Skull Moon

by Tim Curran

  He needed proof.

  Any kind of proof. But how could he get it? Getting something on Lauters would be tough. But what about the Indians? Also tough. Moonwind had said Red Elk, her brother, was a shapeshifter. It sounded crazy, impossible, but…

  "The Blackfeet bury their dead, don't they?"

  Bowes looked at him as if he were insane. "Yeah, they do. They put 'em in the ground same as us."

  "Where would Red Elk be buried?"

  A shadow crossed Bowes' face like he didn't care for where this was leading. "Up in the hills. There's a burial ground up there. But get any crazy ideas out of your head, Marshal. That cemetery is sacred ground to them. You get caught nosing around up there-won't be enough of you left to bury."

  "Let me worry about that," Longtree said. "How can I find it?"

  Bowes looked upset. "It's in a little valley, hard to find." He sighed heavily. "I could show you, I guess. I went up there once as a kid. On a dare. I could take you. That is, if you're determined.

  "I am."

  Bowes just shook his head. "What do you want up there?"

  "I want to examine Red Elk's remains."

  19

  "Yes, I do think we're looking at a banner year, Marion," Wynona Spence said, beaming. "We shan't see a year like this again."

  She sipped her tea and thought about the killings and, though she did not take pleasure in anyone's untimely death (as if death were ever timely), she couldn't help but feel a certain satisfaction in the money she was taking in. And that was just good business sense, nothing more. When she had taken over her father's operation, people treated her as if she were crazy. A woman undertaker? Good God, who'd ever heard of such a thing and what woman in her right mind wanted to while away the hours processing the dead?

  The general consensus in Wolf Creek was that she would not last.

  She would certainly fail.

  But she had not failed-she had prospered. She took command of the business her father had built, working it and oiling it and crafting it carefully with nimble fingers until it was a sure success. So successful that she had branched out and now owned considerable stock in a silver mine and controlling interest of some three businesses in Wolf Creek. Gone were her father's charming, old world country boy idiosyncrasies-embalming and burial on credit, coffins on a promise of future reimbursement, gravestones and plots given to friends at cut-rate prices. Such things were not only bad business, but self-defeating. The mortuary business was no different than any other: it existed to make money, to show a profit, not to engender the proprietor to the locals with reams of homespun compassion.

  Perhaps Wynona wasn't well-liked in general, but she was a very shrewd businesswoman.

  And regardless of all the gossip she inspired living with another woman that no one ever saw, they couldn't take that away from her.

  She set down her teacup and swatted at a fly. "Flies and at this time of year, Marion. Can you believe such a thing? Must be that sun warming 'em up in the windowsills. Do you suppose?"

  Marion, dressed-out in a fine and flowing bedroom gown of fine lace and spiderweb satin, said nothing. The coverlet was pulled up beneath her armpits and her hands were folded over her bosom. She did not stir. She did not do anything.

  Wynona added a touch of Irish whiskey to her tea, sipped it, approved. "Yes, I do think father would be quite proud of me. Wouldn't you agree, Marion?"

  Marion just laid there, eyes shut, lashes resting against her sallow cheeks like the fine and feathery legs of a moth. A fly lighted off her hair and landed on her face. It walked a tickling tread down and across her lips.

  Marion did not move.

  20

  Sheriff Lauters was at Dr. Perry's, sitting in his little study, thinking over all the mumbo-jumbo Claussen had told the doc and the doc had told him. And every moment, he got a little angrier.

  "Damn that Jesus-spouting fool," Lauters said. "If he was here now, I swear to God I'd ring his scrawny neck. Stupid sonofabitch."

  "Take it easy, Bill," Perry said, stretching his back and wincing. "Claussen doesn't know any better."

  "Yes, he does. Goddamit, he does. He's an educated man. He should know better than to be spreading around old wives' tales like that. Werewolves, monsters…my ass."

  "Hopefully, he'll keep it to himself."

  The sheriff grunted in disgust. "That's a whole hell of a lot to be hoping for, Doc."

