by Rory Black
Jones narrowed his eyes.
‘If he is alive, I shall kill him, Geroma!’
‘You cannot defy the gods!’ Conchowata raged. ‘This is our land but we are only here because of the mercy of our gods. We cannot fight until the sun rises.’
Diamond Back Jones pulled his arm free of the chief’s grip and waved his hands at the rest of the tribe.
‘No wonder our people have been driven into such arid lands by the white eyes. You are all women who fear unseen gods and allow our enemies to take advantage of us.’
Conchowata squared up to the outlaw.
‘You will not go up there to fight!’
‘I can and I will!’ Diamond Back retorted.
Conchowata signaled to his braves. They all advanced with their daggers drawn.
The two men gazed angrily into each other’s souls. Neither was willing to back down.
Chapter Ten
For more than five eternal minutes the bounty hunter had been racked by feverish delirium as he rolled over and over on the floor of the cave tunnel. His mind was melting into a soup of confused fog, yet he was fighting the unseen enemy which surged through his veins and arteries with every scrap of his dogged determination. Iron Eyes gritted his teeth as his entire body arched in violent agony for the umpteenth time.
He had suffered many things since he first stood upright and challenged the world, but nothing that came close to the pain he was now consumed by. Pain was one thing but to lose control of your mind made him angry.
He had always been a fighter and would never allow anything to defeat him without giving of his best. He had to try and beat this too. Whatever was happening to him as the poison infested his body, he would try and fight it.
Sweat had soaked his long hair as he had tried to escape the monsters who now brought nightmares to his fevered brain. It clung to his wet face like spiders’ webs. He punched out violently at the black air trying to hit the invisible foes who tormented him. His knuckles glanced across the cave walls taking the skin off them but he did not feel a thing except the cruel venom which continued to tear through his innards.
The bounty hunter threw himself through the blackness at the wall of the cave as if attempting to knock himself out. Anything to escape the vicious torment which was engulfing him.
Sweat poured from him as the snake’s venom flowed through his bloodstream. He felt as if his head were about to explode when he managed to regain part of his wits.
Without even knowing why, he grabbed the handle of the long Bowie knife protruding from the tall neck of his boot and hauled it out. He shook his head in a vain attempt to free his mind from the fog and thunder which was overwhelming him. Again he managed to regain his thoughts for the briefest of seconds and honed his every thought on the rattler which still clung to his leg.
The snake’s fangs had driven so deeply into his boot and calf-muscle that it could no longer free itself.
Iron Eyes shook the sweat off his face and then groped for the viper’s neck in the darkness. He found the wriggling serpent and squeezed it as hard as he could as the snake’s body wrapped around his arm.
With the other hand Iron Eyes moved the long honed blade closer to the sidewinder. Pain racked his head and body as if he were being torn apart by a hundred wild mustangs but he continued to force himself to try and kill the creature that had almost certainly killed him.
His heart pounded in his chest as it tried to fight the poison which was now being sucked through his heart. Iron Eyes felt giddy and rolled over. His skull hit the cave wall. It was like a slap in the face for the feverish man. Suddenly he remembered what he was doing and tightened his grip on the snake’s neck once more. The lethal blade of his knife sought out the neck of the rattler in the darkness. He could feel it cut his hand time and time again as he searched for the head of the snake. The hand holding the rattler became wet with his blood, but he could not feel the injuries he was inflicting upon himself.
They were mere scratches compared to the agony which racked the rest of him.
The snake’s venom had deadened his entire body to anything except itself. Then the bounty hunter slid the curved blade under his thumb and pressed it into the throat of the determined sidewinder.
‘Gotcha, ya bastard!’ Iron Eyes growled.
He dragged the knife across the flesh of the snake with every ounce of his remaining strength. The body was severed from the head of the rattler but its fangs were still buried deep into his calf muscle. The poison still pumped from the twin fangs even though the creature was now dead.
