A Time for Vultures (17 page)

The coming of the dawn found the battered whore wagon pressed into service as a makeshift hearse. But when the wheels got tangled in thick brush the bodies had to be unloaded and carried into the graveyard.

It took three hours of labor before Flintlock and O'Hara had dug a grave deep enough to accommodate the three bodies. After the earth had been shoveled over the mortal remains of Adam, Rose, and Louisa Flood, Biddy Sales and Lizzie Doulan said prayers for the dead, and then the women sang “Railway to Heaven,” a new hymn recently penned by two devout Southern matrons.

Revealing a whore's sentimentality, tears ran down Biddy's cheeks as she sang the chorus alone. Lizzie was too overcome with grief to continue and was comforted by Margie Tott and Jane Feehan, themselves in a considerable state of anguish.

At the conclusion of the hymn all present—except O'Hara, who'd chanted and danced at a distance from the gravesite—agreed that the little Flood family had received a crackerjack send-off.

The sound of approaching horsemen attracted Flintlock's attention and his hand dropped to his Colt as Charlie Brewster and his men rode close.

When he saw the burial party at the grave, Brewster raised his arm and halted his cavalcade. He swung out of the saddle and walked toward the grave. Unusual for him, he wore two guns in crossed belts, a war sign Flintlock noted.

But the outlaw surprised him.

As his men sat their saddles and watched, Brewster walked to the graveside and without a glance in anyone's direction he removed his hat, bowed his head, and stayed like that for at least a couple minutes. Finally he replaced his hat, stepped away from the grave, and stopped beside Flintlock. “How's your head?”

“It hurts, Charlie. I owe you one.”

Brewster smiled. “I saved your life. You'd have gone after King Fisher and he'd have killed you for sure.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Flintlock said. “Where are you headed?”

“We're off to bring in the good folks of Happyville. King says the smallpox is gone.”

“How does he know?”

“I guess the nice lady doctor told him.” Brewster waved a black-gloved hand toward the grave. “This was none of my doing.”

“You work for the man who did it, Charlie.”

“Flintlock, I'll kill any man who comes at me with a gun in his hand, but I don't make war on women, especially a woman with child.”

“How many men and women are you prepared to kill today, Charlie? Those townsfolk won't return to a plague town without a fight and you know it.”

“As many as I need to. That's what King Fisher is paying me for. If they're willing to disarm and stay disarmed, maybe I won't have to kill any.”

Flintlock was appalled. “You're really going to try taking away their guns?”

Brewster smiled. “King wants to be a dictator, boss people around. He can't get his way unless he disarms his people first.”

“That is the way of dictators,” O'Hara said.

“Injun, I know nothing about that,” Brewster said. “I've never met one of them before.” He turned his attention back to Flintlock. “Sam, if you're so concerned about the Happyville folks, get your horse and follow us. Maybe you'll learn something.”

“Charlie, you've got nothing to teach me,” Flintlock said. “But I reckon me and O'Hara will join you and keep you honest.”

Brewster glanced at the sky where scudding white clouds broke on the horizon like breakers on a beach. “Big wind and it's blowing from the east. I've heard that an east wind can drive men mad.” His eyes hardened. “Don't let that happen to you, Sam.”

* * *

The long grass tossed in the wind as Flintlock and O'Hara followed at a canter the tracks that cut across the flat. Brewster and his men were visible in the distance, like black ants crawling across a billiard table.

“Sammy, has it entered your thinking that there's two of us and a dozen of Brewster's boys and maybe half of them are faster on the draw-and-shoot than either of us?” O'Hara said.

Flintlock nodded. “I'm aware of that. It has entered my thinking.”

“Ah, then that sets my mind at rest.”

“We're not getting into a gunfight, O'Hara. Us just being there may stop a bunch of killings.”

“Charlie Brewster will listen to reason. Is that it?”

“No, it isn't. But he knows if he guns people, I'd have the evidence to hang him.”

“Hell, Sam, just about every lawman on the frontier wants to hang him and he's still kicking. You won't scare him.”

Flintlock shook his head. “O'Hara, I don't know if it's the Irish in you or the Indian, but you sure don't take a sunny outlook on life.”

