by Rory Black
‘The west-bound will be here in roughly thirty minutes according to this.’
Buck Harris shook his head.
‘I could kill them all in a lot less than thirty minutes, Snake!’ he boasted. ‘You should have let me kill them!’
Adams tossed the book aside and gave the deadly killer beside him a hard stare.
‘That ain’t the plan, Buck!’ he rapped.
Harris did not reply.
Adams snapped his fingers again at Mayne and Brewster.
‘Ferdy? You and One Ear go and make sure them folks don’t do nothing heroic! Hog tie the whole bunch of them. I don’t want them messin’ up this job.’
‘I don’t get it, Snake.’ Harris shrugged. ‘Ain’t we here to kill all these critters?’
‘Just do as I tell you, Buck!’ Adams said sternly. He waved a hand at Mayne and Brewster. ‘There’ll be plenty of killing later.’
The two riders touched the brims of their hats and walked off after the terrified crowd. A trail of blood marked the exact route.
A train whistle echoed across the plains.
Adams raised his hand and shielded his eyes from the blinding early morning sun. He looked along the tracks which seemed to go on into infinity towards the distant mountains.
‘There!’ he said pointing.
The others all nodded as they too saw the distant plume of black smoke trailing into the sky.
‘Get the horses out of sight!’ Adams commanded. ‘We don’t want to advertise our being here, do we?’
Chapter Three
Rio Concho was no place to spend the night on the wrong side of jail bars. Iron Eyes had not slept throughout the long cold hours of darkness. Even badly injured, he knew that he had barely enough time to make his bid for freedom if the corrupt lawmen managed to lure Judge Franklin Travis into town for a quick trial. The infamous hanging judge might be close enough to reach the border town a few hours after sunrise. If there was one thing Travis could not resist, it was the chance to string up another man, whether he was guilty or innocent.
Iron Eyes could not take the chance. The bounty hunter had been quick to realize that there was only one possible way of escaping the cage in which he had been imprisoned. The window was far too high to reach. The cell walls were well-constructed of stone with a thick layer of cement covering them, making them almost impenetrable. The bars and cell door were equally well-made of forged iron. There was only one route to freedom from this place.
As soon as he had been ushered into the jail he had noticed that the floor was nothing more than compacted earth. It had been pounded down until solid, but it was still only earth. And earth was no match for a Bowie-knife blade.
Iron Eyes knew that if he could remove enough earth from directly under the wall of iron bars, he could get into the small outer corridor. Then only the door to the office would stand between himself and freedom.
The laughter had ended roughly an hour after the sheriff and his men had left him in the cell. The talking had continued for another hour or so.
Then the sheriff’s office had fallen chillingly silent.
The bounty hunter had wondered whether there were any of the lawmen remaining in the office or had they all simply left their prisoner alone in the single-storey building?
All he was certain about was that the talking had ceased.
Iron Eyes had waited until then before he had been able to start working on the floor beside the metal bars. It had seemed an easy job when he had started but he soon began to realize that years of men walking over this crude floor had made it become almost solid.
But he was not a creature to quit once he had started something. It had taken hours, yet suddenly the ground before him started to yield to the merciless persistence of the man known throughout the west as the living ghost.
The sun had risen an hour or so earlier. Its golden light had traced into the small cell through the high barred window. It had been on the ceiling at first, but the light was moving gradually down to where Iron Eyes was digging.
Time was his enemy now. There was far too little of it for him to rest. He was more tired than he had ever been in his entire life. His throat was dry and craved whiskey but Sheriff Payne had not even provided water for his prisoner.
Iron Eyes glanced over his broad, lean shoulder at the sun on the wall. The closer it got to the injured kneeling figure, the faster he worked. Iron Eyes had no idea what the time was or when the sheriff or his men might open the locked doorway which separated the office from the jail.
All he knew for sure was that he had to finish his work long before they checked on him. This would be his only chance and he could not afford to waste even a second of it.
