A Time for Vultures (6 page)

Riding over the flattened buffalo grass that marked the trail the Stantons had taken to Happyville, Flintlock and O'Hara followed the loops toward the timberline in the distance. The sun was low on the horizon, rising into a flaming sky streaked with jade and amber. The morning was cool and the breeze hinted at the coming fall. The fair land had banished the night shadows and was ready to welcome the new aborning day.

“Flintlock, you really didn't need me to read this trail,” O'Hara said. “It's as plain as the nose on your face, if you don't mind me saying so.”

“I needed an Injun to help me wrangle the horses,” Flintlock said. “And I'd be grateful if you'd keep my nose out of any further discussions.”

“It troubles you, huh?”

“If it was yours, wouldn't it trouble you?”

“Not in the least,” O'Hara said. “That there is a beak, a proboscis, a snout, a honker, a hooter, and a schnozzle, better yet, a schnozzola. Man should be proud of a nozzle like that. Yes sir.”

“Let me ask you a question, O'Hara. Do you mind?”

“Ask away, Sammy.”

“How would you like me to pull my gun and shoot you right off the back of that pony?”

“A bit grouchy this morning, are we?”

“I'm always grouchy when people discuss my nose. They are usually impolite and lowdown.”

“Sorry Sam. I won't mention your smeller again.” O'Hara shook his head. “But I never noticed until I saw the morning light shine on it just how big it really is.”

“Injun, you're playing with fire,” Flintlock said. He kneed his horse into a canter.

O'Hara followed, grinning.

* * *

The Stantons had staked out the stolen horses on a patch of rocky ground where the grass was thin. Flintlock and O'Hara released the hungry animals and let them graze. To the joy of both men, a full pot of coffee stood among the dead coals of the campfire. O'Hara soon had a fire going with the pot in the middle of it.

As they drank the coffee, O'Hara stared at Flintlock for long moments before he said, “I heard you talking to Biddy Sales last night.”

“Hell, I didn't see you.”

“I know. I'm half Injun, remember.”

Flintlock fished something out of his coffee. “Did you hear me say that Lizzie Doulan should talk to you?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“She's a crazy lady.”

“She believes she can never die,” O'Hara said.

Flintlock nodded. “Wild Bill Hickok believed that as well and look what happened to him.”

“I'll talk to her,” O'Hara said. “Pontius Pilate.”

“Huh?”

“Lizzie says she was visiting Pontius Pilate, the man who condemned Christ.”

“By the time you talk to her, O'Hara, she'll probably believe she was Pontius Pilate himself. Crazy folks have all kinds of notions. I mind one time up in the Montana Bitterroot Mountains country an English feller thought he could fly.”

“And could he?”

“Well, he jumped off Trapper Peak and flapped his arms all the way down. He must have dropped ten thousand feet before he hit ground.” Flintlock shook his head. “There wasn't much left of him to bury, so they planted him in an Arbuckle coffee sack.” His face creased in thought. “Yeah, now I recollect that his name was Professor Ezra Shoredish and he was as crazy as a loon.”

“He'd have to be to jump off a mountain,” O'Hara said.

“O'Hara, when you talk with the crazy lady tell her to steer clear of mountains. She might just take a notion to jump.”

“Suppose Lizzie is telling the truth?” O'Hara said.

“If you think that, you're as nuts as she is,” Flintlock said.

“Where are the people?” Biddy said.

Flintlock had just gotten through forking some of the rapidly dwindling supply of hay to the horses and he straightened his back. “That's a big mystery. How do you expect me to answer your question?”

“You were out in the flat but didn't see a living soul,” she said. “If the citizens of Happyville ran away from the plague, some of them must surely have headed farther west into the long grass.”

“I reckon they put a lot of git between them and the town and are scattered to hell and gone. We could only see as far as the horizon, and they're likely well beyond that by now.”

“I still think it's strange that they vanished without a trace,” Biddy said. “While you were gone, me and Margie counted up the houses and the shacks and reckoned that Happyville had at least five hundred people who called this place home. Five hundred men, women, and children don't vanish off the face of the earth without a trace. Do they?”

“I don't know and to tell you the truth, I really don't much care,” he said. “We're pulling out of here tomorrow and I hope we don't carry smallpox with us.”

“Flintlock, I want to find Morgan Davis first,” Biddy said. “I owe him that much.”

“He's a damned pimp. You owe him nothing.”

