The Ghost of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western Book 8)

by Rory Black

  ‘OK!’ he said.

  He squeezed the trigger and watched as half her head was blown off her neck. Blood, hair and fragments of skull splattered over the sand behind the kneeling woman. She crumpled like a rag-doll and fell. Darrow blew the smoke from the barrel of his gun. He leaned down and grabbed his Colt from her lifeless hands, then holstered both his guns.

  ‘You mindless fool,’ snarled Luther Cole. He shook his head and thought of all the other people who had fallen victim to the three gun-happy Darrow boys. Most of the killing he had witnessed during the time they had ridden together had been started by the Darrows. Even his hardened constitution was beginning to get tired of the carnage. ‘Do you have to kill everyone who stands in your way, boy?’

  ‘Why not, Luther?’ Toke Darrow spat. ‘She’s stopped screamin’, ain’t she?’

  ‘That was a waste of a woman, Toke,’ Henry Jardine commented. He placed a cigar between his teeth and struck a match on a porch upright. ‘If we intend staying in Diamond City, you can’t keep killing the way we did in all the towns behind us.’

  Darrow looked up at the rest of the women.

  ‘We got us plenty more corralled over yonder, old-timer.’ Jardine turned to face the sobbing women whom they had grouped together outside the saloon. He knew that it might be a lot harder to take control of this town than he had first imagined.

  ‘Just don’t kill too many folks or we’ll have to do all the town’s chores ourselves.’

  ‘I’ll kill as many folks as I damn well want, Jardine,’ Darrow retorted.

  ‘Them women are a noisy bunch though, Toke,’ said Jardine. ‘They’re scared, and scared women are darn noisy.’

  ‘Damned if I care how noisy they gets.’ Darrow raised an eyebrow. ‘All I want is a little satisfaction. I’m used to my females screaming, anyways.’

  ‘Pop and Clay are scouting for more females down the end of town, Toke.’ Jardine sighed. ‘They might find a few quieter ones if n you’re prepared to wait.’

  Darrow gestured to his brothers. They moved towards him and headed for the terrified females.

  ‘We’ll service this bunch first, Henry. You and the rest of the older boys can have the rest of the town’s bitches.’

  Luther Cole walked to Jardine’s side. Both men watched as the three Darrow brothers herded the females into the saloon and up the wide staircase.

  ‘I don’t like them Darrows!’ Cole announced.

  Jardine glanced at the bald outlaw beside him.

  ‘Me neither, Luther. Me neither,’ he admitted, smoke drifting through his teeth.

  ‘It was a mistake letting them join us. They’ll bring the law down on us and no mistake, Henry,’ Cole snorted as he heard the screams of the females getting louder inside the saloon.

  Jardine eyed his long-time companion.

  ‘Then we have to kill them before they get the rest of our gang killed. Right?’

  Luther Cole nodded.

  Chapter Nine

  Razor-sharp talons scraped along the rockface, showering dust over the head of the crouching bounty hunter. The massive wingspan of the large black scavenger lifted it up on the hot air until it had rejoined the rest in the sky. Iron Eyes raised himself back to his full height and stared up at the circling birds. Since he had killed the pair of pumas the previous evening, he had never seen so many vultures in one place before. The huge birds had made short work of stripping the carcasses of the mountain lions of fur and flesh until all that was left was bones.

  Iron Eyes knew that now they wanted more. Now they wanted to do the same to him. Even in his weakened state, he was not going to allow that to happen.

  But vultures are the most patient of living creatures. They will wait weeks for their chosen meal to die if necessary. To them all things die and when dead, the vultures feast. Iron Eyes was more dead than alive, and the birds sensed it.

  The vultures instinctively knew it was only a matter of time before the lone figure in the dry canyon dropped. They had trailed him long before the night had ended. The smell of the pumas’ blood had drawn them to the fallen animals and then in turn to him.

  The bounty hunter had decided long before sunrise that if he were ever to escape this deadly place, he would have to force his legs to carry him out of the maze of canyons. He knew he could ill afford to waste another day.

  Iron Eyes had somehow managed to force himself upright and start the long trek.