“Let's just say that right now, when it comes to Charlie Brewster and his boys, all I see ahead of us is doom and gloom.”

“Just let me do the talking if such needs to be done,” Flintlock said.

“And the shooting, if such needs to be done?”

“Leave that to me as well.”

O'Hara nodded. “Well, there you go. Now I feel a sight better.”

Flintlock turned his head. “You just made a good joke, right?”

“Wrong,” O'Hara said. “It was you that made the joke, Sammy.”

Captain Gregory Holden Usher stared into his coffee cup, his mind on King Fisher. He was filled with an odd kind of dread, like a man who has pursued heaven but then found himself in hell.

Fisher was like nothing he'd ever seen, neither automaton nor human but somewhere in between, a creature of flesh and bone and intricately wrought metal. The man's entire right side—arm, chest, and leg—had been forged from steel, brass, and bronze. It was a tangled network of tubes, valves, wires, and here and there, tiny dials no bigger than a man's pinkie nail. Usher had seen him in the company of a man named Clem Jardine, another metal man. Unlike Jardine, there was no metal on Fisher's face, but his right eye was peculiar, made of brass and what looked like colored glass.

Luke Gamble told him he'd heard of a Texas gunman by the name of King Fisher, but he'd been killed in San Antonio a year ago. Could it be the same man? No, that was impossible. It had to be impossible.

Usher looked up as Gamble stepped up to the fire and squatted on his heels. The scout picked up a cup, tossed away some grounds, and then filled it from the pot.

“What did you hear?” Usher said.

“It was King Fisher who shot the rube and made his pregnant wife die of shock,” Gamble said. “They're burying them now.”

“Who's doing the burying?” Usher said.

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not. The riders have gone to bring back the citizens of the town. Seems that they ran away because of the smallpox.”

“Yeah, that's Charlie Brewster's bunch that left to round them up. Brewster worries me.”

“Why?” Usher said.

Gamble lit a cigar. “For an officer and a gentleman you're not too smart, Greg. Doesn't it occur to you that an outlaw like Brewster could be after the payroll?”

“I didn't know they were outlaws.”

“What other kind of gunmen would Fisher hire?”

“Damn. There's a dozen of them.”

“Eleven, counting Charlie.”

“Do you suppose the money is in the wagon?” Usher said.

“It's there all right. That's why Fisher has two shotgun men guarding the livery.”

Usher poured more coffee into his cup. “What do you think of him? Fisher I mean.”

“I don't want to think about him.”

“What the hell happened to him?”

“I don't know.”

“He doesn't look like a man anymore.”

Gamble looked Usher in the eye. “Listen up, Greg. I've fit Apaches, Comanches, Cheyenne, and Sioux and I've killed as many white men in gunfights as you have fingers. I've been shot three times, knifed once, caught the cholera as a younker and lived to tell the tale. Them's my bona fides to prove that I'm not a coward. Well, King Fisher has made me a coward, because I'm scared of him.”

“Stagg and Proud feel the same way?” Usher said.

“You see them setting here with us? They're hiding out in the saloon.”

Usher nodded. “Then that settles it. We grab the payroll today and then light a shuck for Old Mexico.” Usher smiled. “And we'll live like the gentlemen we are, Luke.”

“I never laid any claim to be a gentleman and I reckon it's too late to start,” Gamble said. “My share of the money will buy me whiskey and whores and that's all I ask.” As cutting as a honed blade, he added, “You'll never recapture your glory days in Washington, Captain. We'll end up in the same stinking cantinas, drinking the same rotgut, and buying the same poxed women.”

“If I thought that, I'd shoot myself,” Usher said.

Gamble laughed but said nothing more.

* * *

“Here's how we get it done,” Gregory Usher said. “We stroll up to the livery showing no guns, talk with the guards, and leave it to Luke to kill them.”

“Kill them how?” Ethan Stagg said. “Shots will bring them tin men running.”

“I've killed men with a knife before,” Luke Gamble said. “I'll make it quick and I'll make it clean.”

“Then what, Captain?” Seth Proud said.

“Call me Greg,” Usher said. “I stopped being an officer when I tore off my shoulder straps.”

