A Time for Vultures

by William W. Johnstone

  Sally had met Janey the day she first arrived in Bury and found herself in the middle of a shoot-out. Shortly thereafter, Sally had learned that the Pink House was a brothel, that Flora was the owner or madam of that house, and that Janey Garner was not only the business manager of the PSR Ranch, she was also the mistress of Josh Richards, who was the majority owner of the ranch.

  Despite what she’d learned, Sally passed no judgment on anyone. On the contrary, Flora and Janey had become her closest friends. She’d also become friends with all the girls who worked at the Pink House.

  At the moment, Emma was Sally’s partner in a game of whist. It became obvious that they were losing the hand.

  Emma sighed. “Oh dear. I’m afraid I overbid the deal. I’m such a nincompoop.”

  “Nonsense, you are just a woman who bids with a degree of unbridled courage,” Sally said, and the others laughed.

  As the game continued, conversation picked up.

  “You being from the Northeast, you more’n likely didn’t see much of the war, did you,” Emma asked Sally, making the sentence more a declarative statement than a question.

  “I didn’t see any of the war, except for what I read in the newspapers,” Sally replied.

  “You were lucky,” Emma said. “I lived in Corinth, Mississippi. We had a very big battle real close by.”

  “Yes, I read about Pittsburg Landing,” Sally acknowledged. Emma shook her head. “No, it was Shiloh.”

  “In the South, you called it Shiloh. In the North, we called it Pittsburg Landing.”

  “How odd. Well, I remember all those wounded boys being brought into town. I was very young then, but I remember it very well. Wounded boys were lying out on the lawns of people’s houses, on their front porches, even.” Emma shook her head again and sighed at the memory. “It was just awful.”

  Sally reached across and put her hand on Emma’s. “Oh, you poor dear. I’m sure it must have been bad for you.”

  “Let’s change the subject. I see no reason we should talk about such horrid things.” Janey had her own terrible memories of the war, memories that she didn’t want to share. “Tell us about New York,” she said to Sally. “I know you once said you had been there.”

  “Yes, I’ve been there. I have an aunt who lives there.”

  “Oh, please do tell us about it,” Emma said.

  “It is almost indescribable. Trains whiz along on elevated tracks throughout the city. The streets are crowded with carriages and wagons that never seem to stop. And at night the entire city uses gaslights, so that when you look out your window it is as if you are gazing at a huge, sparkling jewel.

  “But it is most impressive at Christmas. All the stores, even the lampposts, are decorated for the holiday. Swags of green are stretched between lampposts from one side of the street to the other so that when you travel, you are traveling under a green canopy.”

  “Did you ever attend the Woods Museum and Metropolitan Theater?” Flora asked.

  “Yes. I saw a delightful production there, called Ixion.”

  Flora laughed. “I was in that production.”

  “Oh, my!” Sally said. “How wonderful to meet someone famous!”

  “I wasn’t famous, dear. I was just one of the women wearing tights and a bodice that revealed my bosom.”

  “Oh, I would love to go to New York one of these days,” Emma said. “But I know I never will.”

  “Why not?” Sally asked.

  “Because I think such a large place would just scare me to death,” Emma replied breathlessly.

  “Besides, I could never let her go,” Flora said. “If I did, I’m afraid all the cowboys who have fallen in love with her would riot in protest.”

  “Yes ma’am, we more’n likely would.” Unnoticed, a cowboy had come into the parlor at that precise moment. He stood there holding his hat in his hand.

  “Do you see what I mean?” Flora asked with a little chuckle.

  Janey recognized him as one of the cowboys who worked at the PSR Ranch, and she knew that he was probably there for her. “Hello, Cecil, are you looking for me?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am. Mr. Richards, he sent me to fetch you.”

  “To fetch me? Is that what he said?” The inflection of Janey’s voice displayed her irritation at the word.

  “Well, uh, no ma’am. He didn’t quite put it like that. What he said was, would I go to town and find you and bring you back.”

  “What if I don’t want to go back?”

  “If you don’t want to go, I don’t reckon there’s anything I could do about it,” Cecil said. “But Mr. Richards would more ’n likely be atakin’ it out on me if I was to go back to the ranch without you.”

  “All right,” Janey said, smiling. “I wouldn’t want to see you get in trouble. Go on back. You may tell him that I’ll be there, shortly.”

  “Ma’am, if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon ride alongside your surrey.”

  Flora set her cards on the table. “You don’t have to go back, Janey. You don’t have to go back ever. Just tell Richards that you’ve decided to come work for me.”

  Janey laughed. “Ha, wouldn’t he like that?”

  “Why do you work for him, anyway? You could make as much money here as you do working for him. You could make even more money. I know you don’t have any qualms about our business because someone could say you are doing the same thing for Richards.”

  “That’s true,” Janey said, making no attempt to deny the charge that she was Richards’s mistress.

  “And, my dear, your position with him is tenuous at best. Someone is going to shoot him dead one of these days. Richards’s enterprises, by your own admission, are suspect.”

