by Rory Black
Marshal Barker looked at the equally confused faces of his deputies on either side of him, then returned his gaze to the strange, tall figure above him.
‘What you mean, Iron Eyes?’
‘There are only nine here. That means that one of the Calhoon boys got away by the looks of it.’ Iron Eyes snatched the posters from the deputy’s hand and methodically compared each dead outlaw face with the crude images on the paper. ‘Harve Calhoon!’
‘What about him?’ Barker piped up before spitting out another dark lump of spittle.
‘He’s the one that’s missing.’ Iron Eyes rammed the posters back into the hands of the nervous Clem and drew both his Navy Colts again. He cocked their hammers, then turned and marched back into the large building.
Barker trailed the bounty hunter into the gunsmoke-filled saloon. There was blood and chunks of flesh covering everything. The aroma of death hung on-the air. The marshal trailed the long-legged man up the flight of stairs to the landing. He maintained a respectable distance between himself and the snorting Iron Eyes.
Marshal Barker paused at the top of the stairs and watched the bounty hunter kicking open every door. The screams of the terrified women inside the rooms echoed all around the building while Iron Eyes continued his frenzied search.
When he could not find any sign that the outlaw had ever been in this place with his brother and rest of his gang, the tall brooding man stopped and rested his back against the wall which was still wet from the blood of his victims.
Barker walked slowly toward Iron Eyes and nodded at each of the females huddled in the rooms as he passed them. The keen eyes of the lawman then spied the sobbing girl with the smoldering hair crumpled in a doorway.
He paused and knelt down beside her. She was burned down one side of her face and across her shoulder. The injuries were already festering in the humid air.
‘Katie?’ Barker whispered.
She looked up into his fatherly eyes and then glanced across at the silent Iron Eyes who was deep in thought at the end of the corridor.
‘I ought to get you over to Doc Harper, Katie,’ the marshal said lowering his scattergun on to the floor and removing his jacket and placing it carefully around her shoulders.
She winced as the lawman lifted her to her feet.
‘Who is that?’ Katie asked quietly.
‘No need to be afraid of him. He’s just a bounty hunter.’
‘I’m not afraid of him, Marshal,’ she said as Barker scooped his scattergun up off the bloodstained carpet. ‘He smothered the flames when the oil-lamp spewed burning oil all over me.’
Barker glanced at Iron Eyes.
‘He did?’
‘He must have been burned himself doing it,’ Katie added. ‘He risked his life to help me in the middle of the gunfight, Marshal Barker.’
Iron Eyes pushed himself away from the wall and marched past the two talking figures. They watched as he ran down the flight of stairs and out into the street.
By the time Barker had led the injured girl out into the dimly illuminated street, the bounty hunter was fifty yards away checking the horses that were tied to the hitching rails.
‘Take Katie over to Doc Harper, Clem,’ Barker told the deputy as he waved his hand at the rest of his men. ‘Drag them bodies over to my office, boys. I want to match them to them Wanted posters before paying out any bounty.’
Iron Eyes ran his hand along the neck of the last of the horses and then squared up to the lawman as he walked up to him. ‘I figure that Harve Calhoon was never here with the rest of his gang, Marshal,’ Iron Eyes said, pushing the pistols back into his belt. ‘But why not?’
Barker stared at the pearl-handled gun-grips that poked out from the almost flat stomach of the bounty hunter. He then noticed the burned shirt and the visible scars across the chest of Iron Eyes. He found it hard to comprehend that this strange creature would have helped Katie in the middle of a blazing gun battle. But he had.
‘What the hell are you, Iron Eyes?’
Iron Eyes ran his long bony fingers through his limp hair and pushed it off his face. The sight was enough to make the marshal’s throat go dry. It was a face that had endured many battles and each of them was carved into his scarred features. If Iron Eyes had ever truly resembled other men, it must have been a very long time ago, Barker thought.
‘I’m just a bounty hunter. Why?’
