fiercely…and then, overcome with guilt, would read from the Bible.
Charlie Mears, the third, was a highwayman who specialized in robbing and murdering miners in the hills. He was perpetually drunk and had been since the night he'd tipped over an oil lamp and his house had burned to the ground, taking his wife and infant son with it.
And Pete Olak, the fourth victim, was thought to have been a good father and provider for his little family. But it was he who pulled the noose over Red Elk's head and tightened it, smiling as he did so. The fifth, sixth, and seventh victims-George Reiko, Nathan Segaris, and Curly DelVecchio respectively-had been the ones who had cooked up the lynching of Red Elk and had done so under Mike Ryan's supervision. They dragged Red Elk through the streets, kicking and cussing him all the way. As a final gesture of hatred and disrespect, they had urinated on him. And Dewey Mayhew, who had pretty much stood by and watched the hanging, his bowels tight and his bones rattling beneath his skin, lived a cursed and haunted life. Like that nameless miner, he had been told the exact date of his death by Ghost Hand, Herbert Crazytail's father. And told it would be violent, painful, and unpleasant. It was. Mike Ryan, the most recent victim of Skullhead, was a very rich and powerful man. Equally respected and feared. But for all his bravado and barrel-chested machismo, Ryan had a taste for young men and, whenever possible, satisfied his urges with a male prostitute in Laramie.
The last surviving member of the Gang of Ten was Sheriff Bill Lauters. He had a fine farm and wonderful family, but he, too, was haunted. Ever since Red Elk's lynching he had been drinking heavily. Sometimes it was the only way he could get the boy's face out of his mind-that distended visage livid as a bruise, those bulging sightless eyes, crooked neck, and lolling blackened tongue. Sometimes Lauters would dream that Red Elk came to him, a dead thing, bone shaft jutting from his broken neck. He would carry a noose in his hands. His own. Lauters would wake in a cold sweat and immediately hit the bottle. Sometimes, he prayed for death.
These were the secrets of the town, a sampling at best. There were worse things, but they would never be known. For as Deputy Bowes had commented, Wolf Creek was a seething cauldron ready to boil over.
This, then, was the scene before the slaughter.
7
Longtree found the body about half a mile from Ryan's ranch. It was covered in a light dusting of snow, the world's oldest shroud. He would've missed it save that it was sprawled over the trail, twisted and flayed, a cast-off from an abattoir. It was still warm.
Lighting the oil lantern he always carried for times like this, Longtree investigated.
The face had been torn free as had the throat. The body had no arms and one leg was missing It had been eviscerated, plucked, bitten, clawed, and chewed. Longtree, nausea like a plug of grease in his stomach, searched the surrounding area and found the arms, some bloody meat that might have been a regurgitated face, much frozen blood, but no leg. A snack carted away for the trail, he decided.
In the snow and the wind, his horse whinnying with displeasure, Longtree made a fairly through examination of the crime area. He found nothing here he hadn't seen at the others: carnage, simple and brutal. Nothing more.
Yet, he knew there was always more to be gleaned than what struck the eye. This was the work of the Skullhead, the marshal full well knew, an act of revenge perpetrated with an animal's hunger and a man's sadistic imagination. This man, whoever he might have been, had to be one of the Gang of Ten. Unless the Skullhead had allowed a serious slip in methodology, it could be no one else. The mysterious ninth member. But who?
He searched the corpse for signs of identification and found none.
It was no easy task. Such was the degree of atrocities performed on the cadaver that its clothes and flesh were threaded together. Both were frozen stiff with blood, it being hard to determine where one started and the other left off. After a few minutes of this with nothing to show for it but filthy gloves, Longtree gave up.
His horse had pawed through the snow and was happily munching some tender grasses. But he heard whinnying. He looked around. The snowfall obscured everything. The lantern's light was growing dim, fuel running low. It sputtered and spat. He set out on foot, trying to pinpoint the direction of the sound. Noises were broken up by the wind, scattered, and set back upon themselves so it was impossible to trust his ears. He found a rifle in the snow, a Sharps buffalo rifle,. 50 caliber. It had to belong to the dead man. From the smell of powder on the barrel, it had been fired recently. Maybe at the beast.
Longtree searched the area in ever-widening concentric circles that slowly brought him out of range of his own horse. Had he not been a scout at one time, he would never had attempted this. It was dangerous to wander off in a blizzard in such desolate country, but Longtree's sense of orientation was flawless.
He found the horse some time later, picketed behind a high shelf of rocks. It was a fine muscular gelding, sleek and proud. A rich man's horse. He searched the saddlebags and found some papers of a business nature, all bearing the signature of Mike Ryan. He also found a Springfield 1865 Allin Conversion in the rifle boot, finely customized. A brass plate on the butt identified it as Mike Ryan's weapon. There was no doubt then, the body was either that of Mike Ryan or someone who had robbed him. Longtree decided on the former.
Mike Ryan had been the ninth member.
But why was he out here? Shannon had said he was expecting him at the ranch. So why would Ryan be out here?
Then it came to Longtree. It was all too obvious, a child's leap of logic. Ryan had asked him up here in order to kill him. He had hidden on the trail, probably atop the rock outcropping, waiting for Longtree to ride by, the Sharps rifle at the ready. But the Skullhead had found him first.
Another assassination attempt thwarted. This time by the killer himself…or itself.
Quite by accident, Skullhead had saved the lawman's life.
Longtree laughed grimly in the wind, taking Ryan's horse back to the body. He now knew who all the rustlers were. Only one remained alive. Lauters. Ryan had probably been the other masked rider with Lauters. It all fit together seamlessly. If Longtree wanted to stop the beast, it was only a matter of sticking close to Lauters.
Because the beast would come sooner or later.
And as unpleasant as it was, Longtree would have to follow the sheriff wherever he went.
8
Sheriff Bill Lauters had a little farm outside Wolf Creek. And as the storm picked up its intensity, the eldest of his three sons-Chauncey-was sent out into the cold. As the eldest, he was considered man of the house when his father was away, which was often. More often than not, Chauncey, with the assistance of his brothers, pretty much took care of the place. They milked the cows, fed the chickens and slaughtered them, slopped the hogs, tended the grounds-everything. When their father was around, which was seldom, he was often too drunk to do more than sit on the porch or collapse in bed.
Tonight, Chauncey braved the elements to drive the hogs into the barn where they'd be safe from the cold. His brothers were supposed to do it when they got loose and do it before sundown, but as usual they'd forgotten.
'Git!' Chauncey cried, kicking the sows towards the barn, snow hitting him in the face like granules of sand. 'Get a move on, will ya? If you think I like being out in this cold, yer damn wrong!'
The barn door was open, swinging back and forth in the wind. Another thing his brothers had forgotten to do. No surprise there. Chauncey wrestled the hogs through the door, knowing they'd be paid in full for their treachery once slaughter-time rolled around.
'And I'll enjoy it this time,' he promised them.
The last time he hadn't. It was hard to care for an animal for years and then kill it, particularly when the animal in question didn't die easy. But fought and screeched till the bitter end.
The hogs safely in their pen, Chauncey froze. There was a stink in the barn. A viscid, rotten odor of spoiled meat. It hung high and hot in the air despite the chill. Swallowing, Chauncey lit the lantern that hung on the wall
