Longtree tried to turn the remains over, but they were frozen into the earth. He poked and prodded gently in the snow with his gloved fingers. There was very little blood around, most of it frozen into sparkling crystals.
Not enough for a slaughter of this magnitude.
Longtree surmised from this that the man had been killed somewhere else and dragged here, gutted and dismembered on the spot.
He looked around for the remains of the cadaver’s legs, but they were gone.
He studied the body again in the dancing light.
It was hard to say exactly how the man had died, such was the nature of the carnage. His throat was torn out. Little remained of it but a twisted spiral ladder of vertebrae and hacked ligament. He had been opened up in countless places and could’ve bled to death from any of a dozen wounds. Longtree figured the attack must’ve been sudden and vicious. But not too sudden; the man had drawn his gun, precious little good it had done him.
The initial attack must’ve been savage. Brutal beyond comprehension. The man was dead long before he was dumped here and cannibalized.
Longtree examined the wounds the best he could in the flickering light.
From the teeth and claw marks there was no doubt in his mind: Only an animal could have done this. A huge and powerful beast with iron hooks for claws and jaws like razored bear traps. No man possessed the strength. No insane mind, regardless how fevered, could’ve summoned up the strength to pull a man literally apart. And the tools that would’ve been needed to create such injuries would have been complex beyond reason.
The killer in Wolf Creek was an animal.
Type: unknown.
Clenching his teeth and sucking in icy air, Longtree picked up the severed arm. It was much like handling a frozen leg of lamb. Wedging the limb between his knees, he began the grisly task of pulling the fingers free of the gun. He had to know if it had been fired. Rigor mortis and the freezing temperatures had turned the hand into an ice sculpture. The fingers snapped like pretzel rods as he forced them away from the Colt. Two popped off completely and fell in the snow.
It was gruesome work.
But it wouldn’t be the first time Longtree had done such things. A man in his line of work spent a lot of time urging the dead to give up their secrets.
The gun had been fired; only three bullets remained in the chambers.
He set the arm and weapon next to the body.
Mounting his horse, he rode into a little arroyo that was protected by a wall of pines. He tethered the black to a tree and gathered up some firewood with his hatchet. The wind was reduced to a gentle breeze in the gully and Longtree got the fire going right away. He would spend the night here. In the morning, he would drag the body into Wolf Creek and begin the job he’d come to do.
He unhitched his saddle from the black and jerked the saddle blanket off, stretching it over some rocks to let it dry; it was damp with the horse’s perspiration. Longtree curled up before the blazing fire and chewed some jerky from his grub sack.
He dozed.
22
He didn’t sleep long.
Sometime after midnight he heard horses coming up the trail that cut down the slope below him and led in the direction of Wolf Creek. He heard at least a half dozen of them come within three-hundred yards of his position, the riders dismounting. They must’ve seen the smoke from his fire.
He pulled himself free from his bedroll and swigged from his canteen.
In silence, he waited.
He heard them coming, stumbling through the snow to the pines that sheltered his arroyo. They were a noisy lot. Had to be whites. They stomped forward, chatting and arguing.
Longtree strapped on his nickel-plated Colt. 45 Peacemakers and drew his Winchester from the saddle boot. Then he waited. They were coming down now. Longtree positioned himself away from the glow of the fire, leaning against a shelf of rocks, hidden in shadow.
They came down together, six men in heavy woolen coats. They sported shotguns and pistols and one even had an ancient Hawken rifle. They plowed down, packed together. Very unprofessional. It would’ve been easy killing the lot of them.
“You got business here?” Longtree called from the darkness.
They looked startled, hearing a voice echoing, but unable to pinpoint it. They scanned their guns in every which direction. Longtree smiled.
“Identify yourselves or I’ll start shooting,” he called out.
The men looked around, bumping into each other.
“Bill Lauters,” a big man said. “Sheriff, Wolf Creek.” He tapped a badge pinned to his coat.
Longtree sighed. He knew who Lauters was.
He stepped out of the shadows and moved noiselessly to them. He was almost on top of them before they saw him and then their guns were on him.
“Who the hell are you?” one of them said.
“Easy, Dewey,” Lauters said.
“Longtree, deputy U.S. Marshal,” he said in an even tone, showing his own badge. “You were wired about—”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it all right. I know who you are and why you’re here.” Lauters said this as if the idea were beneath contempt. “You can just ride right back out again far as I’m concerned. We don’t need no damn federal help.”
“Regardless, Sheriff, you’re going to get it.”
“Where the hell’s Benneman?” the one called Dewey asked. “He’s the federal marshal in these parts.”
“John Benneman got shot up,” Longtree explained. “He’ll be out of action a while.”
Lauters spit a stream of tobacco juice in the snow. “And we’re really lucky, boys, cause we got us a special U.S. Marshal here,” he said sarcastically. “I guess we can just hang up our guns now.”
Longtree smiled thinly. “I’m not taking over your investigation, Sheriff. I’m just here to help.”
“My ass you are,” one of them muttered.
“Nothing but trouble,” another said.
Lauters nodded. “We don’t need your help.”
“Don’t you?”
“Ride out,” Lauters said. “Ride the hell out of here.”
“Never happen,” Longtree assured him.
The guns weren’t lowered; they were raised now, if anything.
“I’m here to help. Nothing more.” Longtree fished out a cigar and lit it with an ember from the fire. “Course,” he said, “if you boys would rather stand around and argue like a bunch of schoolboys while more people are killed, that’s your own affair.”
“Who the hell you think you’re talking to here?” Lauters snapped, taking a step forward.
Longtree stood up, pushing aside his coat and resting his hand on the butt of a Colt. They all saw this and he wanted them to. “I think I’m talking to a man with a strong like of himself.”
Lauters’ face went slack and then tight in the blink of an eye. “Listen, you sonofabitch!” he barked. “I don’t need your goddamn help! I’m the law in this town! Not you, not the U.S. Marshals Office! If you’re coming into my town, then you do what I say when I say to do it! Understand?”
Longtree remained impassive. “All I understand, Sheriff, is that you’ve got five dead men on your hands and if you keep this up, you’ll have more.” Longtree let that sink in. “Maybe if we work together, we can stop these killings.”
There was no arguing with that.
“You just keep out of my way, Longtree. I don’t need your damn help.”
Longtree nodded. “That’s fine, Sheriff. That’s just fine. I’ll do my own investigation. But I sure would appreciate your help.”
Lauters gave him an evil stare. “Forget it. We don’t need outsiders making any more of a mess of this.”