Jory Sherman: Blood Sky at Morning

Colleen was the first to move. Reluctantly, the two soldiers followed.

“There goes our damned leave,” Rivers grumbled.

“You trust this Cody?”

“He’s the onliest one who seems to know what the hell he’s doin’, I reckon.”

Scofield stifled a curse.

The dust cloud grew closer as the four riders galloped behind the low hill well off the old wagon road.

The sun filled the sky and the blue heavens filled with mares’ tails as if the gods had gone mad and scrawled their warning of impending weather for all to see.

Chapter 21

Trask pulled his hat brim down to shield his eyes from the rising sun. But as he gazed at the sky ahead, he saw the first buzzard float to a point and begin circling. The bird was soon joined by two more, then, as they rode on toward the junction of the two wagon roads, several more gathered and began to circle.

“What do you make of it, Hiram?” Ben asked. “Too many buzzards for a dead jackrabbit.”

“It don’t look natural,” Ferguson said. “Must be a big chunk of dead meat to draw that many turkeys this early of a morning.”

“That’s what I’m thinkin’,” Trask said.

He turned in the saddle and looked at the men riding behind until he picked the face of the man he wanted.

“Deets, come on up here,” Trask yelled, beckoning with his hand.

Deets rode up alongside Trask.

“Al, see them buzzards up yonder?” Trask said.

“Hell, you can’t miss ’em. That’s all we been lookin’ at for the past five minutes.”

“You ride on up under ’em and see what it is they’re sniffin’.”

“A dead cow, maybe.”

“You check, Al. Be quick about it. You get in trouble, you fire off a shot. Got it?”

“Sure, boss,” Deets said, and slapped his horse’s rump with his reins. He galloped off and the men in line began talking among themselves.

Trask turned around again. “Shut up,” he said, and the men fell silent.

Ferguson suppressed the urge to snort at Trask’s remark. He didn’t want to rile the man up any more than he already was. Trask had been in a foul mood all morning, snapping at the men, cursing the sunrise, the flies, the chill that rose from the earth earlier. He had a lot in his craw and the sight of the buzzards wasn’t doing his mood any damned good.

Trask watched Deets disappear over a rise. The buzzards dipped lower, circling like slow-motion leaves caught in a slow-motion whirlwind. More buzzards had flown in to take their places on the invisible carousel, and Trask unconsciously sniffed the air for the stench of death.

Deets was taking a long time, it seemed, but when Trask looked up at the sky again, he saw that the vultures were at least a quarter mile from him, maybe more. Still, he didn’t like to wait, and he put spurs to his horse’s flanks. The men behind him did the same. Ferguson frowned. They had a long ride ahead of them, days of it, and Trask was already wearing out their horses.

Ted O’Hara saw the buzzards, too, and knew that the sight of them had agitated Trask. This gave him a twinge of pleasure. Trask was a man who had to be in control at all times, he surmised. When he felt that control slipping, he turned ugly and mean. The gallop wouldn’t accomplish much over the stretch of land they had yet to cover, but he knew Trask had sent Deets up ahead to investigate, and yet, didn’t fully trust any of his men. In fact, he probably trusted no man, and that was almost always a fatal flaw. The loner could only go so far in life. Then, when he began to run out of friends, he stood completely alone, and without anyone to rely on, except himself, he was lost. Trask wasn’t at that point yet, but he was certainly headed for it. One of his men, one day, would become fed up with him and put a bullet in his back. And Trask would never know what hit him. He brooked no counsel, took no advice. From anyone, except himself.

The line of men stretched out into a ragged column as the slower riders fell behind, but nobody complained. All of them knew where Trask was headed, just under those circling buzzards, and all would eventually reach it. Some of the men exchanged knowing looks, but kept their comments to themselves.

Trask topped the rise and slowed his horse.

There was Deets, riding back and forth across the old road. He was leaning over, scanning the ground. He rode toward the regular stage road where it had veered off from the old road, then back again, beyond where two saddled horses stood and there were two dark objects on the ground that Trask could not identify as being human or animal.

The men behind him caught up and fanned out to look at what Trask was seeing. None spoke a word, at first. They all just stared at Deets, trying to figure out what he was doing.

As if reading their thoughts, Trask said, “Studying tracks.”

Julio Delgado broke the silence among the men following Trask.

“That is the horse of my wife down there,” he said. “The brown one with the blaze face.”

“I know the other one,” Hector Gonzalez said. “Do you not recognize it, Fidel?”

“Yes, I know that horse, too,” Hector’s brother said.

The Mexicans all grew very excited. They slapped each other on the arms and exchanged knowing looks.

“That is the horse of Jimmy Chama,” Renaldo Valdez said. “ Ay de mi .”

“Chama, ain’t he the boy what set up O’Hara for the capture?” Trask asked.

“Yep, he’s the one. A sergeant in the army out at the fort. But he said he was going to desert as soon as my men got away clean with O’Hara.”

“What’s his horse doing there, I wonder,” Grissom said. “And him not on it.”

“Carmen, oh Carmencita,” Julio breathed, “’onde stas?”

He twisted the reins in his hands as if he wanted to strangle someone.

“Let’s go see what we got,” Trask said, and dug spurs into his horse’s flanks.

Deets rode off toward a long low hill on his left. He stopped his horse, then looked at all of the other hills, a jumble of them, rising on either side and behind. He turned his horse and rode back to where the other horses stood and where the dead bodies lay. He kept looking back over his shoulder and then he rubbed a spot behind his neck.

As he rode closer, Trask saw that the dark shapes on the ground were human. And they were dead. A man and a woman.

“Al,” he said as Deets rode up.

“Found ’em like this,” Deets said. “That’s what brung them buzzards.”

“What do you make of it?” Trask asked, looking down at the body of Chama.

“Still tryin’ to sort it all out, Ben. Near as I can figger, they was three riders—Chama, that lady yonder, and one other. He might have kilt them two lyin’ on the ground, or some other riders come up and they could have kilt ’em, but that don’t make no sense, maybe.”

“What do you mean?”

“Three riders come from over yonder like they was ridin’ the stage road to Tucson. Then the tracks show four of them rode off toward them hills yonder.” Deets pointed in the direction from which he had just come.

“So, we’re dealing with four riders,” Trask said.

“Looks thataway. Less’n there’s more about.”

“What the hell do you mean, Al?”

“I mean, these are the onliest tracks I seen, Ben. Maybe this was some kind of bushwhack, and four people jumped these two, then rejoined their outfit. Could be the army, I reckon.”

“Shit,” Trask said.

The others crowded around to listen to what Deets had to say. Julio Delgado rode over to the body of his wife and dismounted. He bent over her and began to sob. Renaldo looked over at him and then rode his horse up close and dismounted. He patted Julio on the back. Then he, too, began to weep, so quietly the others could not hear. The other Mexicans drifted over, one by one, to console the grief-stricken Julio, who was cradling his dead wife in his arms and rocking slowly back and forth.