Blood Sky at Morning

by Jory Sherman

  Something caught Zak’s eye in another corner. He walked over, his stomach swirling with a sensation like winged insects.

  “What’s this?” he said as Felipe stood there, his face waxen.

  “I do not know. Those were there when I came here.”

  “Bullshit,” Zak said as he picked up an army canteen. A blue officer’s uniform lay in a heap. Silver lieutenant’s bars gleamed from the shoulders of the tunic. A pair of cavalryman’s boots, shiny, with a patina of dust on them, spurs still attached, stood against the wall behind the pile of clothes.

  “I do not know who left those clothes,” Felipe said.

  “Do you know the name of the man who owns them?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe you know Lieutenant Ted O’Hara.”

  “I do not know him,” Felipe said.

  Zak had seen enough. He was sure that Ted O’Hara had been brought to this place. They had stripped him of his uniform, put civilian clothes on him, perhaps. Then they had taken him someplace else. A hostage, maybe? A bargaining chip? Or maybe to torture him for information about the location of Apache camps, knowledge they somehow knew he possessed.

  “You want some advice, Felipe?”

  “What advice?”

  “When I tell the army about this place, they’re going to swarm all over you like a nest of hornets. If you’re smart, you’ll get on one of those horses out there and clear out.”

  “I have done nothing.”

  “I think you have. You’re lucky I’m in a hurry or I’d pack you off to Fort Bowie trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.”

  Felipe, wisely, said nothing. He held his breath and walked outside with Zak.

  “You leave now?” Felipe said.

  “I might be back. In any case, someone will. You’d better find another place to hang your hat, Felipe.”

  Felipe stood in front of the door, speechless.

  Zak knew his encounter with the man wasn’t over. He had given Felipe fair warning. The next move was up to him. Felipe could either let him ride off or he could try to stop him.

  Either way, the writing had already been painted on the wall.

  Zak started to walk back to his horse when he heard a sound, the whisper of metal sliding out of leather. He knew what it was. Felipe was drawing his pistol.

  Zak spun around, went into a fighting crouch. His right hand streaked to the butt of his Walker Colt. His gaze fixed on Felipe’s eyes, not on his hand. But he could see, in the same range of vision, the barrel of Felipe’s pistol clearing leather, the snout rising like the rigid black body of a striking snake.

  The Walker Colt seemed to spring into Zak’s hand. His thumb pressed down on the hammer, pushing it back into full cock as he leveled the barrel at the Mexican.

  Felipe fired his pistol. Too soon. The bullet plowed a furrow at Zak’s feet as he squeezed the trigger of the Walker.

  He looked down a long dark tunnel as the pistol exploded, gushing flame and lead, bucking in his hand. At the end of the tunnel, Felipe, in stark relief, was hammering back for a second shot. Zak’s .44 caliber ball of soft lead struck him just below his rib cage with the force of a sledgehammer. Dust flew from his shirt and a black hole appeared like a quick wink that filled suddenly with blood.

  The hammered bullet drove Felipe off his moorings and he staggered backward, slamming into the wall of the adobe. A crimson flower blossomed on his chest, the smell of his half-digested supper spewing from his stomach. He gasped for air and slid down the wall, his fingers turning limp, the pistol drooping, then falling from his grasp. His eyes clouded over, the spark fading like a dying ember. The pupils turned frosty as blood pumped through the hole in his chest, ran down into his lap.

  Zak stepped toward Felipe, his pistol at full cock for another shot, if needed.

  He heard the death gurgle in the man’s throat, but Felipe was still alive, hanging onto life with labored breaths.

  Smoke spooled from the barrel of Zak’s pistol as he knelt down in front of the Mexican. He lifted the pistol, the action scattering the smoke to shreds.

  “I won’t say adios to you, Felipe,” Zak said, his voice a soft rasp, just above a whisper. “God isn’t going with you on this journey. He’s just going to watch you fall into a deep hole. The next sound you hear will be me. Walking over your grave, you sonofabitch.”

