A Time for Vultures

by William W. Johnstone

  Flintlock tried to rise to his feet, but after a snarl from the Apache, he sat down again. “Friendly cuss, ain’t he?”

  “Don’t do that again, Sam,” O’Hara said. “If a Mescalero has any doubt about your intentions, he’ll blow a hole through you with the fifty just to be on the safe side. This one won’t take any sass.”

  After a few minutes, the Apache blew his horn again, the same hunting call. He moved backwards to a cottonwood and sat, his back against the trunk, but he never took his eyes or his rifle off Flintlock.

  “He doesn’t like you, Sam,” O’Hara said. “I think it’s the thunderbird on your throat. It’s bad medicine.”

  “Not much I can do about that,” Flintlock said.

  “Every now and then, smile and tip him a nod. That might help.”

  “I’ll try it.” After a few moments, he said, “There I tried it, but all he did was stare at me and finger that cannon on his lap.”

  “This is one hard-to-please Apache, Sam. Just sit real still until the white men arrive.”

  “Or his kinfolk,” Flintlock said.

  * * *

  “Ravenous wolves of the plains, gentlemen, predators of the prairie. Observe them well. This scum will cut any man, woman, or child in half with a shotgun for fifty dollars. More animal than human, they will surrender to any vice their base, brute natures can devise.”

  Sam Flintlock, his hands tied behind his back listened in silence as the cavalry major, hands on hips, delivered a lecture to his second lieutenant and sergeant on the kind of human trash that stoops low enough to steal an army payroll.

  “Caught red-handed, I’ll be bound,” the major said. “You’ll both hang at Fort Concho, lay to that.”

  “Major, I told you how we come to have the money,” Flintlock said.

  “And a tissue of lies it was,” the officer said. “A dead man arisen from the grave with a dream of power, metal men, infernal machines. Pah! Even a man of honor like myself could make up a more believable lie than that.”

  “It’s the truth,” Flintlock said. “Every word of it. O’Hara, tell him.”

  “Sam, he won’t listen to me,” O’Hara said.

  “Indeed I will not,” the major said. “I refuse to take the word of a ruffian, especially a half-breed cut from the same cloth as his partner in crime.”

  “What about all the people from Happyville dead from smallpox in the long grass?” Flintlock said. “Do you think I made that up?”

  “No, I’m sure you passed that way. The army is aware of that tragic graveyard and its implications,” the major said. “Obviously the dead were carried there by the surviving townsfolk in an attempt to end the outbreak with a quarantine. But when even that desperate measure failed, they set fire to the town and fled. God knows where the poor souls are now. Scattered all over creation, I should imagine. Damn you, sir. You even lie about the hurting dead with your wild tale of starting the fire yourself.”

  Flintlock’s anger flared. “Who the hell are you, mister?”

  “I dislike hearing my name bandied about by low persons, but I am Major Jonathan Starke.” He waved a hand. “This is Lieutenant Uriah Henan and Sergeant Castillo. Both have been ordered to shoot down you and your breed friend like the mad dogs you are should you try to escape.” As though he’d instantly dismissed Flintlock and O’Hara from his mind, the major said, “Lieutenant Henan, we’ll move out as soon as the money has been transferred to the wagon.”

  The lieutenant saluted and left to see to his men. Major Starke stepped to the canvas covered wagon that had 7TH CAVALRY REGIMENT stenciled on its side in black paint, a relic of Custer’s last campaign and a long way from its native Montana.

  Starke had ten buffalo soldiers with him and two guarded Flintlock and O’Hara while the others loaded the money into the wagon.

  After a couple of minutes, Major Starke approached Flintlock again. “I think it’s only fair you know that the paymaster you murdered when you stole the payroll was a very special friend of mine. That is why I’ll applaud your hanging at Fort Concho, especially the moment you drop through the trapdoor and break your damned neck.”

  * * *

  Still as a bronze statue, the Mescalero stood by the wagon and stared out into the grassland. He felt the watcher’s presence, the eyes on him and the others. His vision as keen as that of a hawk, he searched for movement or a flash of metal in the sunlight but saw nothing but the ripple of the buffalo grass in the wind. He was out there, the watcher, but he kept himself hidden. The Apache was uneasy.

