Skull Moon

"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."

"Sheriff," the one called Dewey said calmly. "We got six murders, here, for the love of God. If he can help-"

"Shut up, Dewey." Lauters turned his back on all of them and started up out of the gully.

"Who's the sixth?" Longtree asked.

"Nate Segaris," one of the men replied. "Got killed right in his house."

"Ripped to shreds," another said.

Longtree took a drag off his cigar. "Before you boys head back," he said, "you ought to know there's a seventh."

Everyone stared at him.

And in the distance, a low mournful howling rose up and died away.

PART II Old Red Eyes 1

The good Reverend Claussen, scarf wrapped around his throat, fought through the biting wind to the undertaking parlor. He paused in the street outside of a peeling gray building. A wooden, weathered sign read: J. SPENCE, UNDERTAKER. It was barely readable. Too many seasons of harsh winters and blistering summers had faded the black lettering to a drab leaden color.

Clenching his teeth against the elements, Claussen went in.

He went directly into the back rooms where the bodies were prepared.

In there were Wynona Spence, Sheriff Lauters, and Dr. Perry.

The reverend eyed them all suspiciously. "Why is it," he said in his New England twang, "that I wasn't told of another death? Why must I learn these things by word of mouth, by rumor?"

"Keep your shirt on, Father," Lauters said. "I-"

"I'm not a Catholic, sir. Please address me accordingly."

Lauters scowled, fished a plug of tobacco from his pouch and inserted it in his cheek. "What I was trying to say, Reverend, was that this here is Curly Del Vecchio. Or what there's left of him. Curly wasn't what you'd call a religious man."

Claussen, his close-cut steel-gray hair bristling, said, "The dead are granted certain considerations, Sheriff. By the grace of God let me give this poor man spiritual absolution."

Dr. Perry, standing next to the sheeted form on the table shrugged and pulled the sheet away.

Reverend Claussen paled and averted his eyes.

"Not very pretty, is it?" Wynona Spence said, her pursed lips pulled into a thin purple line which might have been a smile. "But beauty is in the eye of the beholder."