Then he looked at the man’s face.
Like his brothers’, his skin was drawn tight to the skull, fish-belly white, thin lips of the same shade. But his eyes burned with an unholy green fire, unblinking, measuring, relentless.
The deacon looked away. Damn it, you’re not a man. You’re a demon.
“I’ll bring the coal oil right away,” the deacon said.
Santee stepped out of the saloon and glanced at the bell tower. There was no sign of life. Nothing moved and there was no sound. Dead quiet.
He shook his head.
Hell, if the Peacocks claimed they were up there, then they were up there.
Them boys seemed to know things mortal folks didn’t.
It was downright strange.
“We’ll light the fire at dusk,” one of the brothers said. “We wish to watch the flames light Mash Lake’s path to hell.”
Deacon Santee had given up trying to tell the Peacocks apart. He filled their glasses from a dusty bottle of Hennessy cognac he’d found under the bar counter.
“Drink hearty, one and all,” he said. He raised his glass. “Here’s to the darkness and the flames.”
The brothers ignored him.
The mute’s mouth moved and his brother filled in the words.
“Here’s some fun. Who among us will toll the bell? Come, now, we need a volunteer.”
“You mean fer them in the tower?” the deacon said.
Another brother grinned and looked at Santee, his teeth large and yellow in his mouth.
“ ‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee,’” he said.
“Ah yes,” the deacon said, “that’s in the Good Book, ain’t it?”
“The English poet John Donne wrote that line three hundred years ago.”
“That was gonna be my second guess,” the deacon said, blinking.
“Come, now, who will toll the bell?” the speechless Peacock said, his silent mouth smiling as his brother spoke for him. “Let’s have some fun.”
Four pairs of green eyes focused on Santee.
The deacon forced a smile. “It will be my pleasure,” he said. “I’ll take pots at it with a rifle, right?”
“No, you will toll the bell,” the mute said. “With the rope. There’s good sport for all and no mistake.”
The deacon met the man’s eyes and quickly glanced away.
Damn, it was like staring into green ice and hellfire.
He felt a niggling little twinge of pain in his belly.
Was it caused by fear of the Peacocks or the damned brandy?
He didn’t know.
But he did know enough to say “I’ll haul on the rope. Wake them up, huh?”
“Yes, haul on the rope,” a brother said. “We knew you would.”
Chapter 43
Apart from a few scattered gingerbread houses, cactus growing in yards that once boasted flowers and grass, the church was isolated at the east end of town.
The deacon looped to the north, then east, slipping through trees and brush as slick and silent as an Apache. By the time he came up on the rear of the church, he figured he hadn’t been seen.
He became certain of that last when he spotted the Peacocks standing on the boardwalk outside the saloon, brandy glasses in hand, their amused eyes fixed on the belfry of the bell tower.
Santee figured that if there were folks in the tower like the dummy said, they’d be watching the brothers just as closely.
A door at the rear of the church stood ajar, angled outward on just its bottom iron hinge.
The deacon drew his gun and, avoiding a clump of cactus in the doorway, stepped through.
Years before, the church pews had been cleared from the floor and stacked against the walls to make room for dancing. Bats hung from the roof beams and added their fetid smell to the odors of dry rot and decay. The oak pulpit had pulled away from its supports and crashed to the floor, where its panels had blossomed open like a dropped barrel.
The church that had never been a house of worship was rotting inside and out, and it was tinder dry.
The deacon studied the place, his nose wrinkling.
Coal oil be damned. He reckoned he could set the whole shebang ablaze with a single match.
He crossed the limestone floor, quick on his feet. His frock coat flapped around his skinny legs, giving him the look of a tiptoeing crow.
Then he stopped dead in his tracks and doubled over. He felt as though somebody had just rammed a rifle butt into his belly.
The deacon grimaced as he clenched back a knifing spasm of pain in his gut.
Suddenly he felt hot and unwell.
Was he “coming down with something,” as his wives always said?
It had to be the brandy. The bottle had sat in the saloon for years collecting dust and had probably gone bad.
Yeah, that made sense.
He just hoped the damned rotgut was hurting the Peacocks as much as it was him.
It took a minute or so before the deacon felt well enough to pass through the shattered doorway that led to the vestibule.
He looked around, his gun up and ready.
The baptistery lay to his left, and to the right of the main entrance was another doorway that must lead to the bell tower.
Unlike the other doors in the church, this one was intact, its timber panels as solid as the day it was built. Only the tarnished brass handle showed age.
Santee opened the door and walked into a small, rectangular room.
A ladder led upward into the belfry and ended at a closed trapdoor. The bell rope hung almost to the floor, knotted at the end for the convenience of a reverend who had never rung it.
The deacon stepped to the ladder, and then he doubled over as pain stabbed at him. It was a brief, intense spasm that finally passed as the others had done before. But he felt that his bowels were loosening and that worried him.
For a brief moment, he leaned his forehead against the ladder, willing his churning belly to settle. A wave of nausea swept over him and he broke out in a clammy sweat, biting back the urge to vomit all over the floor.
The deacon groaned. What the hell was happening to him?
