“Go on.”
“There’s been five murders in and around Wolf Creek,” Rivers explained. “Vicious, brutal killings. It appears to be the work of an animal. The bodies have been devoured. But…well, you’ll see for yourself.”
“So hire a hunter, Tom. If it’s some marauding grizz that’s your best bet. I’ve been hunting men for too long now to be going after an animal.”
Rivers sighed. “Word has reached us that it may be a human being doing this. Nothing concrete, just rumor.”
Longtree lifted his eyebrows. “What are we talking here?”
“I don’t honestly know what’s going on, Joe. Something strange, that’s all. I want you to go up there and have a look. That’s all. Poke around a bit, see what you find out.”
“This is all pretty sketchy.”
Rivers looked him in the eye. “You’ve done more on less.”
“Maybe. Still, not much there.”
Rivers nodded. “I know. Just take a week or so and nose around. If you think we got an animal, fine. We’ll put a bounty on it and bring in the hunters. If it’s a man…well you know what to do then.”
Longtree still didn’t care for it. “What makes this government business, Tom? Sounds like a local matter to me. Doesn’t seem like our jurisdiction at all.”
Rivers found and held him with those crystal green eyes. “Shit, Joe, you know better than that. I can make just about any goddamn place the province of my marshals if I so choose.”
“Sure, Tom, I know. But humor me.”
“Well, we’ve got an ugly situation there, Joe. First off, Wolf Creek sits at the foot of the Tobacco Root Mountains and I don’t have to tell you what that means-silver. And lots of it. Some people back in Washington, some of whom I work for, don’t like this business at all and you can’t rightly blame them: they own interest in the mines. Secondly, we’ve got a camp of Blackfeet in the hills outside Wolf Creek on reservation land. And they’ve been crying foul to the Indian Agents about how the law has been treating them up there.” Rivers mulled it over. “What we’re afraid of is these murders getting hung on the Blackfeet and the locals taking matters into their own hands. And you know the Blackfeet. You know ’em well as any-they get pushed, they’ll push right back. They won’t tolerate whites raiding into their territory.”
“They’re a proud bunch,” Longtree said, nodding. “They don’t particularly care for whites and you sure as hell can’t blame them.”
“And that’s where you come in, Joe. You’re half-Crow.”
“Crow ain’t Blackfoot, Tom.”
“No, and a pecker’s not a pike, but you’re all we’ve got, my friend. Just go on up there, nose around. See if 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.