  Perry shrugged. It was his back he was concerned with at the moment. Not murders. Not Claussen. Not werewolves and bogies. His lower back was knotted up with a raw, twisting pain. It was not getting better. One of these days he wouldn't get out of bed at all.

  "You mark my word, Doc. Come Sunday that damn ass will be spouting off about werewolves and devils and God knows what in his sermon."

  "Nothing we can do about that, Sheriff."

  "We'll see about that." Lauters strapped on his guns and took off out the door. "We'll just see."

  "Sheriff-" Perry started to rise, but the pain in his back set him down again, his forehead beaded with sweat. Licking his lips, he opened his lower desk drawer and took out a small black box. In it was a syringe and several small bottles of morphine.

  Alone, Perry injected himself.

  21

  Reverend Claussen sat in the rectory and heard only silence. He was alone today. He was alone and on the desk before him were about a dozen books on folklore and the occult. A portion of his personal collection. He scanned the spines. Man into Beast, De Lycanthropia, Der Werewolf, De transmutations hominum in lupos, Uber die Wehrwolfe und Thieverwandlungen im Mittelalter, Demonolatry. There were others. The one he was most interested in was called, Indians of the Upper Plains: Common Beliefs and Myth-Cycles.

  Everything he needed was here.

  Everything with which to do battle against the evil that had taken Wolf Creek in its foul jaws. Claussen didn't care if anyone believed him or not about what was happening. He'd tried the doctor first, simply because Perry was an educated man. And that had been a mistake.

  Now he would have to hunt down the evil himself.

  The door suddenly swung open. Standing there, was a young woman without a stitch of clothes on. "I feel sinful," she said.

  22

  Sheriff "Big" Bill Lauters stood across the rutted dirt road from the church. Looking around, he fished out his pint of Rye and guzzled down the remainder, tossing the bottle. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his sheepskin coat and waited to see if anyone was around.

  He saw no one.

  He had business with the good reverend, the nature of which necessitated that they be alone. It seemed that he'd come at a good time. There was no traffic whatsoever in and around the church. No old ladies from the various church groups. No sinners seeking forgiveness.

  A good day for a little discussion.

  A good day to straighten out Claussen once and for all.

  Lauters saw no one in either direction on the road and quickly crossed the hard packed snow and went into the church. It was silent inside. He peered out the door to see if he was being observed. He was not.

  He walked down the aisle between the polished pews. He moved slowly, his footsteps landing without sound. And this was a great accomplishment when you consider that since he'd left Perry's house well over an hour before, he'd been doing nothing but drinking. Lauters had a taste for Rye. In his coffee. With water. Straight out of the bottle. It didn't matter. He only knew that without it, he was miserable. A hopeless wreck. But with it…well, he was a man of means, a lawman who could face down any gunman in the Territories without a hint of fear.

  Lauters took his own sweet time approaching the altar.

  On the way, in the shadowy stillness, he took note of where the carpet was thinning, which prayer books lacked covers, which pews needed replacing.

  Lauters was, his head swimming with alcohol, a confident man. He had a job to do and he would do it.

  Claussen wasn't in the church itself, which meant h
e would be in the rectory. This was the place in which he slept and took his meals, Lauters knew, and also the place in which he plotted out his little games.

  "Not anymore," Lauters said beneath his breath. "Not anymore."

  The Sheriff had been waiting for this day for a long time. He'd said nothing when Claussen had rolled into town, reeling with self-importance and holiness. He said nothing when Claussen had condemned honest men from his pulpit with sermons of hell-fire and everlasting torment. Lauters even said nothing when the Bible-thumping crazy had turned his own wife against him. He accepted it. But when Claussen had begun criticizing the job he did as sheriff and his lack of progress with the murders…that had been it. And now, this superstitious horseshit about spooks.

  Lauters would take no more.

  It was time for Claussen to pay for his sins.

  Lauters had no intention of letting that goddamn Holy Joe drive Wolf Creek, his town, into panic with these horror stories. No, what was going to happen now was long overdue.