  Then came the major’s order to move out, scout to the point. He mounted his horse and rode through a morning that followed him with a thousand eyes.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  The day was hot, the climbing sun promising it would be hotter still. Sam Flintlock and O’Hara, their hands tied behind their backs, feet bound under the bellies of their horses, rode at the rear of the column in the dust. Sergeant Castillo, his carbine across his thighs, shared their misery. On all sides, the flat land stretched away to rippling horizons.

  They were two days out from Fort Concho, moving through rolling country, when O’Hara turned his dust-streaked face to Flintlock and said, “Do you see them?”

  “Yeah, for the last hour. The Apache is riding flank between us and them, a sure sign that he’s worried.”

  “It’s hard to tell, but unless those boys are covered in dust, they seem to be wearing tan uniforms. They sure look like some kind of rurales to me.”

  “Hey, Sergeant, do you see those fellers?” Flintlock said.

  “I see them,” Castillo said.

  “Does the major know?” Flintlock said.

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “Why are they pacing us at a distance?”

  “Hell, if I know,” Castillo said.

  “O’Hara says they look like rurales,” Flintlock said.

  “That’s what I take them to be.” Castillo wiped his sweating face with a large blue bandana. “Either that or some local warlord has himself his own private army.”

  “They could be after the money,” Flintlock said.

  “Sure they are,” the sergeant said. “Right now, they’re trying to work up the courage to come get it. Damned greasers.”

  Flintlock said, “There’s a lot of them.”

  “About a hundred, I reckon—a full-strength troop. If they have the belly for a fight, that’s enough.”

  As Flintlock watched, three of the Mexicans rode out from the others and trotted in the direction of the column. They wore tan colored uniforms, peaked caps, and cartridge belts across their chests. Two of the riders had rifles slung on their backs and the third’s uniform glinted in the sun. He had stars on the collars of his shirt and a row of medals glinted on his breast.

  “They want to parley,” Castillo said, his black eyes amused. “Now the fun begins.”

  “You think it will come to a fight?” Flintlock said.

  “The major isn’t going to give them the money, so what do you think?”

  “Cut us loose, Sergeant, and give us our guns,” Flintlock said. “We’ll be sitting ducks trussed up like this.”

  “You’re prisoners,” Castillo said. “Prisoners don’t fight.”

  The wagon creaked to a stop as Major Starke halted the column. Castillo undid his holster flap and then pulled his horse wide of his two charges to better see and hear what was happening.

  After a while Flintlock said, “Castillo, what are they saying?”

  The sergeant turned a cropped head as big as a nail keg. “The general calls himself Don Carlos Lopes de Peralta. He’s demanding ten thousand in gold and silver coin for safe passage to Fort Concho. By the look on the major’s face, he isn’t buying it.”

  “Damn you. Cut us loose,” Flintlock said, his voice spiked with urgency.

  Castillo ignored that. “Uh-oh, the generalissimo don’t look too happy about that. Wait, the major is calling him out for a bandit and a scoundrel. Well, that tea
rs it.”

  The general and his men galloped away and at the same time Starke yelled the order to dismount and form a skirmish line. Sergeant Castillo joined his troopers, leaving Flintlock and O’Hara alone—helpless, defenseless, and since their horses were tied to the back of the wagon, immobile.

  “We’re targets, Sam,” O’Hara said, stating the obvious.

  Flintlock nodded but said nothing.

  “Here they come.”

  The first charge was a mounted, probing attack made by half the bandits’ number to test the firepower of the buffalo soldiers. The troopers performed well and used their Sharps carbines to good effect, emptying six or seven saddles before the Mexicans called a retreat. There was one casualty on the army side. The Mescalero had been killed early in the fight. Bullets had split the air close to Flintlock and O’Hara and it was obvious they’d be among the first to get hit when the main attack came.

  Sergeant Castillo was a good enough soldier to see the danger and rode to the rear of the wagon and untied his prisoners’ feet. “Get right behind the wagon, you two, and stay there. I see you make a run for it, I’ll shoot you down.”