  “That’s true as well.”

  Janey had no idea that the men she was working for were the same men who had killed her father. She didn’t know, and had no way of knowing, that her father was dead. She had no idea that someone named Smoke was looking for her employers. Even if someone had told her that he was, it wouldn’t have meant anything to her. She didn’t know anyone named Smoke. As far as she knew, her brother, if he was still alive, was named Kirby.

  Denver

  Because there was train service from Denver to Red Cliff, Smoke decided to board his horse at a local livery stable while he was gone.

  “Seven?” the hostler asked. “Your horse’s name is Seven?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you name him that?”

  “I didn’t. He named himself. Look.” Smoke pointed to the white markings on the horse’s face. The markings formed the perfect numeral seven.

  The stable man nodded. “Yeah, I see what you mean. Well, don’t you worry none about Seven while you’re gone. He’s in good hands.”

  Seven looked over at Smoke, who smiled and patted him on the face. “You be a good horse for this nice gentleman. Just rest for a while. I’ll be back soon.”

  Leaving the stable, Smoke walked down to the depot, where he bought a round-trip train ticket with a voucher that Marshal Holloway had given him. “Is the train on time?”

  “We got a telegram from its last stop,” the ticket agent said. “It’s runnin’ no more than fifteen minutes or so late. It won’t be too much longer. Just have a seat and make yourself comfortable, Deputy.”

  “Thanks, I will.” He bought a newspaper, then took a seat on one of the padded benches in the waiting room.

  A young mother was sitting just across from him, and he touched the brim of his hat in greeting. She nodded her head in reply. Her son was sitting on the floor in front of her, playing with a carved horse and wagon.

  Smoke began carefully reading the newspaper, looking, as he always did, for any mention of the names Richards, Stratton, or Potter. It didn’t seem likely that he would find them as easily as seeing their names in the paper, but he didn’t want to leave any stone unturned. People like those three might wind up with their names in the paper. If there were no wanted posters out on them, they wo
uld have no reason to worry so he was pretty sure they would be vain enough to have their names in the paper for just about any occasion.

  After a long perusal of the paper, he put it aside, writing it off as a fruitless attempt.

  “Folks, the train for Golden, Central City, Eagle, Glenwood Springs, and points west has arrived on track number three,” the ticket agent said, holding a speaking tube to his mouth. “If you are holding tickets for that train, you need to proceed to track number three now.”

  The town of Red Cliff wasn’t announced, but Smoke knew it was between Central City and Eagle.

  “Mama, that’s our train!” the little boy shouted, and started running toward the door.

  “Johnny, come back here!” his mother called out in panic.

  Getting up quickly, Smoke ran after the boy, swept him up in his arms, and brought him back to his mother.

  “Oh, thank you, sir,” the grateful mother said. “He is so excited about this train trip. I fear he might get too close to the track and get careless.”

  Smoke tapped the star on his shirt. “You see this badge?” he said to the boy.

  The boy nodded.

  “I’m a United States marshal, and if you don’t want to get into trouble with me, you’ll stay close to your mother. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy replied in an awed voice.

  The mother smiled. “Thank you again. He’ll stay close to me now. He doesn’t want to go to jail. Do you, Johnny?”

  Johnny reached up to take his mother’s hand. “No, ma’am. I don’t want to go to jail.”

  “Then you hold my hand, and we’ll go outside together to board the train.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Outside the depot was the smell of smoke under the car shed, though the roof was high enough that the smoke wasn’t oppressive. Six tracks could be seen under the shed, with concrete walks extending out between them. Four of the tracks were currently occupied, including track number three.

  Smoke glanced toward the faces in the windows of the cars in the train on track number two, which was slowly pulling out of the station. He wondered, in passing, if one of them might be Stratton or Potter or Richards.

  He had never seen Richards, but Smoke somehow knew he would recognize the man if he saw him. He couldn’t explain exactly how—just something in his gut.

  He climbed aboard his train and settled into his seat, then stared out the window as the train departed the station, rolled through the city, and finally into the unsettled countryside.

  His assignment had nothing to do with finding the three men he had sworn to bring to justice, but the badge would give him more flexibility in his search.

  When he asked questions from behind that star, the response was a little quicker and more detailed. The biggest advantage to the badge was that it gave him the freedom an ordinary citizen wouldn’t have when taking the law into his own hands.

  He didn’t have to worry about that. He was the law.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Bury

  As Janey drove the surrey down the road toward the PSR Ranch in response to Josh Richards’s summons, the clop of the hoof beats, not only of the horse pulling the surrey, but also the one Cecil was riding, built a cocoon of sound around her, allowing her to think without distraction. She considered Flora’s offer to come work for her, and she knew that the idea wasn’t all that far-fetched. She had worked in such a place before, for a madam in Dallas known as Chicago Sue. Sue had given her the name she had used for a while, Fancy Lil.

  It was during that time of her life she had met the man known as Big Ben Conyers, one of her customers who had wanted more than an hour of lust, paid for and promptly forgotten. He had fallen in love with “Fancy Lil,” who was touched enough by his devotion to reveal her real name.

