Free Skull Moon by Tim Curran

country above Wolf Creek in the foothills of the Tobacco Roots was beautiful. Brush and scrubby cedar on open slopes gave way to snowy peaks, twisted deadfalls, and thick stands of pine and spruce. The mountains were huge and jutting above the timberline, barren and majestic.
    But dangerous.
    This whole country was like that. It was almost a religious experience viewing it, but the reality was sobering. This was a place of sudden landslides. Blizzards that kicked up with no warning. Frozen winds that seemed to rise up out of nowhere. Starving wolf packs. Marauding grizzlies that were anxious to pack extra meat and fat in their bellies before hibernation. It was also the home of the Blackfeet Indians, considered by some to be the most bloodthirsty nation on the upper Missouri.
    Coming up over a ridge, Longtree saw the camp. Knowing they'd probably seen him coming for some time.
     
    6
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    Longtree rode unmolested into the Blackfeet camp, accompanied by barking dogs.
    There were about twelve buffalo skin lodges, most painted with geometric designs and huge, larger than life representations of birds and animals. A few weathered faces poked out of the flaps of tipis and withdrew at what they saw. Around twenty people were formed up in a camp circle around a vast blazing fire.
    Longtree dismounted and tethered his horse to a pine. He approached the band cautiously, making it known he was no threat.
    The Indians seemed intent on ignoring his very presence.
    The men remained seated, dressed in buffalo hide caps with earflaps and buffalo robes with the fur next to their bodies. A few wore hooded Hudson Bay blanket coats and heavy moccasins. The women were dressed pretty much the same in robes and trade blankets covering their undecorated dresses. Babies poked out of the furry folds of their robes. A few women were nursing older children.
    Longtree tried to communicate with a few via sign language and a bastard form of Blackfeet Algonkian he'd learned many years before.
    No one paid any attention.
    Finally, a young woman in a knee-length buffalo coat and black buffalo hide moccasins approached him, stopping a few feet away. She was beautiful in a wild, savage sort of way. Her eyes were huge brown liquid pools, the cheekbones high, the lips full, the skin lustrous. She had a raw, unbridled sexuality about her that you rarely saw in white women. And she had the look about her that told Longtree very clearly that she was tough as any man.
    "I am Laughing Moonwind, daughter of Herbert Crazytail. What do you want here?" she asked in perfect English.
    Longtree cleared his throat. "I need help. I wish to speak with the tribal chief."
    Longtree knew that, this being a smallgroup, it would have only one chief. Larger tribes had several, but only one was considered the acting chief and his position was really that of a chairman of the tribal council. Many whites thought the chief was something of an executive officer in the tribe, but this wasn't so. His rank was of little importance save during the summer encampment. The Blackfeet were very democratic and most major decisions were reached by the tribal council acting with the chief. Most chiefs were the leaders of the hunting bands, the basic political unit of Blackfeet culture.
    "Who are you?" she asked.
    "Joe Longtree. I'm a federal marshal."
    "I will ask Herbert Crazytail if he will speak with you."
    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