Longtree felt a chill go up his back. “Who is the Skullhead?”
Moonwind shook her head. “My father will speak no more. No white man may know of this. The Blood-Medicine is sacred to the Skull Society. The Skullhead has been summoned. He is among us now,” she said, her eyes shining, “and getting closer.”
Longtree felt a certain uneasiness worm through him. His skin had gone cold now, his stomach stirring sickly. There was a veiled threat in her words.
He was half-white, yes, and that half wanted to laugh at all this nonsense. Nothing but injun gobbledegook, ghost stories, old wives’ tales. Crap handed down generation by generation. Just shit that had been dreamed up by some injun shaman blown clear into dreamland by peyote. But Longtree was also half-Crow. And that part of him was concerned. It knew better than to scoff at the medicine of the tribes. And it was commonly known that the Blackfeet were possessed of a very powerful medicine.
But, damn, it was all a load of horseshit, right?
He left Crazytail, knowing he’d get no more this night. He mounted his black and looked down at Moonwind.
She watched him, her lips forming words silently. Under her breath, she said, “Beware, Joseph Longtree, for the Skull Moon grows full.”
Longtree rode off into the dead of night, shivering.
7
At around ten that night, Lauters-not drinking for the moment-decided to pay a visit on Dr. Perry. Anna, Perry’s housekeeper, answered the door and led the sheriff through the maze of the surgery to the little study at the back of the house.
“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?”
8
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.