Free A Time for Vultures by William W. Johnstone Page A

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.
    â€œStay 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.
    â€œWhy 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.
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œWhat sound?”
    â€œThe 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.
    â€œEasy, 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.”
    â€œWho is she? Or what is she? Is she a locomotive?”
    â€œYou’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.”
    â€œNo, 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.”
    â€œI know that,” the dwarf said.
    â€œIt’s a smallpox town.”
    â€œI 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