Longtree stood waiting and watching as she disappeared into a lodge. It was larger than most of the others, the hide covering painted with wolves in deep, rich reds. There were also numerous skulls, gruesome things with huge eye sockets and sharpened stakes for teeth. Longtree knew the wolves signified that the owner of the tipi considered the wolf to be the source of his supernatural power…but the skulls, who could say? Along the bottom, the lodge cover was red with unpainted discs. Along the top, it was painted black with a large Maltese cross.
Many of the Indians were watching him now, wondering what his business could possibly be. Children gawked at him, but were silent as only tribal children could be.
There were long racks of buffalo meat drying and hides staked out to cure and bleach in the sun. A few of the women were eating, chewing bits of pemmican mixed with sarvis berries. The men sat smoking from gray shale tobacco pipes, clenching ash pipestems in their fists. Horses were corralled out near the treeline, pawing away at the snow to reach the grasses below. A few dogs lapped from rawhide troughs.
Laughing Moonwind finally returned. 'My father will see you. Come.'
He followed her to the lodge just as three other women departed it. Longtree assumed they were Crazytail's wives.
Inside the cavernous lodge, a small fire burned in a pit. It cast crazy, dancing shadows everywhere. The air smelled of smoke, tobacco, and dried meat. Moonwind by his side, Longtree sat across from an old man wearing a buffalo fur headpiece with horns intact. He was wrapped in a blanket, his left shoulder covered, his right arm and shoulder uncovered. His face was shadowy, the skin a leathery seamed brown, the eyes dark and unreadable. He smoked a long pipe ornamented with beads and eagle feathers.
Longtree knew it to be a medicine pipe, a sacred object.
Moonwind chatted in low tones with her father, then turned to Longtree. 'My father wishes you to know that Chief Ironbrow is ill. He will speak in his place. What is it you wish here?'
'I need help. There have been killings in Wolf Creek. Brutal slayings that seem the work of an animal.'
Moonwind relayed this. Crazytail blinked, nothing more. Then he spoke.
'My father is aware of the killings. He can tell you only that they will continue.'
Longtree expected as much.
Long experience with Indians had taught him that you couldn't take what many of them said at face value. Crazytail saying the killings would continue meant nothing. It wasn't an admission of guilt; merely something the man had probably seen in his visions or dreams.
'Does Crazytail know what this beast is?' Longtree asked of her.
She relayed the information. 'Skullhead,' she said.
Longtree shifted uneasily on the buffalo hide bedding beneath him. 'Ask him who or what this Skullhead is.'
Moonwind did.
The old man talked at some length, finishing with a shake of his head.
'Many, many years ago, long before the dog days, Crazytail's great ancestor, Medicine Claw, a member of the Skull Society, spent twelve days on a mountain plateau,' Moonwind said, 'calling up the spirits of sky, earth, and water. He fasted for ten days and drank water but once. His guide spirit, the Wolf-Skull spirit, came down to him and taught him many things. He taught Medicine Claw the ways of the Skullhead, his sacred ways and rituals. The enigma of the Blood-Medicine. It has been passed down through a hundred generations of the Skull Society.'
Longtree stared at her, hoping there was more. Crazytail had said before the 'dog days.' The dog days, Longtree knew, was the period before the Blackfeet were using horses, when they had only dogs to move camp with. This was before white men had come into contact with them. And Crazytail had said it was before this time, a 'hundred generations' ago. This would mean that Longtree was hearing a tribal memory, something handed down for hundreds of years if not more.
'When Crazytail was a young man,' Moonwind went on, 'he, too, spent many days fasting on a mountainside as all men of the Skull Society must do. The Wolf-Skull spirit came to him saying the Skullhead was always near, close enough to touch. But that Crazytail must be cautious, for the Skullhead was fierce and voracious, a force of nature like thunder and wind. To contact Skullhead he must use the sacred Blood-Medicine, but this medicine was holy and not to be used foolishly. For the Skullhead, once summoned, could not be sent away until its appetite was satisfied with the blood of enemies. Two months ago, in the sweat lodge, Crazytail was again visited by the spirit Wolf-Skull. The time of the Skullhead is at hand as it was in ancient times.'
Longtree felt a chill go up his back. 'Who is the Skullhead?'
Moonwind shook her head. 'My father will speak no more. No white man may know of this. The Blood- Medicine is sacred to the Skull Society. The Skullhead has been summoned. He is among us now,' she said, her eyes shining, 'and getting closer.'
Longtree felt a certain uneasiness worm through him. His skin had gone cold now, his stomach stirring sickly. There was a veiled threat in her words.
He was half-white, yes, and that half wanted to laugh at all this nonsense. Nothing but injun gobbledegook, ghost stories, old wives' tales. Crap handed down generation by generation. Just shit that had been dreamed up by some injun shaman blown clear into dreamland by peyote. But Longtree was also half-Crow. And that part of him was concerned. It knew better than to scoff at the medicine of the tribes. And it was commonly known that the Blackfeet were possessed of a very powerful medicine.
But, damn, it was all a load of horseshit, right?
He left Crazytail, knowing he'd get no more this night. He mounted his black and looked down at Moonwind.
She watched him, her lips forming words silently. Under her breath, she said, 'Beware, Joseph Longtree, for the Skull Moon grows full.'
Longtree rode off into the dead of night, shivering.
7
At around ten that night, Lauters-not drinking for the moment-decided to pay a visit on Dr. Perry. Anna, Perry's housekeeper, answered the door and led the sheriff through the maze of the surgery to the little study at the back of the house.
'Didn't expect to see you this late, Bill,' Perry said.
'Couldn't sleep,' Lauters explained. 'I can never sleep worth a damn anymore.'
Unless you're dead drunk, Perry felt like saying, but didn't. He was sitting behind his desk, a brass microscope set out before him. There were other things there as well-a box of slides, a few dark corked bottles, several jars, an array of metal instruments. A dissection kit stood open, a scalpel and forceps missing from the felt-lined case. There were several tufts of fur laid out as well.
'What are you doing, Doc?'
Perry stroked his mustache. 'A little detective work.' He motioned to the tufts of fur. 'You know what these are?'
'Bits of animal fur,' Lauters said, examining books in oak shelves, most titles of which he couldn't pronounce.
'Not just any, though. I have pelts from grizzlies, foxes, coyotes, wolves. In fact, from all the known predators in this area,' he explained. 'I'm examining hairs from each with those of our mysterious friend here.'
Lauters sat down across from him. 'And?'
'And I've concluded what we already know. This tuft of fur is not from any of these creatures. Though,' Perry confided in a low tone, 'it shares similarities with human hair. But much more coarse.'
'So what does this tell us?'
Perry cleared his throat. 'Do you know what a mutation is, Sheriff?'
'Haven't the foggiest.'
Perry studied him closely. Lauters' fingers were trembling. He was bloated and pale. The tip of his nose was purple from ruptured blood vessels and capillaries. Liver spots were numerous on his hands. He licked his lips