  With no water or food, he knew the odds were against his ever finding his way out of the high valleys of rock and sand. When he had started, he wondered if any trace of his horse’s hoof-tracks might remain to guide him. When the sun rose, Iron Eyes soon realized that the incessant wind that blew along the canyons had obliterated all signs of the trail he had left when he had ridden in to Devil’s Canyon.

  The sand was smooth, as if nothing had ever moved across its surface. But he was already committed. He had come too far to turn back.

  Iron Eyes moved slowly, using every available shadow to keep the blistering sun off his frail body.

  The man who had always been so confident in his own abilities, could now barely understand how he had managed to end up in this unholy place. His memory was vague and he knew that he was required to drink his own pathetic weight in water if he were to regain his strength or his sanity again.

  Yet there was no water anywhere.

  Dust blew off the rugged rockfaces as if mocking the infamous hunter of men. If anywhere could have resembled Hell itself, Iron Eyes knew that Devil’s Canyon was that place.

  But he continued walking.

  Step after step, he forced his thin weak legs to keep moving onward.

  Racked by pain, the tall emaciated figure kept walking. Iron Eyes knew there was no alternative unless he was willing to die here.

  He was not!

  The vultures screeched above him. His eyes darted upward again and again as their shadows swept over him. Somehow he managed to remain upright even though every sinew in his body tortured him. His ice cold eyes continued to look at the birds above him as they floated effortlessly on the warm air.

  They had been overhead for more than two hours and showed no sign of losing interest.

  For death provided them with life.

  Their sharp vision knew that the staggering creature below their high vantage point was as close to death as it was possible to get without actually dying. Every now and then one of their number would dive down as if trying to make him lose his balance and fall.

  It was if they knew that once Iron Eyes fell, he would never muster enough strength to get upright again.

  Iron Eyes knew that he was ill-equipped for this or any other journey. His clothing was tattered and torn, exposing his scarred flesh. Half his long coat had been burned in the fire that had almost consumed him months earlier. What was left of it hung like the weathered drapes found on the windows of ghost-town buildings.

  Yet the pockets of the coat still served their purpose. He had emptied the bullets from his saddle-bags into them before he had set out on his defiant walk.

  His pair of guns also rested in them. He had found it impossible to take even a solitary step with the Navy Colts in his belt. With little remaining of his shirt, their hammers had cut into what was left of the skin on his flat belly.

  Iron Eyes stopped. He leaned into the canyon wall and drew one of his weapons. He cocked its hammer, then raised its barrel.

  He stared along his right arm and down the blue metal barrel until he had the vultures in his sights.

  Then he fired.

  A deafening explosion echoed all around him as slowly he lowered the smoking weapon. He watched as black feathers exploded from one of the large circling birds. It twisted as its companions scattered and then fell like a stone out of the blue cloudless sky.

  Iron Eyes watched it disappear above the ridge opposite him. The rest of the vultures swooped down after it.

  ‘Eat that, you feathered bastards!’ he mumbled, pushing
the weapon back into the right coat-pocket. ‘He probably tastes better than me, anyway.’

  Iron Eyes inhaled deeply. The smell of the gunsmoke seemed to fill him with renewed confidence. He set off once more. This time his movements were more labored. Far slower. He cursed himself for being so weak. So feeble.

  He knew that he had another enemy now. One that was far more deadly than the vultures who had taunted him.

  Exhaustion was overwhelming him.

  Iron Eyes was disgusted with the realization of his own mortality. As with all creatures, he too had thought himself invulnerable. The truth was a bitter pill that even he found hard to swallow. Death had always been a close companion and yet for the past nine months, he had managed to defy the inevitable and remain alive.

  But now he wondered if at last it was his turn to meet the Grim Reaper.

  The last drop of water had touched his cracked lips hours earlier and Iron Eyes knew that he could not carry on for much longer without a drink.

  Where was the water in this damn place? His mind screamed out inside his skull. It had to be here somewhere. He tried to reason with himself.

  Concentrate! Concentrate!

