Skull Moon

Nobody in Wolf Creek particularly cared for Curly Del Vecchio.

He of the striped coats and trousers, gold watch chain, and immaculately brushed derby hats. He was a conniver and con man, gambler and self-styled ladies' man who'd spent ten years in prison for his part in a horse-rustling ring. He fancied himself a champion pistol-fighter, but anyone with a real draw would've killed him before his hand even slapped leather.

The only thing Curly was really good at was drinking. This night he'd swallowed eight bottles of beer and was halfway through a pint of rum by the time he got to Nathan Segaris' spread outside town. It was a cool night, a light snow falling, but Curly felt none of these things. He felt very good, very drunk. He was celebrating-prematurely-the theft of fifty head of Carl Hew's steer.

He knew Nate Segaris and the others wouldn't be too happy with him getting boozed up and all. But a man had a right to celebrate from time to time.

Especially one that was about to come into a good bit of money. Fifty head of old Hew's cattle at fifty bucks a crack. That would be a nice chunk of change for the lot of them, being that five of their member were now gone. Five-hundred U.S. Treasury Greenbacks a man. Nothing to sneeze at.

"Rest in peace, boys," Curly said to himself.

Five of us gone, he thought, five of us left.

Coincidence. That's all.

Curly gave his old mare a little taste of the spurs-a nick in the sides, nothing more-and she picked up speed a bit, galloping over the hard-packed snow. She brought him over a little rise and there was Nate's place. It looked inviting. A trail of smoke drifting from the chimney, a lantern glowing in the window.

I surely hope he has a bottle of something warm, Curly thought.

He tethered his horse in the barn and drunkenly made his way up to the front porch, stopping only once to urinate. He was on the top stair before he realized something was wrong.

The door had been ripped asunder, shattered into so much kindling. Only a few jagged sections clung to the hinges, the rest spread out over the floor in a rain of shards and split fragments.

Curly reached down for his old Army. 44.

The metal felt like ice in his trembling hand.

"Nate?" he called in a weak voice.

Getting no answer, he mounted the final two steps and stopped just inside the door. Tables were overturned and broken. Shelves collapsed, their contents strewn everywhere. A bag of flour had been ripped open and another of sugar. There was a dusting of white everywhere. A sudden chill gust kicked up, making the old house creak and sway, churning up dust devils of flour.

There was blood everywhere.

Curly's stomach turned over.

It was pooled on the floor, sprayed on the walls, beading the old sheet iron cooking stove. The stink of it hung in the air with a ripe, raw insistence. It was in Curly's nose, on his skin. He could taste it on his tongue.

He didn't wait to see a body.

He didn't need to.

He set off at a run, pounding through the snow, falling, slipping, but finally making the barn. He was cold stone sober as he unhitched the mare and climbed on.

The storm was starting again, wind and snow buzzing in the air.

The horse began to whinny, to pace wildly from side to side. It would move off in one direction, snort, and start off in another.

"Come on, damn you!" Curly cried, the smell of violent death everywhere. He pulled on the reigns and gave the mare the spurs. "Get up!"

The barn door slammed open in the wind and then shut again. Nate's horse was whinnying and pulling madly at its tether in there. Something was wrong and both animals knew it.

The lamp in the house flickered and went out.

A cold chill went up Curly's spine and it had nothing to do with the screaming, bitter wind. And then there was another sound in the distance: a low, horrible howling, an insane baying that rose up and was broke apart by the wind. Curly went cold all over, his hackles raising. That sound…the roar of a freight train echoing through a mineshaft.

The howling sounded out again.

Closer.

With a scream, Curly yanked on the reins and the mare took off down the road, nearly throwing him. It galloped crazily in the wrong direction and Curly couldn't get it under control. His face went numb from the cold, his eyes watering. Terror rattled in his heart and in his ears-the howling.

Closer.

And closer still.

16

"Big" Bill Lauters dismounted his horse and waited for Dr. Perry to do the same. It took the old man a little longer.

"Damn cold," Perry said. "My back's really acting up."

Lauters rubbed his hands together. "Let's go," he said. "Might as well get it over with."

He went in the house first. He saw pretty much what Curly Del Vecchio had seen the night before. The house was trashed, looking much like a small tornado had whipped through. Furniture was shattered. Dishes and crockery broken into bits that crunched underfoot. Bottles were smashed. Everything seemed to be ripped and splintered. And over it all, flour, sugar…and blood.