The Spirit of Iron Eyes

by Rory Black

  Chapter Sixteen

  To the injured bounty hunter it sounded as if the Devil had released untold numbers of demons from the very bowels of Hell itself to add even more pain upon his already half-dead body. Yet Iron Eyes knew that they were not creatures from another world, but his sworn enemy. His eyes widened as he saw the scores of knife-wielding Apache braves a moment before they overwhelmed him.

  Iron Eyes crumpled under the sheer weight of the screaming warriors who had leapt upon him one after another. Yet even in his weakened state, it took more than a dozen of them to knock the staggering lean-framed man off his feet.

  The vicious attack went on and on and yet they did not use the keen-edged blades of their knives on him. As the bounty hunter felt their fury, he wondered why they were only using their fists and clubs.

  Any one of the painted braves could have used his dagger and ripped his heart out of his chest without him being able to prevent it.

  Yet they seemed content to just batter him into a pulp.

  Iron Eyes vainly tried to defend himself but it was impossible. There were simply too many of them to fend off. As one blow after another rained down on every inch of what was left of his body, he realized that he could not feel any of their punches or kicks.

  The snake poison that coursed unchecked through his veins made him totally impervious to any exterior pain.

  After being hauled back to his feet, Iron Eyes felt his body being dragged across the sand by countless hands. He knew that the Apaches had something planned for him but was helpless to stop them doing whatever they wanted.

  His feet dragged behind him as the Apaches brought him towards the largest of their camp-fires.

  Blood was flowing from his scalp again and dripping from the long limp strands of his matted hair that hung above the moonlit sand. He tried to raise his head but could not.

  Sweat dripped from his temples on to the sand almost as fast as the droplets of blood. He found himself staring at the strange pattern it made below him.

  Even if he had been uninjured, the bounty hunter knew that he could not have withstood the strength of so many foes. More dead than alive, he had no chance.

  His captors stopped and supported him between them as if he were little more than fresh game caught out on the prairie. It sounded to him as if every one of the Apaches was talking at exactly the same moment.

  He could not understand one word of it.

  Slowly Iron Eyes looked upward through his blood-soaked hair at the faces of the two men before him. Conchowata stood like a statue beside the raging fire. Its flames lit up the emotionless features of the Apache chief.

  The grinning face of Diamond Back Jones looked exactly like the image on his wanted poster. The laughter of the outlaw made the bounty hunter fight against the numerous hands which held him in check.

  It was a valiant but vain effort which only drained his strength even more.

  ‘So this is the great Iron Eyes!’ declared Jones as the warriors stood before him and the chief with their captive in their grip. He leaned closer and then spoke in English. ‘I knew that you weren’t indestructible, Mr. Bounty Hunter! All them tall tales are nothin’ but flannel, ain’t they?’

  ‘You reckon?’ Iron Eyes asked through the blood that poured from his bruised mouth.

  Diamond Back Jones moved forward and then kicked the belly of the tall man with all his might.

  Iron Eyes was lifted off the ground by the sheer force of the kick. The Apache braves held his arms firmly so that he could not avoid Jones’s second violent attack. This time the outlaw used the back of his right fist. It came down across the side of Iron Eyes’ jaw, knocking the bounty hunter’s head almost off his wide shoulders.

  There was an eerie silence only broken by the chuckling of the Apache outlaw. He continued laughing until he saw the head of their captive defiantly rising until he was looking straight at Jones.

  ‘I’m gonna kill ya, Jones!’ Iron Eyes mumbled through his bloodstained teeth in a low growl. ‘When this is over, I’m gonna kill ya good!’

  The smile fell from the face of the outlaw as he stared into the cold eyes of the man before him.

  ‘You kill me? When this is over, it’ll be you who ends up dead, Iron Eyes. Not me.’

  ‘Yep! I’m still gonna kill ya! Even if I have to do it after I’m dead,’ Iron Eyes repeated slowly. ‘I’ll kill ya. That’s a promise.’

  Diamond Back Jones pulled one of his guns from its holster and aimed the barrel straight at the head of the dazed bounty hunter. He cocked its hammer.