  Felipe stretched out a hand toward Zak’s throat. He tried to sit up. Something broke loose inside him and he coughed up blood. His eyes glazed over with the frost of death as he gave one last gasp and fell back, his lifeless body slumped against the adobe wall. His sphincter muscle relaxed and he voided himself.

  Zak stood up, walked away from the sudden stench. He ejected the empty hull in the Colt’s cylinder and dug a cartridge from his gun belt. He slid it into the empty cylinder and spun it, then eased the hammer down to half-cock before sliding the pistol back in his holster.

  He walked down to the corral and opened the gate.

  “Heya, hiya,” Zak yelled, waving his hat at the horses and ponies. They all dashed through the opening and galloped off down the gully and up the slope. They disappeared over the rim and a quiet settled over the empty corral.

  Zak walked back to the adobe and went inside. He picked up the tunic with the lieutenant’s bars, folded it tightly, went outside and stuffed it in his saddlebag. Then he went back inside, took a lamp from a hook over the potbellied stove and dashed coal oil on everything flammable within reach.

  He stepped to the door, dug out a box of matches, struck one and tossed it onto the floor. The flame sputtered for a moment, then caught. The oil flared and tongues of flame began to lick the clothing and empty boxes, the chairs and table. It spread to the jacal as Zak mounted Nox and rode off, following one of the wagon tracks that was laced with shod hoof marks. The jacal blazed bright in the morning sun and he heard bottles of whiskey explode inside the adobe. Black smoke etched a charcoal scrawl on the horizon, rising ever higher in the still air.

  The horse tracks led west, beside the faint wagon wheel ruts, and he followed them, putting Nox into a canter. The wagon tracks made it easy, and the horse tracks were only a day old, with no rain nor strong wind to erase them.

  Killing a man was not easy. It was never easy. There was always that dark tunnel, that unknown blackness, that he saw and wondered about. Conscience? He didn’t know. He knew only that death was so final, there was no second chance for those who went up against his gun. And the killing of a man always weighed heavy on his heart or his mind or, perhaps, his soul. Life was such a fleeting, fragile, troublesome journey, but to cut that journey short, for whatever reason, gave a man pause, made him reflect on his own breath, his own heartbeat, his own blood pulsing in his veins.

  Felipe hadn’t seen it coming. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. But Zak had seen it. He could always see it in a man’s eyes, that inkling of mortality, that wonder, just before death blotted out everything, just before the tunnel closed in darkness and the light that had been a man one moment plunged into final darkness the next.

  There was one question Zak had meant to ask Felipe, but the Mexican had pressed it, had made that fatal decision to draw his pistol. So the question had never been asked. Had never been answered.

  The question would have been: “Do you know a man named Major Willoughby?”

  Zak would have read the answer in Felipe’s eyes, even if he had never replied. Then he would have known who betrayed Ted O’Hara, and who told Ben Trask where O’Hara was.

  Deep down inside him, though, Zak thought he knew the answer to the unasked question.

  One day he would find the answer, and the proof to go along with it.

  It was only a question of time.

  He just hoped he would find Lieutenant Theodore O’Hara alive.

  But he would find him.

  That, he knew.

  Chapter 7

  Zak saw the flash out of the corner of his eye. It was bright as silver, as intense as a bolt of li
ghtning. He had descended into a shallow depression and was just emerging when the dazzling light streaked from a low hill a half mile away. He kept on, but his gaze scanned the surrounding countryside.

  That’s when he saw an answering flash.

  He knew he was not alone.

  He built his first smoke of the day, casually taking out the papers and the pouch of tobacco. He rolled a quirly, licked it, stuck it in his mouth. He struck a match, drew smoke into his mouth and lungs. He knew he was being watched. His every move.

  But who was watching?

  The army?

  He didn’t think so. Troopers could be stealthy, but they’d had time to look him over and should have announced their presence long before he lit up a cigarette.

  Apaches?

  Likely. They probably had army signal mirrors, but they could use almost anything to reflect sunlight, send messages. A chunk of quartz, a piece of tin, broken glass from a bottle.

