by Rory Black
Beware the Guns of Iron Eyes
Iron Eyes finds himself staring at a forest. A forest that reminds him of a time long before he had become the scarred infamous bounty hunter he now was.
As he waits for his beloved Squirrel Sally to show up on her stagecoach, his mind drifts back to how it had all started.
Iron Eyes remembers the time when he first set foot out of the forest where he had grown to manhood. The forest was where he had been abandoned as a baby and raised by timber wolves.
By the same author
Iron Eyes
The Avenging Angel
Spurs of the Spectre
The Fury of Iron Eyes
The Wrath of Iron Eyes
The Curse of Iron Eyes
The Spirit of Iron Eyes
The Ghost of Iron Eyes
Iron Eyes Must Die
The Blood of Iron Eyes
The Revenge of Iron Eyes
Iron Eyes Makes War
Iron Eyes is Dead
The Skull of Iron Eyes
The Shadow of Iron Eyes
The Venom of Iron Eyes
Iron Eyes the Fearless
The Scars of Iron Eyes
A Rope for Iron Eyes
The Hunt for Iron Eyes
My Name is Iron Eyes
The Tomb of Iron Eyes
The Gun Master
A Noose for Iron Eyes
Fortress Iron Eyes
The Scalp of Iron Eyes
100 Golden Eagles for Iron Eyes
Iron Eyes Unchained
Iron Eyes the Spectre
Beware the Guns of Iron Eyes
Rory Black
ROBERT HALE
© Rory Black 2018
First published in Great Britain 2018
ISBN 978-0-7198-2755-6
The Crowood Press
The Stable Block
Crowood Lane
Ramsbury
Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR
www.bhwesterns.com
Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press
The right of Rory Black to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Dedicated to my little brother Gary
PROLOGUE
Few who had ever set eyes upon the hideously maimed creature, known throughout the Wild West as Iron Eyes the bounty hunter, could ever have imagined the horrors that he had endured since he had first opened his eyes and filled his lungs with precious air. Iron Eyes would grow to adulthood in the eerie twilight of a vast forest filled with deadly animals and venomous serpents. Abandoned at birth by an unknown mother due some misplaced notion of shame, the newly born baby would survive only because of a pack of timber wolves’ instinctive kindness. The wolves would raise and teach him the ways of the wild. It was a debt for which he would be eternally thankful.
Iron Eyes was one of those rare creatures, a feral child. More animal than human in his ways, this gave him the swiftness to outwit all that tried to end his short existence once and for all.
Many have wondered about the hideously scarred bounty hunter and how his unique story had started. Had they known how he had become the almost mythical and infamous bounty hunter who roamed the West with his smoking Navy Colts gripped in his skeletal hands, they might have understood the tall emaciated figure a little better.
Even the most fertile of imaginations, however, could never have envisioned that anything that looked the way he did could ever have once appeared normal.
But he had.
Long before he was covered in the scars of his seemingly endless battles, Iron Eyes had been an enigmatic figure. It was said that the Indians who roamed the vast forest knew who and what Iron Eyes truly was, but even they did not know the whole truth.
It was rumoured that they also knew where he had come from, but they remained silent. In reality the Indians were no wiser to the origins of the infamous Iron Eyes than anyone else, but they would embellish his myth around their campfires. Every telling would add just a little bit more to the man they had grown to think of as a ghost.
During his childhood, the wolves had taught Iron Eyes to remain out of his enemies’ line of sight. The Indians’ campfire stories interpreted this as meaning that he was not actually a living man like themselves. The reason they had never been able to stop him stealing their weaponry or their fresh kills was because Iron Eyes was already dead.
Even the greatest Indian bowman could not be expected to kill a phantom. As a young boy who had moved unseen and unheard through the dense undergrowth to taunt the Indians, Iron Eyes had became a thorn in their collective sides. In the mythology that grew around Iron Eyes, he became known by the title Ayan-Ees, the evil spirit.
For years until he reached maturity, Iron Eyes had honed the ways of the wolf and stolen anything he needed or simply desired from their traps and encampments.
Resentment had grown into hatred.
Iron Eyes disliked them as much as they hated him.
Year by year the Indian tales became taller with each telling. Secreted above the Indians’ camps with only tree canopies to hide him from view, Iron Eyes had listened to the Indians so often that he actually understood their language.
Just like the stories that still prevail in the wilderness across the vast land, the Indians would find his footprints along the muddy trails. Yet no matter how hard they tried, they could never actually see him clearly. In time the footprints grew larger, just as Iron Eyes himself developed into a tall agile young man.
Iron Eyes would climb the tallest trees and stare out from the forest at the glowing amber lights of a nearby logging town. Silver Creek’s coal oil lanterns glowed in the darkness and intrigued the inquisitive youngster. He was curious as to what sort of people dwelled in the unfamiliar houses he could just make out from his perilous perch.
