Blood Sky at Morning

by Jory Sherman

  Her eyelids stopped quivering. Then they batted open and her blue eyes fixed on his face. He held up a hand to shield the sun from beaming down into her eyes. A shadow painted that part of her face.

  “You got to wake up, ma’am,” he said. “Might be time you told me what happened on this coach.”

  She closed her eyes, then quickly opened them again. Wider this time, as if she were alarmed, perhaps afraid. He eased away from her, scooted up on the far side of the seat. The sun struck her in the eyes and she winced, turned her head so the light no longer blinded her.

  “Did you…”

  “Did I what?”

  “Kill that man. Jenkins.”

  “He played the card.”

  “Played the card?” She put one hand on the seat and pulled herself into a sitting position on the floorboards. She pulled the strand of hair away from her face, tucked it away in the folds of her hair.

  “He called it. Opened the ball.”

  “You mean he…”

  “It’s not hard to figure out. You saw him. He had two pistols he wanted to draw on me pretty bad. It could have been me down there on the ground.”

  “He’s dead? Jenkins?”

  “Yes. If you mean that man on the ground there. I didn’t know his name.”

  “He was driving me to Fort Bowie when we were attacked by some Apaches.”

  “Did you see the Apaches?”

  “Yes. Of course. They were all painted. They were brutal.”

  “Did you see them scalp the two soldiers?”

  “Yes. It was horrible. They—They cut their throats first.”

  “I’ve never known the Apaches to take scalps,” he said. “Are you sure they were Apaches?”

  “Mr. Jenkins said they were.”

  “When did he say this? When they attacked, or after they had left?”

  “I—I don’t recall. I think he said it when they rode up and he stopped the coach.”

  “Did you hear the Apaches speak?”

  “Yes. A few words.”

  “Have you ever heard Apache speech before?”

  She shook her head. “But, I did understand a word or two they said. They spoke Spanish, and I’ve heard Spanish before.”

  “Were these men Mexicans trying to look like Apaches?”

  She wrinkled up her nose and squinted, as if trying to think. “They might have been. I don’t know. It all happened so fast. Or seemed to.”

  “How come you threw your baubles off the coach?”

  He reached into his pocket, drew out the items of jewelry and handed them back to her. She put them in her lap as if reluctant to put them back on her person.

  “I—I was afraid of Mr. Jenkins.”

  “How come? He do something to you?”

  “I—well, I can’t be sure, of course, but when those Apaches, or Mexicans, dragged Lieutenant Coberly and Sergeant Briggs out of the coach, Mr. Jenkins was just outside. Earl and Fred resisted, of course. Jenkins made a little move. I thought he was holding a knife under his duster and it looked like he jabbed it into Earl’s side. Lieutenant Coberly, I mean. It happened so quick. The Apaches shoved Jenkins away, but it looked staged.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “They, the Indians, weren’t very mean to Jenkins. The way they shoved him aside didn’t look mean at all. It was just a feeling I got. And, when they didn’t kill him, or me, I began to suspect that Jenkins might have known those men with their painted faces.”

  “Anything else made you think that?”

  “Jenkins kept telling me I had to tell the soldiers at the fort what happened. He kept saying, ‘those damned Apaches,’ over and over. As if he wanted me to bear witness to officials at the army post.”

  “Why are you going to Fort Bowie?” he asked.

  “My brother arranged for me to teach there.”

  “You’re a schoolmarm?”

  “No,” she said, “I’m a teacher. Music and English.”

  “And your brother?”

  “He is posted to Fort Bowie. He’s a captain in the army.”

  “Name?”

  “Name?”

  “His name,” Zak said.

  “Ted O’Hara. Theodore. I’m his sister. My name’s Colleen.”

  “Can you drive this team?”

  She shrank back as if terrified at such a thought.

  “No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

  “Let me tie my horse to the back of the coach. I’ll drive you there.”

  “You have business in Fort Bowie?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Look, do you want to ride in the coach, or up here with me?”

  She looked at him, as if trying to size him up more thoroughly before making up her mind.

  “I think I’d prefer to stay up here,” she said. “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to pick up those dead soldiers and Jenkins there and take ’em to Fort Bowie. If you ride in the coach, I’ll have to carry ’em up there with your baggage.” He nodded toward the luggage rack behind him.

  “Oh,” she said.

  Zak hopped down from the coach and tied Nox to the straps on the boot. He slipped his canteen from the saddle horn, walked to the spring, filled it. He drank, then refilled it to the brim. He stoppered it and carried it back to his horse, slung it by its strap to his saddle horn, then strolled over to Jenkins. He reached down and jerked the knife from its scabbard, examined it. There was dried blood on the blade, the color of rust. That would explain the wound he had seen in the lieutenant’s side. He shoved the knife back in its scabbard, then picked up the man’s pistols and slid them back into their holsters. He lifted the body and carried it to the coach. Jenkins had started to stiffen and he stank from voiding himself. Zak set him down, opened the door, then slid Jenkins’s body inside, on the floor, in a sitting position, and closed the door. Then he climbed back up on the seat, picked up the reins, pulled the brake off and turned the team. Colleen never said a word, but sat there tight-lipped and wan, holding onto the side of her seat as she swayed from side to side.

