Skull Moon

Начало книги

A full moon. Big, bloated, obscene.

Its pallid light filters down on the craggy, shadow-pocketed landscape of the northern Wyoming Territory. Black surreal clouds roll in the sky. A cool wind howls and shrieks, the dark pines bend and sway.

A lone, crooked oak claws at the sky, its stripped limbs creak and moan. From one blasted fork a body hangs, strung by the neck with a coil of frayed rope. The body swings and turns with a gentle tenebrous motion, urged by the night winds.

With a sound like dry lips parting, the eyes open.

The Indian was old. His burnished face a map of the rocky, gouged landscape around him. He wore a faded gray army shirt and a tattered campaign hat with the crossed silver arrows of the scouts. On his knotted feet were black moccasins, the soles threadbare. Wrapped around him like a sheet of misery was a stained blanket. He carried an oil lantern that hissed and sputtered, casting grotesque shadows over the rocks and leafless, stunted trees.

Читать дальше →