Stash missing, but not. Can apply, but not drop or list the stash.

I have a strange stash problem.  There is a single stash in the repo.

git stash apply 0 -- works, but results in a conflict. Lets just go ahead and drop the stash...

git stash list -- shows nothing. huh? Lets go ahead with the drop anyway and hope it works...

$ git stash drop stash@{0} fatal: Log .git/logs/refs/stash is empty. stash@{0}: not a valid stashed state

sure enough, .git/logs/refs/stash is empty

git stash clear  --  does nothing

I'm at a loss. I can apply the stash cleanly to older revisions, and gitk still shows the stash branch. How can I fix this? is it safe to simply delete the stash branch as if it was any other branch?

Thanks, Matt