The Skull

Conger, a hardened hunter and black-market trader, is offered freedom from prison if he will carry out an assassination unlike any other: he must kill a man who has already been dead for two centuries. Taken to the forbidden First Church, he learns that the only clue to his target is a preserved skull and skeleton, and that the mission carries grave political and moral stakes. In a future ruled by fear of the Church's nonviolent Founder, Conger is launched through time in a crystal cage, armed with a strange weapon and a warning that one mistake could alter history forever. Arriving in 1961 Colorado, he struggles to blend in while searching newspapers and records for the Founder's appearance. A tiny notice about an arrest in Cooper Creek finally points him to the crucial date, but his strange clothes and wary manner soon attract suspicion. As he moves through the town, meeting the intriguing Lora and clashing with the jealous Bill, Conger reveals both his outsider's status and his hidden danger. With the Founder's capture only hours away, police close in, and Conger faces a final confrontation in the winter fields, torn between ideology, survival, and the terrible consequences of changing the past. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.