Skull Moon

by Tim Curran

  Longtree thanked her for her help and left.

  Wynona shrugged and went back to the cadaver of Nate Segaris. "Well, Nate, back to work. Did I ever tell you that I was well-acquainted with your mother? No? It was when you were off fighting the war…"

  3

  Longtree next did what he dreaded: he went to the Sheriff's office.

  He'd dealt with countless local lawmen in his tenure as a federal marshal. They came in all varieties as did all men. Some were kind and friendly, glad for his assistance. Others were suspicious, yet helpful. Still others were like Lauters: arrogant, hateful, self-serving. They saw the advent of a federal man in their territory as an insult, the government's way of saying they weren't doing their job. And nothing could be farther from the truth.

  Longtree fought through the vicious winds and entered the jailhouse. As he feared, Lauters was there. Without the heavy coat on, he was still a large man, earning his nickname of "Big Bill". He was a powerful fellow, Longtree decided, both physically and psychologically. But well past his prime. He was fat, bloated almost, having the look of a man who drank heavily on a daily basis. His face was puffy and white, the eyes bloodshot, blood vessels broken in his nose.

  He was a veteran alcoholic. There was no doubt of this. Longtree, a man who'd battled the bottle himself, knew a drunk when he saw one.

  "Morning, Sheriff," Longtree said.

  Lauters just glared. His pale lips spread in a frown. They didn't have to go very far. "Well, well, well, the Marshal has come to save the day."

  Longtree suppressed a grin. Lauters was drunk. "I need a little information on the murdered men."

  "Well, you won't get it from me."

  "C'mon, Sheriff. What's the point of this? You know the law; you have to cooperate. Help me out here and I'll do my best to stay out of your hair."

  "Yeah, I know the law, mister," Lauters said slowly, his eyes not quite focusing. "I know the goddamn law and I don't need no yellow sonofbitch like you to tell it to me. Damn breed."

  Longtree sighed and put his hat on the desk. "You got a deputy?"

  "None of yer fucking business."

  Longtree sat down and stared at the man. Obviously, he'd been doing some checking to know that Longtree was a half-breed or "breed", as he called it. That meant that he probably knew everything there was to know. Not that it mattered.

  "You're wrong there, Sheriff, it is my business. I'll ask you again: Do you have a deputy?"

  "Goddamn breed. You know how many injuns I've killed? Do you?"

  Longtree grinned sardonically. "Know how many white men I've killed?"

  Lauters stood up, swaying a bit. "I oughta take yer sorry ass out back and teach it a lesson."

  "Nothing you can teach me, Sheriff. Nothing at all."

  "Wanna slap leather, boy? You wanna-"

  "Sheriff." The voice was stern, authoritative. It belonged to a white-haired man with a drooping gray mustache. "That'll be enough now. We got enough problems around here without you being put in your own jail."

  Lauters grimaced and staggered into the back room. Another man came out, shutting the door behind him. He was tall and thin, not more than thirty, wearing a deputy's badge.

  "I'm Doctor Perry," the old man said. "This here's Alden Bowes. We're pleased to meet you."

  Longtree shook hands with both of them.

  "What you're seeing there," Perry said, stabbing his thumb at the back room, "is the wreck of a good man."

  "Too bad," Longtree said.

  Bowes shrugged. "He never used to drink, mister. Maybe a drop or two on Saturday night, never more. I swear to God."

  "I believe you," Longtree said. "The fact remains that he's in a bad way now. He's a menace. A man in his position can't go around in a drunken stupor. He'll kill someone eventually."

  "He wouldn't do that," Bowes affirmed.

  "You don't think so?"

  Neither Perry nor the deputy bothered arguing the point.

  "I gotta get back," Perry said, tipping his hat. "Marshal."

  Longtree took out his tobacco pouch and rolled a cigarette. "I don't know what you might think of me, Deputy, or what the Sheriff has filled your head with, but-"

  "I draw my own conclusions on a man, Marshal."

  Longtree nodded, lighting his cigarette, a cloud of smoke twisting lazily away from his face. "We've got us a major problem here, Deputy. We've got a slew of killings and they ain't gonna stop the way Lauters is doing things. You and I, we'll have to work together on this."

