sure we’ll find the girl with him.”

  “I’m studying on it.”

  Enoch, a huge, bearded man with matted hair hanging over the shoulders of his buckskin jacket, poured himself coffee, rolled a cigarette, then said, “This here’s how I figure it—”

  “Tell me, Enoch. If we don’t find that uppity gal, Pa’s gonna kill us.”

  “I’m about to tell you if you’ll keep your big trap shut long enough.”

  “Sorry, Enoch.”

  The big man lit his cigarette with a brand from the fire, then said, “The way I figure it, that flute playing is coming from a cabin nearby. It could be a farmer and his old lady, and maybe the girl came on the place and she’s still there.”

  “So we’re gonna find out, huh?”

  Enoch grinned, black teeth in a foul-smelling mouth. “Sure we’re gonna find out. I can smell women on the wind and I reckon we’re gonna have us some fun before this night is out.”

  “What about their menfolk?”

  “What about them?”

  Jeptha thought about that, but couldn’t find an answer that would not draw his brother’s wrath.

  In the end, Enoch answered the question for him. “We gun ’em, you idiot. Then we grab the women and do some humpin’.”

  “You got it all planned,” Jeptha said, pleased.

  “That’s because I’m smarter than you and a sight more refined.” Enoch rose to his feet. “Piss on the fire, then saddle up.”

  “Damn, it ain’t a cabin; it’s a town, Enoch,” Jeptha said.

  “I can see it’s a damned town.”

  “But there’s nobody to home.”

  “There’s a light down there.”

  “If that’s where the girl took shelter, we’ll never be able to find her. We can’t gun a whole goddamned town.”

  “Who says we can’t? Kill a few people, and then tell the rest we’ll kill a few more if’n they don’t hand over . . . what’s her damned name?”

  “Jessamine, Pa calls her.”

  “Yeah, Jessamine.”

  “Do we wait for first light?” Jeptha said.

  He was a youth with a slack mouth, a face covered in yellow-tipped pimples, and the dull eyes of an ox.

  “No, we won’t wait. We’ll ride down now and take a look-see. Catch them folks early when they’re still half asleep and won’t put up a fight.”

  “Enoch, can I do some of the killin’?” Jeptha said. “Seems like it’s always you and Pa does the killin’.”

  Jeptha smiled. “Sure you can, boy. Do all the killing you want.”

  “A woman? I’ve never killed me a woman afore.”

  “Sure.”

  “I want a pretty one with bows in her hair, the kind that don’t ever want to talk to me.”

  “Plenty of those around.”

  “Then maybe I’ll make it two. I ain’t never screwed a pair of gals with ribbons and gunned them when I got through.”

  Enoch kneed his horse into motion.

  “There’s a first time for everything, boy,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 21

  Sam Pace glanced at the star-scattered sky and wondered if the night would ever end. The thud of his boots sounded loud in the quiet and answering echoes bounced off the buildings he passed, adding thuds of their own.

  The moon hung low in the sky and the surrounding mountains caught and held its gauzy light, drawing it over their firm peaks like a woman does her shift.

  Pace was tired. His back ached and a headache threatened.

  As though reading the younger man’s mind, Lake said, “A while yet until sunup. Maybe we should grab your duds and then catch a few hours’ sleep.”

  Pace smiled. “I guess a burying can tucker a man.”

  “Depends how deep the hole is,” Lake said.

  Like the rest of Requiem’s survivors, the store owners had left in a hurry, leaving most of their stock behind.

  Pace had no trouble outfitting himself with new underwear, socks, a pair of denim work pants, a blue shirt, and wide canvas suspenders.

  The duds smelled of dust and age, but they fit pretty well.

  He tried a new Stetson hat, but reckoned it would take years to break in and shape to his liking, and decided to stick with his old one.

  As Lake predicted, Pace’s appearance had improved greatly.

