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Those who inhabit the harsh, beautiful, blood-red land between Tucson and Fort Bowie have never seen the like of the Shadow Rider—who appears out of nowhere and vanishes just as suddenly in the desert heat. Now death and lies surround him again. The Apache are under siege for murders they didn't commit—and Cody's riding hell-for-leather into a war where nothing's what it seems. But his mission is to get to the truth . . . and to kill the cause of the bloody chaos—even if it means laying down his own life.
E-Book Content
SHADOW RIDER BLOOD SKY AT MORNING JORY SHERMAN For Arlie Weir Contents Chapter 1 Zak Cody cut sign that morning just after he passed… 1 Chapter 2 Zak holstered his pistol, climbed up onto the seat of… 11 Chapter 3 The memory of that day had come unbidden, dredged up… 20 Chapter 4 Major Willoughby read the short note attached to the back… 30 Chapter 5 The tracks were still fresh, clearly visible even in the… 40 Chapter 6 Zak knew how dangerous Felipe had become. He’d just been… 49 Chapter 7 Zak saw the flash out of the corner of his… 59 Chapter 8 Ben Trask poured two fingers of whiskey into Hiram Ferguson’s… 69 Chapter 9 The two men continued to argue. They had been at… 79 Chapter 10 That was the story Zak heard as told to him… 89 Chapter 11 Sergeant Leon Curtis bellowed down from the driver’s seat. 98 Chapter 12 The land shimmered under the furnace blaze of the sun. 107 Chapter 13 The Big Fifty. 117 Chapter 14 Lieutenant Theodore Patrick O’Hara dozed on the bunk, pretending to… 127 Chapter 15 Cloud shadows grazed across the land like the lingering and… 139 Chapter 16 Colleen fanned herself as she faced the class of Chiricahua… 148 Chapter 17 In the distance, across the eerie nightscape of the desert,… 156 Chapter 18 Ben Trask cursed the rising sun. He jerked the cinch… 166 Chapter 19 They rode through the night and into the dawn, Zak,… 176 Chapter 20 The eastern sky drained its blood, turned to ashes. Tiny… 185 Chapter 21 Trask pulled his hat brim down to shield his eyes… 195 Chapter 22 Zak clamped a hand over Colleen’s mouth and pushed her… 203 Chapter 23 Julio Delgado heard a sound. He looked up from the… 211 Chapter 24 Delbert Scofield finished smoking his cigarette, crushed it to bits… About the Author Other Books by Jory Sherman Cover Copyright About the Publisher 221 Chapter 1 Z ak Cody cut sign that morning just after he passed Dos Cabezas. The tracks were both disturbing and puzzling. There was blood, too, mixed in with the dirt and the rocks. At least six men, he figured, on unshod ponies, had lain in wait for the stagecoach. There were drag marks, and these led him to a gruesome discovery. The bodies of two men lay spread-eagled on their backs near a clump of mesquite and cholla. Their throats were cut, gaping like hideous grins. Bluebottles and blowflies crawled over the wounds and clustered on their eyes. The men were hatless and scalped. They wore army uniforms and they had been stripped of their sidearms. Zak stepped off his horse to examine the dead men more closely. One of them, a young lieutenant with blond fuzz still on his face, had blood on his shirt, a few inches under his armpit. He pulled the shirttail out and saw the wound. It appeared the young man had been stabbed there. The other man wore a sergeant’s chevrons on his shirt. He had a dragoon moustache and there were small scars on his face that had long since healed. A fig