Jory Sherman: Blood Sky at Morning

He slowly slid back off the ridgetop and descended to where Colleen and the two soldiers were still waiting. Colleen’s face told him that she was anxious, while the two soldiers seemed restless and ill at ease, perhaps put out because they had been left with nothing to do.

“Have they all gone?” Colleen asked in a whisper.

“Most of them,” Zak said softly. He knew his voice wouldn’t carry over the hill to the other side.

“How many?” asked Scofield.

“More than you two could handle. It’s not safe to leave yet. Some Mexicans are burying the dead woman. But I reckon you all are anxious to get to Tucson.”

“Yes, sir,” Rivers said. “I mean, we have leave, Delbert and me.”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to Tucson,” Colleen said, her voice pitched low. “Not while those rascals have my brother. If I have to, I’ll chase them to the ends of the earth.”

Zak gave her a sharp look. “I think you ought to go to Tucson, Miss O’Hara. Under the escort of Scofield and Rivers. It would be the safest thing to do.”

“No. I came this far to find my brother. Well, I’ve found him and I’m going to…”

“To what?” Zak asked.

“Well, I have a gun. A pistol. I can shoot. I’m going to get Ted away from those despicable people.”

“Ben Trask would shoot you dead in your tracks if you even came after him with a pair of scissors, let alone a pistol.”

Colleen huffed in indignation.

Scofield stepped forward. “What you aim to do, Colonel? You can’t go after all them men by yourself.”

“That’s my field problem,” Zak said.

“It don’t need to be.”

“You have no stake in this. You and Rivers are on leave.”

“You got any plan at all, Colonel Cody?”

Zak looked at the two men, measuring their willingness to give up their leave and help him fight a force that outnumbered them.

Buzzards floated in the sky like leaves drifting on the wind.

“Once Trask and his bunch get far enough away, I’ll brace those three Mexicans,” Zak said. “The sound of gunfire will draw Trask right back down on me if I shoot now.”

“You’re going to kill those poor Mexicans?” Colleen whispered, without any sign of enmity in her voice.

“I’ll make them an offer,” Zak said.

“An offer?”

“They can walk away. Go back to town.”

“And will they?”

Zak cocked his head and looked at her as he would an addled child.

“One of those men is burying his wife, the woman I killed. He’ll want blood for blood.”

Colleen shivered. “It seems such a shame,” she said. “All the killing.”

“That’s why you ought to go with these boys on into Tucson.”

“I’m not going anywhere without my brother. Now I know where he is, I’ll not give up.”

“We feel the same way,” Scofield said. “Lieutenant O’Hara’s a mighty fine soldier.”

“That’s right,” Rivers said. “’Sides, you can’t go up against three men all by yourself. Me ’n’ Delbert can even up the odds.”

“Then you’ll take Miss O’Hara into Tucson?” Zak said.

“I’m not going to Tucson,” she hissed, her whisper loud as bacon sizzling in a fry pan.

“I’ll be tracking near a dozen men, Miss O’Hara. Any one of which would shoot you dead without a second thought.”

“You don’t think I’d shoot back?”

“You might. But would you shoot first, before any one of them got the drop on you, Miss O’Hara?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice firm and filled with conviction. “Yes, I would. My father and my brother didn’t just teach me how to shoot. They taught me how to defend myself. And stop calling me Miss O’Hara like I’m some frail waif who needs coddling. And I’ll call you Zak, if you don’t mind.”

“I think you’ve been out in the hot sun too long, Colleen,” Zak said.

She gave a low “humph” and glared at him.

“All right,” Zak said, looking at the two soldiers. “You want to mix in, I could use your help.”

“We do,” Scofield said. “What’s your plan?”

Cody was ticking off minutes in his mind, minutes and distance, figuring Trask was keeping up a steady pace to the east. Soon, he thought, he would be out of earshot of any gunfire. Maybe. Sound carried far in the clear dry desert air.

“Rivers,” Zak said, “how good are you with that Fogarty carbine?”

Rivers looked down at the rifle in his hand.

“This is a Spencer rifle,” he said. “Army issue.”

“Spencer sold his company to a man named Fogarty. Can you shoot it true?”

“Yes, sir, Colonel, sir. I’m the best shot in the outfit.”

“He is,” Scofield said. “And I’m right next to him.”

“Colleen, I don’t want you in this. You stay here. Scofield, you climb that ridge about two hundred yards to the east. Rivers, you climb up from here. Real slow. Soon as I round the end of this hill and you don’t see me, you start your climb. Stay low and move slow. I’ll ride up on those boys and tell ’em ‘what for,’ and you should be in position by then. Any one of them goes for his gun, you open up.”

“We’ll do ’er,” Scofield said.

Zak walked to his horse, climbed into the saddle.

Colleen came up to him, grabbed his hand, clasped it in hers.

“Zak,” she said, her whispery voice like silk sliding on silk, “be careful. I want you to come back alive.”

“I will, Colleen. Just sit tight. Try to think of something pleasant.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’ll think about you, Zak.”

He turned his horse and rode off toward the lowest point of the hill. He did not look back, but he felt three pairs of eyes burning into his back.

He slipped the Colt in and out of its holster twice, then seated it loosely in its leather sheath. In the distance he heard a quail pipe its fluting call, and above him the buzzards wheeled on air currents, so close he could see their homely heads, their jeweled eyes, sharp beaks, as they moved their heads from side to side.

To the northwest he thought he saw a blackening sky, but he couldn’t be sure. The day was young and the blue sky marked only with long trailing wisps of clouds that looked like smoke from a faraway fire.

Trask should be far enough away by now, he thought. He hoped the Mexicans would take his advice and ride back to Tucson without a fight.

It was a long shot, but he’d make them the offer.

But he was ready.

For anything.

Chapter 23

Julio Delgado heard a sound. He looked up from the shallow grave, squinted until his eyes were in focus on the rider coming toward them from the west. Renaldo Valdez saw him and turned his head, looking off in the same direction.

“Someone is coming,” Julio said.

“I see him. Who is it?”

“I do not know.”

Manuel Diego set down a rock he had dug up and turned to look.

“Maybe that is the man who killed your wife, Julio,” he said.

“Maybe,” Delgado said, his voice low and guttural.

A few of the buzzards landed some distance from the gravesite. They flexed their wings and marched to and fro like tattered generals surveying a battle-field. Their squawks scratched the air like chalk screeching on a blackboard.

“He does not ride fast,” Renaldo Valdez said. “He does not hurry.”

“No,” Delgado said. “He is without hurry on that black horse.”

“He wears black like the horse, eh?” Diego observed. “Maybe he is a messenger.”

“A messenger? Who would send a messenger out here from Tucson?” Delgado wiped tears from under his eyes, squinted again.

“Maybe there is trouble at the office of Ferguson,” Diego said. “Maybe it burned down.”