  Lauters passed through the vestibule into the rectory.

  There was a little sitting room with a fire blazing in the hearth. Lauters warmed his hands for a moment. He looked in the kitchen and Claussen's cramped study. The reverend was nowhere. That left only upstairs.

  Lauters moved up the narrow stairwell and froze on the second step.

  He could hear sounds.

  Moanings.

  A thrashing of bed springs.

  Either Claussen was in lot of pain or he was being killed or…

  Well, Lauters decided, the other alternative was impossible.

  Not Reverend Claussen. Pious, self-righteous Claussen.

  Lauters moved slowly up the stairs, pausing at the top. He could hear two distinct sets of moans now. Those of Claussen and those of a woman, heated, breathless. Lauters grinned and moved up the short hallway to the first door which was ajar slightly. He stood there a full minute before kicking it in all the way.

  When he did, no one noticed him at first.

  Claussen was on the bed, quite naked, his wrists tied with leather straps to the bedposts. On top of him, also naked, was Nell Hutson, a young whore from Madame Tillie's parlor house. Her back was wet with sweat, her ample hips pumping with a ferocity that threatened to drive the good reverend straight through the mattress.

  "Well, well, well," Lauters said. "What do we have here?"

  23

  Up in the hills, at the Blackfeet camp, Laughing Moonwind peered out through the flaps of her lodge. She was watching the sweat lodge in the distance. Her father, Herbert Crazytail, and the other members of the Skull Society had just stepped out of it. Their faces were set and grim, painted a deathly white with black streaks under the eyes. They were dressed in wolf and bear pelts and nothing more, as was the way of the Society. They were pallid, dead-faced spirit warriors now heaped with skins. One of them wore the hideous mask of some grinning demon fashioned from the huge skull of a grizzly and strips of tight-fitting leather.

  One by one, the others put on similar masks.

  These were actually fashioned from the stretched and cured heads of wolves, painted up with ritual colors.

  Crazytail in the lead, they started off through the forest to the sacred grove on the mountainside where they would begin their rites.

  Tonight would be a bad night.

  The smell of death was already on the wind.

  24

  Deputy Bowes stood before the window of the jailhouse, looking down the rutted, frozen drive that cut through Wolf Creek. The sky was overcast, threatening snow. The temperature was up in the lower forties today, turning the world into a melting, wet swamp of filthy snow and mud.

  It wouldn't last.

  Within a few days, the winds would start to scream down from the mountains again, driving the mercury down towards zero.

  Bowes was wondering where the sheriff was. He hadn't seen the man all morning and it wasn't like Lauters not to show up. At least for a little while before he went about his business of (drinking) policing the town.

  Bowes stood there a moment longer and then sat behind the desk, sipping coffee. There was no one in lock-up today. No meals to fetch or piss pots to empty. Ezra Wholesome had been released earlier, agreeing to pay for the damages he'd caused. Beyond that, it was a quiet day. If nothing else, the murders had certainly made his job easier. There'd been few arrests since this all started with Abe Runyon's mutilated corpse. Even the miners were quiet, most of them preferring to stay up at their camps, not caring much to be caught on those lonely mountain roads after dark.

  Bowes wondered where Longtree was and what he was nosing into.

  If Lauters found out what he was up to, Longtree was a dead man. And if he was killed, the Marshals Office would spare no expense in bringing in the man responsible.

  Wolf Creek was in deep shit any way you looked at it.

  25

  Longtree was just riding down the slope from the nondenominational cemetery outside town when he saw the smoke of a campfire in the hills. He'd gone up there to examine the graves of the murdered men for no other reason than he thought he should.

  There wasn't much to see.

  The markers had all been hewn from wood being that none of them were men of means. Snow had fallen since their burials, covering the graves. The markers were blanketed with melting ice.

  Then he saw the smoke and thought he should investigate.

  Maybe it was from the fire of some freelance prospector who might know something of the murdered men…or the rustlers. It was worth a shot.