“Then what . . . Greg?” Proud said, his young face flushing.

“We harness up Fisher's wagon while you and Ethan stand ready with your rifles. Then we light out of this town rich men and don't look back.” Usher smiled at the doubt he saw in the faces of Stagg and Proud. “A simple plan is often the best plan.”

By his own admission, Usher was no longer an officer and Gamble seemed determined to take charge. “Ethan, you and Seth saddle the horses. We'll want to dump the wagon and make the split as soon as possible. After that, we go our own ways. You follow me?”

“Got it,” Stagg said.

“All right. Take the horses to the livery. Greg, there's a bottle of Old Crow in my saddlebags. Get it and then let's you and me go make friends with a couple o' guards.”

“They've stopped,” O'Hara said.

“Looks like they found something,” Sam Flintlock said. “Look, somebody's dismounting for a closer look. Well, let's go join the party.”

Charlie Brewster and his men saw Flintlock and O'Hara from a ways off. The rider swung back into the saddle, but the outlaws sat their horses and waited.

The wind picked up stronger, making the prairie grass dance, and black clouds roiled the sky. The air smelled of ozone, but every now and again Flintlock caught a whiff of rot, of something long dead. O'Hara caught it, too, and he put the back of his hand to his nose and mouth.

They rode into a sand and gravel wash where there were few stands of prickly pear and the skeletal remains of an ancient cottonwood. After they regained the flat, they settled down to a trot and soon rode up on Brewster and his men.

A body lay on the ground, a heavy canvas satchel over its left shoulder. The man wore a Colt, and a Winchester lay close by.

“Dead 'un,” Brewster said as Flintlock and O'Hara drew rein.

Flintlock controlled his prancing horse, upset at the nearness of death, and then studied the bloated corpse. Despite the black flies that crawled over the face, he recognized the man.

“Looks like you know him,” Brewster said.

Flintlock nodded. “His name is Morgan Davis.”

“Friend of yours?” Brewster said.

“No. He was a pimp and a lowdown back-shooter, and I badly wanted to kill him.”

“Too late now,” Brewster said.

“Seems like. What killed him?”

A man spoke up, the one who'd dismounted for a closer look. “Judging by his face, it was smallpox. Looks like he crawled a ways before he died.”

“What's in his poke?”

“I don't know,” the man said. “I didn't want to touch him.”

“He would have to breathe on you to give you the disease,” Flintlock said. “And he long ago used up his last breath.” He swung out of the saddle, hooked the strap of the satchel with his toe, and dragged it off Davis's lifeless body. Flintlock kicked the bag and it made a soft, clinking sound. Taking a knee, he upended the satchel and tipped out its contents . . . a pile of gold watches, rings, brooches and about fifty dollars in coin and bills. “I should also have said Davis was a two-bit thief.”

“Seems like he robbed the folks before he lit out,” Brewster said. “He hasn't been dead long, a couple days at most.”

Flintlock raised his nose and sniffed. “Then if it isn't him, what the hell is that smell on the wind?”

“Maybe the people Davis robbed weren't alive anymore,” O'Hara said.

Flintlock said, “If he robbed the dead, wouldn't the living have stopped . . . him . . . oh, my God.” He looked at Brewster. “They're all dead.”

“No, it can‘t be.” The big outlaw turned in the saddle and stared east across the flat as though he hoped to see hale and hearty people walking toward him. There were none. The only movement was the ripple of grass and the scurry of clouds . . . and the flash of lightning and bang of approaching thunder.

“They were crowded together and the sick spread the disease to the well,” Flintlock said. “Chances are they had little food and water and didn't have the strength to fight the plague that had descended on them. Maybe they're all dead, Charlie. They aren't going back to Happyville or anyplace else.”

Brewster managed a smile. “Or they're all sitting around fires, drinking whiskey and wishing they had shelter from this rain that's just started.”

“There's one way to find out, I guess,” Flintlock said.

“You heard the man, boys,” Brewster said. “Let's go find the nice folks of Happyville. And remember, ride into the camp like we was visiting cousins. We don't want to alarm them. At least, right off we don't.”