Iron Eyes felt himself fall on to his side again. He was tired and yet knew that he dare not allow himself to sleep. For sleep meant certain death.
A swirling sickness seemed to be flowing into his mind. He could hear his heart beating like a drum. Louder and louder until he thought that he would go insane.
‘No!’ He cried out angrily forcing himself back up into a sitting position. ‘No damn snake’s gonna get the better of me. I ain’t ready to go under just yet!’
Iron Eyes released his grip on the body of the snake and then poked the long edge of his Bowie knife into his boot. He dragged its razor sharp edge through the leather until it reached the fangs of the rattler still embedded in his leg.
He searched with the fingers of his free hand until he located the fangs, then placed the blade of his knife beneath them.
As if he were sawing wood, Iron Eyes carved at the creature until he felt it finally prised free from his flesh. He threw the head across the cave tunnel and began to feel as if he were about to pass out. He knew that if he did, he would never awaken again.
Iron Eyes inhaled deeply and tried to recall what he had planned to do next. He reached down and dragged the split boot off his foot and then pulled his leg up across his lap. He wiped his fingers free of the blood and blindly searched for the wounds left by the snake’s fangs.
He could feel the blood and venom weeping under his fingers.
‘Gotta do somethin’!’ Iron Eyes mumbled as his head filled with agonizing bolts of lightning. ‘But what? Think, dammit! Think!’
Suddenly the bounty hunter remembered the matches in his shirt pocket. He rested the knife on his bleeding leg and shook his coat off his shoulders. Without even knowing why, he removed the box of matches from his pocket and then tore his shirt from his back.
Another sickening feeling overwhelmed him. His head rolled and fell against the cave wall beside him. He heard his skull crack under the impact but he felt no pain.
He started to count.
Louder and louder until he recalled what he was doing.
Somehow Iron Eyes forced himself back up on to his rear. His hands found the shirt again and he placed it next to his leg. He fumbled with the matches until he located one and struck it across the hard stone wall beside him.
The flame was almost blinding when it first ignited but within seconds its flame calmed down. Iron Eyes placed the match to his shirt and watched it catch alight. He pulled out a crumpled wanted poster from his deep coat pocket and placed it on the small blaze.
His bony fingers managed to pick up one of his bullets from out of the same pocket. Iron Eyes placed it between his small sharp teeth and the bit it with all his might. He felt the casing bend slightly. The acrid taste of gunpowder granules found the tip of his tongue before his fingers carefully removed the damaged bullet. Iron Eyes picked up his knife and prised the small lead ball from the bullet casing. He discarded the ball and put the casing next to his bleeding leg.
Iron Eyes blinked several times before he managed to focus upon the two weeping fang marks.
Without a second thought, he stabbed the leg with the point of the Bowie knife and watched as blood spurted out from the gash. He slid the blade across his calf from one fang hole to the next and then started to rip at the wound until he was satisfied that blood was pouring from it.
How much poison would also flow from his leg, he wondered.
His eyes suddenly went foggy. He stopped and shook his head until his mind began to clear once more. When he managed to focus on the wound again, Iron Eyes dropped his knife and squeezed both sides of his leg hard. More blood gushed out of the nasty knife wound. He could feel his chest tightening as the poison raced through him.
‘C’mon! Get this done!’ Iron Eyes snarled at himself.
He picked up the bullet casing and then poured the gunpowder into the deep gash. He felt the black granules burn like branding irons but ignored it. This pain was nothing compared to the agonizing turmoil the dead rattler’s venom was still inflicting.
Iron Eyes plucked a burning fragment of his shirt and dropped it on to the gunpowder-laced wound.
A white flash exploded and knocked the bounty hunter flat on to his back. He lay there for several minutes staring at the flickering light on the roof of the cave tunnel.
The smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils after a few moments and forced him back up until he was seated again. He fumbled in his coat pockets and found another wanted poster and dropped that on to the small fire at his side.
