Jory Sherman: Blood Sky at Morning

O’Hara suppressed a smile. This was not a military operation, but Trask was too dumb to see it.

Ferguson looked at Chama’s face, then turned away, as if death were too much for him in the harsh light of day. He gulped in fresh air to keep from gagging on the smell.

Trask looked over at O’Hara. “You know that man there?” he asked.

“He was a sergeant,” O’Hara said. “Rode with our patrol.”

“You know anything about this?”

“Not any more than you do, Trask. Two people dead. Probably killed by gunshots.”

“You’re not as smart as you might think you are, O’Hara.”

O’Hara said nothing. He kept his face blank, impassive as desert stone.

Trask turned back to Deets. “The tracks lead over yonder, right?”

“Right, boss. I figure they circled that long hill and either lit a shuck or are watching us right now.”

Trask scanned the top of the ridge. Everything looked the same. Rocks, cactus, dirt. He saw nothing move, saw no sign of life anywhere.

“Well, if there was an army waiting up there, they could have picked us off by now. We’re riding on.”

“Aren’t we going to bury these two?” Ferguson asked.

“I don’t give a damn,” Trask said. “We’ve already wasted enough time here.” He looked up at the sky. “Them buzzards got to eat, too.”

“I will bury my wife,” Julio said. “And Chama, too.” He crossed himself.

Trask fixed him with a look of contempt. “Do whatever you want, Delgado. We’re ridin’ on. You’d better catch up.”

“I will catch up,” Julio said, biting hard to cut back on his anger.

“I will help Julio,” Renaldo said. “It will not take too long.”

“I, too, will stay and help dig the graves,” Manuel Diego said.

Trask headed straight up the old road, Deets, Ferguson, Cavins, and O’Hara right behind him. The others trailed after them as Julio and Renaldo drew their knives and began cutting into the hard pan of the desert. Julio’s face was streaked with grimy tears and he was shaking as he dug.

“That bastard Trask,” he said, in English. “Un hijo de puta, salvaje.”

“Calm yourself, Julio,” Renaldo said in Spanish. “One day, perhaps, we will bury him.”

“That would give me much satisfaction,” Julio said.

He picked up the small pistol lying next to his wife, examined it and stuck it under his belt.

“I wonder where she got this pistol,” he said softly.

Renaldo shrugged.

Trask turned to Ferguson when they had traveled a short distance.

“I know who killed that Chama and Carmen Delgado,” he said.

“You do? How? Who?”

“Cody,” Trask said. “He’s in this, somewhere.”

“How do you know?” Ferguson asked.

“I just know. I know it in my gut, that sonofabitch. I figure Chama made a mistake, or maybe went for his gun. The woman, she may have thrown down on Cody, too. That bastard’s fast. Very fast. He sure as hell could have killed them both. And I know damned well he did.”

“Who are the other riders, then?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did, but I just don’t know, damn it all.”

He rolled a quirly and stuck it in his mouth. He lit a match and drew the smoke in. Ferguson got very quiet, but kept looking off to his left at the jumble of hills and the long ridge that seemed to be the land brooding down on them.

Over on the ridge there was just the slightest movement as Cody peered down at the old road.

He moved so slowly and held his head so still, he might have been just another rock to anyone glancing up at him. He was hatless, and his face, browned from the sun, was not much different in color than the desert itself.

Chapter 22

Zak clamped a hand over Colleen’s mouth and pushed her down, held her hard against the rocky ground. Her eyes flashed with a wild look as she struggled against him. The two soldiers looked on, uncertain about what they should do.

“Listen, Miss O’Hara,” Zak said, his voice a throaty whisper, “you make one sound and we’ll be captured and killed. Do you understand me?”

She calmed down, but Zak kept up the pressure on her mouth and body.

“I mean it. Those are dangerous men down there and they outnumber us.”

She tried to nod her head. Her eyes flashed her response.

“You’ll behave, then?” he asked.

“Umm-ummm,” she replied.

“I’ll let up on you,” he whispered, “but if you cry out or make noise, I’ll knock you cold. If you have anything to say, you whisper right into my ear as the sound won’t travel. Got it?”

“Mmmm-hmmm.”

Zak slowly lifted his hand from her mouth, but kept it hovering a couple of inches away. He watched her lips like a man watching a burning fuse on a stick of dynamite. He nodded and backed away so she could sit up. She beckoned to him, asking him to come close.

She put her lips right up against his ear.

“That’s Ted down there. My brother,” she hissed in a sizzling whisper.

“Nothing we can do about it now. But we’ll get him free. I promise. Now, just keep that notion in your head and shut up.”

She nodded.

Zak signed with his hands to the two soldiers, telling them he was going to crawl to the top of the ridge and that they were to stay there, out of sight, with Colleen. Both men nodded assent.

Before Zak crept to the top of the ridge, Colleen drew him close and whispered softly in his ear. She put one hand behind his head and pulled him next to her so his arm brushed against one of her breasts.

“I wish,” she sighed softly, “you were still holding me down, Zak.”

Zak felt the strength drain from his knees and his stomach fluttered with a thousand flying insects. The musky scent of her assailed his nostrils like coal oil thrown on an open flame. His veins sizzled with excitement and there was a twinge at his loins as the fever of her touch and the urgency of her words seared through him like wildfire.

He drew away from her, slowly, and touched a finger to his lips. She smiled at him, and he felt his insides melt as if she had poured molten honey down his throat. He turned from her and began the slow crawl to a vantage point on the ridgetop where he could watch and listen. He mentally shook off what had happened, needing to focus, to concentrate.

He lay very still, his head resting on his hands between two head-sized rocks. He saw Trask, the man he took to be Ferguson, and the Mexicans congregating around the body of Carmen Delgado. And he saw Ted O’Hara, guarded by one man in particular. O’Hara looked at ease, however, and Zak mentally applauded his courage, his coolness. He saw a man who was more alert than any of the others, a prisoner who refused to allow his chains to weigh him down. Ted O’Hara, he decided, was a good man to ride the river with.

He saw Trask extend his arm toward the east and start to ride up the old road, the others following in his wake. The Mexicans continued to dig a grave for Carmen as Trask and the others moved out of eyesight.

Zak thought for a moment. It was pretty plain where Trask was headed. He had left the stage road and was traveling on the old road, straight into the heart of Apache lands. There was only one thing Ben Trask was interested in, Zak knew—gold. Apache gold. And if his hunch was right, he was using O’Hara to lead him straight to an Apache camp. O’Hara had been dealing with the Apaches and he knew where their strongholds were. Like Jeffords, he most likely had spoken with Cochise and probably knew more than any other man in the territory.

O’Hara was in a bad spot.

And so were they all, for that matter.

Zak didn’t wait for the Mexicans to finish digging the grave for Carmen. Three of them stayed behind, and he knew it would take them some time to finish digging with their knives. If they buried Chama, it would take longer. The longer the better, he thought. But he knew he would have to deal with them sooner or later.