by Jory Sherman
“Yes. He will listen to us. Now, do you know where Trask and Welch might be going?”
“I know exactly where they’re going, if they follow the map I marked for Trask. I think Cochise will know it, too. Maybe you, too, know it.”
“Tell me about it, Ted.”
“I picked this place because of a story an old Apache told me when we passed by it. It is an open area with a narrow entrance. The plain is surrounded by low hills. The chief at the time, a man named Lobo, lured the soldiers there. He made it look like a camp. The soldiers meant to wipe out the Apaches. The Apaches hid behind the little hills, and after the soldiers entered the box canyon, the Chiricahua sealed it off with many braves. When the soldiers started shooting at the lodges, the Apaches rose up all around and fired arrows down at the soldiers. The soldiers who tried to ride back out were met by men with lances and bows and were cut down. I didn’t know whether to believe the old man, but I can’t forget that place. When Trask asked me where he could find Cochise and his gold, that’s the spot I marked on the map.”
“That was smart of you, Ted.”
“Do you know the place?”
“I do. The Apaches call it the Canyon of Blood.”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Perfect,” Zak said.
An hour later there arose a hush over the land. O’Hara felt it and glanced around, an apprehensive look on his face.
Rivers and Scofield went quiet, too, and began scanning the land all around them.
“It’s so quiet,” Colleen said. “All of a sudden.”
Then she let out a cry as a nearly naked man emerged out of the dust and rock ahead of her, his face painted for war, a rifle in his hands, a pistol hanging from his waist.
“That would be Anillo,” Zak said. He raised his right hand in greeting.
“He—He nearly scared me to death,” Colleen said in a breathy whisper.
Anillo held up his hand, then turned and ran at a lope up a slight rise.
Zak looked at the sky.
It was not yet noon. The place where Trask was headed, Blood Canyon, was no more than a few hours from where they now were. Time to get there, maybe, before Trask arrived, and set the trap for him, a trap that O’Hara had practically guaranteed.
Time enough for Trask to experience what Zak called an Apache sunset.
As they topped the hill, O’Hara, Colleen, Scofield, and Rivers all gasped at the sight.
There were the Chiricahuas, all mounted on their ponies, their faces daubed in bright colors, the colors of war.
And greeting Zak with open arms was a most impressive man, the fiercest one of them all.
Cochise.
Chapter 30
They sat in a circle, on blankets laid down by the Chiricahua. Cochise puffed on the pipe, blew the smoke to the four directions, passed it to Tesoro, who passed it to his son, Anillo. The pipe was passed to O’Hara, then to Scofield, Rivers, and finally to Cody.
Zak presented Pablo Medina’s rifle and pistol to Cochise, who took them, hefted them, and grinned in appreciation. Next, Zak gave a rifle and pistol to Anillo, items that had once belonged to Al Deets. He handed them pistol and rifle cartridges. The conversation was in Spanish.
“It is good to see Red Hair again,” Cochise said to O’Hara.
“It is my honor to be with the great Cochise,” Ted said.
“And, my brother, Shadow Rider, it is good that you are here.”
“We come, Cochise, to ask you to help us stop a war with the white men. We wish to go to the Canyon of Blood.”
“We will fight there?” Cochise said.
“Yes.”
“Who do we fight?”
“We will take the rifles and pistols from many white men. Red Hair will arrest these men and return them to Fort Bowie, where they will stand trial.”
“You do not want us to kill these white men?”
“I will give you one white man. You will take this man to an Apache sundown.”
“Ah, that is good, Shadow Rider.”
“Let us do this now, Cochise. We must be at the Canyon of Blood before the white men come. We must give them a surprise. I do not want blood to be spilled.”
“You talk of war without blood, Shadow Rider.”
“That is what I want. If we do this, the Chiricahua can live in peace on their own lands.”
When the ceremonies were over, Zak rode with O’Hara and Cochise, while the warriors rode single file ahead of them. In the rear, Colleen was flanked by Rivers and Scofield.
They reached the small entrance to the canyon by mid-afternoon.
“This is the place,” O’Hara said. “It appears to be deserted.”
“Look off to the south,” Zak said. “Toward Fort Bowie.”
O’Hara shaded his eyes and stared at the land for several seconds.
“I don’t see anything,” he said. “Just empty land. Not even a bird.”
“Just above the land, Ted. It’s faint, but it’s there.”
Cochise was looking in the same direction.
O’Hara stiffened. “I see it,” he said. “Is that dust?”
“That’s dust. Men are riding this way, and they’re in a hurry.”
The dust was a faint scrim just above the horizon. The way the sun caught it, the particles shimmered a reddish color, turning a tawny yellow, then back to rose.
“The dust is far,” Cochise said.
“Do you remember the battle here, Cochise?” Zak asked the Chiricahua chief. “Do you remember the story?”
“I remember. We will do as my fathers did.”
Cochise deployed his braves behind the small hills. Anillo and a small band flanked the entrance to the shallow canyon, covering themselves with dirt and lying flat among the desert plants.
“Put Colleen behind that little hill at the farthest end, Ted,” Zak said, “and tell her to stay put. You and I, Scofield and Rivers, will be the gate that closes on Trask and his bunch once they enter the canyon.”
“I don’t see—”
Zak pointed to a series of small mounds about fifty yards from the entrance. “We’ll leave our horses with Colleen and walk there, become like the Apaches.
“You mean lie down in the dirt.”
“That’s what I mean,” Zak said.
In less than fifteen minutes there wasn’t an Apache to be seen. Zak and O’Hara, along with Rivers and Scofield, lay behind the mounds, hats off, concealed by bushes and cactus.
The dust cloud in the sky grew larger.