“Morg saved my life in Fort Worth. Shot a man in a Hell's Half Acre bawdy house who was about to cut me up real bad. I told him then that I owed him. That was two years ago and I've done nothing since to return the favor. If I can find Morg and give him back his money, I'll consider us even.”

“You're on your own, Biddy,” Flintlock said. “You want to find Davis. I want to find my mother, so we'll go our separate ways. What do the other women plan to do?”

“Lizzie will stay with me. I don't know what Jane Feehan and Margie Tott have decided.”

“I'll ask them.” He walked to the door of the barn.

Biddy followed. She had shadows under her eyes and curled tendrils of hair tumbled onto her forehead. The woman looked tired, the kind of soul-numbing tiredness that comes from the wear and tear of living and not lack of sleep. She sniffed and said, “The smell of this town is getting unbearable. I can scarcely stand it any longer.”

Flintlock nodded. “Bodies are rotting. It will get worse before it gets better. Come tomorrow, we'll be well gone from this hellhole.”

“I hope you find your ma, Flintlock. You're a rootless man and the wind blows you. Maybe when you find her, you'll settle.”

“Maybe so. What about you?”

“I thought whoring would be my life and then I'd grow old. Men wouldn't want me any longer and I'd take to laudanum and gin and then die. But I think I've found a purpose in my life.”

“You mean taking care of the crazy lady,” Flintlock said.

“Yes, watching over Lizzie. But she's not crazy. She honestly believes she's been alive since the time of Christ.”

He shook his head and initially said nothing. But after a few moments he found words enough to say, “The lady is sick in the head, Biddy. She needs help.”

“And I'll see she gets it. Maybe we'll head east and I'll see if I can find one of them doctors that treat Lizzie's kind of sickness.”

“It's a thought,” Flintlock said.

Biddy looked at him as though she expected him to say more, but when he remained silent, she said, “Margie has a skillet of canned beef and beans cooking on the saloon stove. You and the Indian are welcome to come eat, if the stink hasn't taken away your appetite.”

“It hasn't,” Flintlock said. “And thank you for the invite. We'll be over in a few minutes.”

She grinned. “Don't forget to bring candy and flowers, big boy.”

* * *

In the echoing emptiness of the saloon, Flintlock and O'Hara ate beef and beans with the four women. It was not yet dark, but to keep out the stench of rot and decay Biddy had closed the storm doors behind the batwings and shuttered the windows. The place was lit by oil lamps that smoked badly and cast shadows that brought furtive life to the walls, so many dancing phantoms seeking partners for a devilish cotillion. She had liberally sprinkled lavender water around the saloon floor to cut the odor from outside, but the smell still leaked into the building like a poisonous gas.

Marge Tott laid down her fork and said, “Am I the only one who hears that?”

“Hears what?” Flintlock made an effort to appear relaxed, but the fact that he'd charged his Hawken with powder and ball and kept it close gave the lie to that. In times of trouble the trusted old rifle was both wife and child to him.

“That strange noise,” Margie said.

“I don't hear it,” Flintlock said. “Maybe it's the wind.”

O'Hara said, “There is no wind.” Then to Margie, “You have good ears, woman.”

“You hear it?” the woman said.

“Yes, for the past hour or so. It surges like waves on a shore.”

“Then what is it?” Margie said.

O'Hara shook his head. “I don't know.”

Flintlock pushed his plate away, sighed, and leaned back in his chair. “You make good beef and beans, Margie.” He rose to his feet and picked up the Hawken. “I reckon I'll take a stroll outside, look at the stars for a spell.”

“And listen to the strange sound,” Margie said.

Flintlock nodded, grinning. “Yeah, I'll be sure to do that.”

The strange sound worried the hell out of Sam Flintlock.

A dull, pulsing roar, it came from east of town somewhere out in the flat.
Is it a steam locomotive? No, impossible.
Happyville was miles from the nearest railroad. More important, did whatever caused the damned noise pose a danger?

He stared at the sky. A halo surrounded the horned moon.
Is that a bad omen?
He remembered a line he'd read.
Here there be dragons
. Where had he read that? He couldn't remember. In a storybook probably, maybe one about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Them old boys were forever rescuing maidens from fiery dragons.

All kind of varmints lived in West Texas, but no dragons, fiery or otherwise, so the noise was being made by something else.

Well, there was one way to find out. Flintlock stepped into the livery and threw the saddle on his horse.

“Going somewhere, boy?”

Flintlock tightened the cinch and said, “Looks like it, don't it, Barnabas?”

“You're an idiot, Sammy. I should've left you in the Louisiana swamp with them man-eating Injuns.”