  Major Starke watched as his prisoners were made to kneel behind the wagon. “You men stay there. Any attempt to escape will be dealt with severely.”

  “We’ve already been told that, Major,” Flintlock said. “For God’s sake, untie our hands and give us a chance to fight.”

  Starke struck a heroic pose and said, “Murderers and thieves cannot be trusted to bear arms. Prisoners ye are and prisoners ye shall remain.”

  “And ye can go to hell,” Flintlock said.

  “They’re coming again!” a voice shouted.

  Moments later, the firing began again . . . in earnest.

  Half the Mexican force had dismounted and attacked on foot, taking advantage of every scrap of cover they could find. The remainder of de Peralta’s men remained mounted behind the firing line. All were armed with Winchesters that would take their toll of the soldiers.

  From his position behind the wagon, Flintlock saw little of the battle. When he saw half a dozen buffalo soldiers fall back and then make an attempt to reform their line, he feared the fight was going badly for the army. Lieutenant Henan, bleeding from a head wound, joined his troopers and fired his Colt at the enemy. Moments later he was cut down in a hail of gunfire, several soldiers falling in the same volley.

  Flintlock frantically tried to untie O’Hara’s wrists, but his swollen fingers were unequal to the task and he gave up as bullets tore through the wagon’s canvas top and forced him to his knees again.

  He saw Major Starke fall, killed instantly by a bullet to his head. Sergeant Castillo downed two bandits with his revolver before a mounted Mexican drove a saber into his chest. The dog soldiers fought to the last man, neither giving nor asking for mercy.

  The shooting died away. Scowling bandits, angry over the high number of their compadres who’d been killed and wounded, surrounded Flintlock and O’Hara and brandished their weapons. One huge, scarred brute, a knife in his hand, stepped to Flintlock. Instead of stabbing him, he turned Flintlock around and cut the rope that bound his wrists. He did the same for O’Hara.

  The big man, an officer of some kind, then said something in Mexican that Flintlock didn’t understand.

  O’Hara translated. “He wants to know why we were prisoners of the Yankee soldiers.”

  Flintlock said, “Tell him we stole the army payroll and they caught us.”

  “Are you sure you want to say that?”

  “Bandits set store by other bandits,” Flintlock said. “Go ahead, tell him.”

  O’Hara translated what Flintlock had said. This drew peals of laughter from the surrounding men, and the officer slapped Flintlock on the back. “Eres demasiado estupido para ser un bandido.”

  “What did he say?” Flintlock said.

  “You don’t want to know,” O’Hara said.

  “Yeah, I do. Tell me.”

  “He says you’re too stupid to be a bandit.”

  Flintlock nodded and grinned at the big man. “And some day I’ll put a bullet in your belly.”

  O’Hara didn’t translate that.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  “I am your father,” General Don Carlos Lopez de Peralta said. “And you are my sons. Welcome to my army.”

  Sam Flintlock and O’Hara lifted their wineglasses as O’Hara said, “You do us great honor, General.”

  “You may call me Excellency,” de Peralta said. “For it is by that title I am known.”

  Outside in the courtyard, women wailed for the dozen dead bandits killed in the action against the buffalo soldiers. At the same time, a fiesta was in full swing as de Peralta’s men got drunk and celebrated the capture of the army payroll.

  His Excellency’s headquarters was located a mile south of the Rio Grande, a former Spanish mission that had seen better times. He had converted the chapel for his living quarters and filled it with looted furniture and rugs. Portraits of long-dead Spanish gentlemen and their dark-eyed ladies hung on the walls.

  De Peralta was an imposing figure. He stood well over six feet, and his great belly hung between his legs like a sack of grain. His eyes were black, overhung by heavy eyebrows. His unshaven face was jowly, the skin open-pored and greasy. The front of his uniform tunic was covered in medals, all of them French and none of them earned. A slender, pretty señorita sat on the man’s massive lap and twirled his lank black hair around her forefinger, pouting at his lack of attention to her.

  De Peralta said, “Flintlock and O’Hara, you are the first of my new recruits. With the Yankee money I can now hire more soldiers and make myself the most powerful man in Chihuahua and perhaps, God willing, all of Mexico after I unseat that popinjay Porfirio Díaz.”