He dragged a pile of earth away. The hole was almost big enough for him to slide under. Almost, but not quite. He pulled the sharp blade through the compacted earth over and over again.
Every instinct in his body told him that time was running out fast. He slid his knife back into his boot, and then clawed at the earth with his bloodied fingers.
Every few minutes he would roll over on to his back and try to slither beneath the bars.
Then on the tenth attempt, he managed to edge his lean skeletal frame under them. He pulled himself clear and clambered up on to his feet. He stood and steadied himself.
He had escaped the cell, but he was now in the even smaller corridor. His hands moved over the metal door looking for a weak spot in its construction.
He could not find any.
This door had been forged like the bars themselves. Sheets of iron had been riveted together. It was a masterful piece of workmanship.
It was an exhausted Iron Eyes who rested his still swollen face against its cold surface. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. Then he started to wonder again if there might not be someone in the sheriff’s office.
He strained to hear if there were any sounds coming from that direction. Iron Eyes could not detect any sign of life and bit his lip.
They must have left him alone, he concluded! He nodded silently to himself.
He pushed himself away from the door and wondered how he would manage to get past it. He knew that he could dig himself under this obstacle as well, but he had no stomach even to try. He knew that time was running out. Every passing moment meant that more and more people in this remote settlement would be rising to start a new day.
He wondered if the lawmen were early risers!
Suddenly his eyes focused on the doorframe itself. It too was made of metal. Iron Eyes nodded to himself. The notorious hunter of men realized that to hold such a heavy door the frame would also have to be far stronger than any ordinary one.
He took a step closer to the frame and touched the three hefty hinges in turn.
Whoever had created this masterpiece had made one error, he thought.
They had erected it the wrong way around.
The hinges were meant to be on the opposite side, facing into the office itself. Not on the cell side.
Iron Eyes reached down to his boot again and pulled out his trusty knife.
He knew that however keen a knife was, it was no match for a solid metal door, but the hinge pins were a different matter. They could be forced from the hinges. Once they were out, the sheer weight of the door would be enough to break even the strongest of locks.
Iron Eyes carefully used the blade to lever the pin out of the top hinge. Slowly he rocked his sturdy knife until the long brass pin was freed from the hinge. He pulled it clear and tossed it through the bars on to the cot. Then he repeated the action on the middle hinge. This time it was harder to work the pin upwards. He had to use every scrap of his remaining strength before it too was removed.
Again the bony hands tossed the pin on to the cot.
The last hinge was the most stubborn and potentially the most dangerous to remove. The door might come crashing down on him if he were careless.
Iron Eyes had to kneel to use his deadly knife. The bounty hunter forced the honed edge into
the narrow gap above the hinge and twisted it. Time and time again the blade slipped off the brass pin and scratched the paint off the frame.
Iron Eyes then realized that all the weight of the heavy door was now weighing down on the bottom hinge. He pushed his shoulder into the cold metal surface of the door and felt it move a fraction of an inch. He then quickly used his knife blade again to prize the pin up and out of its well-crafted home. It fell at his feet.
The exhausted figure kept his shoulder on the door as he slowly rose up again to his full height. He knew that if he made one mistake the door might fall and crush him.
Cautiously, he placed the palms of both hands upon the riveted surface. He had no idea what the heavy door might do once he released his grip from it.
Would it remain where it was?
Would it fall into the jail?
What if it fell and bounced? He could have both legs broken like dry kindling if such a weight glanced across him.
Sweat trickled down his hideously mutilated features as he moved to the side of the doorframe. He kept his hands pressing against it to keep it steady.
Iron Eyes removed his hands and pressed himself into the corner beside the doorframe. For a few seconds nothing happened.
Then it groaned.