  ‘You ain’t gonna kill nobody. Not if I blow ya damn head off, you ain’t!’

  Conchowata took a step and grabbed the outstretched sleeve of the outlaw.

  ‘This is not the way, my brother!’

  Diamond Back Jones swiftly turned his head and stared into the face of the chief. He could see the hooded eyes narrowing as they focused upon him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You cannot kill him like this, my brother!’ Conchowata said firmly. ‘Not this way. That would be too quick. Iron Eyes must suffer for all the pain that he has inflicted upon our people. This is what we agreed. Do you not recall?’

  Jones slowly released the hammer of his gun and lowered his arm. The gun slid into its holster silently.

  ‘But we have him! We can kill him! Then it will be all over, great chief.’

  Conchowata shook his head.

  ‘Iron Eyes must die slowly, my brother. He will beg us to end his worthless life before we are finished torturing him. This day the Apache shall have their revenge on the living ghost.’

  Iron Eyes had no way of knowing what the two men were talking about but knew that the outlaw was unhappy.

  ‘Listen to ya chief, Jones! He’s a lot smarter than you’ll ever be.’

  Diamond Back Jones clenched his fist and then violently punched the bounty hunter square on the jaw. The man’s head rocked and then dropped until his chin hung over the sand. More blood flowed from the crimson-stained mouth.

  Conchowata gestured to his braves.

  ‘Bring the evil one to the fire. He must suffer a million deaths before we end his life.’

  The muscular Indians dragged the helpless Iron Eyes across the sand to where their chief was pointing. The braves threw him down on to the sand.

  ‘What ya intending to do to me, Chief?’ the bounty hunter asked as he felt a dozen knife blades pressed at his throat and body. ‘Ya boys here could have finished me off a score of times already. Ya planning some thin’ special for old Iron Eyes?’

  Conchowata stared grimly at their defiant prisoner. He was surprised by the sheer spirit and courage of their prisoner. He walked closer and then spoke in English.

  ‘We shall skin you alive, Iron Eyes. Then we will cut your belly open and drag your worthless entrails out for the vultures to feast upon. Then after you have suffered the points of a hundred blades, we shall kill you.’

  The bleeding figure of Iron Eyes nodded as the words sank into his fevered mind.

  ‘Too much information, Chief!’ he drawled. ‘But I’m grateful for ya honesty.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The sight which met the eyes of the weary lawman out on the prairie filled him with a mixture of horror and revulsion. For nearly an hour he had been wondering whether he ought to give up the idea of going anywhere near the scores of Indians, in the vain hope of finding, capturing or even killing Diamond Back Jones.

  Now the sight that his weathered eyes focused upon in total disbelief gave him the spur that he needed to act. The Apaches had made up Marshal Tom Quaid’s mind for him.

  He swallowed hard and vainly tried not to watch the ungodly scene that unraveled before him.

  Open mouthed, he watched the pitiful Iron Eyes being hoisted up on a crude wooden frame before the raging flames that licked at the moonlit sky.

  Tom Quaid felt as if he were witnessing a latter-day crucifixion.

  It chilled him to think that any m
an could be subjected to such barbaric torture. Yet he had seen many similar events in his long life and could not judge the Indians. They were simply doing what so many other people had done over the centuries. They were administering their own brand of justice.

  There were no doubts left in the mind of the lawman. Now Quaid had no option but to help another helpless victim, as he had done so many times before. Forty years of upholding the law and protecting the innocent would not allow him to ride away from this. Even if he paid the ultimate penalty, he would have to try and save the man who was being tortured.

  The marshal could not tell exactly how the Apaches had managed to attach their prisoner to the wooden frame, but that did not matter to the man who grabbed hold of his saddle horn and stepped into the well-used stirrup. As he sat across the wide back of his black gelding, Tom Quaid knew that he had at last found the reason he had been searching for.

  The marshal tapped his spurs gently and allowed the tall horse to walk away from the Joshua tree and out into the brilliant moonlight.