“As I recall, you didn't do much to help me get out of there.” Flintlock turned and saw old Barnabas standing in an unoccupied stall.

He wore a smock and some kind of strange floppy hat. He'd set up an artist's easel and dabbed at a canvas with the thin paintbrush in his right hand. In the other, he had his thumb through a palette. Even in the dark, Flintlock saw that the predominant colors were scarlet, orange, and black.

“What are you doing, you crazy old coot, and what's that thing on your head?” he said.

“What should be obvious, even to you, is that I'm painting a picture,” Barnabas said. “And my chapeau is called a beret. It's French. You-know-who says that the great Henri Rousseau wore one just like mine. He badly wanted Henri as his guest, him and Vincent van Gogh, but they slipped through his claws. Fingers. I meant, slipped through his
fingers
.”

“Let me see the picture,” Flintlock said.

Barnabas shook his gray head. “Boy, this is a painting of the lowest level of hell. One glance would drive you insane, and you're already crazy enough.” He gathered up his easel, brushes, and paints and said, “When are you heading for the Arizona Territory to hunt for your ma?”

“I'm pulling out of here at first light,” Flintlock said.

“The kingfisher has other ideas about that,” Barnabas said.

Suddenly Flintlock was alarmed. “What do you mean?”

“You'll find out.” Barnabas slowly dissolved into mist, but his voice remained like an owl hooting in distant darkness. “Barnabas, you raised an idiot.”

* * *

The familiar odor of sulfur remained after the old mountain man vanished, but Flintlock dismissed him from his mind. He leaned the Hawken against a wall. The old rifle could reach out, but its blinding flash was not suited for night work. He'd rely on his booted Winchester. He mounted and rode out of the barn.

In the distance, the mysterious noise still throbbed and he was determined to identify it. If the sound posed any danger, he'd deal with it. Suddenly, an unsettling thought struck him.
Does it have anything to do with the kingfisher?
Flintlock's brain told him no, but his gut instinct warned him that the noise had
everything
to do with the kingfisher.

Sam Flintlock rode east through a tunnel of darkness, allowing his horse to pick its way. The breeze that had been still all day rose again and rustled among the buffalo grass where the scurrying, squeaking creatures lived. The moon climbed high, spreading a blurred light among the dim stars.

The noise grew louder, a rumble like far-off thunder . . . or the voice of divine retribution.

After an hour, he saw lights in the distance. Scattered across the prairie to the north, they were dull red in color like the burned-out cinders of fallen stars. He drew rein and his gaze probed the murk. He nodded, his eyes confirming his suspicion that he was seeing campfires, at least two score of them. Since the Apaches were long gone from that part of Texas, the fires had been built by a much different tribe . . . the lost citizens of Happyville.

Flintlock's horse tossed its head, the bit chiming. It pranced a little, eager to get back on the trail, but he held his mount in check and listened into the night. He heard no sound from the camp, nothing he could identify as the cadenced rumble he'd been following. The noise was still to his east, somewhere out there in the blackness.

After a last lingering look at the encampment, he kneed his mount into motion. He was strangely uneasy, like a man opening the door to a darkened room, distrustful of what lies within.

Flintlock had ridden less than a dozen yards when his horse suddenly reared and he found himself flat on his back. A moment later, a fanged, snarling wolf sprang on top of him, its slavering jaws lunging for the thunderbird tattoo on his throat. Flintlock desperately held off the animal with his left hand while his right probed for the Colt in his waistband. It was gone, lost when he fell. He used both hands to battle the wolf, trying to throttle it, but he knew he fought a losing battle. The wolf was immensely strong and unspeakably savage. Strands of saliva from the animal's jaws dripped onto Flintlock's face and its snapping teeth were only inches from tearing him apart.

Suddenly, he heard the clanking of a heavy chain and the wolf was gone.

“Stay right where you're at or I'll turn him loose on you again.” It was a man's voice, but strangely high-pitched, almost childlike.

During the wolf's initial attack, its fangs had raked Flintlock's forehead and when he wiped his face with the back of his hand it came away bloody. He raised his head and his eyes opened wide in surprise.

Facing him stood a tiny man and a gray wolf, the wolf almost as tall as the man. The dwarf grasped a chain that circled the animal's neck and in his other hand he held a Colt, the hammer back. The man's head was of normal size and well formed. His face was quite handsome, but his body was terribly stunted, the arms and legs very short and stumpy. Flintlock had seen dwarfs before at a circus, but this was the first time he'd ever met one up close, and it would probably be the last. The little man seemed to have every intention of shooting him.

