Skull Moon Read online

  Those who had spurned Wynona in life always came around to her in the end.

  It made Wynona smile.

  When she was young and first felt the stirrings of love, of desire for the opposite sex, the boys shunned her. She was never what you would've called physically attractive, there was more of the skeleton to her than the seductress. She was thin and bony by nature. Her flesh was cold to the touch. And she was the undertaker's daughter. The boys picked up on that, of course. They had no more use for her than the girls. Had she been a leper she could have been no more alone, no more shunned, no more banished from their social circles.

  Without the benefit of male or female companionship-even her mother had passed on before her tenth birthday and Wynona remembered her father painstakingly preparing mother for the worms-Wynona withdrew more and more until by age sixteen, she was little more than a hermit, spending most of her time with her father and his work. The cadavers became her friends. She developed secret relationships with them, named them. She would sing songs to them and play games with them. Tell them stories, secrets. She was always sad when it came time for them to go.

  And in the dark recesses of her brain, an evil seed was planted: One day, perhaps, she would select a special friend. And that friend she would keep with her. That friend would not be surrendered to dank earth and feasting worms.

  Wynona had something else in common with her father: She robbed the dead.

  Call it desecration if you must, but to Wynona it was merely a way of supplementing her income. Watches, jewelry, silver buttons. She sold them to a jeweler in Nevada City who did not ask questions. Gold teeth to a goldsmith who melted them down and fashioned them into settings for rings, chains for necklaces. Some might have called Wynona ghoulish, but ghoulish or not, she was not wasteful. Now and then she found money on her customers. Usually it was already purloined by the time the body came under her care. But when it hadn't, she rejoiced. Fringe benefits. Even a fine pair of boots or undamaged hat could fetch a handsome price.

  And why, she often thought, should such treasures languish in the ground?

  Wynona filled a glass goblet with whiskey and began slowly blowing out candles, until all that illuminated her rooms was the yellow glow of the fireplace and the anemic moonlight which filtered in with ghostly fingers.

  She unlocked her bedroom door and sat on the bed, on the purple velvet coverlet, her head reclined against an avalanche of feather pillows.

  There was a shape in the bed next to her. It did not stir.

  Wynona sighed. "Oh, what a day I've had, Marion. What a most interesting and unusual day," she said, sipping whiskey. "More murders. More business. And a most interesting man. A deputy U.S. Marshal named Joseph Longtree. A fascinating man. What? Oh, don't act like that, I assure you he means nothing to me…"

  12

  Deputy Bowes watched the sheriff come in and was glad to see the man was sober for a change. "Another one?" he said.

  Lauters sat behind his desk. "Dewey Mayhew."

  Bowes set a cup of coffee before him. "No point in asking the particulars, I guess. I know 'em all well enough by now."

  Lauters nodded. "Same three-toed prints in the snow, spur at the heel. Goddammit."

  "Should we try tracking it?"

  Lauters didn't answer. He stared off into space, his lips moving with silent words. He sipped a third of his coffee away and opened the bottom drawer. He took out the fifth of rye, pulled the cork with his teeth, and poured some in his coffee. "Any excitement tonight?" he asked, wincing as the liquor settled in his belly.

  "Not too much. Got a miner by the name of Ezra Wholesome in lock-up."

  "Wholesome?"

  Bowes scratched his beard, grinning. "Yeah. Lost five hundred to the house over at Ruby's. Wouldn't pay. Pulled his iron."

  Lauters looked up. "Any shooting?"

  "No, I talked him out of it."

  Bowes was good. You had to give him that. Lauters never once regretted signing the man on. He had an innate gift for soothing the savage beast, cooling hot blood with carefully-chosen words. He could talk sense to gunmen and crazy injuns with equal ease. Lauters figured he could've charmed the habit off a nun.

  "You wanna tell me about it?" Bowes said.

  The sheriff nodded. "Mayhew was alive when I got there."

  "What did he say?" Bowes asked this intently.