  He gritted his store-bought teeth and narrowed his determined glare at the distant scene beneath the wall of sand-rock. Giant shadows loomed across the face of the wall of rock as the dancing braves circled the well-fed fire and their half-dead captive.

  The marshal noticed the mist drifting across the wide moonlit prairie. Yet the jubilant Apaches seemed oblivious to everything except the task in hand. Quaid glanced up at the sky above him and inhaled deeply. Black clouds were now tracing across the heavens from the east.

  He wondered if they might give him the cover he required to get closer to the chanting warriors. Black shadows swept over the flat prairie as the clouds passed before the face of the bright moon.

  Was this a sign for him to drive his spurs into the flesh of his faithful mount and charge at the countless Apaches? The thought lingered in his mind.

  For several minutes the lawman sat astride his mount watching the Indians as they secured the twisted wooden frame into the soft ground. Yet still none of them noticed the elegantly dressed marshal who observed them.

  The triumphant war cries that echoed out across the vast prairie told Quaid that the Indians had only one thought in their collective mind.

  And that was to torture their prisoner in ways that even he could not imagine.

  A solitary bead of sweat trickled down from the hatband of his Stetson and navigated every one of the tanned wrinkles which covered his ancient face. Finally it dripped from his solid chin and landed on the back of his left gloved hand which rested on the saddle horn.

  Those dime novels he had read with such relish for so many years were nothing compared to the gory reality that faced him now.

  No Eastern writer, however imaginative, could have conceived of such horror, he thought.

  There was something terrifying about the sound of so many dancing Apaches chanting their songs of victory which chilled the old horseman.

  He edged his horse closer and closer to the scene ahead of him trying to see if the long-haired man who was somehow tethered to the crude wooden crucifix was still alive.

  The light of the Apache camp-fire illuminated the man in every detail. As Quaid’s mount got ever closer, it became obvious that their victim was indeed alive. Even covered in enough blood to give the appearance that he had been painted, the man on the wooden frame was still capable of moving his head.

  Quaid felt a lump in his throat.

  At first the marshal wondered if it was Diamond Back Jones who had been hoisted into the air. It was the long dark hair that fooled the curious onlooker. Then Tom Quaid pulled back on his reins and swallowed hard.

  He knew that Jones, like most Apaches, was only a little more than five feet in height.

  The man who was naked apart from the torn bloodstained trousers and boots, had to be well over six feet in height.

  ‘Iron Eyes !’ Quaid said under his breath. That poor bastard has to be Iron Eyes!’

  A fury suddenly exploded inside the innards of the veteran peace officer. He watched as Iron Eyes’ head lifted up and stared beyond the black clouds at the bright moon over the prairie as if searching for a god that might send some guardian angel down to help him.

  Quaid wondered if he might be Iron Eyes’ guardian angel! Had the fates or something else brought him to this spot simply to bring salvation to the bounty hunter?

  Marshal Tom Quaid had not even waited long enough to hear the preacher’s words at his own daughters’ joint funeral service back in Waco. He had lost his faith the day he had discovered their bodies, had thought that nothing could make him even consider that there might be something he could pray to ever again.

  Had he been wrong?

  Could it have been providence and not vengeance which had brought him here?

  As the marshal watched the long sharp points of the war lances being poked into the flesh of the helpless bounty hunter, he realized that there had to be some higher meaning to all of this.

  Quaid pulled the reins up and then looked back at the brush which surrounded the Joshua tree. It was kindling-dry. He had an idea.

  He hauled the head of the horse around and then rode back to the place where he had hidden for so long as his confused mind tried to work out what he ought to do.

  Tom Quaid stopped the gelding and glanced briefly across at the Indians again. They still had not noticed his presence.

  As mist rolled over the moonlit ground, the determined marshal wrapped his reins around the saddle horn, then pulled his frock-coat away from the silk vest. His gloved fingers found the large silver cigar-case in the pocket over his heart. He withdrew it.

  With one eye on the chanting braves, Quaid carefully opened the silver lid of the case and removed a cigar. He placed it between his teeth and then pulled out a long match from a special compartment inside the case.

