Tim Curran - Skull Moon

Ryan nodded. "A federal officer, too. That could make things difficult for us. He's not some sodbuster no one will miss."

Lauters nodded, knowing this all too well.

"But every problem has its solutions." Ryan said this with total conviction.

They came to a corral near the house and Lauters saw the reason he'd been called…or one of them. This was where Ryan kept his racing horses. These animals had been, once upon a time, his pride and joy, but now…now they were so much meat. Lauters was looking at the slaughtered remains of some five thoroughbred horses. They had all been disemboweled and decapitated, the flesh stripped down to muscle, the hides ripped free and draped on the fence. They were partially eaten, but food didn't seem to be the primary reason for this carnage. The heads lay in the frozen mud, staring up with bulging eyes.

"I loved these animals," Ryan said calmly. "I truly did. Much as a man like myself can love. Whatever did this…is as good as dead."

"Looks like the work of an animal, but…"

"But with a man's twisted intelligence behind it," Ryan interrupted. "An animal will kill for food, to protect itself, but only a man kills for the sport of it. Only a man does something like this."

"Longtree's got it in his head that we're dealing with something that might be a little of both, so I hear."

"Tell me," Ryan said. He wasn't asking, he was demanding.

Lauters told him everything Bowes had said, even the bit about what they'd seen up at the burial ground. "A load of crap, if you ask me."

"Deputy Bowes doesn't strike me as the sort of man who makes up tales."

"Yeah, but-"

"But nothing, Bill. Longtree might be a pain in the ass, but he's right about one thing-we've got ourselves a monster here."

Lauters just stared.

"Don't look at me like that, Sheriff," Ryan snapped. "The evidence speaks for itself. I was in Virginia City last night and…that thing must have come for me. When it couldn't get me, it got what I loved best-my horses. Tonight it'll probably come again, maybe for me, maybe for you."

Lauters swallowed. These were things he had thought about quite a bit, but had dismissed as fantasy. Hearing another man say them made it all that much harder to brush them aside.

Ryan turned away from the bitten, clawed horses. "It came last night…and no one heard a thing." He threw his mug of coffee into the snow. "I have nearly a hundred men here, Bill, and no one heard a goddamn thing. I've heard horses die, I've heard the sounds they make when a hungry wolf pack sets on them…it carries for quite a distance. Anything that can slaughter five horses and do it silently, is no mere animal, no man."

Lauters looked skeptical. "But a monster…"

"Look," Ryan said, leading the sheriff into the corral. There were prints in the mud and snow. "It was warm last night. Our beast left tracks that froze hard this morning."

Lauters examined them carefully. The prints were huge, splayed out. Exactly like the ones in Nate Segaris' house: immense, unnatural, triple-toed like a lizard with a thick spur in the back.

"Physical evidence, Sheriff. We need no more proof." Ryan crossed his arms and glared at the mountains in the distance. "Eight men are dead, Bill, and not just any eight men. I don't have to tell you what you and I and those men have in common, now do I? This creature is killing selectively, very selectively. And, if my memory serves me, exactly one year since that injun was lynched."

Lauters shook his head. "This is all crazy."

"Yes, it is," Ryan admitted, "but it's happening all the same. That injun was lynched and now his people have called up something to take revenge."

Lauters looked beaten. "What can we do?"

"First, we take care of Longtree."

"How? Hire gunmen?"

Ryan shook his head. "No, this is something you and I have to do. We don't want anyone to wag their tongues about this down the road. We take care of that marshal tonight and plant him somewhere he'll never be found." Ryan grinned. "And then we'll take care of Red Elk's clan."

Lauters looked suspicious. "We'll need a lot of men."

"I have thirty men right here that have done jobs for me in the past, all of them handy with guns. I can raise another thirty from the mining camps, men who need money and are just looking for a reason to spill injun blood."

Lauters nodded. "Tonight, then."

"Your man Gantz failed, Sheriff, but I guarantee you, we will not."

Longtree was with Moonwind again at the Blackfeet camp. They were in the lodge of Herbert Crazytail. Longtree had rode into camp and requested a meeting with the old man. And after some wait, it had been granted.

"My father says you are wasting your time," Moonwind translated.

Longtree was a stubborn man and he fully intended to get what he came after: answers. He didn't bother bowing his head in respect to the medicine man, because he no longer had respect for him. Crazytail sat on a bed of dried grasses covered with buffalo hide and tended the fire. He was wrapped in a Hudson's Bay blanket, his right arm and shoulder uncovered. Strips of buffalo meat were cooking on wooden spits. Crazytail was gnawing on bits of pemmican.

"Tell your father to stop the Skullhead," Longtree said. "If the killings continue, soldiers will come. His people may be killed."

It was a lie, but neither the old man or his daughter knew it.

Crazytail turned the spits in the fire, mumbling something.

Moonwind said, "It is too late. What has been set into motion cannot be stopped. Even soldiers cannot stop the Skullhead. He has been called."

"Who called him?" Longtree asked pointedly.

Moonwind translated, but the old man just shook his head.

"I don't think he wishes to talk any longer," Moonwind said.

"He doesn't have a choice," Longtree said angrily. "If these killings aren't stopped, soldiers will come and your people will be killed. Those that aren't will be taken off to prisons and distant reservations. They will never see this land again. Tell him that."

Moonwind, sighing, did so.

For the first time since his arrival, Crazytail looked at the marshal. There was hatred in his eyes, the hatred of an entire race. He began talking loudly now, jabbing his finger at Longtree.

"He says our people have a right to vengeance, we have been wronged. The whites must be taught a lesson." Moonwind cleared her throat. "He also says he is sorry you have involved yourself in this, that you will die also. He says if you are wise, you will leave this place before night falls. The Skullhead will not stop killing."

"Tell Crazytail that I want to know where the Skullhead is. I can stop him."

Moonwind translated. "He says no man can stop what has been set into motion. Once the Skullhead is called, he cannot be put down."

Crazytail, the fire reflected in his narrow eyes, began speaking again.

"After the guilty ones are killed," Moonwind translated, "the Skullhead will begin killing indiscriminately. So we have nothing to fear from the soldiers, for the Skullhead will take us all as sacrifices. Our fate is sealed."

"And after you've all died in vain," Longtree said, "then what?"

Moonwind, looking very unhappy, translated: "Then the Skullhead will go down into the town of the whites and kill everyone."

Longtree had himself a room now at the Serenity Hotel in Wolf Creek. It wasn't much, but the bed was comfortable and there was a livery stable across the street for his black. There was a saloon just off the lobby and the food wasn't bad. The door bolted from the inside and the window was painted shut; it was very unlikely anyone could sneak up on him whilst he slept. And while he was awake, he didn't see that as a problem. All things considered, it beat the hell out of sleeping outside…particularly when there were men trying to kill you and maybe something worse. He enjoyed the outdoors, found it spiritually refreshing, but the white man in him often yearned for material comforts.