Iron Eyes the Spectre

by Rory Black

  Mason Holt had discovered that fact to his cost.

  Clouds of blood-coloured dust rose up from the hoofs of their three mounts as the Holt brothers whipped their reins across the animals’ shoulders.

  Delmer leaned back against his saddle cantle as his lathered-up horse strode through the arid terrain and further into the prairie.

  Had he or either of his brothers cast their attention up at the rocks that towered over them, they might have caught a glimpse of the strange unknown Indians who observed their every move.

  ‘How far have we gotta go before we find him, Delmer?’ Spike asked as he drew level with his obsessed sibling and mopped his sweat-soaked face with the tails of his bandanna. ‘My rump is getting mighty sore trailing these stagecoach tracks.’

  ‘Quit beefing, Spike,’ Delmer grunted across the distance between them as the sickening heat haze grew thicker. ‘By my reckoning that big old buggy couldn’t have gotten far.’

  Spike frowned as he stared across at his elder.

  ‘And how do you figure that exactly?’ he snorted. ‘Wishful thinking?’

  Delmer glared at Spike. ‘We’re catching up with that big heavy stagecoach with every stride of our fresh horses. A team of stage nags have to be watered and fed a lot more often than saddle horses do. We’re gaining on them, boy. Pretty soon I’ll have Iron Eyes in my gun sights.’

  Caleb suddenly drew level with his brothers and frantically caught their attention. He was pointing up at the surrounding hills as his words fought to escape his mouth.

  Delmer looked at Caleb curiously.

  ‘What in tarnation is eating at you, Caleb?’ he asked through a mocking grin. ‘You look as sick as hound dog after a night locked in a butcher’s store.’

  Finally Caleb managed to speak.

  ‘Injuns, Delmer,’ he gasped and pointed up at the rocks to both sides of them. ‘Look up at them rocks. There’s scores of the critters.’

  Delmer’s expression altered as his whiskey-sodden brain absorbed his brother’s words. The wide grin turned into a troubled frown as his narrowed eyes looked to where Caleb was pointing.

  For a few moments he thought that the heat had gotten to his younger brother and he was seeing things. Then he too saw them perched upon their perilous vantage points along the crimson-coloured rocks.

  Spike shielded his eyes against the glaring sun reflecting off the rocks.

  ‘I don’t see nothing,’ he stated.

  Delmer turned on his saddle and focused on the opposite wall of jagged peaks and then swallowed hard as his gloved hands gripped his reins tightly.

  ‘Can’t you see them Injuns, Spike?’ he snarled as his mind searched for his next course of action. ‘Damn it. They’re on both sides of this damn canyon, boy. Can’t you see them?’

  Spike screwed up his eyes and strained. ‘All I can see is this damn heat haze, Delmer. Are you sure there’s Injuns up there?’

  ‘Yep, I’m sure,’ Delmer replied as he glanced all around them. Suddenly the prairie vegetation became more ominous as his imagination wondered what might be hidden behind the Joshua trees and cactus littering the baking sand. ‘We’re surrounded by Injuns.’

  Caleb drew his horse closer as all three maintained a steady pace. He grabbed hold of Delmer’s loose leathers to get his attention. He stared at his brother.

  ‘What we gonna do?’ his voice cracked.

  Delmer pulled the brim of his hat down to shield his eyes and then looked straight ahead at the moving air that tormented him.

  ‘We keep riding,’ he snapped.

  ‘But what if them critters decide to attack us, Delmer?’ Spike nervously asked. ‘With them to both sides of us, it would be a turkey shoot. We ain’t got a chance.’

  Delmer had never cared for pessimism and reached across the distance between them. He slapped his junior with the back of his gloved hand. It was something he had done countless times before.

  ‘Hush the hell up,’ he said. ‘I don’t care for that kinda talk. Always remember that we’re Holts.’

  Spike steered his horse just far enough away from Delmer before adding, ‘Mason was a Holt, Delmer. A damn name don’t make us invincible and you know it.’

  ‘Maybe they’re friendly,’ Caleb suggested.