Too much brandy and too much sun had done for him.
It was as simple as that.
Finally he gathered his strength, grabbed the ladder, and lifted it away from the trapdoor. He angled the ladder against the far wall, well out of reach of the fugitives.
Despite his growing weakness and the green sickness curling in his gut, the deacon managed a smile.
Now that vile whore Jessamine and her protectors were well and truly trapped.
Like rats in a cage.
The deacon stepped to the bell rope and grabbed it with both hands. He cocked his head to one side, listening.
There was no sound.
Up there, above him, they were being as quiet as cowering little mice, afraid of being discovered.
The irony of that pleased the deacon. Soon there would be plenty of noise—when the bell started clanging.
He clutched at his belly and bent over as another spasm slammed at him. This time he threw up, foul-smelling water and booze mixed with green bile splashing at his feet.
After a while, when the final dry heaves ended, he straightened and wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand. He was trembling, sweat beading on his forehead.
He was sick, very sick, as sick as a pig, and he didn’t know why.
Had the Peacocks slipped poison into his brandy?
He dismissed that possibility as soon as he thought about it. If the Peacocks wanted him dead, they would’ve shot him.
Poison wasn’t their style.
Too much brandy, then. And he’d drunk whiskey beforehand.
There is a serpent in every bottle and he biteth like the viper.
He had overindulged, was all, a mistake the deacon vowed never to make ever again.
As long as he lived.
He took a deep breath, grabb
ed the rope, and yanked hard.
The bell clamored, clanged, its clashing iron reverberating through the church, a shrill, ear-shattering cacophony that sent the bats shrieking from their roosts.
The deacon screamed laughter, pumping on the rope, his coat flapping behind him like the tail feathers of a bedraggled rooster.
Even when his bowels finally gave way, he went right on screeching.
“Wake up, little mice! It’s time for church!”
Chapter 44
Sam Pace was drowsing when the bell jangled him awake.
“What the hell?” he yelled, springing to his feet.
Jess and Lake had covered their ears, their faces screwed up in pain.
The bell swung back and forth, the clapper clamoring like a tongue in an iron mouth.
Pace threw himself on the bell and circled it with his arms. The hot metal scorched his hands, but he held it still and the sound stilled to a ringing silence.
The rope jerked, jerked again. Pace left the bell alone and grabbed the rope. He pulled, feeling a man’s strength on the other end.
Pace, his brains still scrambled by the sudden racket that had wakened him, drew his Colt and thumbed two fast shots through the trapdoor.
He was rewarded by a yelp of surprise and the sound of running feet.
“Hell, it’s the deacon,” Lake said. He was looking over the top of the rail. “Damn, he’s seen me.”
That last was made obvious when a bullet tinged off the side of the bell and a second chipped timber close to Lake’s head.
Pace stepped to the rail. Immediately a bullet split the air an inch from his left ear. He caught only a fleeting glimpse of the deacon before Lake reached up and pulled him down.
“Don’t gunfight him, boy,” Lake said. “He’ll kill you fer sure.”
“My God,” Jess said, her nose wrinkling, “what’s that awful smell?”
“It’s the smell of cholera,” Pace said. “The deacon is leaving a trail of it behind him.”
Jess said nothing, but she looked stunned, as though the full horror of the disease had just struck her.
“Where are the Peacock boys?” Lake said.
“I didn’t see them,” Pace said. “They drank the well water and if they’re not sick yet, they will be real soon.”
“Then all we have to do is wait,” Jess said.
Pace nodded. “Seems like. Unless they hurry and come up with something that surprises the hell out of us.”
His face fell. “Damn it, the ladder.”
He waved Jess and Lake away from the trapdoor, then opened it a few inches.
“Like I thought, it’s gone,” he said. “Damn the deacon for a son of a bitch. He moved it.”
“How do we get down from here, Sammy?” Jess said.
“We’ll use the rope.”
“I’ve never done that before,” Jess said. “I mean, climb down a bell rope.”
“Me neither,” Pace said. “But it’s got to beat the hell out of jumping.”
“What do you see, Sam?” Lake said.
“The street’s empty.”
Pace waited a few moments, then said, “Mash, take a look at this.”
Lake peered over the top of the rail. “What am I supposed to see?”
“To the west, in the hills. There it goes again.”
“Yeah, I saw the flash.”
“Reckon it’s the army?”
“Could be, but Apaches also use mirror signals.”
“There’s plenty of dust kicking up,” Pace said.
Lake nodded. “Twenty, maybe thirty riders.”
“They’re not moving in our direction.”
“Army or Apache, seems like they found something more interesting than us to occupy their time.”
Jess kneeled beside Pace. “We could signal them, fire some shots.”
“We could,” Pace said, “if it’s the army. But suppose it’s Apaches? We’d be in even more danger than we are now.”
Jess had no answer for that and again lapsed into silence.
The long summer day burned on. The sun seared its way across the sky, and to the west buzzards lazily rode the air currents.
The bell tower smelled of pine resin, hot iron, and human sweat.
Pace sat and fetched his back against the rail.