  “Crackerjack.” The old man beamed, looking him over from head to toe. “Boy, if’n I didn’t know better, I’d swear you wasn’t even tetched in the head.”

  Pace caught up Heap Leggett’s stud near the livery stable and led it inside. He’d ride the horse come morning, but now he stripped off the saddle, pitched the big animal hay, then added a few oats he shook out from the bottom of a sack.

  The theft of his Appaloosa rankled him, and its recovery would be part of the reckoning he’d exact on Beau Harcourt when the time came.

  And the reckoning would come soon—right after he found Jess Leslie.

  Pace stepped out of the livery and stopped.

  Lake stood next to him and said, “Time for some shut-eye, Sam.”

  It was as though Pace hadn’t heard him.

  “Mash, you see anything strange about the graveyard?” he said.

  “Not so I noticed. But hell, boy, it’s a place for the dead, not the living, so it’s gonna be strange.”

  “The ground was disturbed. In places it looked dug, or churned up from the bottom.”

  “I didn’t see that.”

  “I had a dream,” Pace said. “At least I think it was a dream.”

  “What did you dream about?”

  “The folks who died of the cholera rose from their graves and walked in the street. I mean, right here, where we’re at. And . . .”

  A few moments passed; then Lake said, “And?’

  Pace took a breath. “They were hungry, Mash. As though being three years dead had given them an appetite.”

  “You mean they asked you fer food? Is that it?”

  “No, but they were coming for me. To eat me. All them dead people.”

  Lake thought it through for a few moments, then said, “Sam, you ain’t right in the head. A man who’s tetched can have all kinds of bad dreams. Hell, even them who ain’t crazy can have bad dreams.”

  The older man was silent for a while, then turned to look at Pace. He lifted the lantern he’d taken from the general store to see the younger man’s face better.

  “The wind lifts the sand and blows it around,” Lake said. “That’s what happened at the graveyard. Just the wind, boy. It was just the wind.”

  “But it seemed so real, that dream. Like they were right here, in the street, so close I could smell them.”

  “Well, a dream would seem real to a crazy man. It’s the same kind of real that makes you think you’re the marshal of a ghost town.”

  “I am the marshal. Nobody in Requiem ever said I wasn’t.”

  “Sam,” Lake said, “you just ain’t right. And that’s a pity because you’re a real nice young feller when you ain’t nuts.”

  “I didn’t see them, the dead people?”

  “No, you didn�
��t, and that’s the honest truth.”

  Lake put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder, his voice taking on a sharp edge. “No more dreams about dead people, boy. Dreams take you nowhere, but a good kick in the ass will take you a long way. Understand?”

  Pace smiled. “You mean if I dream about dead people again, you’ll kick me up the ass?”

  “Exactly. You’ve got the picture, Sam.”

  This time Pace laughed out loud, and it felt good. “Then I promise, Mash. No more bad dreams.”

  “Good, because at my age I don’t think I can raise my boot high enough to kick a tall feller like you up the ass.” He smiled. “At least, not as a regular thing.”

  Lake had night eyes and as they walked back to the marshal’s office, he saw the two riders before Pace did.

  And his old lawman’s gut instinct warned him to treat them for what they were—trouble.

  “Riders coming,” he said. He stopped in his tracks and eased the Remington in its cross-draw holster.

  “Trouble?” Pace said.

  “That’s what it shapes up to be, boy—trouble in pairs.”

  Unless a man is cavalry-trained to revolver-fight off the back of a horse, he’ll always dismount to get his work in.

  Enoch and Jeptha Santee were no exceptions.

  The brothers stepped out of the leather, slapped their horses aside, and walked toward Pace and Lake.

  They moved easily, with none of the horseman’s stiff-kneed gait. Both men were smiling, self-assured, confident of their gun skills.

  Pace took a single step away from Lake.

  “On your left, Mash,” he said.

  He smiled. “Howdy, boys, looking for a place to rest up?” He waved a hand. “You got the whole town to choose from.”