A man who rides a horse across the flat in a thunderstorm is always acutely aware that he is the tallest thing for miles around and it causes him no end of worry. Brewster, as uneasy as any, had his men dismount and lead their horses and Flintlock and O'Hara followed suit.

In a relentless raking rain, they began to find bodies, sometimes singly, others huddled together where families had perished. Smallpox was deadly. The people of Happyville had little defense against it. Crammed together, clinging to one another for comfort and support, they made themselves easy prey for a virulent, pitiless killer. Their camp was a field of bones where only the glutted vultures moved.

* * *

Moving through the rain with lightning flashes glistening on their wet clothing, Flintlock and O'Hara drew off at a distance, upwind of the dead.

Flintlock, badly shaken, tried to build a cigarette, but the downpour battered tobacco and papers from his fingers, and he gave up the unequal struggle. After a few minutes, a hollow-eyed Charlie Brewster joined them. His lips moved but no sound came. He made an effort and said finally, “Flintlock, I never seen the like. How many?”

“Hundreds. Two hundred at least. I think some of them already walked away from it and died somewhere else.”

“Children,” Brewster said, the dim, ashy light hardening in his eyes. “There are dead children.”

Flintlock nodded. “Seems like.”

Brewster said, “You seen that many dead white folk before, O'Hara?”

O'Hara shook his head. “When I was a boy, and old age was respected, I saw old white people sitting on sunny doorsteps, playing in the sun with the children until they all fell asleep. Then, at last, an old person would not wake up. But it was only one death, one white person. No, I have not seen that many dead white people before.”

“You've never been in a war,” Brewster said. “Many white people die in wars.”

“This was not a war,” O'Hara said.

“No it wasn't,” Brewster said. “And I'm talking like a damned fool because I don't know what else to say.”

Flintlock said, “I'm sure King Fisher will have plenty to say. Those people out there were to be the start of his empire. He'll be a mighty disappointed man.”

Brewster said, “Do you think he's really King Fisher?”

“I think back in the day he was.” Flintlock shook his head. “He isn't any longer.”

“What is he?” Brewster said.

“Monster? Creature? Demon? Insane tin man? Take your choice,” Flintlock said.

“Employer?” Brewster said, grinning.

As though the gods were angry over that statement, thunder crashed and the rain grew in intensity. O'Hara glanced at the sky and looked worried. The downpour was so heavy the horizon was invisible, lost in gray mist.

“I'm heading back,” Flintlock said. “I plan to tell King the good news.”

“I'm through here,” Brewster said. “King wanted me to help found his outlaw empire and take over the entire nation with him as president. That doesn't set well with me. I like our country just the way it is.”

O'Hara tore his gaze from the racked sky. “King Fisher's dream is the vision of a madman. He fears hell and now plans to live forever.”

“He told you that?” Brewster said.

“Me, he told me.” Flintlock pointed to himself. “He said that after he got shot in San Antone, he died and got a glimpse of the condemned in hell.”

Some of Brewster's men were listening and they eyed him with a
what-the-hell-did-you-get-us-into?
expression. Their concern did not go unnoticed.

“We're heading south, boys,” he said. “Away from this damned rain and away from King Fisher.”

Despite the miserable day, this drew a few cheers.

“All right, mount up,” Brewster said. “And let's ride.” He extended his hand to Flintlock. “Real pleasure to meet you, Sam. You ever want to get back into the bank-robbing profession, look me up.”

“If hard times come down, I'll keep that in mind,” Flintlock said.

“You too, O'Hara,” Brewster said, touching his dripping hat brim.

He climbed into the saddle and he and his men rode into distance making their slow way through the raging day.

Flintlock watched them go and then said, “Right nice feller, Charlie, when he ain't shooting folks.”

“I reckon so.” O'Hara looked out over the lightning-glimmering grass. “What about the dead, Sam? Those people should have a Christian burial.”

Flintlock nodded. “More burying than we can handle. First chance I get, I'll tell the Rangers.”

“They can scrape the bones together,” O'Hara said. “That's what will be left.”

“You know the real tragedy here, O'Hara? It's the fact that all those people are dead and there's not a damned thing we can do about it.”

O'Hara said nothing.

“All right then, there is one thing we can do,” Flintlock said. “We can ride away from it and not look back.”