  A stony silence filled the prairie air as Delmer looked up at the countless Indian braves dotted along the high ledges, their bows glinting in the brilliant sunshine. He snorted and jerked his leathers against his horse’s neck.

  ‘We keep riding,’ Delmer insisted.

  Spike was just about to protest about the wisdom of them trailing the famed Iron Eyes into the mysterious prairie when his attention was drawn to an unfamiliar sound to his right. The rider went to turn when he felt and heard a sudden thud against his thigh.

  The outlaw thought that he had been targeted by a well-placed rock at first. Then a burning sensation rippled from where he had felt the impact of the blow. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before.

  Spike’s eyes darted to the growing pain in his leg and then saw an arrow embedded in his thigh up to its feathered flights. Blood seeped from the hilt of the arrow as the horrified horseman stared at it in disbelief. His right hand instinctively reached down to touch it. As his fingers reached the feathered flight an agonizing pain burned like a dozen red-hot branding irons.

  The rustler screamed like a stuck pig.

  ‘I’ve bin hit, Delmer. I got me an arrow in my leg.’

  ‘So much for them being friendly Injuns, Caleb,’ Delmer snapped at his other sibling. He stood in his stirrups but could not see the arrow in Spike’s leg. He lowered himself back on to his sweat-soaked saddle and knew that there would be more arrows following the one that had already successfully found its target.

  He signalled to Caleb and grabbed the bridle of Spike’s trotting horse.

  ‘Ride, Caleb,’ he hysterically yelled out as he held on to his wounded brother’s horse and then furiously spurred his own mount. ‘Looks like them Injuns you spotted ain’t partial to visitors.’

  Caleb lashed the tail of his mount and raced off through a barrage of arrows that buzzed through the still prairie air in search of targets.

  Delmer looked to both sides and saw the dozens of figures far above them amid the rocks. They fired their lethal arrows down at the intruders as the eldest of the notorious Holt brothers kept jabbing his blood-stained spurs into the flanks of his horse as he attempted to lead his wounded sibling’s mount away from the unexpected attack.

  As countless more arrows rained down from both sides of the towering rocks, the three outlaws rode into the swirling heat haze at break-neck speed. Dust drifted up from their mounts’ hoofs as the Holt boys followed the tracks left by Squirrel Sally’s stagecoach and horses at a feverish pace.

  With arrows hitting the sand all around them, Delmer suddenly had a spine-chilling thought.

  The hunters had suddenly become the hunted.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The high-shouldered palomino galloped through the blistering rays of the sun and rose up yet another steep dune. As the intrepid horse reached the top of the sandy rise, its master hauled back on his reins and abruptly stopped the animal in its tracks. Dust drifted from the stallion’s hoofs as Iron Eyes stared through his narrowed eyes at the sight that unexpectedly greeted him.

  His scarred features looked down into the gap between the dunes in disbelief. Every sinew of his emaciated form knew that something was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  His eyes studied the sight below his vantage point like an eagle studying its prey from a high thermal. Yet Iron Eyes was troubled. For the first time in his life he was concerned that leaving his precocious friend had been a mistake which might have proven fatal.

  Iron Eyes thrust his spurs back into the animal’s flesh and steered the palomino down to where the stagecoach rested amid disturbed sand.

  As the stallion drew closer, the bounty hunter pulled one of his Navy Colts from his belt and cocke
d its hammer. As the long-legged horse walked toward the stagecoach, Iron Eyes began to fear the worst.

  The six-horse team was gone from between the traces. All that remained were the wooden poles, leather straps and chains.

  Iron Eyes glanced all around the area as his magnificent mount closed in on the stagecoach, but whoever had stolen Sally’s black horses were long gone.

  He drew back on his reins and dismounted swiftly. As his mule-eared boots hit the ground, a sense of total weariness washed over his tall, thin frame. He steadied himself against his handsome mount until his giddiness subsided and then inhaled deeply and continued toward the body of the coach.

  For someone who had seen far more than his fair share of death, he was reluctant to look inside the stagecoach. A million thoughts flashed through mind.

  What if the Indians who had taken the six black horses had killed his Sally? The thought gnawed at his innards as he rested a bony hand on the coach door handle.