  Lauters told him. Then told him what the blacksmith, Rikers, had seen. "Devil, he said. Looked like the Devil." Lauters drank straight from the bottle now. "Goddamn Devil. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

  Bowes shrugged. "You think there's anything to it?"

  Lauters shrugged. "Hell if I know. Tomorrow, I'm gonna have Johnson over at the paper print up some bounty posters. It'll draw some professional hunters in. Couldn't hurt."

  "It didn't make any moves against Rikers?"

  "Not a one. He came out there with his lantern, frightened it off. Lucky to be alive, I suppose."

  Bowes sighed. "Longtree," he said carefully, "thinks these killings are related. That the beast is going after certain people."

  Lauters took another drink. "You believe that?"

  "I don't know what to believe anymore."

  "Longtree don't know his ass from an umbrella stand, son."

  "He seems like a smart fellah, though."

  Lauters did not comment on that.

  There was no point: He knew Longtree was smart. Knew it well as any man, but he'd never admit to it. Couldn't bring himself to. Federal intervention had always been a sore spot with Lauters. And now here comes this big-mouthed deputy marshal and he was a goddamn breed to boot. And a crafty, smart sumbitch, too. Lauters didn't like a guy like that poking around. There were too many skeletons in too many closets and the last thing this town needed was some breed rattling them loose.

  Besides, dammit, how was it going to look if that wily, hotshot bastard solved these goddamn murders while Lauters, a white man, was running around in circles scratching his fat ass? Not good, that's what.

  But the murders.

  Jesus. Those bodies. Despite himself, he wouldn't be one bit surprised if Rikers was right and it was old Satan himself. Those tracks…

  Lauters gulped off the bottle again. Rye ran down his chin. He didn't bother to wipe it off. He just stared into space with wide, bloodshot eyes. His lips trembled with a tic.

  "Something the matter, Sheriff?"

  "Yeah," Lauters, said staring into the amber depths of the bottle. "I'm scared shitless."

  13

  It was getting on around two when Longtree heard the horse approaching.

  He'd been sleeping an hour or so and started awake at the sound. Years of hunting and being hunted by dangerous men made him a light sleeper. He woke at almost anything. Sometimes a good wind stirring the trees was enough.

  He pulled himself free of his bedroll. His horse snorted.

  The rider stopped in the treeline surrounding his little gully. "Come on in," Longtree called, pistols out now.

  The rider came down the trail slowly, the horse's hoofs crunching the snow with gentle, timed steps. Longtree fed a few logs into the dying fire and it blazed with flickering orange light. The rider was an Indian. There was no doubt of this. A long buffalo robe was pulled over his head and he sat astride a rawhide saddle.

  But it wasn't a "he." It was Laughing Moonwind from the Blackfeet camp.

  She wore buffalo mittens and carried an old Kentucky rifle. She tethered her horse and sat by the fire.

  "I guess you were the last person in the world I expected," Longtree said, putting his pistols away and sitting by her side. He rolled a cigarette from his tobacco pouch.

  "You came to ask us questions," she began, "and now I've come to do the same."

  He nodded. "Fair enough. Who sent you? Crazytail?"

  She fixed him with her huge brown eyes. Fire was reflected in them. It seemed to belong there. "I said I was asking the questions," she said sternly, then softening a b
it, "I came of my own accord."

  "Your English is good," Longtree commented, not bothering to ask her where she learned it.

  "I was schooled by whites."

  Longtree nodded. "Me, too."

  "Why are you here?" she inquired. "Why does this matter involve the U.S. Government?"

  "People are being killed. I was sent here to find out why." He briefly sketched out for her the trouble all this could cause, what with the mines and the reservation lands and the general hatred existing between white and red man.

  "And you think you can solve all these problems?"

  "No, but I can try." The flickering firelight fanned his face with jumping shadow. "Somebody has to. This is way out of control. Keeps up, people are going to start pulling out of Wolf Creek. That may be a good thing for your people, Moonwind, but not for the white man."

