Skull Moon

by Tim Curran

  "Drop that weapon," Longtree said flatly.

  "Or what? You gonna shoot me down unarmed like you did-"

  "You weren't unarmed, Gantz. I took a bullet in the shoulder as proof of that."

  "I oughta shoot you down like a sick dog," Gantz grumbled.

  Longtree's eyes narrowed. "Drop your weapon, Gantz. Now. This is a U.S. Marshal ordering you to drop your weapon."

  Gantz just stared at him. Longtree had his Colt aimed at the man's belly. They stood like that for a few moments, neither saying a word. Longtree squatting by the fire and Gantz standing with his carbine pointed at the marshal's head.

  "You must be a real fool, Longtree," Gantz said. "Badge or no badge, I pull this trigger and I'll scatter your brains for a hundred yards."

  "Maybe. But the second you shoot, so do I. And my bullet goes in your belly. And if you think you can make it down to Wolf Creek gutshot, then you're a bigger asshole than you look. You'll bleed to death long before."

  "Maybe it's worth it."

  Longtree raised an eyebrow and stood up very slowly. "Maybe. But even if you live, you'll spend your days as a hunted man. Killing a federal officer is a serious offense, Gantz. The law'll hound you to an early grave."

  Gantz said nothing. The barrel of his carbine was still pointed at Longtree's head. He licked his lips.

  "If you're gonna shoot, then shoot!" Longtree shouted in his face. "Pull that trigger, boy! Shoot, goddammit, shoot!"

  Gantz looked uncertain. He lowered the carbine, smiling. "Never said I was going to."

  Longtree made like he was going to holster his pistol and then brought it up in a vicious arc, cracking Gantz along the side of the face with the butt. Gantz went down with a cry, blood running from a gash in his cheek. Longtree pulled the carbine from him and kicked him in the ribs.

  "I could have you back in prison for this, Gantz." He ejected the shells from the rifle and tossed it in the woods. "Do it again and I will."

  Gantz sat up, moaning and pressing a trembling hand to his wound. "You sonofabitch," he gasped. "You didn't have to do that."

  Longtree ignored him, lighting a thin cigar. "Why are you here?"

  "To get that animal. To get the bounty."

  Longtree spat in the dirt next to him. "All you're going to do is get yourself killed, hear? If you're smart, you'll haul ass out."

  "No law," Gantz murmured, "against hunting a dangerous animal."

  "Nope. But there is one against endangering the life of a federal officer."

  "I didn't mean nothin'."

  "Keep out of my way, Gantz. If you fuck with me again, I'll kill you deader than deerhide."

  Gantz nodded.

  Longtree untethered his black and climbed back on, riding off. He knew this wasn't at an end. Not by any stretch. He had a killer beast on his hands. A sheriff who was a violent drunk. And now Gantz.

  There'd be some dying before this mess was wrapped up.

  26

  "Get your clothes on, Nell," Sheriff Lauters said. He didn't watch her dress; he gave any woman that much respect, even a prostitute. "You, too, Reverend. It turns my stomach some to see you in the flesh."

  Claussen was beyond embarrassment. He was mortified. There was no color left in his once ruddy face. His self-righteous pomposity had crumbled to ash. He was a beaten, broken man whose filthy little secrets had been exposed and this by the man he despised most.

  "Sheriff…" Nell began.

  "Just get out of here, child, and don't let me catch you plying your trade around a house of worship again. Understand?"

  She nodded. Her blue eyes tearful as if she'd been caught in the act by her father.

  "Forget about what happened here today," Lauters instructed her. "Forget about seeing me, forget about the reverend. Nothing happened here today. Got it?"

  She nodded, sobbing.

  "Now, git!"

  Nell took off down the stairs, not looking back. Lauters knew she'd say nothing of this. Not ever. If she did, she'd be in serious trouble and she knew it.

  Claussen was sitting on the bed, staring at his hands. They shook. As did the rest of him. Lauters just glared at him for a moment, not bothering to mask the disgust on his face. He took off his sheepskin coat and hung it on the door.

  "My Lord," Claussen whimpered. "My Lord."