  He looked at the ground, which had suddenly produced a maze of tracks. Besides the wagon ruts and horse tracks, the horses and ponies he had chased out of the mesquite pole corral had crossed his path. The tracks headed toward a point between the places where he had seen the flashing mirrors.

  He had a decision to make.

  He could follow his present course, toward Tucson, or shift to the new tracks.

  Curiosity killed the cat, he thought.

  He stayed to his tracking but could feel the watchers tracking him. It was an uncomfortable feeling, as if someone’s eyes were boring into him, right between his shoulder blades. He saw no more flashes, but didn’t expect any. The watchers knew where he was, and probably had a pretty good idea where he was going.

  The land was gently rolling, swells of earth that rose up and fell away like an ocean frozen in motion. As long as the rises were shallow, he could still see ahead of him when he rode into a dip, but it was at the bottom of one of the depressions that he was brought up short.

  They came in from two sides and made a line on the ridge above him. A dozen braves, Chiricahuas, he figured, all carrying rifles and wearing pistols. None were painted for war, but he knew that meant nothing. Apaches could go to war with or without decorating their bodies.

  Zak’s knowledge of Apache was limited. He had a smattering of Athabascan, knew a few words that amounted to very little if his life depended on much conversation. He could speak Spanish, though, and most of the Apaches had some familiarity with that language. Right now, he wondered if he would even have a chance to talk. The Indians surrounding him all had bandoleros slung over their shoulders, and the gun belts shone with brass cartridges.

  He reined up, folded his hands atop one another on the saddle horn.

  The Apaches looked at him for several moments.

  If there was one trait that stood out among the Apaches, it was their patience. Zak figured he could match them on that score.

  As he sat there, he heard the rumble of hoofbeats. More Apaches rode up, and they were driving the horses and ponies he had released from Felipe’s corral. He turned and looked back at the smoke still rising in the sky.

  One of the Apaches from the first bunch moved his pinto a few yards closer to where Zak sat his horse. His face was impassive, a bronze mask under straight black hair. He wore a red bandanna around his forehead, a faded blue chambray shirt, beaded white man’s trousers, moccasins. He carried an old Sharps carbine that had lost most of its bluing. The stock was worn, devoid of its original finish. The pistol tucked into his sash was a cap and ball, a Remington, Zak figured, one of the New Model Army kind with a top strap.

  The Apache spoke.

  “Quien eres?” he said in Spanish.

  “Yo soy Cody.”

  “Soldado?”

  “No, I’m not a soldier,” Cody said, also in Spanish. Then he said, “Nodeeh,” an Apache word, and touched his chest with his hand.

  “Nodeh ligai,” the Apache said. White man.

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “Anillo,” he said, and held up his left hand. Zak saw the ring on his finger, turquoise and silver. It sparkled in the sun.

  “Ring,” Zak said in English.

  “Yes. I am called Ring. What do you do here?”

  “I follow the tracks of bad white men. They made themselves to look like Apaches. They killed two soldiers.”

  “You gave us these horses?” Anillo said.

  “Yes. I let them run from the corral.”

  “You burned the jacal and the adobe.”

  It was a statement, not a question. Zak nodded without speaking.

  “Cody.”

  “Yes.”

  “The black horse is like a shadow.”

  “Yes. I call him Noche.” He didn’t figure Anillo would understand the Latin word for night.

  “That is a good name. Cochise has spoken of you.”

  “I do not know Cochise. But I have heard he is a strong man. A brave man.”

  “He calls you Jinete de Sombra. Are you the Shadow Rider?”

  “That is what some call me.”

  “Then we will not kill you, Cody.”

  “And I will not kill you. I make no fight with the Apache. I chase bad white men.”

  “Why do you do this?”

  “General Crook does not like white men who cause trouble with the Apache. He wants the Apache and the white men to live in peace.”

  Anillo spat upon the ground. His eyes narrowed and his face turned rigid with anger.

  “Do you have tobacco?” Anillo asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then let us smoke and talk.”