  She had no reaction to this. "And you won't leave until you're finished?"

  He shook his head. "Can't."

  "Even if it means dying?"

  He shrugged. "I'll take my chances. It's what I'm paid for."

  "You're very stubborn. Very foolish."

  She slipped the buffalo robe off, letting it fall to the ground. The fire was throwing off a lot of heat. Longtree was down to his shirtsleeves now, too. He sat smoking and watching her, letting her direct things here. She knew something and he wanted to know what.

  "The buffalo herds are thinning, " she said. "Soon my people will be starving like the rest of the Plains tribes. We are a dying race." She studied the ground with sadness, a sadness not so much learned, but bred. The sadness of her race. "Of all the indignities forced on us by the whites, this is the worst. They are taking away our ability to feed and clothe ourselves. We will be reduced to a race of beggars just to feed our children. We have never liked the whites. But we could even have forgiven them of this if it was an accident. But it is no accident." She stared into the fire, solemn, proud. "The army is directing the slaughter of the buffalo and as they die, so do we."

  Longtree said, "I think the army wants to stop the Sioux and the Cheyenne. So the Indian Wars will end."

  "And what of us?" Moonwind asked. "Must we perish with them?"

  Longtree sighed. "I wish I had an answer for that."

  "Your people, the Absaroka, the Crow, have fought with the Flatheads against us-"

  "We also fought the Dakotas, the Sioux."

  "You fought against us," she maintained.

  He dragged off his cigarette. "Did the Crow have a choice? The Blackfeet raided and killed them without mercy. Moonwind, the Blackfeet are a warring tribe. They are not an innocent race."

  She ignored this. "The Crow fought with the whites against us, against others. And where did it get them? They were forgotten and tossed aside when their usefulness to the whites had ended. The Crow are few now, Joseph Longtree. They are a starving, beaten race, riddled with white man's diseases."

  "I know what's happened," he told her. "I'm not ignorant of any of this."

  "The whites are treacherous."

  "Not all of them."

  "Your mother was a Crow. How can you say this?"

  "And my father was a white. None of this has anything to do with why I'm here," he explained patiently. "I didn't come to run Indians. I came to stop some killing or at least find out why it's happening."

  "This matters so much to you?"

  "Yes," he said flatly. "Now I'm going to ask questions and you're going to answer them. Tell me about the Skull Society."

  She shrugged. "They are a men's society. We have many as do most tribes. There are others-the Bear, the Beaver. The Beaver is the most spiritually powerful it is said. The Wolf and Bear produce the finest hunters and warriors. But the oldest, the most secretive is the Skull Society. It is also the most feared."

  "Why?"

  "Because…" she pursed her lips as if what she revealed was taboo and it probably was. "Because they have the power to call the Skullhead."

  "And what is this Skullhead?"

  "A supernatural being. Nothing more. According to tradition, the Skullhead is a righter of wrongs."

  Longtree stared at her, knowing she knew more than she was saying. She avoided his eyes. "Tell me what this is all about."

  She continued staring in the fire for some time. Then, "It has been said that those of the Skull Society have the ability to change shape, to shift themselves into other forms." She let that lay with him. "It is a fairly common belief with my people. The Bear Society believes they can assume the shape of their spiritual guide, the great bear. The Wolf Society believes they can become wolves."

  "Do you believe in this?"

  "I believe many things."

  "But do you believe in this? The whites have a name for shapeshifters. Do you know what it is?"

  "Werewolf," she said softly.

  He nodded. "A legend."

  She seemed unconcerned with his label. "It has been said the ancients were in league with many creatures. Some no longer walk this land. Some are distant memory. That they hunted with them, as them. That they could reverse their skins. Beneath their flesh were the pelts of wolf, bear. This was accomplished with the Blood-Medicine my father spoke of."

