Skull Moon

He'd been riding about twenty minutes when he heard galloping hooves. The light was fading fast and he was approaching a little ridge that marked the end of the little valley he was in. He swallowed down hard, knowing it was trouble, and one hand snaked down and slipped the Winchester from its boot.

Who would it be this time?

Lauters? Maybe someone he'd hired? Or maybe Blackfeet braves, out to stop him from nosing around.

He rode up out of the valley and followed a thin, hard-packed snow trail into a stand of pines. Here, he paused. He didn't hear a thing now. He hadn't been able to tell from which direction the rider had been coming, just that he was riding fast.

"Well, show yourself already," Longtree said under his breath.

He lit a cigar and got the black to moving again. Its pace was slow, barely a trot, Longtree's ears attuned to every sound. He had a bad feeling suddenly, realizing that these trees and their shadowy depths were the perfect place to spring an ambush. He stopped.

There was a hint of movement off to his left.

Longtree threw himself off his horse just as shots were fired. The aim was poor, the bullets thudding into the branches overhead. The black trotted away up the trail, stopping a good distance away, as if knowing what was coming.

Longtree peeked his head out from behind the pine that covered him and there was a crack and a bullet whistled past his ear. He drew back and then darted out again, firing a few quick shots at where he thought the gunman was.

"You over there!" he called out. "I'm a United States Marshal! Throw down your weapon!"

A few more bullets bit into the pine.

I guess it's gotta be done the hard way then, Longtree thought.

He tensed himself and dove to the cover of another tree. More bullets kicked up snow a few feet from him. He hadn't been able to tell from which direction the rider following him had been coming…but it wasn't from in front of him. Which meant there was another one out there, probably getting a bead on him right now. Longtree almost laughed to himself at how slow he'd gotten through the years. The rider following him had forced him into these trees where the gunman was waiting. It was a simple strategy and one that Longtree should've recognized.

He heard sticks breaking on the rise above him. It could only be the rider.

Longtree didn't shoot; he waited. Waited for the assassin to get within visual range. His partner across the trail probably figured this out for he began to pepper Longtree's location with gunfire, trying to make him shoot, warning his partner.

Longtree smiled and waited.

He saw a gray form moving through the trees, down the rise. He couldn't see the man's face: he wore a black hood. Across the trail, the other gunman crept silently from his hiding place.

Longtree let him get close.

Or tried to. The man coming down the rise began shooting and there was nothing to do but return fire. Longtree clipped off a few shots, one of which knocked the hat from the gunman's head, the other went clear as he dove for cover. More bullets from across the trail pounded into the pines around the marshal. Longtree waited until this volley was over and fired two more bullets at the man on the rise and then leaped out from behind his tree, shooting at the other one. This guy wore a hood, too. He fired at Longtree and missed. Longtree shot back, hitting him in the arm. He let out a cry of pain and fell back, stumbling through the brush.

The gunman on the rise pulled back, firing a few bullets as he ran. They screamed harmlessly through the air. As dark settled in, the man on the rise was gone. Longtree heard the other moaning and plowing through the trees. A few seconds later, he heard horses riding off.

Longtree ran down the trail and caught sight of two riders galloping back in the direction of Wolf Creek. One of which was hunched over in his saddle. The marshal figured he could've picked one of them off, but didn't bother.

There was no point.

One of them was winged and it wouldn't be too hard to find a man with a bullet in his arm.

Particularly when he was the sheriff.

2

An hour later, Mike Ryan was back at his ranch.

They'd failed; Longtree was still very much alive. That was bad. And what made it worse was that Lauters had taken a bullet in his gun arm. He'd be of no real use for some time…if he ever was again.

It was quiet at the ranch. Most of the men were over at the cookhouse eating or at the bunkhouses playing cards and snoozing. Ryan could hear a harmonica playing somewhere. It was a nice evening, not too cool.

There were men out riding the perimeters of Ryan's lands, twice the usual number, a good idea Ryan thought under the circumstances. And there were men down in the valley with the herds and half a dozen more walking the grounds. Nothing would come in tonight that wasn't supposed to be there.