  The wood of the floorboards creaked and leather squeaked under the strain and motion of the coach. The wheels spun out a spool of rosy orange dust in its wake, and the wheels clanked against rocks and small stones. The sky was a pale blue, with little white cloud puffs scattered like bolls of cotton across the vast ocean of blue. They hung nearly motionless in the still air, and nothing marred the view until they saw the buzzards circling above the place where the soldiers lay dead.

  He saw Colleen cringe when they came to where the coach had been stopped and attacked. He swung the rig in a half circle and brought it to a stop a few yards from the two bodies of the soldiers. Buzzards hopped around the corpses, flapping their wings. Cody set the brake and climbed down.

  He walked over to the bodies, and the buzzards lifted into the air, a half dozen of them, their pinions clawing for purchase to raise their ungainly bodies from the ground, make them airborne.

  He picked up Lieutenant Coberly first, carried him to the coach. He lay him down by the door and went back for the sergeant. When he had them both there, he opened the door and placed each body inside, stacked them next to Jenkins in sitting positions. The bodies of the soldiers were stiff, their eyes plucked out, their ears and noses gouged of flesh from the beaks of the scavengers. He closed the door and walked back, studying the unshod pony tracks.

  He followed the tracks for some distance, five hundred yards or so, until he was satisfied. The riders had headed off in the direction of Tucson. He couldn’t be sure, of course, but it would be unlike any Apache to ride to a white man’s town after killing two soldiers. When he returned to the coach, where Colleen was waiting, looking straight ahead and not at him, he climbed back up onto the seat, released the brake.

  “Had the…had the buzzards…” Her voice trailed off.

  “You don’t want to think about that,” he said.

  He rippled the reins across the backs of
the horses and they stepped out.

  She didn’t speak to him again until after they had passed Apache Springs.

  “You know who I am,” she said. “You know my name.”

  He said nothing.

  “I don’t know yours.”

  “No.”

  “Do you mind telling me who you are? What is your name?”

  “Cody.”

  “Just Cody?”

  “Zak Cody.”

  “Zachary?”

  “No, just Zak.”

  She spelled it: “Z-A-C-H?”

  “No. Z-A-K. My father couldn’t spell too well.”

  “Cody,” she said. “I’ve heard that name before. Somewhere. From my brother Ted, I think. Do you know him?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “That’s odd. I’m sure he’s mentioned you. It’ll come to me in a minute.”

  “It’s not important,” he said.

  “It is to me.”

  “Why?”

  “It might tell me who you really are. You don’t talk much.”

  “When I have something to say, I talk.”

  “You’re not in the army.”

  “No.”

  “But you were.”

  “I was.”

  “Ah, that’s at least something.”

  “Is it?”

  “Why, yes. It explains why you’re going to Fort Bowie.”

  “Does it?”

  “Well, I would think so.”

  Cody said nothing. A cloud passed below the sun, throwing a shadow over the trail. They both listened to the creak and clank of the coach as it rumbled through rough, rocky country that was almost flat and seemingly endless, with only cactus and mesquite to break the monotony.

  Cody did not know why Colleen’s brother might have mentioned his name, and it wasn’t important. But if Ted O’Hara knew who he was, then some of his past might come out and he couldn’t help that. A man carried his past with him. It followed him like a shadow.

  “General Crook,” she said.

  “What?” Cody said.

  “Were you with General Crook?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “I remember now. Ted said you saved Crook’s life once. Is that true?”

  Cody shrugged. “Who knows about such things?” he said. “I won’t claim credit for such.”

  But she looked at him with different eyes now, as she recalled what her brother had said once, when speaking with other officers. Zak Cody, she decided, was no ordinary man. From the tone of Ted’s voice, from the obvious respect and admiration implied by what he’d said, Zak Cody was almost a legend. But that was all she knew about him.

  And, she wanted to know more.

  Much more.

  Chapter 3

  Colonel Crook did not see the Paiutes. The red man rose up off the ground, his naked body covered with earth, and crept up behind him, a war club raised over his head ready to brain the officer. Zak appeared out of nowhere, just as Crook turned and saw the Paiute. Silent as a wraith, Zak grabbed the Indian by the hair, pulled his head back and sliced his neck open with a knife, letting the lifeblood flow until the Indian went limp in his arms, his chest and legs shining red with blood. The kill was quick and merciless, and Crook felt a shiver course up his spine.

  The memory of that day had come unbidden, dredged up by Colleen. Zak shook it off, but he knew it would come back. It always did.

  He knew she was looking at him, trying to figure him out, perhaps trying to remember all that her brother had said about him. That’s the way people were. They all wanted to know your past, as if that was the key to knowing who a man was now. He was not the same man who had fought alongside Crook in his battle with the Paiutes. A lot of water had gone under the bridge since then. But he also knew he was forever bound to General George Crook, as Crook was bound to him.

  Over the beige land they rode with their grisly cargo. Low hills, studded with rocks and cactus, appeared on their flanks, looking like ancient ruins, rubble from once majestic cities that rose above the land, then crumbled to dirt and broken stone.