‘I’ve met a lotta bounty hunters. They weren’t nothing like you,’ Barker croaked.
Iron Eyes shrugged and looked at the bodies being carried by the deputies. He then glanced back at Barker.
‘Whatever the tally for them critters comes to, give it to the girl you called Katie.’
Before the marshal could respond, the long legged man had walked away into the darkness.
CHAPTER THREE
The trail led due south. Iron Eyes was backtracking the Calhoon gang’s route to Waco, but it was not an easy task. A sand storm had been threatening for hours and at last started to blow. The dusty surface layer of the dry sand was blowing hard and fast across the arid prairie as the bounty hunter forced his weary pony on.
The mount was spent and needed food and water but Iron Eyes cared little for horses. He just kept ramming his razor-sharp spurs into its already bloody flesh. He wanted to catch up with the outlaw who had somehow slipped away from the rest of the now dead gang.
Nothing else mattered.
Only pride in finishing a job that he had started.
Most of the tracks had been blown away, but not all. There were still enough left for the experienced hunter to steer his pony on toward his goal.
The bounty hunter knew that somewhere along the fifty-mile trail that had led him after the ruthless outlaws, he must have somehow missed wherever it was that Harve Calhoon had left the main group.
It was the first time that anyone had managed to outwit the skilled hunter. But then, the ride to Waco had been the first time that Iron Eyes had trailed ten wanted men at once. He had taken on groups of four or five gunfighters before and dispatched them easily, but the Calhoon gang had been the biggest and most tricky prize that he had ever tried to catch and kill.
As he rode feverishly on, a thought kept haunting the deadly Iron Eyes; why had Harve Calhoon cut away from the main group of outlaws at all?
And where had the varmint gone?
Apart from Waco, there was little else to attract a ruthless bank robber.
Or was there? Perhaps Calhoon knew something about this barren territory that he had yet to learn.
The trail was mercilessly hot the further south that Iron Eyes rode. Yet nothing could stop him now. He was angry and wanted the last of the once notorious Calhoon gang dead.
There was no other way.
Harve Calhoon had disappeared, but Iron Eyes knew that there was nowhere for the outlaw to hide once he located the exact spot where he had cut away from his nine fellow-outlaws.
The bounty hunter would seek him out wherever Calhoon tried to hide.
The trail began to rise slowly up a sandy dune.
The exhausted pony continued being spurred hard by its master. Iron Eyes knew that he had to continue following what remained of the trail if he were ever to discover where Calhoon had managed to do the seemingly impossible, and get away from the most infamous hunter of men in the West.
It never once crossed his mind that even if he had seen the telltale signs in the sand which would have alerted him that one of the gang had split away from the others, he could not have followed both trails. He would have still tracked the larger group on to Waco.
Iron Eyes whipped his pony viciously with the ends of his long reins and managed to make the hapless creature climb to the crest of the soft, sandy dune.
The sight that met the steel-gray-colored eyes caused Iron Eyes to haul his reins up to his chest. He sat silently astride the lathered-up mount and watched the approaching Apache warriors. They had obviously spotted the dust which rose thirty feet into the ai
r off the hoofs of his pony, long before he had been aware of them.
There were eight of them and they were all painted for battle.
Iron Eyes gritted his teeth and stood in his stirrups to give him a better view of the land that surrounded him. It was hotter than Hell itself on the crest of the sandy rise but the grim-faced rider knew that it could and probably would get even hotter in only a few minutes if he did not act swiftly.
Whatever had riled up the Indians, it must have been bad, he concluded. They rode their painted ponies straight at him and screamed their haunting war cries.
He could see the sun glinting off their rifles and war lances as the Apache hunting party galloped closer and closer. Yet Iron Eyes held his mount in check.
There was still not one ounce of fear in any part of him.
For however much paint the Apache warriors had covering their faces and bodies, they were still only men. And there had never been a man born that frightened Iron Eyes.