This was when Iron Eyes realized that there was another world beyond the limits of the woodlands he roamed. A place where he might not have to dodge the arrows of those who tried to kill him as they had also done to most of the timber wolves that had raised him.
Could the glowing settlement be the safe haven he had always craved? The thought grew like a cancer in his curious mind for months. Life in the forest had grown tedious for the young hunter and he grew weary of forever remaining in the shadows so that he could avoid the Indians’ arrows.
He had spotted several of the lumberjacks who were gradually clearing the hills and noticed that they covered their bodies in clothing like the Indians did during the winter months.
Iron Eyes was intelligent enough to realize that if he were to venture into the town, he would have to fashion some sort of clothing for himself. Using leather from his animal pelts and anything else he could lay his hands upon, he somehow managed to make a crude shirt and pants that he thought resembled what he had seen the lumberjacks wearing.
Somehow Iron Eyes even managed to cobble together a pair of boots. Before setting out for the town, Iron Eyes decided to test out his crude appearance on his mortal enemies and let them catch sight of him. For the first time in his life the gaunt hunter no longer hid from view amid the n
umerous shadows of the forest. The sudden sight of the tall emaciated youngster terrified most of the Indians as they had never seen him clearly before.
Now it was their turn to run and hide. The creature they had built up so many stories about was suddenly real to them and appeared even more lethal-looking than any of their tall-tales.
This reaction gave Iron Eyes even more confidence than he already had. It was his height that troubled the Indians the most, for he was at least a foot taller than any of the forest warriors.
His tall lean frame and mane of long jet black hair gave him the appearance of a noble prince belonging to some strange forgotten tribe.
Perhaps that was what he actually was.
Nobody would ever know for sure.
His appearance was not actually like that of any of the native braves that he constantly encountered, though. Neither did he resemble any of the white settlers who slowly but surely made their way across the once sacred land where he had grown up.
Iron Eyes was an enigma. He simply did not fit in either camp. The Indians had grown to hate him due to his uncanny hunting skills, and the whites he would eventually encounter considered him to be something akin to an Apache spy. It had not taken the fearless misfit long to realize that he did not belong to either of the opposing sides.
He would soon discover that most men feared him for some unknown reason. Unfortunately men always try to destroy or kill such things.
Curiosity lured the hunter out from the dense forested mountains and begin his long trek into lands which he neither understood or cared for. Soon, however, he would bury his misgivings beneath a waterfall of firewater and cheap cigars.
Unlike his despised enemies, the whiskey he either traded or stole had no effect on his pitifully lean body or deadly keen mind. Somehow he could drink as much of the fiery liquid as he desired with no ill effects.
Although Iron Eyes would never fit into the land where most of us dwell, he simply could not prevent himself from continuing on his long blood-stained journey. Once the naïve youngster left the relative safety of the forest, he found his curiosity impossible to resist. No matter how much pain he suffered in civilization, he simply could not stop moving forward.
Most men, it is said, are buried less than a stone’s throw away from where they were born. They never dare leave the place where they feel safe. Some like Iron Eyes seek the one thing they may never find and are willing to suffer the brutal atrocities fate throws at them during their often futile quest.
This is the story of Iron Eyes before he became hideously mutilated by the bullets, arrows and knives of his countless foes. An almost forgotten time when the gaunt creature crawled out from the safety of the forest and discovered that his hunting skills were better suited to hunting down and killing wanted men for bounty money.
This is the beginning.
But beware the guns.
Beware the guns of Iron Eyes.
CHAPTER ONE
The sight of the lone horseman was enough to stop the numerous birds from singing and freeze the hearts of anyone that might have cast their innocent attention in his direction. The skeletal figure who sat astride his magnificent palomino stallion appeared to have come from the bowels of Hell itself. He sat motionless on his high-shouldered mount and studied the forest before him and began to remember things he had thought were long forgotten.
A stiff breeze raced across the barren hillside like a freight train and moved the tall grass between his mount and the dark untamed forest. His mutilated face watched the strangely familiar sight as thoughts drifted from hunting down another wanted outlaw to memories of a time when things were less dramatic.
His long bony fingers touched his face and traced across the disfigured flesh that covered his skull, reminding him of a time when there were no hideous reminders of his many injuries.
Iron Eyes bore the scars of countless fights. Every battle he had waged during his lifetime showed on his mutilated face. Draped in an oversized trail coat and hunched over his ornate saddle, his mind drifted back to when he too resembled regular folk.
His hands began to search his many pockets for a cigar in a vain effort to chase the thoughts from his mind. The infamous bounty hunter believed that tobacco smoke was a cure for all ills. As the long-legged horseman sat astride the powerful palomino and wondered why his thoughts were tormenting him, he started to remember things he had considered dead and buried. Long before he had left the forest that had been his home to seek something he still had not found, Iron Eyes had lived a secluded existence. Yet even back then he had craved something more.