  "Shut the fuck up," Lauters snapped. "You and God have parted company, Reverend. And being that this probably isn't the first time you've done something like this, I'd say you parted company some time ago."

  Claussen said nothing more, he sobbed, his entire frame shuddering.

  "Jesus wept," Lauters said. He fished out his tobacco pouch and wedged a chunk of chew between his cheek and gum. He polished his badge and took it off, setting it on the nightstand by the bed.

  "Now I'm no more a man of the law than you are a man of God," he said.

  "Sheriff, I-"

  "Shut up," Lauters said. "How long have you been deceiving the good people of your church?"

  "Not long, I swear. Sin overcame me-"

  "You piece of shit," Lauters grumbled, taking the reverend by the shirt collar and tossing him to the floor. He tried to get up and Lauters kicked his legs out from under him.

  "When you were a man of God," Lauters began, "I had to take a certain amount of guff from you. After all, it isn't proper to strike a man of the cloth. But now that you're just a sinner like me, there's no reason not to."

  He hooked his arm around Claussen's elbow and pulled him to his feet.

  They stood eye to eye.

  Lauters spat in his face and the reverend only trembled. "Sinner," Lauters said, slamming a fist into his belly. Claussen doubled over with a gasp. Lauters grabbed him by an ear and pulled him back up, striking him in the face with one massive closed hand. Claussen stumbled over a chair and went down, blood streaming from his broken nose. Before he could rise or even recover, Lauters was on him. He grabbed the back of his shirt and planted his knee in the reverend's face.

  Claussen's head shot back and struck the wall. He slid down into a heap.

  "You turned my wife against me," Lauters said.

  Claussen, tears streaming from his swollen eyes, shook his head and Lauters slapped him across the face. Then he did it again, laughed, and backhanded the man. Red, hurting handprints were imbedded in the reverend's face. Blood and drool coursed from his mouth.

  Lauters pulled him to his feet, patting him on the shoulder. "You would have turned the whole town against me in time." He slammed Claussen against the wall and held him there with one meaty fist. "I've fought worse enemies than you, Reverend. I've beaten and killed the meanest, ugliest men this vile country has thrown against me. Did you think you had a chance?" He slapped him in the face. "Answer me!"

  "I never…I didn't…"

  Lauters kneed him in the groin and then in the stomach. Claussen doubled over, going to his knees, gasping and wheezing, and Lauters struck him in the face with a series of upper cuts and tossed his bleeding, broken body out into the center of the floor.

  The reverend lifted his head up. His face was an atrocity. His left eye was swollen shut and puffed red. His nose was smashed at an angle towards his cheek. His lower lip was bulging and gashed. Blood was smeared over his chin and cheeks. His remaining good eye studied the sheriff with a raw hatred.

  Lauters kicked him in the face.

  With a drunken, psychotic rage, he pulled the reverend to his feet and hammered him in the face with his right fist while holding him up with his left. He kneed him in the stomach again and watched him fall, pounding the back of his head unmercifully with a savage series of blows from both fists.

  Claussen dropped to the floor and didn't move.

  Lauters, panting with exertion, alcohol sweating out of his bloated face in rivers, rubbed his cut, bleeding fists. "This isn't over yet, Reverend." He took a china pitcher from its stand and filled a basin with water and dumped it on the still, broken heap of the minister.

  Claussen came
to, his good eye focusing and unfocusing, his head swimming with dizziness. Lauters picked him up and dropped him on the bed.

  "I want you out of this town, Reverend. If you're still here day after tomorrow, I'll kill you. Is that clear?"

  Claussen attempted a nod.

  Lauters patted him on the chest and put his badge back on, then his coat. He stood in the doorway and smiled. "School's out."

  27

  Wynona was doing what she did best.

  After she had stitched up the gaping wounds in Dewey Mayhew's hide (just so nothing would spill out, mind you), she dressed the man in an old suit provided by his widow. It was no easy task. Mayhew had curled up in a semi-fetal position as he lay dying behind the smithy's shop. Rigor mortis and a nasty wind out of the north had done their best to freeze up his ligaments and muscles permanently in that position. They'd straightened him out some when Doc Perry had done his little autopsy…but not enough.