His eyes rolled in his head until they found the gruesome sight of his charred calf muscle. The blackened flesh was no longer bleeding.
Iron Eyes picked up the body of the snake and shook it. The rattle still worked. He cut it free from the body and pushed it into his deep coat pocket.
Even half-dead, the hunter in his Iron Eyes soul still wanted a trophy of his kill.
‘Gotta get out of here,’ he told himself firmly. He rolled on to his knees and tried to regain his thoughts amid the toxic confusion that still tore through his head and every sinew. He clawed at the cave wall and got to his feet.
He was upright for the first time in what felt like an eternity and intended to remain that way. He knew that now he had to walk out of this unholy place. If death wanted him, it would have to claim him on his feet.
Every movement seemed to feel like a thousand knives being thrust into his thin pitiful frame. He used the last of the fire’s light to pluck his long trail coat off the blood-soaked ground. After putting it back on, he gathered up his knife and guns and dropped them into his deep trail coat pockets. He slid his foot into what was left of his right boot and then scooped the water bag up and began to stagger down the sloping cave tunnel.
He continued on his journey.
But this time he was using the cave walls to support him as he fought with the demons that were filling his thoughts.
The fire finally went out behind him.
The half-dead Iron Eyes was walking in total darkness again.
He did not notice.
Chapter Eleven
Matty Hume, Col Wall and Tanny Gibson had been Texas Rangers for more than twenty years between them. Yet the current mission that they had been sent on had nothing to do with Texas, or any other civilized place for that matter. Captain Matty Hume had been given the unenviable job of trying to trace the whereabouts of Marshal Tom Quaid.
It seemed that the marshal had friends in high places who knew that the grieving lawman was hell bent on finding the notorious outlaw known only as Diamond Back Jones. It seemed that there were powerful people who had political plans for the veteran law officer Tom Quaid. To them he was a man who could bridge the gap between the old and the new Texas.
The last thing the politicians wanted was for those ambitions to be scuppered by Quaid himself breaking the very laws that he had spent a lifetime upholding.
Tom Quaid could simply not be allowed to administer his own form of justice. Yet the three riders knew that they would probably be driven by the same feelings of revenge if someone had brutally murdered their daughters.
Matty Hume had been given one simple order. He had to try and find Quaid before Quaid found Diamond Back Jones. Find the lawman and bring him back to Waco.
It was not a job the seasoned Texas Ranger had wanted but he knew that there were few others in his platoon who could match his own tracking skills. He had also never been a man to refuse any request from his superiors simply because there was an element of danger attached to it.
Hume had known Quaid for more than a decade and grown to admire the silver-haired marshal. The Texas Ranger knew that this was out of character for the lawman, but he understood it.
He also knew that Tom Quaid would never forgive himself if he did kill the outlaw in cold blood.
Captain Hume had asked for volunteers in the Texas Ranger outpost just west of Waco, but only two men had responded to the lean man’s request for help.
Col Wall was roughly five feet nine inches in height with light-brown-colored hair. His face was broad and looked as though it had taken a lot of punches over its thirty years but the green eyes sparkled with the joy of just being what he was. He was a Texas Ranger and no man could ever have equaled his pride in that simple fact.
Tanny Gibson was the least capable of the trio. Yet he had worked hard to try and make himself worthy of the badge he had been given thirteen months earlier. Gibson wanted to be as good as the two riders he rode with. Few other Rangers could equal his ambition and commitment.
Rangers Wall and Gibson were always willing to follow their captain. They knew that he was one Texas Ranger officer who never took risks with the lives of those in his company and always led from the front. Matty Hume was no armchair general like so many others of his rank. He would never ask his men to go anywhere he was unwilling to go himself.
That one simple fact gave his men confidence and trust, two key factors when you were riding into uncharted terrain.
The three riders had trailed Tom Quaid across the high border mountains and then down into the devilishly hot prairie that led into the unmapped and unnamed territory west of the sprawling Lone Star State.