  He struck the match and inhaled the strong smoke deeply before cupping the flame and tapping his spurs until the black gelding moved close to the dry brush.

  Tom Quaid knew that to get close enough to the bounty hunter in order to try and rescue him, he had to cause a distraction. A fire would be made to order.

  It might buy him enough time to circle the Indians and get in behind them. All he had to do was distract enough of the Apaches long enough for him to gallop to the aid of Iron Eyes. He knew that it was probably doomed to failure, but he had to give it a try.

  Just as he was about to throw the burning match into the bushes, he saw something riding towards him through the mist and murky light of the moon.

  There were three riders with a pack-mule.

  Marshal Tom Quaid lifted the match to his mouth and blew its flame out.

  He inhaled the smoke again and then removed the cigar from his lips. As more and more dark clouds raced across the face of the moon, his eyes darted back and forth between the raging Apaches to the approaching horsemen.

  He rested the palm of his gloved right hand on the grip of the Remington in its holster and then felt himself suddenly relax.

  ‘What in tarnation is Matty Hume doing here?’ he asked himself quietly. ‘Not like him to get lost.’

  The three Texas Rangers continued to ride towards the lawman, unseen by the celebrating Apaches.

  ‘We’ve bin lookin’ for ya, Tom,’ Col Wall said. The three riders stopped their mounts beside the marshal’s horse the Joshua tree.

  Quaid nodded as smoke drifted from his mouth.

  ‘I hate to upset you boys, but this ain’t Texas.’

  Matty Hume stared through the dry brush at the scene of brutality near the ridge.

  ‘What’s goin’ on over yonder, Tom?’

  The lawman glanced to where Hume was pointing before returning his attention to his friend.

  ‘Them Apaches have got themselves a prisoner, Matty! His name’s Iron Eyes, I think. I was just about to try and rescue the critter.’

  Wall sighed.

  ‘Are ya loco? There must be nearly a hundred Injuns over the
re. What was ya gonna do, Tom? Surround the varmints?’

  Quaid looked at the pack-mule thoughtfully.

  ‘Have you boys got any dynamite on that animal?’

  Hume nodded, then smiled.

  ‘We happen to have a few sticks. Reckon ya thinking the same way as me, Tom.’

  The marshal tapped the ash from his cigar.

  ‘Do you want to help me save a critter from being tortured to death, Matty?’

  Hume looked into the faces of his two companions. They averted their eyes from the horrific scene and looked straight at their captain.

  ‘Should we help this old rooster, boys?’

  ‘I’m game!’ Tanny Gibson nodded firmly. ‘I can’t leave no man to them merciless Apaches, Cap. We gotta help.’

  Hume looked at Wall.

  ‘What about you, Col? You figure we ought to give this old Texas lawman a helping hand?’

  Col Wall’s eyes sparkled in the moonlight.

  ‘Sure enough, Matty. I ain’t got nothin’ else to do but I still figure we might be bitin’ off more than we can chew.’

  Hume raised an eyebrow at his well-built friend. A man with an appetite as big as the broad smile that never seemed to fade.

  ‘More than you can chew? There ain’t no such animal, Col.’

  Marshal Tom Quaid leaned across toward the three nervous Texas Rangers and began to speak.

  ‘Listen up, boys. This is my plan ... ’

  Chapter Eighteen

  The explosion was big and unexpected by all, except the four riders who raced in all directions from their first well-placed dynamite stick. There was nothing left of the Joshua tree or any of the dry brush which had surrounded its spiky trunk. Just a burning scar on the blackened sand. Debris had flown into the air as the shock waves expanded out from the nucleus of the explosion.

  The three Texas Rangers and the marshal had waited until a large black cloud had moved between the bright moon and the land beneath its eerie light before they acted.

  The fuse had been trimmed short.

  Real short.

  It had taken less than a minute for it to burn down to the detonation cap that was rammed into the soft dynamite stick. But it had been enough time for the quartet of horsemen to ride wide of the Apaches’ camp-fire.