you can get friendly not only with the townsfolk, but the Blackfeet, too. They might accept you. We need somebody in there who can play both sides of the fence before this gets uglier than it already is.'
Longtree nodded. 'Okay, I'll do it. What they got for law in Wolf Creek?'
Tom Rivers sighed, chewed his lower lip. 'Sheriff name of Lauters. He's a hardcase, Joe. I never heard anything good about him. You might have trouble with him.'
'Oh, I'm sure I will. You always manage to stick me into some spot like this.'
Rivers laughed. 'It's why I keep you around.'
After Rivers left, Longtree sat and thought about it. Usually, he had a man to go after. Something tangible. Not this time.
It would be a challenge.
13
Early the next morning Longtree set out for Wolf Creek.
He took to the trail at a leisurely pace. He was a bit skeptical about any of the killings being done by a man once he learned the details. But if it was an animal, then it was like none he'd ever heard of. Few animals were brave enough to venture into a town. And none that he knew of would kill like that once they did and make a habit of it.
It had all the markings of a damn strange investigation.
14
Nathan Segaris sat in a copse of trees and waited.
He'd been watching the west bluff that separated Carl Hew's grazing lands from those of the Blackfeet Indian reservation. Hew had about four-hundred head and if things went well, before morning, he'd be down about fifty.
Segaris grinned.
And it wasn't a pleasant sight: he had no teeth, just mottled gums.
There were several broken sections of fence along the west bluff that Hew and his men hadn't gotten around to repairing just yet. With a little help, these could be widened up nicely.
Segaris climbed back up on his brown and steered the gelding back down towards Wolf Creek. Tonight would be a good night. The others would meet him on around midnight and, with luck, they'd get those steer off of Hew's land and into the next valley by morning.
It was a plan.
Segaris grinned and lit a cigar.
It was after sundown by the time he made it back to his little place outside of town. He made himself a meal of corn cakes and what remained of the smoked ham from yesterday. It wasn't much, but it would suffice. And by this time next week, he'd have some real money for food.
He sat down and re-lit his cigar.
Life was grand, he thought, life was surely grand.
Outside, his horse whinnied.
He sat up. It was too early for the rest of the boys to show. He listened, cocking an ear. He could hear the wind out there, skirting the barn with the wail of widows.
Nothing else.
But Segaris was a careful man. He took his shotgun off the hook above the hearth, broke it open, and fed in two shells. If someone had come to pay a call, they'd best be wary.
The door rattled in its frame like someone had shaken it.
There was a scratching at it now. That and a hoarse, low breathing. Segaris stood up again and took aim, closing the distance to the door with a few light steps.
The door shook violently again and then exploded in with an icy gust of wind that carried a black, godless stink on it. Segaris was thrown to the floor. He came up shooting, not knowing what it was he was shooting at.
Then he saw.
'Sweet Jesus,' he muttered.
His screams echoed into the night.
15
Nobody in Wolf Creek particularly cared for Curly Del Vecchio.
He of the striped coats and trousers, gold watch chain, and immaculately brushed derby hats. He was a conniver and con man, gambler and self-styled ladies' man who'd spent ten years in prison for his part in a horse- rustling ring. He fancied himself a champion pistol-fighter, but anyone with a real draw would've killed him before his hand even slapped leather.
The only thing Curly was really good at was drinking. This night he'd swallowed eight bottles of beer and was halfway through a pint of rum by the time he got to Nathan Segaris' spread outside town. It was a cool night, a light snow falling, but Curly felt none of these things. He felt very good, very drunk. He was celebrating-prematurely-the theft of fifty head of Carl Hew's steer.
He knew Nate Segaris and the others wouldn't be too happy with him getting boozed up and all. But a man had a right to celebrate from time to time.
Especially one that was about to come into a good bit of money. Fifty head of old Hew's cattle at fifty bucks a crack. That would be a nice chunk of change for the lot of them, being that five of their member were now gone. Five-hundred U.S. Treasury Greenbacks a man. Nothing to sneeze at.
'Rest in peace, boys,' Curly said to himself.
Five of us gone, he thought, five of us left.
Coincidence. That's all.
Curly gave his old mare a little taste of the spurs-a nick in the sides, nothing more-and she picked up speed a bit, galloping over the hard-packed snow. She brought him over a little rise and there was Nate's place. It looked inviting. A trail of smoke drifting from the chimney, a lantern glowing in the window.
I surely hope he has a bottle of something warm, Curly thought.
He tethered his horse in the barn and drunkenly made his way up to the front porch, stopping only once to urinate. He was on the top stair before he realized something was wrong.
The door had been ripped asunder, shattered into so much kindling. Only a few jagged sections clung to the hinges, the rest spread out over the floor in a rain of shards and split fragments.
Curly reached down for his old Army. 44.
The metal felt like ice in his trembling hand.
'Nate?' he called in a weak voice.
Getting no answer, he mounted the final two steps and stopped just inside the door. Tables were overturned and broken. Shelves collapsed, their contents strewn everywhere. A bag of flour had been ripped open and another of sugar. There was a dusting of white everywhere. A sudden chill gust kicked up, making the old house creak and sway, churning up dust devils of flour.
There was blood everywhere.
Curly's stomach turned over.
It was pooled on the floor, sprayed on the walls, beading the old sheet iron cooking stove. The stink of it