  After leaving Bowes that morning, he had talked with some of the widows of the victims. He learned nothing new. They were in mourning and he wasn't about to push them for seamy details concerning the dead.

  Longtree urged his black up a rise and through a stand of pines. He could smell the air-fresh, cool-and the smoke of the fire. He also caught hints of bacon and coffee.

  He approached the camp slowly, cautiously.

  It paid to be careful, particularly with a murdering beast on the loose. People tended to be quick with their guns when they heard someone or something coming.

  The closer he got, still out of visual range, he could hear the steady whacking sound of an axe splitting wood. The chopping kept up as he got closer and closer, moving the black along at a slow trot over the slushy ground. He came to a small opening in the trees, a rabbit darting off into the brush.

  The chopping stopped.

  The world was silent.

  Longtree could see the fire and a team of horses picketed near the treeline. An old mud wagon was pulled up near a small army tent. There were a few rifles leaning up against it-a Winchester and a Sharps "Big Fifty". Steel-jawed traps and pelts of every description hung from it. There was a woodpile and enough kindling to last for a week.

  But there was no one in sight.

  Longtree grimaced. "Rider coming in," he called out.

  He stopped the black by the wagon and tethered it. He warmed his hands by the fire and looked around. He knew the owner of the camp was hiding in the trees, getting a bead on him. But the fact that he hadn't shot yet meant he probably wouldn't.

  "Who are you?" a voice called out and it was familiar somehow.

  It came from behind him, but the marshal didn't turn around. "Joe Longtree, deputy U.S. Marshal," he said.

  He heard the man swearing as he came out of the trees. He didn't seem too happy to have the law visiting.

  Longtree snaked a hand inside his coat and withdrew one of his pistols. He made no menacing moves with it, he just kept it handy, his hand on the butt.

  "What the hell do you want?" a gruff voice asked.

  Longtree turned very slowly.

  He found himself staring at a bear of a man, his shirt open, his chest gleaming with sweat. He was bearded and carried an Army Carbine. It was pointed at Longtree's head.

  "I only came to warm myself," the marshal said.

  "Warm yourself somewheres e
lse, Longtree," the man told him.

  The way he said it made the marshal sure this man knew him. But from where? The voice was familiar, but nothing more. Maybe without that beard. Then it came to him. This was Jacko Gantz.

  It could be no other.

  Ten years ago, before Longtree was a lawman, he'd been hunting men for money. There'd been a five-hundred dollar bounty on Gantz for robbing stages in the Arizona Territory. Longtree had caught up with him at a saloon in Wickenburg after three months on his trail. There'd been some shooting. Longtree took a bullet in the shoulder, Gantz caught one in the leg and one in his gun hand.

  This took the fight out of the road agent.

  Longtree cuffed him and got the both of them to a doctor. Three days later, he delivered Gantz to Phoenix and placed him in the custody of Tom Rivers, then just a U.S. Marshal before his appointment to chief marshal. Gantz, after his trial, had been sentenced to ten years in the Arizona Territorial Prison at Yuma.

  "When did you get out, Gantz?" Longtree asked.

  Gantz kept the gun on him. "Two years ago, Longtree. I did eight long years in that fucking hellhole. Thanks to you."

  Longtree's face betrayed no emotion. "I only did my job."

  "Yeah, you sure did, you sonofabitch," Gantz said angrily. "Eight years of my goddamn life. Eight years. And what happened to you in that time, Longtree? You became a lawman, a federal marshal. How the hell did a breed like you swing that?" He laughed through clenched teeth. "Rivers got you that appointment, didn't he? He's a big wheel now, so I hear."

  "I'd appreciate it, Gantz, if you'd lower that rifle."

  Gantz kept it where it was. "Oh, I bet you would, Marshal, I just bet you would." His eyes never left Longtree for a moment and in them was a hatred that burned black. "I thought about you a lot in prison, Longtree. Didn't a day go by that I didn't think about killing you. And now, look what's happened? I got your sorry hide in my sights."