  Zak reached in his pocket and pulled out the makings. Anillo spoke to one of the men in the group, gestured for him to come down. He dismounted. Zak slid from his saddle.

  They sat down and the Apache who Anillo had called slid from his pony’s back and walked over. He was older than Anillo. There were streaks of gray in his hair, lines in his face, wrinkles in the wattles under his chin. He had a fierce face, with close-set black eyes, a pug nose, high cheekbones burnished with the vermillion of his bloodlines.

  “This is Tesoro,” Anillo said. Then he spoke to Tesoro in Apache and the old warrior squatted down as Anillo took out a paper and poured tobacco into it. He handed the pouch and papers to Tesoro, who made himself a cigarette. He handed the makings to Zak, who rolled one for himself. The three sat together. The two Apaches leaned forward as Zak struck a match. He touched their cigarettes and they sucked smoke into their mouths. Zak lit his own quirly, settled in a sitting position on the warm ground.

  Zak looked at Tesoro, wondering how he had acquired his name. Tesoro meant “treasure” in Spanish. It was an odd sobriquet for a seasoned Apache warrior. Tesoro looked at him with cold ebony eyes.

  “Raise your shirt, Tesoro,” Anillo said.

  Tesoro, his cigarette dangling from his lips, lifted his worn cotton shirt, almost proudly, Zak thought.

  Zak stared at Tesoro’s bare chest in disbelief.

  The wounds were fresh. He had seen similar scars before, on warriors who had participated in the Sun Dance on the plains of the Dakotas, rips in their skin where they had impaled hooks that tore loose as they danced around a pole, connected to it with long leather thongs.

  But these wounds were different. They were not scars made from hooks or knives. They were burns, and he had seen the likes of these before, as well. On his father’s body after Ben Trask had tortured him by jabbing a red hot poker into his flesh.

  The burn marks were the same, and some were scabbed over. Others were pocks with new flesh growing in the depressions. Tesoro had been tortured over a period of time. These burns were not made in a single day or night, but over a period of days, or perhaps even weeks.

  “What do you see?” Anillo asked, plumes of smoke jetting from his nostrils and out the corners of his mouth.

  “Burns,” Zak said. “Iron burns.”

  Tesoro nodded and let his shirt fall back into place.

  S
omehow, Zak knew the burns were not connected to some Apache ritual or religious ceremony. Tesoro, he was sure, had been tortured.

  “A man burned him with hot iron,” Zak said. “A man who wanted Tesoro to tell him something.”

  “Verdad,” Anillo said. “This is true.”

  “A white man burned Tesoro,” Zak said. “Does Tesoro know the name of this man?”

  “He knows the name of the man,” Anillo said. “Do you know the name of this man?”

  “Is the name difficult for the Apache to say?”

  “Yes. It is hard to say this name,” Anillo said.

  “Trask,” Zak said. “Ben Trask.”

  A light came into Tesoro’s eyes when he heard the name. That was the only sign that he recognized it. His features remained stoic.

  “Terask,” Anillo said. “Ben, yes.”

  “A bad man,” Zak said. “This is one I hunt. This is a man I would kill.”

  “How do you know this was the man who burned Tesoro with hot iron?”

  “He did the same to my father,” Zak said. “And then he killed my father.”

  “Ah. And why did Terask do this to your father?”

  “Gold. My father had gold. Trask wanted it.”

  “That is why this man burned Tesoro,” Anillo said.

  “Does Tesoro have gold?” Zak asked.

  Other Apaches had drifted down to listen. They made a ring around the three men on the ground. One still stood at the top, along with those guarding the ponies. He was standing watch, his head turning in all directions. Like an antelope guarding its herd, Zak thought.

  Anillo and Tesoro exchanged glances.

  “It is the name of Tesoro. Terask, he think maybe Tesoro has gold.”

  “Treasure,” Zak said in English, more to himself than to either Anillo or Tesoro.

  Anillo nodded. “Yes. Tesoro. Treasure. He captured Tesoro and he burned him with the iron to make him tell where Apache hides gold.”