  It was Wynona's job to force things into their proper places. Otherwise, Mayhew wouldn't fit in the box. Dressing the cadaver was one thing, but making him lie flat was quite another.

  "Come on, Dewey," Wynona grunted, "work with me, old man."

  Wynona was up on the slab with him.

  She'd gotten his legs straightened and one arm flat, but the other was no easy task. Every time she pressed his shoulder down that arm swung up from internal stress and slapped her. Wynona was kneeling on Mayhew's bicep and bearing down on his wrist with everything she had. Handling the dead had made her strong. She could toss around 200 pound cadavers like a farm woman handling feed sacks.

  But sometimes, the dead were not cooperative.

  Dewey was every bit as stubborn in death as he had been in life.

  "Come on, you sonofabitch," Wynona groaned. "No need for this now…just help…me out here…uhh…" Wynona gasped for breath. She'd moved the arm enough to fit it in the box, but she wanted to lay it over the breast with the other. It was the traditional position. "You're going in that coffin whether you like it or not…so, please, cooperate…"

  Wynona mopped her brow, pushed aside clumps of hair that hung in her face, took a deep breath, and waded back into battle. With a gruesome snap, she got Mayhew's other arm into position. "There," she panted, "that wasn't so bad, now was it?"

  "What in the name of the Devil are you doing?"

  Wynona, not accustomed to anyone speaking in the preparation room, nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned and saw Mike Ryan standing in the doorway.

  "Oh, Mr. Ryan… " Wynona giggled. "You scared the death out of me."

  "What in blazes are you doing, woman?"

  She smiled, straddling the corpse, very much aware of how it looked. How indecent it might have seemed. "Why, Mr. Ryan…what do you think I was doing?"

  "Well, it's just that…"

  Wynona giggled again, slid off the slab. "Sometimes you have to straighten them to fit them in the casket. Unpleasant…but necessary. Every job has its unpleasantries, does it not?"

  Ryan ignored her, staring at the body. "That Mayhew?" It was hard to tell. Ryan had known Dewey Mayhew for years, but this…this was only vaguely human. It was a bloated, discolored, stitched-up grotesquerie out of a sideshow.

  "Yes," Wynona said, covering the body quickly with a sheet.

  "My God, he looks worse than they said."

  Wynona looked hurt. "There's only so much that could be done."

  Mike Ryan was a big man with bushy eyebrows, a hard face, and an intense glare that looked right through a man. He was a local rancher and a very rich man. He dressed in fine vested suits from St. Louis, owned hotels in both Virginia and Nevada Cities, and controlled stock in several copper and silver mining companies. He was a man to be reckoned with. If he liked you, you were set; if he didn't, he could destroy you, being that he owned just about everything and everyone in and around Wolf Creek. He was a good friend of Sheriff Lauters and had been the primary mover in getting Lauters his current post. He was also the mayor and the city council all rolled into one.

  Wynona washed her hands in a basin and dried them, powdered them. "What can I do for you this fine day, Mr. Ryan?"

  "Fine day?" Ryan said angrily. "What's fine about it, Wynona? Men are being killed out there!"

  "A figure of speech."

  He looked at her with complete loathing. He didn't care for undertakers in general and a woman undertaker…well, it was just plain unnatural. "Yes…well, I didn't come here to chat with the likes of you." He pulled out a gold pocket watch. "I need a headstone."

  "Oh, I see," Wynona said, putting on her best synthetic demeanor. "Has there been a death in the family?" She controlled her voice carefully; didn't want to sound excited.

  "No, no death," Ryan said slowly. "Not yet. It's for me. I want a headstone and a coffin. The best you can get. When people see my stone, I want them to stop and think, 'Here lies a man of worth.' Got it? The very best."

  "I know of a fine sculptor and mason in Virginia City, Mr. Ryan, he can create something befitting a man of your station."

  "Marble. The finest marble money can buy. Get the very best. Imported. Can you do that? I have imported Italian marble in my bathhouse. I fancy it."

