Jory Sherman: Blood Sky at Morning

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.