by Rory Black
Adams patted his chest again.
‘’Cause that’s where we turn this document into hard cash. Lots of hard cash.’
‘What is that piece of paper anyways, Snake?’ Brewster asked. ‘Ya keeps tellin’ us it’s worth a hunk of money but it’s just a piece of paper. That don’t make no sense at all.’
‘I’ll bet ya it’s one of them banker’s drafts I’ve heard tell about, boys,’ Mayne said. ‘Am I right, Snake?’
Snake Adams pulled a cigar from his pocket and bit off its tip. He lit it with a match struck on his thumbnail and inhaled the smoke.
‘Keep guessin’, boys. Keep guessin’,’ he taunted.
Chapter Fourteen
Iron Eyes moved quickly through the darkness like a wild cat seeking fresh prey to fill its empty belly. Instinctively, he used every shadow to his advantage. With the older man dogging his heels he slipped unseen and unheard through the streets and alleys between the small cabin and the sheriff’s office. The crowd which hunted Iron Eyes had started to thin out after the sun had set, but both men could still hear the raised voices of the bogus deputies and the few townspeople who had sold their souls to them.
Then as the bounty hunter reached the corner of the main street, Iron Eyes felt the hand of his companion on his shoulder. He stopped and looked back into Hanney’s face.
The livery man curled a finger.
‘There’s too many streetlights that-away. I know a better way to reach the office, boy. Follow me.’
Iron Eyes nodded.
‘OK!’
Hanney led Iron Eyes up a dark, overgrown path between two wooden buildings and then through a hole in a high fence. The older man knew every inch of the town he had lived in for most of his life like the back of his hand.
Suddenly the shadows of two rifle-toting men passed over Iron Eyes and Hanney as they walked in front of a street-lantern fifty yards away. Iron Eyes pushed the older man into some overhanging bushes and shielded him with his own body. His narrowed eyes followed the two deputies until they moved away.
‘They’ve gone!’ Iron Eyes muttered.
Hanney continued to lead the tall emaciated figure until they reached a small sod wall. The wall separated two whitewashed buildings. The livery man rested his rear on top of it and then rolled his legs over it and down into the knee-high weeds. Iron Eyes’ long thin legs stepped over the obstacle easily without breaking his stride.
‘Now where?’ the bounty hunter asked.
‘Over there!’ Hanney pointed the barrel of his shotgun at the back of another building. ‘There it is, boy!’
The two men waded through the tall dried weeds until they reached the rear door of the sheriff’s office. Iron Eyes rested his bony left hand on his companion’s shoulder.
‘This ain’t the door I come out of this mornin’, Hanney! Are ya sure this is the sheriff’s office?’
‘Yep, I’m sure.’
Iron Eyes rubbed the cold barrel of his gun across his sweating brow.
‘Looks different!’ he insisted.
‘This is the other door, Iron Eyes,’ Hanney whispered. ‘You must have used the door on the other side. Don’t ya trust me? I dug that lead out of ya, boy. Don’t ya trust old Duke Hanney?’
Iron Eyes nodded.
‘You gab like an old woman, Hanney. Sure I trust ya. Open the damn door.’
The older man smiled and then turned the door handle. It was locked.
‘Damn it all! It’s locked up tight!’
‘Out the way.’ Iron Eyes moved closer and dropped his gun into the deep coat-pocket. He then pulled his Bowie knife from his boot and pushed its strong steel blade between the door and its frame. He rocked the blade and then tugged at the handle. The sound of rusty metal filled their ears as the door opened.
‘Good boy.’ Hanney praised the tall figure. ‘Ya did it!’
‘It ain’t locked now!’ Iron Eyes said. He hauled the door open and entered the darkened office. The smell of the dead man with the sheriffs star pinned to his chest hit both men.
‘Phew. You’d think they would have taken his rottin’ body out of here by now,’ Hanney said with his hand covering his nose and mouth.
‘Must have gotten damn hot in here today for that critter to be so ripe,’ Iron Eyes muttered, marching across the office to the desk. ‘Where are the posters? Where’d Tom keep the posters?’
Hanney trailed the tall figure to the desk and pointed to the bottom right drawer.
‘Tom kept them in there.’