“Why are you here?” The dwarf wore a fine gray top hat with a pair of goggles parked above the brim. A thick gold watch chain crossed the front of his brocade vest.

The wolf attack had shaken Flintlock and it took him some time to collect his thoughts.

“I won't ask you the same question a second time,” the little man said.

Flintlock shook his head, clearing his fogged brain. “I was following the sound.”

“What sound?”

“The roar. Can't you hear it?”

The wolf growled a threat at Flintlock and the little man had to pull it back, a feat of considerable strength since the huge animal must have weighed at least a hundred and twenty pounds.

“Easy, Quicksilver,” the dwarf said. “It is I who will decide this man's fate, not you.” He stared hard at Flintlock. “The noise you hear is the engine of Helrun the Black Howler warming up for her journey tomorrow.”

“Who is she? Or what is she? Is she a locomotive?”

“You'll find out,” the dwarf said. “She shakes the earth and sets the night afire. That's all you need to know.”

Flintlock decided to cut his losses. “Ah, so it is. Well, I'll be on my way as soon as I round up my horse.”

“No, you will come with me.” The little man's wolf was a fearsome weapon, but the Colt in his hand was just as lethal. He pointed the revolver at Flintlock and said, “Are you one of the folks camped on the flat?”

Flintlock shook his head. “They're from a town west of here.”

“I know that,” the dwarf said.

“It's a smallpox town.”

“I know that as well. Mister, there ain't much I don't know. Pick up your gun and then catch your hoss. We got some traveling to do.”

Flintlock smiled. “You trust me with my gun?”

The little man was scornful. “Who the hell is scared of you?”

Annoyed, Flintlock said, “My handle is Samuel Flintlock. You may have heard that name.”

“Sure I heard it,” the dwarf said. “You're the loco bounty hunter who talks to dead people.”

Flintlock said, “I'm not loco and I only talk to one dead people.” Aware of how truly crazy that sounded, he added, “Or so folks say.”

“Hell, mister, I don't care how many dead people you talk to,” the little man said. “Now do as I told you or I'll let Quicksilver do my telling for me.”

Irritation niggled at Flintlock, but he let it go. He decided to stay on the trail and see where it led. After all, that's why he was there.

* * *

Flintlock's stud was uneasy at the close proximity of the wolf and to make matters worse, he'd come up lame. Surprised by how rapidly the dwarf moved on his short legs, Flintlock led his restive horse eastward, following the dwarf across rocky, broken ground until they met up with flat grassland again.

Half an hour later, the little man swung north with no break in his stride, the wolf loping at his side.

Flintlock, wearing new boots made on a narrow Texas last, had been hobbling in pain for the last twenty-five minutes, and he vented his spleen on the dwarf. “Hey, Shorty, hold up there,” he yelled. “I need to rest a while.”

The little man turned and stepped closer to Flintlock, his hand on the growling wolf's chain. “Not far now. You will come now.”

“The hell I will, runt,” Flintlock said, angry now. “We do as I say and rest for a spell.”

The little man thought that over and then said something to the wolf, a series of growls and guttural whispers that Flintlock didn't understand.

“What did you just say to that skillet licker?” Flintlock said. “I don't speak wolf.”

“He will not harm you,” the little man said. Then he moved with lightning speed, stepped into Flintlock, and effortlessly threw him over his shoulder.

Outraged, Flintlock yelled, “Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

“I will carry you,” the little man said.

“The hell you will.” Flintlock's head dangled over the dwarf's shoulder and he'd lost his hat. “Let me down, you little runt.”

“Will you walk?”

“I'll walk.”

The dwarf threw off Flintlock, who landed heavily flat on his back. Infuriated, he said, “Damn you. I ought to put a bullet in you.”

“If you do, a second later the wolf will tear you apart.” The little man bent from the waist until his face with glittering black eyes was close to Flintlock's and he whispered, “In the fairy stories, there is always an evil dwarf, is there not? Well, I am he.”

Flintlock nodded. “I've been inclining to that way of thinking.” He drew from the waistband and shoved the muzzle of his Colt into the little man's face. “I also have a notion to blow your head off and take my chances with the lobo.”

“It's best you keep me alive,” the dwarf said. “A time is coming when you may need a friend.”

“You're not my friend,” Flintlock said. “Now where are we going? No, don't move. Stay right where you are with my gun barrel up your nostril.”

“To the camp of the king,” the dwarf said.

“King? What king?”

“King Fisher,” the little man said.