Tim Curran - Skull Moon

"Didn't expect to see you this late, Bill," Perry said.

"Couldn't sleep," Lauters explained. "I can never sleep worth a damn anymore."

Unless you're dead drunk, Perry felt like saying, but didn't. He was sitting behind his desk, a brass microscope set out before him. There were other things there as well-a box of slides, a few dark corked bottles, several jars, an array of metal instruments. A dissection kit stood open, a scalpel and forceps missing from the felt-lined case. There were several tufts of fur laid out as well.

"What are you doing, Doc?"

Perry stroked his mustache. "A little detective work." He motioned to the tufts of fur. "You know what these are?"

"Bits of animal fur," Lauters said, examining books in oak shelves, most titles of which he couldn't pronounce.

"Not just any, though. I have pelts from grizzlies, foxes, coyotes, wolves. In fact, from all the known predators in this area," he explained. "I'm examining hairs from each with those of our mysterious friend here."

Lauters sat down across from him. "And?"

"And I've concluded what we already know. This tuft of fur is not from any of these creatures. Though," Perry confided in a low tone, "it shares similarities with human hair. But much more coarse."

"So what does this tell us?"

Perry cleared his throat. "Do you know what a mutation is, Sheriff?"

"Haven't the foggiest."

Perry studied him closely. Lauters' fingers were trembling. He was bloated and pale. The tip of his nose was purple from ruptured blood vessels and capillaries. Liver spots were numerous on his hands. He licked his lips constantly. These were the signs of the chronic alcoholic.

"Doc?" Lauters said.

"Oh yes, sorry. Getting old. My mind wandered."

Lauters fixed him with a cold stare. "I'll just bet it did."

"Anyway, Sheriff, a mutation is simply a variation in a known species. A physical change that occurs suddenly or slowly, either from environmental factors or hereditary factors or any number of reasons that science has yet to determine."

"What does this have to do with anything?"

Perry smiled. He knew Lauters understood very well what he was getting at. But the sheriff was a man who liked things explained to him in very clear language so there was no possibility of misinterpretation.

"What I'm saying, Bill, is that we're dealing with a new life form here, an animal unknown to science."

"I thought we already figured that."

Perry nodded. "Yes. But what sort of animal walks upright like a man?"

Longtree made it back to his camp around midnight.

He had been originally planning on spending the night in a hotel in Wolf Creek, but the warming trend changed his mind. Tonight would be a good night to sleep out under the stars by the fireside. He rode down into the little arroyo and tethered his horse for the night. After getting the fire going, he had himself a little supper of beans and salt pork from his grub sack and washed it down with coffee.

He had a lot of thinking to do.

Sprawled out on his bedroll by the blaze, a cigarette between his lips, he did so. First off, only the facts. Fact. There were seven murders in and around Wolf Creek. Fact. Same method used on all victims-they were torn apart as if by some wild beast, eaten, mutilated. Fact. All evidence would suggest the attacker to have been some animal, some large and powerful predator. Fact. Nearly all the victims had been armed and had shot at their attacker, either missing (which seemed unlikely given that two of the men had shotguns and they all couldn't have missed) or their bullets having no effect on said attacker. Fact. Though supposedly an animal, the creature attacked with an almost human rage.

The facts pretty much ended there.

Longtree took a long, deliberate pull off his cigarette.

Now for the speculation.

Speculation. The attacker is an unknown form of animal. Speculation. The attacker is somewhat intelligent. Speculation. The attacker seems to be targeting a certain group of people, but where their connection might be is unknown. Speculation. The attacker is tied up with the local Blackfeet tribe.

That pretty much did it.

Once the facts and speculations were done with, there were only more problems. If the Blackfeet were involved, then how were they directing the attacks of this wild beast? And what of Herbert Crazytail and his Skull Society and this mysterious other called Skullhead? Was it just a bunch of bull? Was the crazy old Indian allowing a bunch of savage murders to justify his own mythologies and visions?

Longtree had no idea whatsoever. His mother was a Crow. He had Indian blood in him and as a boy in the Crow camp before the Sioux raiders had murdered everyone, he'd witnessed the spiritual and mystical side of Indian life. But he'd forgotten most of it in the Catholic mission school as Christianity was rammed down his throat. And later, with Uncle Lone Hawk, there'd been little mysticism. Lone Hawk was a Christian. He was a practical man, having little use for the supernatural. Yet, despite the fact that Longtree knew very little of Indian spiritualism and the assorted, complex myth cycles and legendry of the tribes, he wasn't above believing there were mysteries in this world. Things unknowable, things dark and ancient that white man's science or religion couldn't hope to explain.

The world was a wild place.

And though there was no one better than the whites at collecting information and dissecting it for truths, there were some things in the world that defied rationality and scientific realism.

Longtree winced, knowing he was thinking like a superstitious man.

But all men were superstitious at their core, it was the nature of the beast. Men thought certain rifles and knives were lucky. That wearing a particular coat or pair of boots would bring them good fortune or, at the very least, keep them alive in this hard country. In the army he'd known officers that were highly-educated men who would only put their boots on a certain way or carry lucky coins or pictures of their children as talismans.

Superstition was everywhere.

And that was the same now as it had been two hundred years before or would be two hundred years in the future.

Longtree was confused about this thing with Crazytail, this talk of the Skullhead. Something was slaughtering people, something that left huge prints like those of some monster.

Crazy?

Perhaps. But he would've liked to have known something of this Skull Society and particularly this Blood-Medicine. It was, according to Moonwind's translation, the medium through which this Skullhead was called up like some Christian demon out of hell. But…Christ. Monsters? Demons?

You're a lawman, he told himself.

This was true. A lawman. A peace officer. A deputy U.S. Marshal. A special federal officer. He was a man of facts, not fantasy. He didn't deal in Indian superstitions or half-forgotten folklore.

Yet, Longtree was scared.

He would never have admitted it, but he was. There was a deep-rooted fear crawling in his belly and he couldn't shake it. After all the things he'd done, all the danger he'd faced, this scared him. He was frightened like he'd never been before.

(beware for the skull moon grows full)

The import of that unnerved him. Devils. Monsters. Primal beasts. There were names for things like this, for beasts that prowled the lonely countryside. Longtree was well-read, he knew something of folklore. Knew that even white European culture had their bogeymen, their haunters of the dark, their atavistic horrors. Bogarts and ogres and assorted flesh-eaters. Things with claws and teeth that stalked the dark forests.

Enough, he thought, enough.

And then out in the moon-washed countryside he heard it. A low, awful, evil sound that perfectly punctuated his thoughts: a mournful, drawn-out howling. He bit down on his lower lip, his head suddenly filled with nightmare imagery, terrible things that stalked the wind-swept shadows of cemeteries and burial grounds. Impossible, red-eyed horrors with long claws and sharp teeth that waited on frosty, forgotten lanes for wayward travelers…