Iron Eyes pulled a long thin cigar from his inside pocket and placed it between his teeth. His thumbnail scratched a match and raised the fiery stick to the end of the twisted tobacco stick. He puffed so that a cloud of smoke hung around his wide shoulders until it was caught by the breeze and vanished across the rolling hills.
Iron Eyes glanced over his shoulder. The trail that his large horse had made in the high grass was evident and he wondered how long it would be before Squirrel Sally drove her stagecoach after him and created an even wider scar on the hillside. The notorious bounty hunter returned his narrowed eyes to the forest ahead of him. He filled his lungs with acrid smoke and savoured its flavour for a few moments before exhaling. This time the cigar smoke did not stop the memories from sweeping over Iron Eyes as he rested himself and his exhausted mount.
His razor sharp teeth gripped the cigar as his cruelly scarred eyes stared at the forest. Memories flooded back. This land resembled his birthplace and yet was over a hundred miles from where he had first set out on his unfulfilled quest.
Few, if any knew of his true origins.
Until this very moment even Iron Eyes had forgotten how his life had changed so drastically and brought him to where he now found himself. As smoke burned his unblinking eyes, the decrepit horseman rested his bony wrists on the silver saddle horn and allowed the long-repressed memories to return.
His usually emotionless heart began to pound inside his chest like an Apache war drum. Iron Eyes had never allowed himself to remember many of the events from long ago and yet now seemed unable to stop them from engulfing him.
He started to recall the time before he had sold his soul to the Devil to become a bounty hunter. Iron Eyes lowered his head and began to remember when the only thing he ever hunted was animals to fill his belly.
That had been before unbridled curiosity had drawn him out into the world of the white man. A time when a scrawny young misfit had taken a gigantic step from one world into another.
Iron Eyes reached back to his saddlebags, lifted the flap of one of its satchels and pulled out one of his many whiskey bottles. He pulled its cork. The familiar aroma of the hard liquor only added more fuel to the memories which were stampeding back into his mind.
He closed his eyes and took a long swig.
The tall young man wandered out of the forest and stared up at the vast cloudless blue sky. This was the first time that he had ever seen the heavens without having to look up through the tree canopies before. Each of the other occasions that he had left the forest had been after sundown. Now the gaunt figure was venturing to the nearby town during the hours of daylight. Iron Eyes had gotten to know several of the town’s inhabitants since he had first braved the strange new world which some laughingly called civilization. Now as the noon high sun beat down upon the small settlement the unusual looking young man felt confident to let others cast their eyes upon him.
Apart from the seductive taste of cigars and the gut burning rotgut whiskey, the town offered nothing which he cared for. Yet something deep in his craw told him that this new world was where he ought to be because this was where he would find his destiny. Iron Eyes was unsure whether he cared for it or not but was driven by insatiable curiosity.
Iron Eyes brushed the sweat off his brow and narrowed his eyes against the merciless light which seemed to reflect off the very ground itself. He had no experience of
such brightness and did not fully understand it. If it were not for the lure of the cigars and whiskey, Iron Eyes might have turned and headed back into the depths of the forest.
At least it was cool there, he thought.
The long-haired youth cut a strange looking figure as his spindly legs cut a path through the tall grass toward the wagon trail road which was used by the loggers that were gradually reducing the forest to a mere fraction of its original size.
His hand-crafted clothes fitted but bore little resemblance to anything worn by his contemporaries. Yet those in the town that had encountered Iron Eyes on his previous visits had not dared mention this for fear of enraging the odd looking character.
It was quite obvious to all who had set eyes upon him that Iron Eyes was what was commonly known as a wild man. A feral creature that was more animal than man.
As Iron Eyes clambered up on to the trail road he sighed and stared ahead at his destination through the shimmering haze that shimmered before his screwed-up eyes. The blisteringly hot sun was burning his flesh like acid and his hands felt as though a thousand hornets had attacked his skin.
Iron Eyes had never known such a painful sensation before and did not like it, but the thought of the whiskey and the flavoursome cigars kept him walking.
The thought that his unusual appearance might draw some to mock him simply did not cross his mind. He knew nothing of the ways of his fellow men apart from the various Indian warriors who had tried to kill him his entire life.
Soon Iron Eyes would discover that some men somehow do not have the brains they were born with. They tend to turn on those that they deem different to themselves and that could be a mighty dangerous thing to do in the Wild West.
For sometimes even the smallest of dogs have sharp teeth.
The tall figure carried a long knife in the neck of his right boot and had a bow over his shoulder with a quiver of arrows attached to his belt. Iron Eyes might have appeared odd to most who spied him as he approached the outskirts of the town, but he was nevertheless formidable.