Iron Eyes gritted his teeth and watched as the door fell away from its frame. The lock shattered and it crashed on to the floor so heavily it shook the ground beneath his boots.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he leapt into the sheriff’s office. The thick window-blinds were still down. The office was empty and dark. Iron Eyes moved like a puma to the desk and used his knife to break the lock of the top left drawer where he had seen Sheriff Payne put his precious guns the night before. He pulled out his pair of Navy Colts and checked that they were still loaded. He then dragged his long trail coat off the tall wooden hat stand and swiftly slid his arms into the sleeves.
He checked that his deep pockets were still filled with bullets before he moved to the window. He dropped his guns into the pockets and pressed himself up against the wall beside the window.
Iron Eyes eased the blind away and looked up and down the street. It was still early. It was still quiet. He was about to sigh with relief when a sound startled him.
‘You figurin’ on going someplace, Iron Eyes?’
The voice came from behind the tall bounty hunter. Iron Eyes swung around. He searched for the owner of the sickly sounding drawl. Iron Eyes recognized the voice, it was Sheriff Payne. He was about to reply when a gun fired.
The shaft of red-hot lead cut across the darkened room from the barrel of the sheriff’s gun. A bullet hit the wall to the side of Iron Eyes.
The tall man dropped to the floor.
He pulled one of his lethal Navy Colts from his pocket and hauled its hammer back until it locked. He then crawled behind the sturdy desk.
‘You bin here all night, Sheriff?’ he called out as his eyes darted around the room trying to locate the lawman.
There was no reply.
Iron Eyes heard the sound of movement twenty feet from where he knelt. He trained his gun on it.
‘What’s ya game, Sheriff?’ Iron Eyes growled. ‘I heard you talkin’ to them deputies of yours. You ain’t no better than horse-thieves. Stealin’ a man’s bounty money and aiming to get him hung!’
The sheriff fanned the hammer of his gun three times. The bullets tore into the desk sending chunks of splintered wood over the bounty hunter.
Iron Eyes pulled the long slivers of wood from his face and then blasted back furiously. He did not stop firing until his six-shooter was empty.
‘I thought the great Iron Eyes was ’sposed to be a better shot than that!’ Payne taunted.
Iron Eyes shook the spent bullets from his gun and reloaded its hot chambers with fresh shells from his pockets.
‘So you have heard of me!’ Iron Eyes grunted. ‘I knew ya was lying last night!’
‘Ain’t nothing to be proud of!’ Payne shouted. ‘I heard of skunks but it don’t mean I cotton to the critters!’
‘Why not?’ Iron Eyes leaned around the desk and fired again. ‘I reckon you must be kin to skunks!’
A handful of bullets came back almost instantly. The side of the desk was smoldering from the heat of the hot lead which had taken off its veneer.
‘You sure are a dumb critter, Iron Eyes!’ The sheriff laughed loudly as he moved behind a huge wooden writing-bureau. ‘Dumbest critter I ever done met!’
The bounty hunter slid to the opposite end of the desk and looked around it. He wanted to kill this corrupt lawman but knew that if he did, it would be his image on the next batch of wanted posters to come off the presses. He would become the hunted not the hunter.
‘How come I’m so dumb?’ he called out.
‘You fell into our trap!’ Payne continued to laugh.
‘Trap?’ Iron Eyes repeated the word.
‘We knew you was coming here!’ the sheriff added. ‘We knew before you did!’
‘You did?’ Iron Eyes was puzzled.
‘Sure!’ Payne continued. ‘We was wired about you. You might be a man that hunts bounty, but there’s a whole lot of outlaws that’ll pay for your scalp, boy!’
‘But I was trailin’ the Jardine gang,’ Iron Eyes said loudly. ‘It was them that headed here. I just followed them. There ain’t no way you could have known I was coming here. Even I didn’t know that!’
Payne laughed again.
‘They led you here, ya dumb fool! That was the plan! We set you up so we could get ya either shot dead or strung up legal like! Either way, me and my boys would make a lot of money.’
