Jory Sherman - Blood Sky at Morning

Chama put the snout of his pistol up against Carmen’s temple. He thumbed the hammer back. The double click sounded like a lock opening on an iron tomb. Silence filled the room as the blood drained from Carmen’s face.

“They have gone,” she said. “You will not catch them.”

“No matter. But I want to know their names. There were six of them. Julio was one of them.”

“Yes,” she spat. “Julio is their leader. He is a very strong man. If you go after him, he will kill you.”

“The names,” Zak said.

Chama pushed the barrel of his pistol hard against Carmen’s temple. She winced and licked dry lips with a dry tongue.

“No matter to me,” she said. “Hector Gonzalez and his brother, Fidel. Renaldo Valdez, Jaime Elizondo, and Manuel Diego. They ride with Julio.” She paused, then said, “Give me the pipe.”

Chama eased the hammer down to half cock and pulled the pistol away from Carmen’s face. But it still pointed at her.

“I think you’ve had enough opium, Carmen,” Zak said. “Now, we’re going for a little ride.”

“Where do we go?” she said.

“To the next one of these adobe way stations, then to Tucson. To find Julio.”

“He will kill you,” she said, and as Zak threw the pipe down on the dirt floor, a shadow of a sadness came into her eyes and her dry tongue laved her lower lip.

“Saddle a horse for her, Jimmy, will you? Let’s get the hell out of here, out of this stink.”

The adobe reeked with the stench of whiskey, opium fumes, stale bread, and moldy tortillas. But there was also the lingering scent of pipe tobacco and burnt powder from the Sharps. Zak picked up the rifle, examined it. There was a dent in the receiver’s action, a dimple that kept it from ejecting unless force was used. Apparently, he thought, Carmen didn’t have the strength to force the breech open. And she was not even a good shot.

“Why would Julio leave you here all by yourself?” Zak asked her after Chama had taken saddle, bridle, and blanket from a corner and lugged it outside.

“He said he would be back soon.”

“What’s soon?”

“Two days, he say. Maybe three.”

“Do you know why he was coming back?”

“No.”

“Who was here before you came? The man who was watching the place, taking care of the stock?”

“I do not know his name. He works for Hiram.”

“He went back with the wagon? With the army lieutenant?”

“There was a man in the wagon. His hands and feet were tied with rope. He did not wear an army uniform.”

“But you knew he was a soldier?”

Carmen nodded. “They said he was a soldier.”

“Do you know where they took this soldier?”

“To Tucson. To the office of Hiram, I think.”

“Did Julio ride with the wagon?”

“No. The wagon came after he left.”

Zak threw the rifle down. He picked up a lamp, shook it. There was the gurgle of oil inside its base. He pulled the stopper and splashed the coal oil around the room.

“What do you do?” Carmen asked.

“Nobody’s going to use this adobe again,” he said.

“You burn?”

Zak ushered her to the door, turned and struck a match. He tossed it on a place where the coal oil made a dark stain. The match flared and guttered, then flared again as the heat reached the coal oil. The oil burst into a small flame that grew larger.

“My purse,” Carmen said. “My boots.”

“Too late,” Zak said, stepping outside and closing the door.

Inside, he could hear the crackle of flames as the fire fed on dry wood and cloth. Chama had finished saddling a horse for Carmen. He waited, holding the reins of his horse and the one he had just saddled. Zak whistled and Nox trotted up to him.

Smoke billowed from the adobe as the three rode off. Carmen looked back at the burning adobe, that same flicker of sadness in her eyes that Zak had seen before. Then she turned back around and held her head high, staring straight ahead at Chama, who rode in front, following the wagon tracks.

Zak felt sorry for her. She had nothing, and she had just lost everything.

He knew the feeling.

Chapter 14

Lieutenant Theodore Patrick O’Hara dozed on the bunk, pretending to be in a deep sleep. At least the torture was over for the time being, he thought. A small victory in the early stages of what he expected would be a long battle. Hiram Ferguson had been only a small assault force. Ted knew that he still must face the main battalion, and that was Ben Trask. Trask was the major force, and he was formidable.

Moonlight streamed through the window above Ted’s bunk, splashing dappled shadows that flirted with those sprawled by the lamp upon the wooden floor. A column of gauzy light shimmered with dancing dust motes that resembled the ghostly bodies of fireflies whose own lights no longer shone.

He was strapped down to the bunk, one of several in a bunkhouse for the stage drivers. Two were asleep across the room, one of whom was snoring loudly. Watching him was Jesse Bob Cavins, his chair tilted back against the wooden wall under a lighted lamp. He was reading a dime novel, his lips moving soundlessly as he struggled with some of the words.

Ted tested his bonds for the dozenth time, the leather cutting into his wrists, too strong to break. Thoughts of his sister Colleen drifted into his mind unbidden. Guilt-laden thoughts. He never should have suggested to the post commandant, Captain Reuben Bernard, that Colleen be hired to teach the women and children of the Chiricahua tribe. Ted had argued that there would never be peace in Apache land unless the Indians assimilated the English language. Colleen had agreed to come to Fort Bowie. She saw it as a challenge and an opportunity to bring about peace between Cochise and the whites.

Certainly the army had failed, Ted knew.

Captain Bernard, under orders, had waged a fierce and brutal campaign against the Apaches when Ted first came to the fort. He rode with Bernard as he attacked Apache villages, killing eighteen warriors in one, late in 1869. Early the next year, they swarmed down on another village, killing thirteen warriors, and just this year Ted had engaged in another village attack that left nine Apaches dead.

All to no avail, because the Apache war parties increased their depredations, attacking settlements and lone settlers, killing mail carriers and travelers out on the open plain. They even attacked army patrols, as if to show both their defiance and their bravery, and when Bernard sent detachments after the culprits, the soldiers always returned to the post empty-handed and dispirited after fruitless searches over desolate and difficult terrain.

Tom Jeffords had been brought in to palaver with the Apaches, bring them to the council table, beg them to stop their bloody raids on white villages. Some progress had been made and Bernard sent Ted out under a flag of truce to locate Apache villages and strongholds without engaging any of them in battle. Jeffords had paved the way, and Ted was able to locate many Apache camps. These he marked on a map with a special code. The X’s did not denote the location of the actual camps, but denoted a marked spot where Ted had written down numbers that indicated the actual location. These numbers were meaningless to anyone but army personnel.

But Trask did not know that. Not yet. And by now, Ted reasoned, the army would be looking for him. If he could lead Trask and his cohorts on a wild goose chase, sooner or later they would encounter an army patrol and he would be freed. That was his reasoning as he lay there in the dark, thinking of Colleen and his fellow troopers, sweat beading up on his forehead and soaking the skin under his arms and at the small of his back.