  Iron Eyes knew that it took a special sort of person not to be afraid of someone who looked the way that he looked. To not only be unafraid but to actually seem to have feelings for him. He summoned every scrap of his inner strength and opened the door. He looked inside the stagecoach and sighed with relief.

  Squirrel Sally was not lying there scalped as he had dreaded.

  He lowered his head and composed himself. Then he turned slowly and studied the body of the coach. The bright sun made it clear that the stagecoach had been under constant attack by the number of arrows that were embedded in its bodywork.

  His scrawny left hand ripped one of the closest arrows out of the stage and then he stared at it. His busted eyebrows rose because he did not recognize the feathered flight.

  Whoever this tribe was, they were unknown to the bounty hunter. He then focused on the pointed tip. It was flint and that was rare nowadays since the arrival of a plentiful supply of metal due to the countless white settlers who journeyed into the West.

  Iron Eyes moved around the stagecoach.

  As he reached the other door on the opposite side of the stage, the beleaguered bounty hunter was convinced of at least one thing.

  ‘This bunch of Injuns ain’t got guns,’ he surmised. ‘They ain’t got nothing like most tribes have collected over the years. No metal to forge arrowheads – that’s why they’re still using flint.’

  Then he stepped closer to where the team of stout black horses had been taken. His eyes darted around the churned-up sand as he released his hammer and poked his Navy Colt back into his waistband.

  ‘But they got ponies,’ he muttered. ‘A whole heap of them by the looks of it.’

  The gnawing in his craw seemed no easier even though he was satisfied that Sally had not been slain. Something was still troubling the gaunt figure.

  He turned and slowly walked back to the body of the stagecoach and opened its door again. He climbed in and stared at the dried blood that covered the padded seat that he had awoken upon hours earlier.

  His hands searched the area within the coach.

  He was looking for fresh blood. Blood that had not had time to dry. Sally’s blood. There was nothing yet Iron Eyes was still troubled.

  Iron Eyes clambered up the side of the coach until his painfully lean body reached the roof. He straightened up and walked to the driver’s box.

  Then his keen eyes spotted red drops on the long seat.

  The bounty hunter stepped down on to the board and then dipped his fingers into the crimson gore. He lifted his fingers to his lips and dabbed the end of his tongue. He turned his head and spat.

  ‘That’s blood OK,’ he sighed as his eyes surveyed the rest of the driver’s box. He did not have to look far before he found a crude stone club lying deep inside the box. His bony hand lifted it and stared at the blood covered stone. ‘By my reckoning Squirrel got her head hit by this weapon.’

  He was about to discard the weapon when he noticed a few long hairs stuck to the sticky gore. They were golden hairs.

  Iron Eyes felt guilty.

  It was something he had never experienced before.

  He knew that he should not have just left her the way he had done. If he had remained with her, things might have turned out differently.

  His narrowed eyes then spotted something else. He knelt and reached down into the deep driver’s box. His long fingers curled around the rifle and pulled it clear and rested it on the board he was sitting up.

  ‘This rifle must have fallen down when she got hit,’ he muttered as he began to vividly imagine the events that had happened. ‘Them Injuns didn’t even know what it was. They couldn’t have or they would have taken it.’

  The words had only just left his scarred lips when he saw something else. It was Sally’s corncob pipe. He picked it up and looked at it long and hard.

  He threw the club at the ground and then slid the pipe into his deep trail coat pocket. His weariness had gone as Iron Eyes descended from the driver’s seat and walked to where his sturdy stallion waited.

  Iron Eyes was now driven by something he understood.

  He slid Sally’s Winchester under his saddle, picked up the reins and wrapped them around his wrist before stepping into the stirrup of his ornate saddle and mounting. His long thin right leg swung over the cantle and did not stop moving until it reached the other stirrup. Iron Eyes gathered up his long leathers and turned the powerful horse.

  Iron Eyes needed fuel. He reached back and pulled out a fresh bottle of whiskey and pulled its cork with his razor-sharp teeth. He spat the cork at the sand and then started to drain the amber contents of the bottle.