Zak put his ear to the ground. He could hear the pounding hoofbeats. He knew that the Chiricahua were all doing the same. The Apaches would be able to gauge the distance, and they would be ready.
So would he.
In the stillness, a quail piped a warning as the riders approached. Zak saw them and his heart began to pound in his chest. He looked at Ted and put a finger to his lips. Ted nodded.
Trask, Ferguson, and Welch were at the head of the column. Trask had a map in his hands, while Welch studied a compass.
“That’s the place,” Trask said, his voice loud enough to carry to where Zak waited. Cochise knew what to do. If it worked, it would all be over in a matter of minutes. And no blood would be spilled.
Everything, though, had to work just right.
Zak watched as Trask galloped into the canyon. The riders behind him all filed in, disappeared from Zak’s view.
“Now,” he said, and got to his feet. O’Hara, Rivers, and Scofield all leaped to their feet and followed Zak as he ran toward the entrance. Anillo and six braves appeared like magic out of nowhere, and close by, Tesoro and his men sprouted out of the ground.
At the same time, as Zak and his group joined up with Tesoro and Anillo, Apaches with rifles appeared on the tops of the small hills, their rifles aimed at the outlaws and soldiers. Trask reined in, and all of the men halted their horses. For a long moment they all seemed to be frozen. They looked like statues or figures in a painting.
Zak strode in
to the silent arena.
“Throw down your weapons,” he said. “You are surrounded. If you don’t, the Apaches will kill every one of you, to a man.”
His voice seemed to echo as it traveled from one end of the canyon to the other.
“Do it now, Trask,” Zak shouted, “or I’ll order Cochise and his men to blow you all out of your saddles.”
Trask turned to Welch and Ferguson. Zak couldn’t hear him, but knew he was talking it over.
“Now,” Zak shouted.
The Apaches on the hills leaned toward the men below, rifles at their shoulders. Trask looked at both ends of the canyon and saw the Apaches, O’Hara, Scofield and Rivers.
“Hands up,” Zak ordered, and a dozen Spencers fell to the ground. Hands flew up into the air. More rifles clattered to the ground. The last to surrender was Trask, but the Apaches had him cold, and he knew it.
Zak motioned to Anillo and Tesoro to follow him. O’Hara, Rivers, and Scofield trotted to catch up to him.
Apaches streamed down from the hillocks into the bloodless arena.
“You bastard,” Trask said when Zak walked up to him.
“Get off your horse, Trask.”
In seconds all of the men were surrounded by Apaches. O’Hara and the two soldiers under his command began to take their pistols.
Trask dismounted. “What are you going to do with us?” he asked Zak.
“Some of the Apaches are going to escort Lieutenant O’Hara and his prisoners back to Fort Bowie. You’re staying here, with Cochise. You came after the gold, didn’t you?”
Trask was speechless.
Some Apaches brought horses, and many began to mount their ponies. Others gathered up the rifles and pistols, exclaiming their pleasure at the trophies that had fallen into their hands.
Colleen rode in, leading their horses. Her eyes were wide with wonder. She sat there, looking down at Zak.
Zak grabbed Trask by the collar and took him over to Cochise.
“You’re going to experience an Apache sundown, Trask,” he said. “Think of it as my hole card. What you draw next is going to bust your flush.”
“Huh?” Trask said. “What’s an Apache sundown?”
“You don’t know what an Apache sundown is, Trask? That’s when a Chiricahua stakes you out on an anthill early in the morning, pours sugar water all over your buck naked body, daubs it in your nose and eyes and ears, in your mouth. Ants go crazy over anything sweet. They’ll swarm all over you and start eating you from the inside out. You’ll scream until sundown, if you last that long, and beg for an Apache war club to dash your brains to strawberry jam. After sundown you can’t scream any more and your light goes out, permanent. It’s sundown for you on this life, and old Sol is never going to rise on you again, because by morning the critters will eat you down to bones, and what the coyotes and buzzards miss, the worms will take care of, over time. It’s better than you deserve, Trask, and maybe Hell won’t be so bad at first.”
“You bastard,” Trask said as the Apaches led him away.
O’Hara let out a breath.
“Well, Zak,” he said, “you pulled it off. I didn’t think it was possible, but…”
“We’ll see to it that these men and Willoughby get a court-martial.”
“I didn’t see Deets among these men,” O’Hara said.
Zak laughed.
“We’ll probably find him waiting at that last line shack. He might as well be punished with the rest of them.”
Colleen frowned.
“Will you be around to testify?” she said.
“No, I won’t be there, Colleen. As soon as I deliver these men to Fort Bowie, I’ll be riding on. The judge can read my report in court.”
“Just like that? You’re riding on?”
“Yes. I’ll say good-bye, first, of course.”
“It’s always good-bye with you, isn’t it, Zak?”
Her eyes were misting and there was a catch in her throat. He hated to break her heart, but he could never live in her world.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Yes, with him, he thought, it was always good-bye.
But this one would be the hardest good-bye of them all.
About the Author
JORY SHERMAN is 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, as well as Shadow Rider: Blood Sky at Morning.
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By Jory Sherman
Shadow Rider
APACHE SUNDOWN
BLOOD SKY AT MORNING
THE BARON HONOR
BLOOD RIVER
THE VIGILANTE
TEXAS DUST
THE BARON WAR
THE BRAZOS
ABILENE GUN DOWN
SOUTH PLATTE
VISIONS OF A LOST GIRL
CHILL #1: SATAN’S SEED
CHILL #2: SEPULCHRE
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SHADOW RIDER APACHE SUNDOWN. Copyright © 2007 by Jory Sherman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition September 2007 ISBN 9780061751646
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