“It’s all quiet at the saloon,” he said. “We’ll wait until just before dark and make our move.”
“What’s your plan?” Lake said.
“Apart from getting down from here, I don’t have one.”
Neither Lake nor Jess commented on that, and Pace smiled.
“If all’s quiet until dark, then I’ll reckon the cholera has done our work for us.”
“Is it really so quick?” Jess said, shivering despite the heat of the day. “Alive in the morning. Dead come suppertime.”
“It depends on the strain, or so Doc Anderson told me before he was finally took. When the cholera was killing a dozen people a day in Requiem, the doc said he’d seen the disease in Baltimore, Memphis, Washington, and a couple of other cities, but he reckoned the cholera in the well down there was the most”—Pace racked his memory for the right word—“the most virulent he’d ever come across.”
“What’s that word mean, Sam?” Lake said.
“‘Virulent’? I guess it means real bad for a person.”
“Then why didn’t he just say ‘real bad for a person’?”
“Because he was a doctor, and doctors use words nobody’s ever heard before. That’s why they become doctors, so they can use words like ‘virulent.’”
“Do you think they’re all already dead down there, Sammy?” Jess said.
“Yes. I believe they are, or close to it.”
But then the sound of gunshots gave the lie to Pace’s confident statement.
Chapter 45
Deacon Santee staggered into the saloon, bringing with him a stench that quickly filled the entire room with a noxious vapor.
“They shot at me,” he said. “That damned white trash shot at a sick man.”
He looked around, his eyes becoming accustomed to the gloom.
One of the Peacocks sat on a chair against the far wall. He moaned as pain stabbed at him again and again, vileness pooling around his feet, fed by the stinking liquids that still ran uncontrollably from his body.
Two of the other brothers stood on either side of a table, a man lying on his back between them.
The deacon took a couple of steps forward, but then stopped.
“Is that the dummy?” he said.
“He was the last born of us and frail,” a brother said. “He would not eat, fasting constantly, as though famine stalked the land.”
Clutched by pain, the deacon swayed against the bar, holding on to stay upright. He felt something vile run down his legs.
He bit back a surge of pain, then said, “A man’s got to eat or he dies.”
“Famine didn’t kill him,” the brother said. “It was you who killed him.”
“It was the brandy,” Santee said. “I reckon it had gone bad.”
“Idiot,” the brother said, “it was the water. The well is poisoned, yet you told us the water was good to drink.”
“Hell, I drank it my own self,” the deacon said. “How was I to know it was pizened?”
“You should have known,” the brother said. “We’ll all be dead soon, and this town will be our funeral pyre.” He waved a hand. “Up there, in the bell tower, we will find dogs to lie at our feet.”
The deacon was burning with fever, battered by pain, and his bowels were melting, running down his legs as a foul-smelling effluent.
He doubted that he could remain on his feet much longer, and he was in no shape for a gunfight.
“Well, see, about that dying business,” he said, his mouth bone dry. “The pizen hasn’t been made that can kill Deacon Santee.”
“Yet, rest assured, you will die with the rest of us,” the brother said. “Die now, die later. The choice
is yours.”
The deacon didn’t like that last one bit. It was a pretty obvious threat. This was shaping up to become a draw-and-shoot, and, sick and trembling as he was, he wasn’t sure if he’d be the last one standing when the smoke cleared.
Then, suddenly, his mind was made up for him.
The other Peacock, who’d been standing at the table and so far had remained silent, groaned. He lurched backward, clutched at his belly, and slumped over, body fluids noisily erupting from him.
The deacon took his chance.
He drew and fired at the brother who’d accused him of knowing the well was poisoned.
“Take that and be damned to ye,” he roared, his voice exploding with pent-up anger and fear.
The Peacock brother took the bullet, a solid torso hit, and staggered, scarlet blood frothing on the front of his white shirt.
The deacon headed for the batwings, firing on the move.
Another hit.
His target went down on his knees, but the man’s gun came up, fast, but unsteady, the muzzle wavering.
Something slammed into the deacon’s left shoulder, shocking in its brute force and intensity. Hit hard, he paused by the doors and his gaze scanned the room.
Santee was not one to take a bullet and let the man who shot him walk the earth.
His fevered eyes went to the kneeling man on the floor, dismissed him, and moved to the back of the saloon. The brother who’d been sitting on a chair against the wall was on his feet, his gun straight out in front of him.
The deacon fired, fired again.
His bullets chipped timber as the Peacock dived to his right side and crashed to the floor, scrabbling out of sight behind a table.
Santee was angry, but he let the man go. His time would come later.
He backed to the door and eyed the kneeling Peacock. The man was staring at nothing, blood trickling down his chin. His gun was still in his hand, but seemed too heavy for him to lift.
“Son of a bitch,” the deacon said.
He drew from his left holster and emptied the gun into the dying Peacock. Coldly, Santee watched the man roll over and lie still on his side.
“Damn all of you!” he yelled into the smoke-streaked saloon. “Damn all of you to hell.”
Ralph Compton the Ghost of Apache Creek (9781101545560) Page 13