His long thin arm reached behind him and slid out his seldom-used Winchester from the long scabbard beneath his saddle. He tried to crank its mechanism but it was stiff and unyielding.
Iron Eyes knew that it was quite easy to kill riders, any riders with the aid of a fourteen-shot repeating rifle, but not this one. He snarled and rammed the barrel of the Winchester back into the scabbard. He knew that it would take at least an hour to clean and oil the carbine before it was possible to use it on the charging Indians.
At the speed that they were approaching, he had less than two minutes. He ran the fingers of both hands through his long limp hair and glared at them. He was going to have to do this the hard way.
Up close with his Navy Colts and long Bowie knife, it was going to be yet another blood bath. But this time, it was not one of his own making. He had no wish to kill anyone who did not have a price on his head. Yet Iron Eyes knew that this bunch of furious Indians did not look as though they wanted to do anything except kill him.
There was another choice available to the bounty hunter and yet it was one that he refused even to acknowledge. It meant turning his already exhausted mount and riding away.
For Iron Eyes, there was no retreat.
There never had been and there never would be.
He spun his mount full circle and studied the terrain which seemed little different whatever direction he looked in. There was little or no cover to be had anywhere. That meant that he had to remain right where he was, and fight.
When you fought Apaches you had to kill them or they would most certainly kill you. Like Iron Eyes, they never took prisoners.
His mount was nervous as it sensed the approaching riders bearing down on them. It gnashed at its bit and tried to turn away from the yelling warriors who were thundering ever closer.
Suddenly, over his shoulder, something caught his attention far behind him. Iron Eyes swung his pony around again and stared hard off into the distance along the trail that he had just ridden along.
He could see the dust rising into the dry air from the hoofs of a rider who was following him.
A rider who was at least an hour or so behind him.
‘Somebody’s following us, horse!’ the bounty hunter growled curiously. ‘But who? Don’t that idiot know that only death rides on my trail?’
The sound of rifle shots came from the approaching Apaches behind him. Iron Eyes snarled and spun his pony around once more, then he felt the sudden impact beneath his saddle. The pony shuddered. Blood spurted out from two wounds in its chest.
Then the mount gave out a deafening whine.
More shots burned through the dry hot air.
Iron Eyes glanced up and saw the plumes of gun smoke coming from a few of the leading Apaches’ rifles. A bullet passed through his hair and nicked the lobe of his left ear.
Then more shots tore into the animal as its startled master fought with the reins in a vain attempt to keep the creature on its feet.
His mount staggered and then toppled forward on to its head and neck.
Iron Eyes hit the ground hard.
CHAPTER FOUR
The man who had long been thought of as a living ghost had hit the ground hard when his injured pony had collapsed beneath him. Iron Eyes hurt real bad, but he knew that there was no time left to dwell upon anything except the thundering Apache mounts behind him. He rolled over in the burning-hot sand and saw that the eight chanting warriors were closing in with every heartbeat but the pathetic noise of his pony drew his attention from their rifle fire. The bounty hunter looked back at the injured pony beside him and pulled both guns from his belt. Without a second thought, he pushed one of the weapons against the temple of the shaking animal and fired.
The pony slumped into the soft sand.
Dragging himself up on to one knee, Iron Eyes knew that at least the animal’s suffering was over. His own fate was less predictable.
Arrows landed several yards ahead of him as yet more rifle bullets tore through the hot air. He felt them passing all around him. Then he raised his Navy Colts.
The eight Apaches had made good time.
They were now bearing down on him at incredible speed. He cocked the hammers of both pistols and trained them on his attackers.
Then Iron Eyes waited.
He had nerves of steel.
There was not one bead of sweat on him as his cold eyes focused down the barrels of his primed handguns. He knew that to fire too soon was to waste valuable ammunition. He had to wait until they were in the range of his deadly weaponry as their rifle bullets rained in at him.
It took courage but he had plenty of that.
He began to wonder; why were they so all-fired up?
The question kept hammering into his mind.