  Longtree tossed his cigarette into the fire. "Okay. That's fine for the Wolf and Bear Societies. I don't ridicule their beliefs. But what of the Skull Society? What is it they claim to become with this Blood-Medicine?"

  "With the Blood-Medicine, men of the Society could become the Skullhead."

  "What else?"

  She went silent again. Then she turned and looked at him, her eyes drinking him in, making him shiver. Shadow and light played over her face. "It was said my grandfather was a shapeshifter. That he often hunted in the form of an animal. That his father was one and his father's father."

  "And Crazytail?"

  "Yes, he, too."

  Longtree licked his lips. "Are your telling me your father is killing these people in the form of an animal? Some primal beast? This Skullhead?"

  She looked angry. "No. You wanted to know about the Skull Society. That's all I'm telling you."

  But was it? Was she laying it all out for him? No, he decided, she was spinning tribal tales, nothing more. People didn't turn into animals. There were no werewolves. Or Were-bears. Or Skullheads. If he started believing garbage like that then it was time to turn in his badge. It was madness.

  "One year ago," she said, "a local white girl was murdered in Wolf Creek. Her name was Carpenter. She was raped, then stabbed. My brother, Red Elk, was arrested for the crime."

  "Did he do it?"

  "No, he wouldn't do such a thing." She seemed to believe this. "He had too much honor. He was found stooping over the body, so, of course, being an Indian, the whites decided he was guilty." Her lips tightened down like a vise. "He was arrested and put in jail. Two nights later, vigilantes stormed the jail and hanged him." She laughed dryly, without emotion. "At least, this is the story Sheriff Lauters told."

  "And you think he was lying?"

  "Yes. I don't know why he would, but I think it was to protect someone." Moonwind had planted the seed of uncertainty, now she nourished it. "In recent years, the local ranchers have been plagued by a cattle rustling ring. Red Elk told me he thought he knew who the members of that ring were."

  "So he was arrested and lynched to shut him up?" Longtree asked.

  "Yes, I think so. But there's more to it than that. A rumor circulated after he was hanged, mainly among the whites, that Red Elk didn't kill that woman. That he came upon her as she was dying and she told him who her attacker was."

  "One of the ring?"

  "It would seem… logical, don't you think? Red Elk knew who her killer was and he knew who the rustlers were."

  Longtree sighed. "You're just guessing."

  "Am I? I visited Red Elk in the jail the day before he was lynched. He told me he knew who the killer was. That in the courtroom he planned on pointing the finger at not only the killer, but at the entire
ring."

  "But he didn't tell you who this person was?"

  She shook her head. "He said it was too dangerous for me to know."

  Longtree thought about it. It made a certain amount of sense. If Red Elk knew who the real killer was and who the rustlers were, then certain parties would have every reason in the world to have him jailed and lynched before he came to trial. But what of Lauters? What was his part in this? Logic dictated that he was one of the ring, that the killer was another. Lauters didn't want this killer going on the stand because, facing the noose, he'd have told everything. Red Elk was seen stooping over the body, a very convenient surrogate. Everything fell into place after that. The ring must've have known Red Elk knew about them. It made sense…it answered many questions…but was it true?

  Longtree rolled another cigarette and lit it with an ember from the fire. "Who," he said, "saw Red Elk bending over the body?"

  "Sheriff Lauters."

  Longtree winced. Damn. It was all too obvious now. Or was it? He couldn't jump to conclusions here. He would have to proceed slowly. Check out all this as quietly and covertly as possible. If Lauters was involved and he discovered Longtree nosing into the affair…it could get ugly. Still, none of this explained the series of killings.

  "I'll look into it," he promised. "But my first consideration is still the murders."

  "Maybe if you solve one crime, you'll solve the others."

  Longtree looked at her. Moonwind knew much more than she was saying, but she was fiercely stubborn. She would tell no more than she wanted to. A woman like Moonwind couldn't be coerced into talking. He had to gain her confidence and the only way he could do that was by investigating her brother's lynching and what led to it.