  "Oh, you can be assured-"

  "Don't assure me, dammit, just do it!"

  "Yes, sir. It will be done."

  "Fine," Ryan said. "Get on it, woman. I'll be back day after tomorrow to discuss the particulars."

  Ryan stormed out, leaving Wynona with a widening grin on her pale face. Whistling a happy tune, she went about pressing Mayhew into his cheap pine casket.

  Life was rich.

  And so was death.

  28

  Dr. Perry, his back a catalog of discomfort with the sudden change in the weather, made his way to see Claussen. He moved up the rutted road, cursing as he slipped and slid on the melting pockets of snow.

  "If I fall," he said under his breath, "God knows I'll never get up again."

  Wagons rolled past him and riders and people out going about their business. Everyone waved at him. More than a few wanted to chat. But Perry wasn't in the mood for any of that. He'd been trying to keep his injections of morphine to a bare minimum and such was the way of the drug that, what was enough to blot out the pain a week ago, was only enough to tease him now.

  But he had to be careful.

  Narcotics were nothing to fool with.

  Dependency came easily and he was already beginning to exhibit the signs of it: loss of appetite, euphoria after injecting, a building need that demanded more and more.

  Damn, Perry thought, but I'm a fool.

  He knew better than to be fooling around with the stuff, had seen countless men turned into addicts during the War Between the States, and yet he'd willingly started a progression of dependency that could only end in disaster. But his lower back troubles-which had started after he was thrown from a horse five years before and slammed against a rock outcropping-had gotten progressively worse. It had reached the point in the past few months where he could barely function. Getting out of bed was a task, examining a patient with all the bending and turning required, was agony.

  If it hadn't been for the drug, he would've had to give up his practice some time ago. That and live the doubtful existence of an invalid, confined to bed for the remainder of his years.

  Perry couldn't let that happen.

  People depended on him and the lifestyle of the aged and infirm would've killed him faster than any drug could hope to.

  He came to the church and forced himself up its steps. Inside, it was dark and quiet. He called out for Claussen a few times, but there was no answer. He made his way to the rectory and looked around. Claussen didn't seem to be there. Perry thought once of looking upstairs, but he had no intention of invading the man's privacy. That and the fact that it would be hell on his back.

  In Claussen's study, Perry found the books he was looking for. He wasn't about to accept any of this monster nonsense, but only a fool d
ismissed something without a thorough study. He wrote a note to the reverend and took as many books as his back would allow.

  As the doctor left, he thought he heard a moan from upstairs.

  He dismissed it and went on his way.

  29

  Some time later, Abigail Lauters, the sheriff's wife, and her cousin, Virginia Krebs, came to the church and couldn't find the reverend. It wasn't like him to miss their bible study meeting.

  "My God," Abigail said, "I don't like this. Not one bit."

  Virginia looked around the dim church and shivered. "Maybe he's in the rectory. Poor dear's been working himself sick."

  So they went to the rectory.

  "Where do you suppose he could be?" Abigail wondered.

  "I do hope nothing's happened."

  Abigail touched the broach on her throat. "I better tell Bill about this. He might know where he is." She said this with a certain amount of distaste for she had precious little use for her husband these days. A drunk. A sinner. A poor father to their children. Reverend Claussen remonstrated him from the pulpit on Sundays and Abigail agreed completely. Something was killing people and all Bill did was drink. Shameful.

  Virginia said, "This is a bad omen. I'm sure of it."

  Neither of them thought of looking upstairs.

  30

  The reverend heard people come and people go. But he was in too much pain and suffering, too much humiliation to call out. Lauters had beaten him good. Beyond his shattered nose, nothing seemed to be broken but his pride. But he hurt all over. His face was a swollen purple and yellow mass of bruises. One eye was closed. He was missing two teeth. There was a lump on top of his head the size of a baseball and his nose was a bloody flap.

  He didn't want anyone seeing him like this.

  He heard the doctor come and go. He heard Lauter's wife and her cousin come and go. He was thankful that neither tried to look for him. To be seen like this…it was unthinkable. They would ask questions and how could he answer? If he said who did it, Lauters would expose him for what he was.