  Flintlock exchanged glances with O’Hara. This crazy man was spouting the same nonsense as King Fisher, chasing the same mad dream of power. It seemed to Flintlock that nothing under the sun ever changes.

  De Peralta waved a dismissive hand. “Now out you go, mis soldados, and enjoy yourselves.” He shrugged. “If you wish, say a prayer for our dead.”

  Flintlock and O’Hara rose to their feet. The general was nuzzling the señorita’s hair, his hand exploring, and they were already forgotten.

  * * *

  If Flintlock thought de Peralta was a trusting man that notion was banished quickly when they left the mission and stepped into the plaza. Two of the general’s soldiers were waiting for them, rifles over their shoulders. Around them, people were dancing and getting drunk, the clothes of the women a riot of color, a swirling cascade of blue, yellow, and red as ever changing as a kaleidoscope. The rhythm of guitars provided a pulsing counterpoint to the laughter of the señoritas and the drunken roars of the soldiers.

  Their two stone-faced shadows following them, Flintlock and O’Hara stepped through the maelstrom of noise and color and found a table away from the crowded plaza and shaded by a tree. They sat, but their guards remained standing. Almost immediately a smiling woman laid a bottle and two earthenware cups between them.

  Flintlock grinned at the guards. “Won’t you boys join us?” This drew blank looks and he said to O’Hara, “Good. They don’t speak English.” He uncorked the bottle and sniffed. “Tequila.” He poured a cup for himself and one for O’Hara. “All right. How the hell do we get away from here?”

  O’Hara tried his drink, made a face, and pushed the cup away from him. “We have no guns, no horses, and a couple hardcases guarding us, so I can’t come up with a plan right at the moment.”

  Flintlock nodded. “Yeah, those two look trigger happy and they’re probably sore as hell that they can’t join in the fiesta.”

  “All the guns they picked up after the fight were thrown into the back of the wagon,” O’Hara said. “I saw your Hawken among them.”

  “I set store by that gun,” Flintlock said. His hand strayed to the pocket of his buckskin shirt but he had no makings. “Damn, I need a
cigarette.” He turned to the guards and made a smoking motion with his fingers.

  Staring at him, the man reached into his shirt and threw tobacco and papers onto the table without saying a word.

  “Obliged.” Flintlock built a smoke, inhaled deeply and said, “O’Hara, don’t look now but I see the army wagon. It’s behind you between two adobe houses.”

  “Guards?”

  “None that I can see. The general already had the money carried into the mission so there’s no need to guard it.”

  “Guns?”

  “Plenty of those around already. I guess they think there’s no need to guard some rifles and pistols.”

  “What’s your thinking on this, Sam?”

  Flintlock drank, watching O’Hara over the rim of his cup. Without taking the cup away from his mouth, he said, “This crowd will be snoring off a drunk tonight. We can grab our guns and then a couple horses.”

  “Without being seen?” O’Hara said.

  “Look around you,” Flintlock said. “Nobody will be awake come midnight.”

  O’Hara’s eyes lifted to the guards. “What about them?”

  “We can take care of them when the time comes.”

  O’Hara was silent and Flintlock said, “Well?”

  “It’s mighty thin, Sam. A heap of maybes there.”

  “No maybes. We can do it just like I said, O’Hara. Trust me on this.”

  O’Hara groaned inwardly but said nothing.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  A crescent moon climbed high in the sky, and Sam Flintlock’s prediction that the fiesta would end in drunken snores had come to pass. The only activity was across the deserted plaza, where torches burned in the darkness and old women prayed for the dead soldiers, their bloody bodies washed and laid out under clean white sheets ready for burial. Couples had sought sweaty beds in the adobe houses surrounding the mission and only a few drunks remained. Propped up against walls, they were snoring.

  As new recruits, Flintlock and O’Hara had not been assigned living quarters and were expected to sleep where they could. They stretched out under the striped awning of what looked like a commissary where spices in jars, strings of peppers, and bottles of tequila were for sale. The place was shuttered, as it had been during the fiesta when the general had supplied the food and drink, and there was no owner in sight.