Skull Moon

He looked at the old man's daughters and then at the old man himself. Then he asked for water in a dry, dead voice. The old man sent his daughters away and let the hanged man drink all he desired from a jug fashioned from the bladder of a buffalo.

"My throat burns," he finally said, his eyes blue and icy.

"It is not broken, " Swift Fox said. "By the grace of the fathers, you lived."

"You speak good English."

The old man took this as a fact, not a compliment. "I was a cavalry scout."

"Did you bring me here?"

"Yes."

The man nodded painfully. He looked around. "Flathead?" he asked.

"Yes. I am called Swift Fox."

"Joseph Smith Longtree," the man said. "Where am I exactly?"

"You are in a camp on the north fork of the Shoshone River. Less than a mile from where I found you, Marshal."

Longtree coughed dryly, nodding. "How far are we from Bad River?"

"Two miles," the old man told him. "No more, no less."

Longtree sat up and his head spun. "Damn," he said. "I have to get down to Bad River. The men I'm hunting…they might still be there."

"Who are these men?"

Longtree told him.

There were three men, he said. Charles Brickley, Carl Weiss, and Budd Hannion. They ambushed an army wagon in Nebraska that was en route to Fort Kearny, killing all six troopers on board. The wagon had carried army carbines which, it was learned, were sold to Bannock war parties. That was a matter now for the army itself and the Indian Bureau. But the killing of soldiers was a federal offense which made it the business of the U. S. Marshals Office. Longtree had trailed the killers from Dakota Territory to Bad River. And in the foothills of the Absarokas, they had ambushed him. They jumped him, beat him senseless, strung him up.

"But you did not die," Swift Fox reminded him.

"Thanks to you." Longtree was able to sit up now without dizziness.

Swift Fox was studying him. His hair was long and dark, carrying a blueblack sheen foreign to whites. "You are a breed?" he asked.

Longtree smiled thinly. "My mother was a Crow, my father a beaver trapper."

Swift Fox only nodded. "When do you plan on hunting these men?"

Longtree rubbed his neck. "Tomorrow," he said, then laid back down, shutting his eyes.

4

The wind was blowing when he made it into Bad River.

It wasn't much of a town. A rutted road of dirt and dried mud meandered between rows of peeled clapboard buildings. What signs hung out front had been weathered unreadable by the elements. There was a livery, a blacksmith shop, and a graying boarded-up structure that might have passed for a hotel. There was no law here, no jailhouse. What Longtree had come to do, he would do alone.

Dust and dirt in his face, the wind mourning amongst the buildings, Longtree hitched the horse Swift Fox had loaned him outside the livery barn. The horse-an old gray-wasn't too happy about being left in the wind.

"This won't take long," Longtree promised him.

He broke open the short-barreled shotgun the old Flathead had given him, fed in two shells, and started down the rotting, frost-heaved boardwalk. His army spurs jangled as he walked. Swift Fox had done some checking and found that the men Longtree was looking for often frequented the Corner Saloon in Bad River.

This is where Longtree went now.

He had his neckerchief pulled up over his nose and mouth so he wouldn't be breathing grit. The shotgun was held firmly in his fists, his eyes narrowed. His dark clothes were gray now with dust and wind-blown debris. Outside the saloon, he paused. It was a decaying structure, single-story, its boarding warped and peeled, the doorway askew with an old army blanket tacked to the frame.

Longtree went in with a slow and easy pace, the shotgun ready in his hands. It was dim inside, lit only by sputtering lamps. The floor was uneven and covered in layers of pungent sawdust. The stuffy air stank of cheap liquor, smoke, and body odor. Beaten men lounged at the bar. A few more in booths. An obese, toothless bar hag slicked with sweat and grime grinned at Longtree with yellow gums.

"What'll ya have?" the bartender asked. He was bald and had but one arm, an empty sleeve pinned to his side.

Longtree ignored him, keeping his neckerchief up over his face so the men at the back table wouldn't recognize him.

They were all there.

Brickley, thin and wizened, hat pulled down near his eyes. Weiss, chubby and short, grinning at his partners. Hannion, a muscled giant, a knife scar running down one cheek.

Longtree went to them.

"You want somethin'?" Weiss asked, a single gold tooth in his lower jaw.

"I have a warrant for the arrest of you men," Longtree said. "Murder."

They looked up at him with wide, hateful eyes.

Longtree flashed his badge and pulled down the neckerchief.