  “Where the hell is everybody?” Enoch said. He noticed the star on Pace’s shirt and added, “Lawman.”

  Lake answered for Pace.

  “This here is a ghost town, boys. Nobody here but us two, poor old Mash Lake as ever was, and Marshal Sam Pace, who ain’t right.”

  “Ain’t right in the head, you mean?” Enoch said.

  “Now, would he think he’s the marshal of a ghost town if’n he wasn’t tetched?”

  “He do look tetched, with that shaved head an’ all,” Jeptha said. “Don’t he, Enoch?”

  “Shut your trap, Jeptha. I got business to attend to here.”

  “Here, hold up a minute,” Lake said. “Enoch and Jeptha. I know them names. Ain’t you young gentlemen good ol’ Deacon Santee’s sons?”

  “What’s it to you, old man?” Enoch said.

  “Why, ’cause I’m a friend of yore daddy, fine, churchgoin’ feller that he is. Surely you heard him talk about ol’ Mash Lake and what a true-blue friend of his’n I am?”

  “Pa ain’t never mentioned you,” Enoch said.

  He looked on edge, hard in the mouth, his eyes lost in shadow.

  “I’m looking for a girl,” he said.

  “None of them in this town,” Pace said. “You want a woman, go someplace else where there are sich.”

  “I want one partic’lar woman, crazy man,” Enoch said.

  “Well, she ain’t here,” Pace said.

  Pace knew he was being pushed and he didn’t like it. A gunfighter’s pride is a touchy thing. It’s like a stick of dynamite. All it takes is a pushing man to light the fuse and it’ll explode.

  Enoch Santee was on the prod and he already had a match burning.

  “Mister,” Enoch said, “I say you’re a damned liar.”

  “Here,” Lake said, “that’s a hard thing to say to a man.”

  “You shut up, you old coot,” Enoch said. “I won’t tell you a second time.”

  He turned his head slightly, his voice rising.

  “Jeptha, search the place, starting with the marshal’s office. The girl is here. I can smell her. These two idiots got her stashed somewhere.”

  “Stay out of my office, Jeptha,” Pace said.

  His voice held an edge sharp enough to shave with.

  “An’ if’n he don’t?” Enoch said.

  Pace would be pushed no further.

  “If’n he don’t, I’ll kill him,” he said.

  Chapter 22

  “Well,” Mash Lake sighed, “I guess that just about tears it.”

  He was right.

  “What will I do now, Enoch?” Jeptha said, hesitating with one boot on the boardwalk.

  “You’ll do as I say.”

  “Stay right where you’re at, Jeptha,” Pace said.

  “Mister, I’m getting mighty tired o’ you,” Enoch said. “I’m ending this right now.”

  He went for his gun, a practiced, fast movement that blurred his right hand.

  Pace was faster.

  Enoch’s gun was leveling when Pace’s bullet hit him, high in the left shoulder.

  Enoch absorbed the bullet shock, fired, missed, and took a step back, blood on his buckskins.

  Beside him, Pace heard Lake shoot. He was vaguely aware that Jeptha had fallen to one knee, screaming, but was still trying to get his work in.

  Enoch thumbed off a second round. But he’d been hit hard and was unsteady on his feet. His bullet plucked futilely at the left arm of Pace’s shirt.

  Pace steadied. Fired. Fired again. Two shots that sounded as one.

  This time Enoch went down, sudden blood on his lips.

  He sprawled on his back, chested a couple of great, heaving gasps, and lay still, all the life that was in him fled.

  Mash Lake kneeled beside Jeptha, and Pace joined him.

  The boy was dying, but he grabbed Lake by his shirtfront and whispered, “You got any pretty young gals with bows in their hair in this town?”

  “A few,” Lake said. “And they’re real purty, an’ all.”

  “I knowed they was here. I just knowed it.”

  “Did you want to meet a little purty gal?”

