Tim Curran - Skull Moon

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?"

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.

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.

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 else, 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."