  Zak stopped the coach at Apache Springs.

  “You might want to drink,” he said. “I’m going to water the horses. This is the only water hereabouts.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I am thirsty. And I want to stretch my legs.”

  He unhitched the horses, leading them one by one to the crystal clear stream to drink. The others, left behind, whickered in anticipation. Colleen cupped her hands, dipped them in the water where it emerged from the rocks, and slaked her thirst. Then she walked over to the oak trees that bordered the stream and took some shade beneath the leafy branches.

  Hills rose up on both sides of the long basin that sequestered the sparkling spring. It was a peaceful place, an oasis in the harsh desert where yucca bloomed like miniature minarets. There was cholla, too, beautiful, delicate, and dangerous, prickly pear that the Mexicans called nopal, and there, too, grew stool and agave.

  “What’s that I hear?” Colleen said as Zak led Nox to the stream. “Over there, in the hills.”

  “Probably Fort Bowie,” he said.

  “We’re that close and you stopped to water the horses?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “We could have watered them at the fort.”

  “Yeah. Now we don’t have to.”

  She walked over to him, stood in the glaring sun. “With those men in there, you stopped, took all this time.”

  “They’re not going anywhere, ma’am.”

  “No, but they—they’re…”

  “I don’t want a lot of chores to do when we get to the fort.”

  “Just what is your business at the fort?” There was a demanding tone in her voice.

  “Personal.”

  “I hardly think an army post is the place to conduct personal business.”

  Nox finished drinking and Zak started walking back to the coach, leading the horse with the reins.

  “Ma’am, out here, the army serves as the eyes and ears of the public. They generally know who comes and who goes.”

  “So, you’re looking for someone.”

  “I’m going to ask about someone, yes.”

  “I don’t think it’s your place to use the army for your own personal agenda, Mr. Cody. But I expect they’ll tell you that at Fort Bowie.”

  He hitched Nox to the coach. They could hear voices from the fort. They floated on the vagrant breezes, wafting here and there, fragments of loud conversations that made no sense. A Gambel’s quail, sitting atop a yucca some distance from them, piped its call, as if serving notice of its presence to any who would hear. A Mexican jay answered the call with harsh whenks from its throat, scolding the quail with its plumed topknot.

  “Yes’m,” he said, without protest.

  “You’re a strange man, Zak Cody,” she said. “I don’t know what to make of you.”

  “Easy decision, then.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to make anything of me. I’m what I am. Accept it or reject it.”

  “Well, so you do have a mind after all,” she said.

  Zak said nothing. He drew a deep breath and looked around at the ruins of the old fort. There wasn’t much left. Wind and rain and neglect had pretty much wiped out all traces of the original Fort Bowie. The desert took back everything that was left to it. That’s one thing he liked about the desert. It treated civilization harshly. People passed through it at their own risk.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked, following his gaze.

  “The fort used to be here,” he said. “Do you know the story?”

  “No.”

  “There was a big fight here, back in ’sixty-two, during the War Between the States. Chiricahua Apaches and United States troops.”

  “I didn’t know that. What happened?”

  “It was July, and Captain Tom Roberts got ambushed here. Chiricahuas. He was coming from California to fight the Confederate invasion of New Me
xico. He lined up his mountain howitzers and blasted the Apaches. Scared hell out of them.”

  “You were here?” she said.

  Zak shook his head. “No, but I heard about it.”

  “I think we’ve wasted enough time here, Mr. Cody.”

  He helped her onto the coach, took his seat beside her. A few minutes later they reached the fort, beyond the pass. It lay in a saddle in the mountains, east of Apache Springs. There were a lot of buildings, some made of adobe, some of stone, others, frame dwellings, made from lumber. A steam pump pulled water from a well. A flagpole stood in the center of the ramada, its banners flapping in the breeze.

  “So, this is Fort Bowie,” Colleen said.

  “This is the second Fort Bowie. Troops have only been here since ’sixty-nine, so it’s still pretty new.”

  He pulled the coach up in front of the corrals and stables. A corporal came out to greet them.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” he said, “welcome to Fort Bowie.” Then he looked at Zak.

  “Where’s the regular driver,” the young man asked. “Jenkins?”

  “He’s in the coach,” Zak said.

  “What’s he doin’ in the coach?” The young man’s face scrunched up in genuine puzzlement.

  “Nothing,” Zak said.

  “Huh?”

  The corporal walked over to the side door and opened it. He jumped back in surprise.

  “Holy shit,” he said.

  “Mr. Cody,” Colleen said, “will you escort me to meet the post commander?”

  “Sure,” Cody said. He spoke to the corporal. “That black horse, rub him down and grain him, will you, soldier?”

  “Wh-What about what’s in the coach? Those men are dead, ain’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shit, I got to report this.”

  Zak walked back to his horse, slid the rifle from its scabbard and lifted his saddlebags from behind the cantle. He patted Nox’s withers and walked back to the stunned soldier.

  “Can you point out the post commander’s office, son?”

  “Over yonder. Where you see the flagpole. He ain’t in, though. Major Willoughby’s acting in his stead. I got to report what’s in that coach.”