  Bowes leaned back in the chair behind the desk, knowing, as all did, it would soon be his chair. He scratched at his thin beard. "I'm all for that, Marshal. But where the hell do we start? Folks around here are all for putting up a bounty on this animal. You know what that would mean? Every drifter with a gun who fancied himself a hunter would be crawling out in those hills, shooting any damn thing that moved and each other in the process."

  "Yeah, I figured they'd be thinking that way." Longtree smoked and was silent for a moment. "We've got to think this thing out carefully. There's no room for mistakes here. We're dealing with something much more dangerous than any animal I've ever come across."

  "What the hell is it, Marshal? What kills like that? What sort of beast kills like it… enjoys the act of killing?"

  Longtree shook his head. "Something's going on here. Something the likes of which neither of us have ever seen."

  "Like what?" Bowes asked.

  "I'm not sure," Longtree admitted. "Not just yet."

  Bowes looked irritable. "If you've got some idea, let me in on it. Christ, this is madness."

  "I'll keep my thoughts to myself for now," Longtree said. "No point in going off half-cocked or making myself look foolish."

  Bowes didn't look happy. "Okay, have it your own way."

  Longtree would have liked to share his thoughts. But as yet, they were just thoughts. Half-formed ideas with no basis in reality. Yet. They were dealing with something horrible here. Something unknown. Something that didn't follow the rules, but set new ones. A beast that killed like an animal, but seemed to be almost following some indecipherable pattern. Once Longtree could figure out what that pattern was, they would be close to finding out what sort of killer they were dealing with.

  "What's our first step, Marshal? Can you tell me that much?"

  "I need to know about these men that were killed," Longtree said.

  "Why? They were just men."

  "I need to know about them," Longtree maintained. "If there was anything they might have had in common."

  "You aren't suggesting that this beast picked these men to kill, are you?"

  "Could be," Longtree told him. "I just don't know yet. I won't overlook anything at this point."

  Bowes shrugged and talked at some length about the victims.

  He covered a lot of the same ground as Wynona Spence had. Abe Runyon had been a railroad man, quick with his temper and fists. Not well liked. Cal Sevens had worked at the livery where he was killed. He was a newcomer to town, been there only a few years and kept mostly to himself. Charlie Mears lived at the Serenity Motel. He was a miner and had been fired from the mines for drinking. But he always seemed to have plenty of money and some suspected he was a highwayman. Pete Olak was a woodsman who cut firewood for a living. He had contracts with a few hotels and the railroad. He had been married with two kids and was well-liked. George Reiko was little better than a drunk. He lived with the Widow Thompkins and never seemed to do much but drink and gamble. Nate Segaris had a little spread outside town and had gone to seed since the death of his wife. He had a few horses. Gambled a bit. Drank with the miners and ranch hands on Saturday nights. Curly Del Vecchio was an ex-con, a veteran gambler and drunk, and pretty much just a plain nuisance.

  Longtree mulled this all over. Despite the fact that a few of them tended to drink and gamble, there was no thread that tied them together. And drinking and gambling hardly made them members of an elite club.

  "Noth
ing more?"

  "Well…they all hated the local Indians. I know that much. Most folks around here do," Bowes said, unconcerned. "I didn't know all of them that well, but I've dealt with them in my job. None of 'em really seemed to associate together. I've heard all of 'em talk about what they'd like to do with the injuns more than once." Bowes shrugged. "But there's a lot of folks around these parts with the same leanings. Those men were just like a lot of 'em."

  "There's a Blackfeet reservation outside town, isn't there?"

  "Yeah, but I wouldn't advise going up there. They don't like white folks much. Especially ones that carry badges."

  "I'll keep it hidden."

  "You're crazy, Marshal."

  "Maybe, but I'm going."

  "Well don't expect me to drag yer body out come morning."

  Longtree just grinned.

  4

  Dewey Mayhew looked down on the sheriff. "Had yourself a good toot, did ya?" he said.

  Lauters grimaced. "What the hell do you want?"

  "To talk. Nothin' wrong with old friends talkin' is there?"