Captain Matty Hume had few equals when it came to following trails and had led his two followers across more than a hundred miles of the most diverse land to be found anywhere in the vast continent.
The three horsemen had visited Dry Gulch and managed to leave its boundaries unscathed. They had purchased enough provisions and water in the stinking town to last them at least two weeks for they had no idea of how big the arid prairie that stretched out before them was.
Even the hours of night could not slow their pace.
Hume stood in his stirrups and took the weight off his mount’s shoulders. His sharp eyesight studied the moonlit hoof-tracks that led off into the distance before them.
Gibson led their pack-mule whilst Wall sat firmly on his saddle with his trusty scattergun across his waist. He was the eyes and ears of the three horsemen. The heavily built Texas Ranger looked out for any sign of danger that might arise and strike at them from any direction.
The three horsemen had made good time since leaving their Texan outpost. They had managed to get through more than a dozen mounts between them on their long wearying quest.
A saddle-bag full of golden eagles had ensured that the three men could buy as much fresh horseflesh as they needed to hasten their pursuit of the lawman they sought. It had proven an effective policy and the trio had managed to close the distance between themselves and Quaid from days to mere hours.
The soft sand beneath the hoofs of their horses began to slow their progress. Hume pulled back on his reins and stopped the tired mount beneath him. He slid off his saddle, crouched down and ran his gloved hand back and forth through the sand.
Wall and Gibson dismounted behind him and walked to the silent Texas Ranger officer.
‘What’s wrong, Cap?’ Tanny Gibson asked.
Hume glanced up at the younger man and smiled. ‘No trouble, Tanny. I just thought we’d make better pace if n we take the saddles off our horses and let the poor critters rest for an hour.’
Gibson nodded and headed for their pack-mule.
Col Wall leaned on his scattergun and stared all around the moonlit landscape.
‘We eatin’, Matty?’ he asked.
Hume rose to his full height.
‘Reckon so, Col.’
‘Break out some vittles, Tanny,’ Wall told Gibson. ‘We’re gonna eat.’
Captain Hume exhaled heavily and rubbed his rump with both his gloved hands. It had been a long hard ride, and every bone in his body ached.
‘You ever think about anything else but grub, Col?’
Wall smiled. His eyes twinkled in the moonlight.
‘I thinks about females and beer! But most of all I thinks about vittles.’
Hume nodded and smiled.
‘I don’t cotton to being out on this damn prairie once the sun rises, Col. I figure we’ll need every drop of our water just to survive this darn place.’
‘How close do ya reckon we are to catching up with old Tom Quaid, Matty?’ Wall asked, rubbing his belly.
‘We’re less than an hour or so behind the old-timer, Col.’
Wall leaned over and looked into the face of his superior.
‘If’n we is that close to old Quaid, how come we’re stoppin’ for grub? We ought to ride hard and catch the old buzzard.’
Matty Hume pointed down at the tracks that led off into the eerie distance.
‘That’s why, Col.’
Col Wall removed his hat and scratched the top of his head as he stared down at the tracks.
‘Huh? What ya trying to say, Matty?’
‘Can’t ya see it?’
‘See what?’ Wall shrugged.
Captain Hume shook his head. ‘You’ll never make a tracker, Col. Can’t ya see the unshod hoof-tracks that have cut in from over yonder?’
Col Wall raised both his eyebrows.
‘Unshod hoof-tracks?’ he repeated. ‘Are ya trying to tell me that them tracks are Injun pony-tracks?’
‘Yep!’ Hume sighed.
Tanny Gibson dropped the bag of food he had just pulled off the pack-mule on to the sand.
‘Injuns?’
The Texas Ranger captain glanced at the youngest member of their small group.
‘That’s right, Tanny. We seem to have ourselves a whole bunch of Apache tracks here. Ya ain’t worried, are ya?’
Tanny Gibson swallowed hard. He bent down and picked up the bag. His hands were shaking as much as his voice.