Iron Eyes slid his knife into his boot and sat down at the chair behind the desk. He pulled the drawer open and pulled out a stack of posters.
‘It’s too dark to see. I need light,’ he said. ‘Light a lamp, old-timer.’
Hanney swallowed hard and leaned closer.
‘Them outlaws are still roamin’ around outside, boy. We can’t light no lamps.’
Iron Eyes gritted his teeth, pulled out a match and dragged it across the top of the desk. The flame flared. His eyes darted around the office until he spotted a metal holder with a few inches of white wax candle remaining on it.
‘Quick, get that candle,’ he said.
The livery man moved across the office and brought back the candle and its holder. Iron Eyes touched the curled wick with the match and then blew it out. The candlelight was dim but good enough for the bounty hunter to read the posters he had risked his neck to find.
One by one Iron Eyes looked at the crude photographic images, then tossed the posters away until he saw the face of the sheriff staring up at him.
‘Brook Payne!’ he muttered staring at the poster. ‘Worth a pretty penny.’
He continued to look through the rest of the posters.
In less than five minutes Iron Eyes had identified each of the faces of the men who had imprisoned him. He folded up the wanted posters and pushed them into the deep left pocket of his trail coat.
‘Satisfied now?’ Hanney asked nervously.
‘Yep.’ Iron Eyes nodded. He snuffed out the candle with his finger and thumb and stood. ‘C’mon, Hanney! Now I got me the information I was after. Now I can take on them varmints. Now them stars on their vests are nothin’ more than targets.’
The two men walked to the side door.
Hanney paused.
‘Did I just see ya smilin’, Iron Eyes?’
‘When?’
‘Just before ya killed that candlelight. I’m damn sure I saw a smile on that ugly face of yours. Did I?’
‘That was just a few of my scars joining up.’ The bounty hunter sighed ‘C’mon.’
Iron Eyes led the older man out into the rear yard of the office. They both knelt amid the high weeds and studied the area carefully.
‘What was the tally?’ Hanney asked, his weathered hands cradling the shotgun across his chest.
‘Two thousand bucks!’ Iron Eyes whispered.
‘Is that what these critters are worth?’
‘Yep. Dead or alive!’
‘And I figured they was all worthless trash.’ Hanney laughed.
Iron Eyes tapped his companion’s shoulder and rose to head for the small wall. Just as they reached it, the bounty hunter looked back at the bearded face illuminated in the starlight.
‘I’m gonna teach them outlaws that it don’t pay to put a bounty on the head of Iron Eyes! I’ll teach ’em. Teach ’em permanent! Now Iron Eyes is gonna make war!’
‘I’m still gonna cover ya back, boy!’ Hanney said.
Iron Eyes pulled one of his Navy Colts from his pocket and cocked its hammer.
‘I reckon it’s our turn to start huntin’, old-timer!’
Hanney pulled back both hammers on his shotgun until they locked.
‘I’m ready, boy!’
Both men slid over the low wall and crawled into the concealing undergrowth and headed towards the streetlights.
Chapter Fifteen
The tide had turned for the wounded Iron Eyes. He was now in control. The hun
ters had become the hunted. The scent of his prey was in the flared nostrils of the most deadly bounty hunter in the Wild West. Iron Eyes moved quickly across the street and stopped beside a tall, painted barber-pole. Hanney rested in the shadow cast across the boardwalk by the silent man in the long trail coat.
‘Where do ya reckon they are, boy?’ Hanney asked, clutching his hefty weapon in his strong hands.
Iron Eyes pulled a twisted half-cigar from his bloodstained shirt-pocket and placed it between his teeth. He struck a match and inhaled the strong smoke deeply.
‘The saloon!’ he answered.
Nervously, Hanney peered around Iron Eyes’ arm at the noisy Happy Suds saloon. It was roughly sixty yards from the barber shop. Light cascaded out from its door and windows and spread across the street.
‘Sounds like them outlaws still got themselves a heap of company, Iron Eyes,’ the livery man observed.
Iron Eyes sucked on the cigar and stared unblinkingly at the door of the saloon. To most people it would have just sounded like a jumble of raised voices. His trained ears could actually recognize the voices of the surviving men who had trained their rifles on him the previous evening.