  With more between them, Janey had gotten pregnant. When he heard the news, Big Ben had been eager to marry her. He had even taken her to his vast Live Oaks Ranch, north of Fort Worth, and seen to it that she had the best of care until she gave birth to their daughter, beautiful redheaded Rebecca. Janey had promised Ben that they would be married as soon as she recovered from giving birth.

  Instead, she had cut and run, unwilling to saddle him with the disgrace of marrying a fallen woman. And she never, ever wanted Rebecca to hear the vicious taunts of other children about her mother being a kept woman. She wouldn’t doom a child to that sort of life.

  It had been easier to leave, knowing that Ben would raise Rebecca with all the love in his gigantic heart. Easier . . . and at the same time, the most difficult thing Janey Jensen had ever done in her misadventure of a life.

  “There’s Mr. Richards out on the front porch,” Cecil said as they approached the house. His comment broke her reverie. “I’ll put your horse and surrey away, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Cecil.” Janey brought the surrey to a halt, then stepped down and handed the reins to the young cowboy, who led both horses toward the barn. As she approached the porch she could see that Richards was impatient and irritated.

  “Well, I see that ignorant cowhand found you.”

  Janey climbed the steps to the porch, which extended all the way around the big house. “What do you want, Josh? I told you I was going into town for a while.”

  “No doubt to visit with Flora.”

  “Flora is my friend.”

  “She is also a madam who runs a brothel,” Richards said derisively. “If people see you going there enough times, they’ll believe you’re one of the same.”

  “What makes you think they don’t believe that now?” Janey asked. “They all know what I am. It’s just that I’m yours.”

  “You don’t have to be. You could be my wife, you know.”

  Janey started to reply that she would rather be what she was than be his wife, but she held that response in check and forced a smile. “I know that, Josh. And I appreciate the offer. But let’s leave things as they are for now. I enjoy being the business manager for this ranch. It gives me a sense of purpose.”

  “But wouldn’t being my wife give you a sense of purpose?”

  “Not as much. If we were married, I would lose my identity as business manager and just be the wife of one of the owners.”

  “The majority owner,” Richards said quickly.

  Again, Janey managed a smile. “Yes, you would be the majority owner, but I would still be just your wife. Josh, don’t you see that it’s better this way? Besides, why do you need to marry me? Don’t I share your bed from time to time? And don’t you know that wives get headaches a lot more often than mistresses?”

  Richards laughed. “By damn, you’re right. Anyway, that’s not why I had Cecil come get you. I need a paper signed by someone in Denver, and I want you to take it there in person, get it signed, and bring it back to me.”

  “I’ll need five hundred dollars,” Janey said without hesitating an instant.

  “Five hundred dollars?” His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Janey, are you telling me that you are going to charge me five hundred dollars to take a paper to Denver and bring it back?”

  “I’m not going to charge you anything to take a paper to Denver. My goodness, if I couldn’t do a simple thing like that for free, why, I would be the biggest ingrate you ever heard of.”

  “So you aren’t going to charge me for delivering the paper?”

  “Of course not,” Janey said. “Why would I do something like that? It’s like I told you, I’m doing that for free.”

  “I don’t understand. What is the five hundred dollars for?”

  “Darling, you don’t expect me to go to Denver and not buy several new outfits, do you? That five hundred dollars is just a gift. After all, I know you want me to look good. And don’t tell me you can’t afford it, darling, because I do your books, remember? I know full well that you can afford it.”

  Richards looked at her with narrowed eyes for a moment, then abruptly laughed. “You know what? A mistress would be a lot cheaper.”


  “And a wife a lot more expensive,” Janey reminded him.

  He held up his hands in mock surrender. “All right, all right. You got me. I’ll give you five hundred dollars for the trip. But I expect you to come back looking more beautiful than ever.”

  “You are a dear.” With a smile that produced dimples, she kissed the end of her fingers, then touched them to Richards’s lips.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE was the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 300 books, including the series The First Mountain Man, Preacher, MacCallister, Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter, Flintlock, Those Jensen Boys!, Savage Texas, Matt Jensen, the Last Mountain Man, and The Family Jensen. His thrillers include Tyranny, Stand Your Ground, Suicide Mission, and the latest, Black Friday.

  Visit his website at www.williamjohnstone.net.

  Being the all-around assistant, typist, researcher, and fact-checker to one of the most popular western authors of all time, J. A. JOHNSTONE learned from the master, Uncle William W. Johnstone.

  Bill began tutoring J.A. at an early age. After-school hours were often spent retyping manuscripts or researching his massive library of American western history, as well as of more modern wars and conflicts. J.A. worked hard—and learned.

  “Every day with Bill was an adventure story in itself. Bill taught me all he could about the art of storytelling. ‘Keep the historical facts accurate,’ he would say. ‘Remember the readers, and as your grandfather once told me, I am telling you now: be the best J. A. Johnstone you can be.’”