  The whiskey burned a trail down into his gullet and warmed his already fiery innards. As the fumes rekindled his hunting instincts, a wry smile etched his grotesque features.

  ‘Don’t you fret none, Squirrel gal,’ he muttered before draining the bottle of its remaining contents. ‘This bunch of varmints left me a good trail to follow. Just give them grief and I’ll be there before they got time to spit.’

  No sooner had the amber nectar reached his innards than the bounty hunter’s honed instincts heard something to his left. A fraction of a heartbeat later, two arrows cut down through the smouldering heat narrowly missing his painfully thin body as they passed through his coat tails. Iron Eyes leapt like a puma from his horse, dragged both his Navy Colts from his belt, swung on his boot heels and blasted two shots in lethal reply. Muffled groans filled the air at top of the sand dune behind the stationary stagecoach. Two Indian warriors fell from their ponies and tumbled lifelessly down the sand.

  They came to a halt at Iron Eyes’ feet.

  The gaunt hunter pulled his hammers back again with his thumbs as his piercing eyes studied the surrounding dunes for further braves. Only when he was convinced that they had been on their own did he release his gun hammers and ram both six-shooters into his belt.

  ‘You boys shouldn’t have tried to get the drop on me with noisy horseflesh,’ he drawled before mounting his palomino again and pulling a long black cigar from his pocket. He bit off its tip and gripped it between his teeth. ‘Them nags up and killed you.’

  He studied the bodies as he scratched a match across his silver saddle horn and cupped its flame. As he filled his lungs with smoke, his head began to shake back and forth.

  They did not resemble any tribe he had ever encountered before. Their skin was stained with a red dye and they were adorned with silver trinkets.

  ‘You sure ain’t Apaches,’ Iron Eyes mumbled through a cloud of cigar smoke. ‘I can’t figure out what you boys are ’coz you don’t look like any Injuns I’ve ever bumped into before.’

  His eyes read the hoof marks in the sand. He could understand what they told him, unlike the smoke signals that had earlier left him baffled.

  Iron Eyes turned the palomino and spurred. As his horse thundered in pursuit of the Indians who had taken Sally and her team of prized horses, the infamous bounty hunter vowed that he would rescue the cantankerous femal
e, whatever it might cost him.

  With cigar smoke trailing over his shoulder, the bounty hunter shook his long black hair and stood in his stirrups. He had no idea how he was going to save Sally but he was going to try.

  His mane of black hair bounced up and down on his wide shoulders as his horse gathered pace in response to its master’s commands. Iron Eyes lashed his long leathers across the stallion’s shoulders and followed the hoof tracks left by the unknown tribe. They would lead him straight to their stronghold, he told himself.

  Then he would either save the feisty female or perish trying. It did not matter either way to the ghostly horseman, for death had been his constant companion for too many long bloody years.

  Cutting a route straight through the sickening heat haze in pursuit of his prey, Iron Eyes resembled something more akin to the Grim Reaper than anything made of flesh and blood.

  His matted mane resembled the flapping wings of some unearthly creature returning from the bowels of Hell to administer its own brand of bloody retribution.

  The sun was on its inevitable descent.

  The surrounding jagged peaks and gigantic mesas were reflecting their crimson glow across the desert sand dunes as day died and night was reborn.

  The scarlet hue cast its unholy light across the determined bounty hunter as he whipped the high-shouldered palomino and forged on toward the unknown.

  No spectral monster could equal Iron Eyes in full flight.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The trio of frantic horsemen had been riding for hours through the maze of prairie vegetation and on to the arid ocean of rolling waves; waves of white sun-bleached sand. The torrent of arrows that had rained down upon them had ceased, but the eldest of the rustling siblings had kept them moving until he felt sure that it was safe to stop.

  As Delmer stopped his and Spike’s mounts, his eyes searched the arid terrain like a fox searching for any sign of the pack of hounds he knew were still close. Delmer dismounted and moved around the nose of his exhausted mount until he was standing below his brother. Caleb rode back to his kinfolk and also dropped to the sand as he watched Delmer staring at the hideous blood-covered pants leg.