‘There are over a dozen of them. Maybe as many as twenty,’ he said. ‘The three wanted men are amongst the varmints.’
‘What’ll we do?’
‘We got us a lot of choices, Hanney.’ Iron Eyes sighed. ‘I could walk in that saloon and start killin’, or I could wait out here for them to get liquored up.’
‘I likes the second one best.’
Iron Eyes looked down at his companion.
‘You head up on to one of these verandas and wait.’
‘But I thought you and me was gonna face them together, boy.’ Hanney seemed disturbed. ‘I ain’t scared.’
‘I know you ain’t.’ Iron Eyes nodded. ‘But it makes better sense for you to get up high looking over me for trouble. Like ya said, to cover my back. Right?’
Suddenly a noise made the bounty hunter turn his head. He stared at the men who were coming out of the saloon.
‘Get going, old-timer. Here they come!’
Iron Eyes watched the livery man race along the boardwalk and climb the wooden steps which led to the veranda of the general store. He then pulled his pair of Navy .36s out of his deep pockets and pushed them into his belt. Both gun grips jutted out over his belt buckle as he stared through the cigar smoke down the street.
The lantern light glinted off the deputy stars pinned to the chests of the three remaining well-oiled outlaws who ventured out of the illuminated saloon. Outlaws Frank Mayo, Lenny Olsen and Matt Cole still had more than a dozen of their followers with them.
Each of the men held Winchesters in their hands.
The rowdy group stepped down from the boardwalk on to the dusty street and headed back towards the sheriff’s office to resume their search for the elusive bounty hunter.
The storm that had been brewing for several hours across the desert was now above the streets of Rio Concho. Angry black clouds swirled over the weathered buildings as forks of lightning rent the skies around the remote settlement. It was as if the heavens themselves had chosen to cage the people within the town.
As the sky lit up in a blinding flash of terrifying force, Iron Eyes walked out from the shadows and stood defiantly in the middle of the street. He watched silently as fifteen figures drew closer.
Then, one by one, the men stopped as they saw the horrifying vision before them. None of the outlaws or their dozen henchmen had ever seen anything quite so fearsome before.
Suddenly, the man for whom they had vainly searched was standing less than forty feet away from them. The lightning flashed its bright light across the grips of his guns as he squared up to them.
The desert breeze moved the long black mane of hair and ragged coat-tails of the bounty hunter. Nothing else moved on the awesome figure. He was like something carved out of a block of stone.
His disfigured face remained emotionless.
The unblinking bullet-colored eyes stared at the large group of men. There was a grim warning in them as they burned across the distance between them.
It was the warning of impending doom.
Fearfully, the town’s menfolk realized what they were facing in the shape of the gruesome bounty hunter. They backed away from the men with stars pinned to their chests. The three outlaws cranked the levers of their rifles and walked closer to Iron Eyes.
‘Let’s finish this, boys,’ Frank Mayo yelled out. ‘Old Brook should have killed that critter when we caught him last night. Let’s kill him and collect that outlaw bounty on his head.’
‘He can’t get us all.’ Larry Olsen tried to convince himself loudly.
‘Look at him, boys.’ Matt Cole sniggered. ‘He’s half-dead already!’
Like a creature from the bowels of hell, Iron Eyes raised his hands until his bony fingers were above the grips of his lethal guns. Slowly, he started to walk towards them.
The outlaws stopped. They were frozen with terror.
‘I’m gonna kill ya all!’ Iron Eyes called out above the sound of rumbling thunder. ‘You’re dead meat!’
Then the three outlaws realized that the towns-people they had paid to help them had scattered in all directions. Within a single beat of their hearts, the men found that they were facing the infamous bounty hunter alone.
‘The yella bastards!’ Olsen yelled out.
‘Get back here!’ Mayo screamed.
‘We paid you cowards!’ Cole shouted.
Iron Eyes stopped.
‘Dead or alive!’ he spat. ‘You’re all wanted dead or alive! In my book, that just means dead!’
The three outlaws fanned out in an attempt to make it harder for Iron Eyes to get a bead on them. None of them knew that it was a vain exercise.
Suddenly the barrels of each of the primed Winchesters were swung around and aimed straight at the thin figure.