  Jeptha nodded, smiling, his eyes fading. “Hell yeah. I wanted to fuck her, then blow her brains out fer bein’ so damned uppity.”

  “Boy,” Lake said, “you’re a credit to the mama that bore you.”

  But Jeptha was already dead and didn’t hear him.

  Lake rose to his feet, his knees cracking. “Well, Sam, we know it wasn’t the deacon took Jess. These boys of his’n were on the scout for her.”

  “Seems like.”

  Lake gave Pace a speculative look. “You’re good with the iron, Sam. As fast on the draw as any I’ve known.”

  “You throw some fast lead your own self, old man.”

  “I never throwed it at a feller more deserving than Jeptha. The boy was a sorry piece o’ white trash.”

  “He was a mean one all right.”

  Lake stretched a crick out of his back. “Damn it, Sam, now there’s more buryin’ to be done.”

  “The hell there is. We’ll throw a loop on their feet and drag them out of town. Them two Santee whelps don’t deserve a proper buryin’.”

  “You’re a hard, unforgiving man, Sam.”

  “I reckon. But only when I ain’t crazy.”

  A thick mist arrived with the dawn, hugging the ground, and when Pace led the way out of town it looked as though he and Lake were riding through a gray sea.

  “We ain’t gonna find tracks in this fog,” Lake said.

  “It’ll burn off when the sun comes up,” Pace said.

  Lake peered ahead of him, the mist curling around his horse. “So, where do we go in the meantime?”

  “Pick a bearing, Mash. Any direction that takes us away from Requiem.”

  Lake, surprised, stared hard at Pace. “You ain’t goin’ sane on me, boy, are ye?”

  “I don’t know, old man. I could be. Maybe bein’ crazy for three years is enough for any man.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Lake said.

  “I don’t know either,” Pace said.

  Chapter 23

  One by one, Deacon Santee’s straggling herd emerged from
the mist. The slat-sided longhorns were flyblown, infested with the ticks that carried Texas fever, and barely able to stagger.

  But the animals were still on their feet and to the army and the Indian agents, that was all that mattered.

  Sure, the Apaches might mind such scrawny, diseased cows, but no one paid them heed anyhow.

  Ben Trivet in tow, Beau Harcourt greeted Santee like a long-lost brother and immediately gave orders to start the combined drive to the Rio Puerco.

  “I’m missing two top hands,” Santee said, accepting a cup of coffee from the cook, “my sons Enoch and Jeptha.”

  “They ain’t sick or shot or something?” Harcourt said.

  “Nah, they’re tracking a woman that ran from my camp on our wedding eve. My guess is they found her and are dallying with her someplace.”

  Harcourt, Trivet, and a couple of hands stared at Santee, Harcourt longest of all.

  “I haven’t seen her,” he said finally, emphasizing each word, a warning to his men to keep their mouths shut about the woman in his tent.

  Santee’s skinny body shivered with a passion born of madness.

  “If they haven’t done so yet, my whelps will find her and return her to me,” he said. “I’ll cut the hide off the whore with a bullwhip and leave her corrupt flesh to be consumed by wild dogs.”

  Maybe Ben Trivet was just plain stupid, suicidal, or driven by a misplaced sense of male gallantry.

  Whatever the reason, it was about to cost him his life.

  “A Texas gentleman doesn’t talk about a woman that way,” Trivet said, his cheekbones red. “And I mean any woman, even a whore.”

  Harcourt spoke into the tense hush that followed, trying to head off trouble.

  “Ben, you and the others get the herd moving,” he said. “The army won’t wait.”

  “Hold up, Ben,” Deacon Santee said. His eyes glowed, like those of a cat stalking a mouse.

  He took a step toward Trivet and brushed his frock coat away from his guns. He spoke to the puncher, his voice iced.

  “You dare to show me such disrespect”—he waved a hand—“in front of my sons and my women? How dare you imply that I’m not a gentleman.”