  The sheriff tried to sit up but his head was pounding. An oil lamp was going in the corner. Darkness was pressed up against the little window. God, how long had he been out? Hours? Last thing he remembered was some run in with that Longtree fellow.

  "What do you want to talk about?" Lauters grumbled.

  Mayhew looked very solemn, scared almost. "About the murders."

  "Ain't nothing new to say."

  "There's been seven killings, Sheriff. Seven killings."

  Lauters rubbed his eyes. "I'm aware of that."

  "Those men-"

  "I know."

  "There's only three of us left," Mayhew said desperately.

  "Keep your voice down."

  Mayhew was trembling. "That thing won't stop till we're all dead."

  "That's enough, Dewey."

  "Tonight it'll come for me or you or-"

  "Enough," the sheriff said with an edge to his voice. "You just keep quiet about things. If you don't, I'll kill you myself."

  5

  Longtree rode into the hills with only the vaguest of directions from Deputy Bowes as where to find the nearest of the Blackfeet encampments. The wind had died down from what it was earlier in the day and the temperature was above freezing. Longtree'd experienced things like that before in Montana and Wyoming. Blizzards and freezing winds followed by a brief warming trend, a thaw that would turn everything to slush and then to ice a week later when the temperature took another dive below freezing.

  The country above Wolf Creek in the foothills of the Tobacco Roots was beautiful. Brush and scrubby cedar on open slopes gave way to snowy peaks, twisted deadfalls, and thick stands of pine and spruce. The mountains were huge and jutting above the timberline, barren and majestic.

  But dangerous.

  This whole country was like that. It was almost a religious experience viewing it, but the reality was sobering. This was a place of sudden landslides. Blizzards that kicked up with no warning. Frozen winds that seemed to rise up out of nowhere. Starving wolf packs. Marauding grizzlies that were anxious to pack extra meat and fat in their bellies before hibernation. It was also the home of the Blackfeet Indians, considered by some to be the most bloodthirsty nation on the upper Missouri.

  Coming up over a ridge, Longtree saw the camp. Knowing they'd probably seen him coming for some time.

  6

  Longtree rode unmolested into the Blackfeet camp, accompanied by barking dogs.

  There were about twelve buffalo skin lodges, most painted with geometric designs and huge, larger than life representations of birds and animals. A few weathered faces poked out of the flaps of tipis and withdrew at what they saw. Around twenty people were formed up in a camp circle around a vast blazing fire.

  Longtree dismounted and tethered his horse to a pine. He approached the band cautiously, making it known he was no threat.

  The Indians seemed intent on ignoring his very presence.

  The men remained seated, dressed in buffalo hide caps with earflaps and buffalo robes with the fur next to their bodies. A few wore hooded Hudson Bay blanket coats and heavy moccasins. The women were dressed pretty much the same in robes and trade blankets covering their undecorated dresses. Babies poked out of the furry folds of their robes. A few women were nursing older children.

  Longtree tried to communicate with a few via sign language and a bastard form of Blackfeet Algonkian he'd learned many years before.

  No one paid any attention.

  Finally, a young woman in a knee-length buffalo coat and black buffalo hide moccasins approached him, stopping a few feet away. She was beautiful in a wild, savage sort of way. Her eyes were huge brown liquid pools, the cheekbones high, the lips full, the skin lustrous. She had a raw, unbridled sexuality about her that you rarely saw in white women. And she had the look about her that told Longtree very clearly that she was tough as any man.

  "I am Laughing Moonwind, daughter of Herbert Crazytail. What do you want here?" she asked in perfect English.

  Longtree cleared his throat. "I need help. I wish to speak with the tribal chief."

  Longtree knew that, this being a small group, it would have only one chief. Larger tribes had several, but only one was considered the acting chief and his position was really that of a chairman of the tribal council. Many whites thought the chief was something of an executive officer in the tribe, but this wasn't so. His rank was of little importance save during the summer encampment. The Blackfeet were very democratic and most major decisions were reached by the tribal council acting with the chief. Most chiefs were the leaders of the hunting bands, the basic political unit of Blackfeet culture.

  "Who are you?" she asked.

  "Joe Longtree. I'm a federal marshal."

  "I will ask Herbert Crazytail if he will speak with you."

