Jory Sherman: Blood Sky at Morning

“How long do you figure we’ll be out here?”

“Oh, I expect we’ll see Trask and Ferguson tomorrow. About the time that storm hits. They’re riding the old stage road and I think they’re going to stop at each station to see what I’ve done to Ferguson’s operation. In fact, I’d say we’re ahead of them now, and we should get a visit from Jeffords, and perhaps a few Apache braves, before dawn.”

“So, you do have a plan,” Scofield said.

Zak didn’t answer. He turned to Colleen.

“You had some questions, Colleen?”

“I think you’ve answered most of them. I’m still wondering how you’re—we’re—going to save my brother, get him away from those awful men. I don’t want him to be killed.”

“I’m counting on your brother to make the right moves when we start the fight, Colleen. He’s a smart man, and no doubt he’s been looking for ways to escape all this time he’s been in captivity. That’s a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it.”

“Well, I worry.”

“Well, don’t. Worry is just something that keeps you from thinking things through. It doesn’t accomplish anything much, and it wears you down.”

She gave out a small laugh.

“I see,” she said.

“Look, all of you,” Zak said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. Trask is a dangerous man. A desperate man. I think the Chiricahua can help us. We’re outgunned and outnumbered right now. But we hold some cards Trask doesn’t know about. I think he’s going to be surprised. I’m planning to make his hair stand on end.”

There was a silence among them for several moments.

The sky blackened in the north and stars appeared to the east. The moon had not yet risen, but there were clouds blowing in over them and Zak knew they would likely see little of it during the night.

“Let’s ride,” Zak said. “From now on, every minute counts.”

Scofield and Rivers walked to their horses. Colleen lingered. She put a hand on Zak’s arm. There was a tenderness to her touch that stirred something inside him.

“I hope your plan works, Zak. For Ted’s sake.”

“Can you ride all night without falling off your horse, Colleen? We’ve a ways to go.”

“Zak, I would ride anywhere with you. I want you to know that.”

She squeezed his arm and moved closer to him. She tilted her head and he gazed down at her face. He could barely see it, but it seemed to him that her lips puckered slightly. He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. She fell against him and he felt her trembling.

“I think I’m…”

He broke away, put a finger on her lips.

“Don’t say it, Colleen. Not yet. Wait.”

“Yes,” she breathed, and he watched her walk away toward her horse.

He climbed onto Nox and took the lead, the others following close behind.

In the distance he heard the murmur of thunder, and when he looked back over his shoulder, he could see flashes of lightning in the black clouds. He rode into the darkness, thinking of Trask and how he had murdered his father. There would be a day of reckoning, he knew, for Trask and for him.

Then there was that blood sky of that morning. It carried a portent of much more than a storm. He took it as an omen, and he knew that was the Indian in him. Superstition. It could guide a man or defeat him. But the sky always spoke with a straight tongue.

There would be blood spilled on the morrow.

And the rain would wash it all back into the earth.

A coyote broke the stillness with its querulous call, its voice rising up and down the scale in a melodious and lonesome chant that was almost as old as the earth itself.

Nox whickered, and Zak patted him on the neck.

He felt his blood quicken and run hot.

“Trask,” he whispered to himself, “I’m coming for you, you bastard.”

Zak and his horse were shadows moving across the dark land. Shadows as true and ominous as the bloody sunrise of that very morning.

Again the coyote called, but it was different this time.

The call came from a human throat.

An Apache throat.

About the Author

JORY SHERMANis the Spur Award-winning author of the westerns Song of the Cheyenne, The Medicine Horn, and Grass Kingdom , which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Letters.

By Jory Sherman

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THE BARON WAR

THE BRAZOS

ABILENE GUN DOWN

SOUTH PLATTE

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CHILL #1: SATAN’S SEED

CHILL #2: SEPULCHRE