Iron Eyes stared across the room into the darkest corner.
‘You tryin’ to tell me that I’ve got a bounty on my head?’
‘Damn right!’
‘That don’t make no sense at all!’ Iron Eyes was confused by the knowledge that he too had a bounty on his own head. Not one arranged by the law, but one created by outlaws who wanted him dead.
‘It does!’ the sheriff argued. ‘But you ain’t smart enough to figure it out! Outlaws don’t want you huntin’ them down no more. They’ll pay big bucks to have you stopped! Now do ya get it, Iron Eyes?’
Iron Eyes maneuvered himself up and then raced across the room. A hail of bullets tore out of the black shadows. One caught him high in his shoulder. The bounty hunter felt himself being knocked off balance. He hit a wall and then crashed into the ground. He blasted three shots back.
There was a sound which he had heard many times in his life as a hunter.
It was the sound only made when a bullet hits the belly. Iron Eyes knew that whether it was a deer or a man, the sound was always the same.
Iron Eyes dragged himself back up and then saw the sheriff coming at him with his gun held in his hand.
The lawman stopped and gritted his teeth.
Blood poured from the hole in his middle. Sheriff Payne staggered and then fired again. The bullet missed its target by only a whisker.
The bounty hunter dragged his hammer back and went to return fire when he saw the blank expression come over the lawman’s features.
Payne fell like a tree.
The sound of his face breaking filled the room.
‘Damn it all, Sheriff1.’ Iron Eyes snarled. ‘Now you made me a wanted man! Now I’m hunted by the law and the vermin!’
Suddenly the sound of fists hammering on the front door echoed all around the sheriff’s office. Iron Eyes turned his head and glared in horror at the shaking door.
‘Sheriff?’ one of the deputies yelled out.
‘You OK, Brook?’ another shouted.
‘Who’s doing all the shooting in there?’
Iron Eyes rushed to the side door and slid its bolt across. He pushed it open and stared into the alley which ran the full length of the building. With blood pouring from his shoulder, he staggered out into the morning light. He had no idea where he was going. All the bounty hunter knew for sur
e was that he had to get away from this place as fast as he could.
As Iron Eyes staggered between the buildings towards the back alleys, he wondered where his Indian pony might be. It had to be somewhere in this sun-bleached excuse for a town, he thought. But where?
With every step he took he stared down at the ground and watched the droplets of blood which marked his trail. He slipped the Navy Colt into his trail coat pocket and pressed his hand over the wound in his shoulder. He tried vainly to stop the blood from flowing out of his body.
He was leaving a trail that a blind man could follow, and he knew it. His only hope was that none of the people in this cursed settlement knew how to track.
Iron Eyes threw himself over a low sod wall and cut across to another alley. He pushed a gate open and cautiously edged his way towards a corner. His eyes burned with lack of sleep and the bright morning sun which was still low.
‘Where am I?’ he growled to himself. ‘And where did they take my pony?’
There were a few people off in the distance but they did not look in his direction. They were absorbed in their own daily rituals. He ran across from one back alley to another. Then he saw the corral and the high-sided livery stable.
It was fifty feet away.
Somehow he managed to find the strength to cover the distance without drawing the attention of anyone.
Iron Eyes climbed through the corral’s bottom and middle poles and ran through the large open doors into the dark interior of the stable. A number of horses were in stalls to both sides of the tall figure. His eyes darted around the animals until he spotted his own pony tied up in a stall to his right.
The pitiful creature was still saddled.
He was about to go towards it when he heard raised voices out in the street behind him. Iron Eyes somehow managed to reach the pony. He searched its saddlebags until he found a half bottle of whiskey. He pulled its cork and swallowed a third of its fiery contents before his eyes spotted a ladder.
Iron Eyes moved around the pony and climbed up into the hay loft. He dropped into the hay and crawled to the loft door. He stared through the narrow gap between its weathered boards.
The street was no longer quiet.