  Longtree stood waiting and watching as she disappeared into a lodge. It was larger than most of the others, the hide covering painted with wolves in deep, rich reds. There were also numerous skulls, gruesome things with huge eye sockets and sharpened stakes for teeth. Longtree knew the wolves signified that the owner of the tipi considered the wolf to be the source of his supernatural power…but the skulls, who could say? Along the bottom, the lodge cover was red with unpainted discs. Along the top, it was painted black with a large Maltese cross.

  Many of the Indians were watching him now, wondering what his business could possibly be. Children gawked at him, but were silent as only tribal children could be.

  There were long racks of buffalo meat drying and hides staked out to cure and bleach in the sun. A few of the women were eating, chewing bits of pemmican mixed with sarvis berries. The men sat smoking from gray shale tobacco pipes, clenching ash pipestems in their fists. Horses were corralled out near the treeline, pawing away at the snow to reach the grasses below. A few dogs lapped from rawhide troughs.

  Laughing Moonwind finally returned. "My father will see you. Come."

  He followed her to the lodge just as three other women departed it. Longtree assumed they were Crazytail's wives.

  Inside the cavernous lodge, a small fire burned in a pit. It cast crazy, dancing shadows everywhere. The air smelled of smoke, tobacco, and dried meat. Moonwind by his side, Longtree sat across from an old man wearing a buffalo fur headpiece with horns intact. He was wrapped in a blanket, his left shoulder covered, his right arm and shoulder uncovered. His face was shadowy, the skin a leathery seamed brown, the eyes dark and unreadable. He smoked a long pipe ornamented with beads and eagle feathers.

  Longtree knew it to be a medicine pipe, a sacred object.

  Moonwind chatted in low tones with her father, then turned to Longtree. "My father wishes you to know that Chief Ironbrow is ill. He will speak in his place. What is it you wish here?"

  "I need help. There have been killings in Wolf Creek. Brutal slayings that seem the work of an animal."

  Moonwind relayed this. Crazytail
blinked, nothing more. Then he spoke.

  "My father is aware of the killings. He can tell you only that they will continue."

  Longtree expected as much.

  Long experience with Indians had taught him that you couldn't take what many of them said at face value. Crazytail saying the killings would continue meant nothing. It wasn't an admission of guilt; merely something the man had probably seen in his visions or dreams.

  "Does Crazytail know what this beast is?" Longtree asked of her.

  She relayed the information. "Skullhead," she said.

  Longtree shifted uneasily on the buffalo hide bedding beneath him. "Ask him who or what this Skullhead is."

  Moonwind did.

  The old man talked at some length, finishing with a shake of his head.

  "Many, many years ago, long before the dog days, Crazytail's great ancestor, Medicine Claw, a member of the Skull Society, spent twelve days on a mountain plateau," Moonwind said, "calling up the spirits of sky, earth, and water. He fasted for ten days and drank water but once. His guide spirit, the Wolf-Skull spirit, came down to him and taught him many things. He taught Medicine Claw the ways of the Skullhead, his sacred ways and rituals. The enigma of the Blood-Medicine. It has been passed down through a hundred generations of the Skull Society."

  Longtree stared at her, hoping there was more. Crazytail had said before the "dog days." The dog days, Longtree knew, was the period before the Blackfeet were using horses, when they had only dogs to move camp with. This was before white men had come into contact with them. And Crazytail had said it was before this time, a "hundred generations" ago. This would mean that Longtree was hearing a tribal memory, something handed down for hundreds of years if not more.

  "When Crazytail was a young man," Moonwind went on, "he, too, spent many days fasting on a mountainside as all men of the Skull Society must do. The Wolf-Skull spirit came to him saying the Skullhead was always near, close enough to touch. But that Crazytail must be cautious, for the Skullhead was fierce and voracious, a force of nature like thunder and wind. To contact Skullhead he must use the sacred Blood-Medicine, but this medicine was holy and not to be used foolishly. For the Skullhead, once summoned, could not be sent away until its appetite was satisfied with the blood of enemies. Two months ago, in the sweat lodge, Crazytail was again visited by the spirit Wolf-Skull. The time of the Skullhead is at hand as it was in ancient times."