‘Kill him!’ Cole yelled.
Faster than any of the outlaws could see, Iron Eyes drew both his guns from his belt, cocked their hammers and squeezed their triggers. Before a single bullet left any of the three outlaws’ rifle barrels, Iron Eyes had emptied the chambers of his Navy Colts into them.
The men were knocked off their feet by the sheer power of the bullets that tore through them. Their lifeless bodies crashed heavily into the dusty ground as gun smoke trailed from his hot gun barrels and drifted over the dead outlaws.
Iron Eyes shook the spent bullets from his Navy Colts and was about to walk towards the blood-soaked corpses when the voice of Duke Hanney rang out above him.
‘Look out, boy!’
The bounty hunter’s eyes darted up to the veranda where Hanney was standing with his shotgun raised to his shoulder.
‘Duck, ya long-legged idiot!’ Hanney shouted.
The sound of a rifle being cocked to his left echoed along the main street. Iron Eyes twisted on his heels and saw one of the townsmen aiming his Winchester straight at him. He threw himself into the dust as a flash erupted from the barrel of the rifle. A bullet missed his head by only an inch.
Then a deafening blast rang out.
Two barrels of lethal buckshot spewed down from Duke Hanney’s shotgun. Iron Eyes watched as the rifleman was torn apart by the venomous accuracy of the old-timer.
Blood and flesh splattered over the window and wall of the storefront. The body staggered, then fell lifelessly from the boardwalk.
Iron Eyes looked up at the livery man and got to his feet.
‘I’m obliged, Hanney.’
‘I told ya I’d cover ya back.’ Hanney nodded and reloaded the shotgun before descending the flight of stairs down to the street.
Iron Eyes looked around the empty street as his bony fingers quickly reloaded his guns.
‘I got me a feelin’ this ain’t over yet, Hanney.’
‘But ya killed them all, boy.’ Hanney looked into the troubled face. ‘The rest of the townsfolk these ou
tlaws hired won’t try nothin’ now.’
‘It ain’t them I’m troubled about,’ said Iron Eyes.
‘It ain’t?’
‘Nope.’ Iron Eyes tucked one of his guns into his belt and held on to the other as he stared off into the distance. ‘Like ya said, we’ve done for them.’
The sky flashed above Rio Concho as lightning forked down into the desert a few miles from them. Both men glanced up at the clouds that swirled in the troubled sky. Then a deafening thunderclap shook them and the ground beneath their feet. It was like the sound of stampeding herd.
‘What ya lookin’ at, boy?’ Hanney asked curiously.
‘I’m lookin’ at them six riders headed this way.’ Iron Eyes spat out his cigar and pointed his still smoking gun towards the desert. ‘Whoever they are, they’re loaded for bear!’
Chapter Sixteen
Iron Eyes led Duke Hanney back across the windswept town until he reached the telegraph office. Rain had started to fall as the rods of golden lightning drew closer to the border town. Iron Eyes stepped up on to the boardwalk and stared at the store frontage. The door had been kicked off its hinges by Brook Payne and his cohorts as soon as the outlaws had arrived in Rio Concho. The bounty hunter entered the office and stared at the damaged equipment. He picked up an oil-lamp and lit its wick. As the room suddenly brightened, he turned to the bearded man.
‘Did they kill the telegraph worker, old-timer?’ he asked in a low growl.
Hanney rested his shotgun down on a chair.
‘Nope. They sure scared the critter though. Toby Gunn went running when them outlaws showed up.’
Iron Eyes leant over and pulled the desk upright, then ran his bony fingers through his wet matted hair.
‘Is he still in Rio Concho?’
‘Yep. He’s still in town. Toby’s bin holed up in the back of the cafe for weeks. I never seen a man so plumb rattled before.’ Hanney sighed heavily.
‘Get him,’ Iron Eyes snapped.
Hanney nodded and picked up his heavy shotgun again.
‘Why? This stuffs wrecked, boy.’
‘It can be fixed by someone who knows how it works, Hanney,’ Iron Eyes said. ‘Get him here and tell him that he’ll not be harmed by anybody. I need these wires fixed so I can get my bounty money authorized. This town also needs the law to come and sort a few things out.’