Yet if there were people whom he liked to kill almost as much as wanted outlaws, it was Apaches.
The Indians were looking for a fight and he was going to grant their dying wish. They had started the trouble, but Iron Eyes was determined that it would be he who finished it.
Their bullets ripped through the loose tails of his long trail coat, but Iron Eyes remained as still as a statue. Their arrows got closer and closer to where he knelt, but he did not blink.
When he could see the whites of their eyes, he knew it was time. They were within the range of his trusty matched Navy Colts.
With an expertise and speed that few men could equal, Iron Eyes squeezed his triggers with his index fingers and haul the hammers back with his thumbs.
Shot after shot came spewing from the barrels of his lethal Navy Colts at the native horsemen who bore down on him. Bullets and arrows rained at Iron Eyes but still he did not flinch.
One by one the Apache braves were torn from the backs of their painted ponies. One by one they felt the deadly lead of Iron Eyes’ accuracy.
The bounty hunter quickly rose to his feet when he felt both his guns were empty. Knowing that there was no time to reload them, Iron Eyes dropped them on to the sand at his feet. He hauled the long Bowie knife from his right boot and ran at the last two screaming riders.
Before the first warrior could train his long rifle at Iron Eyes, it was hauled from his grasp. The bounty hunter leapt up on to the back of the Indian’s pony. It reared up, sending both men crashing into the sand. Iron Eyes felt the fist of the winded brave catch him on his jaw, but it did not stop him. The knife was thrust into the belly of the Indian.
It claimed its victim instantly.
Iron Eyes gritted his teeth and then grabbed at the mane of the startled pony and stopped it from galloping after all the other horses. It took every ounce of his strength but he held the pony in check as his keen eyes watched the last of the warriors turning his own mount to face him.
They were twenty yards apart and Iron Eyes was using the skittish animal as a shield.
For a brief moment both men looked straight into each other’s souls. They paused and each sought a weakness in his enemy.
The Apache screamed a spine-chilling war cry a
nd kicked his mount into action once more. With every stride, the warrior fired his Winchester at the pony and the man who stood behind it. Bullets tore into the painted horse and it reared up. It then collapsed, leaving the bounty hunter exposed.
He watched the Indian galloping straight at him.
As the pony reached him, Iron Eyes sidestepped the unshod hoofs and threw himself up and over the back of the painted pony.
Iron Eyes grappled with the ferocity of a mountain lion on the back of the pony. Then he felt the blanket slip off the back of the startled animal. The two men hit the ground at exactly the same time.
The rifle went hurtling out of the warrior’s hand as the Apache grabbed at the right wrist of Iron Eyes. The long blade of the Bowie knife glinted in the blazing sunlight. Both men wrestled across the sand, neither of them willing to release his grip on the other.
A naked knee rammed into the belly of the bounty hunter. Iron Eyes felt his ribs buckle before he fell off the snarling Indian and rolled on to his back.
The brave still held on firmly to the wrist of Iron Eyes and tried to kick his enemy senseless. Yet the moccasin was no match for the hefty mule-ear boot. Iron Eyes drew up both his knees and kicked out as hard as he was able.
The Apache went flying backwards, yet before Iron Eyes could get up off the ground, the Indian had recovered and thrown himself back on top of him.
Iron Eyes lunged out but felt the strong fingers grab his wrist once again. A punch smashed into the face of the winded hunter of men before he could block it. Somehow Iron Eyes managed to shake his knife-hand free and lashed out with its deadly blade. He saw the Indian wince as its razor-sharp edge glanced across the naked chest of the painted warrior.
Iron Eyes pushed his opponent away for a brief moment and then saw the bleeding Indian dragging his own knife from its leather sheath and stagger back to his feet. They were only a matter of yards away from one another, staring into each other’s eyes.
Both knew as they gripped their knives in their bloodstained hands that within a few moments, one of them was going to die. But it was a good day to fight and a good day to die.
