The posse led by Deputy Bowes was made up of eight men. Bowes had gathered the best and bravest shooters from the mining camps and the various ranches outside Wolf Creek. They were tough men, Bowes decided, but more than that they were angry men. They were sick of the killings, sick of being able to do nothing. They lived hard, frustrating lives. They had a lot of aggression to spend and they had been given a target to spend it on.
"There!" someone cried. "The undertaking parlor!"
Bowes turned his head and saw. It seemed impossible in that first second of realization that something this hideous could possibly walk, let alone in full daylight. It moved hunched-over, knees bent, arms crooked, hands dangling limply. Its great tail swung from side to side and when it stooped over (as it did coming through the door of the undertaker's), the tail rose up as if it were part of some fulcrum that balanced the beast. The beast staggered out into the streets, taking the door to Spence's place off its hinges in the process. It waltzed out and stood up to its full height.
The men dismounted their horses. The horses had to be immediately tethered: some vague racial memory had stirred in them and they remembered this thing, its kin, and what they were capable of. The horses whinnied and bucked, some throwing riders before they could hop off. Others ran off down the streets.
And Skullhead, Lord of the High Wood, advanced on his flock.
"All right, you men," Bowes cried out, "hold your fire! Spread out, goddammit! Spread out!"
The men, most of them pale and trembling like babes now, fanned out in a skirmish line as the beast approached. There was a stink of feces and Bowes knew someone had shit their pants. He did not blame them.
Bowes watched the creature. It gave off a sickening, acrid stink. It was tall, bulging with muscularity. Its huge and deformed head bobbed, blood freezing on its lips.
Some brave woman had circled behind it and slipped into the undertaker's. She stormed out now, falling into the street, vomiting. "Wynona!" she gagged. "It got Wynona…she's…all over the place…"
Bowes motioned for someone to get her inside. A man, presumably her husband, did just this.
"Let's shoot the bastard!" someone yelled.
"Take aim," Bowes told them, knowing if he didn't let them shoot and soon, they'd do it anyway or just run off. "Steady, steady, hold it…"
Skullhead was ignorant to what was happening here. He could remember in the old days, the forgotten days, how the dark-skins would gather around like this and await the blessing of his claws and teeth.
"Fire!" Bowes screamed.
The beast roared.
The first barrage hit the beast and he stumbled back, blood oozing from a dozen holes in his chest. The pain was intense. Pain was something he was used to, but having these white-skins bestow it upon him with no regard for ceremony or sacrifice angered him. They were to be his chosen children. This was unforgivable. He was an animal at heart, a night-stalker, an eater of flesh, a devourer of bones and babes, but he was an intelligent killer with a love of ceremony, a pagan's love of pageantry. He did now what instinct told him he must do.
He charged.
The next barrage of bullets brought him to his knees, the agony intense and irresistible. It had been a mistake doing this, he knew, their weapons hurtful. And although his kind didn't die very easy-it was this stubborn survivability that had kept his race alive eons after it should have went extinct with other such species-he was afraid. Afraid that the white-skins he'd underestimated would surround him and fill him with bullets so that even he would have to concede death. But no, he wouldn't let this happen. He would lie still, feign death until they got close. It was an ancient way. Many thousands of years before, when his race was thinning and dying out, and the dark-skins first came, they had waged war on the Lords of the High Wood. Only by killing hundreds of them, had the Lords survived, beating the dark-skins at their own game of supremacy, enslaving the newcomers. But before this…there were strategies, ways to draw in the dark-skins, methods to fool their superior numbers.
Skullhead did this now.
And these whites, oh they were easy prey. They waltzed right into the jaws of death. The beast was wise with the ages as a score of victims could attest to. Century upon endless century of hunting and stalking had taught him much.
"You men!" Bowes shouted. "Get away from it!"
Five men were circled around the dying beast, prodding it with their rifles.
"It can't hurt anyone now," one of them said.
"Come on, Deputy, it-"
Then the beast was on its feet. It opened the bellies of two men, and tore the throats from a third and fourth. The air steaming with blood and spilled internals and cries of agony, Skullhead snatched up the fifth man and tossed his rifle over the rooftops. It was an old strategy and a good one. He held the fifth white before him like a shield, knowing the others with their rampant sentimentality would not attack and they didn't.
"Don't shoot!" Bowes told them. He only had three men left now. Many more had poured into the street, but were cowering well away from the beast and his appetites.
He'd told them not to get too close, by Christ he'd told them…
The posse had been butchered. There were four men in the street, ripped open, their stuffing scattered in all directions. The remaining members were vomiting.
The beast was in the doorway of the undertaker's again. It slipped through, taking the fifth man with him.
"That's my brother!" someone yelled. "It's got my brother for the love of Christ!"
But not for long.
As the remaining gunmen and a few interested civilians slowly approached Spence's, there was a crash and an explosion of splintered glass blew out at them. The fifth man's broken body came out with it.
Bowes kneeled by it. "Dead," he muttered. The neck was broken, probably before he was launched through the window. The beast hadn't the time to properly maul the man, but he killed him for the sake of appearances.
"C'mon," Bowes told his men.
With them at his back, he charged into the undertaker's.