  Where were the clues? There were always clues, he told himself. Water could not hide from those who knew how to locate it. A green mark on a rockface or a plant required water to survive, just like people. Lizards, snakes and warm-blooded animals all required water.

  His weary eyes darted all around the canyon, seeking out some sign that would lead him to it. Yet there was nothing to be found.

  Not one hint as to where he might locate the precious liquid he desired.

  Iron Eyes had survived by sucking moisture from sand for months and now even that was gone. He had left that behind him when he had started out on this last valiant attempt to get out of the well-named canyon.

  He continued slowly onwards over the hot sand. The shimmering heat haze blurred what lay ahead of him. It was like looking into a bowl of thick soup.

  Water!

  Where was the water?

  The creatures that lived in and around this place must have known where to find it otherwise they would have deserted the arid landscape long ago. Even creatures that crawled on their bellies were smart enough to know that it did not pay to remain in a place where water did not exist.

  It was here somewhere!

  So why couldn’t he find any?

  Iron Eyes was reduced to pressing his tall lean frame against the rugged rockface and clawing his way along the canyon. His left foot moved and then, when it was planted, he dragged the right along behind it. He felt as if he were climbing a mountain and yet he knew the truth.

  His heart pounded against his aching ribs far faster than it had ever done before.

  Sweat ran down from his burned and blistered forehead. It stung his eyes like a hive of hornets and when droplets entered his mouth, his thirst grew in intensity.

  As the temperature rose, the hot air before him became even harder to see through. The bounty hunter began to doubt his own sanity for the umpteenth time. Was he actually losing his mind or was the heat haze getting worse?

  He blinked hard and felt his dry eyelids sticking together as if glued. How long could anyone survive without water, Iron Eyes asked himself. How many more steps were left in his thin legs?

  He screwed up his eyes and stared into the moving air that teased him. He thought that he saw something ahead. A fleeting dark image that came and went with every beat of his pounding heart. The last time Iron Eyes had felt like this, it had been when the rattler had sunk its fangs into him a lifetime ago.

  The bullet-colored eyes tried to focus.

  Was there something ahead of him? If so, what?

  If he had been able to see what awaited him, the brave bounty hunter might have quit moving there and then.

  For Iron Eyes’ troubles had yet to reach their nadir.

  Chapter Ten

  The buzzing sound that filled the ears of Iron Eyes was one that he instantly recognized from all his years of roaming around the barren wastes of the West. There was no noise quite like the sound of an arrow being released from an Apache bowstring and cutting through the air.

  Even in his confused state, the tall lean man knew that an arrow had been fired at him. He ducked down and saw the arrow shatter against the rocks just above him.

  ‘Apache!’ Iron Eyes growled, hauling both his guns from the deep pockets of his weathered coat. ‘Ain’t they ever gonna leave me be?’

  Without even thinking, his thumbs engaged the hammers until they locked into position. He screwed up his eyes and stared desperately into the heat haze before him. He still could not make out the figure clearly but knew that, yet again, one of his most hated enemies had come to try and claim his scalp. So many other Apaches had tried to do the same thing over the years.

  They had all failed.

  As Iron Eyes lowered himself on to the hot sand with his Navy Colts aimed straight ahead, he knew that this time it might be a different story. For he was drained of vital fluids and could barely managed to concentrate, let alone fight.

  ‘Show yourself!’ the bounty hunter yelled out.

  Another arrow sped out of the swirling hot air. Its tip skimmed off the rocks sending it up the canyon behind him.

  ‘Where are you?’ the bounty hunter muttered under his breath as he crawled slowly forward. ‘Just give me a target to aim at.’

  Then he saw movement.

  The shimmering image was fifty feet away from him and moving from one side of the narrow canyon to the other. Another arrow came humming out of the haze and landed a few inches to the left of his outstretched hand. Iron Eyes pulled his hand back and glared at the arrow. It bore flights similar to those that had tried so vainly to claim his life nine months earlier. He continued to move across the sand, keeping as low as possible to make the smallest target for the bowman.

  The closer he got to the warrior, the clearer the near-naked man became. Iron Eyes could see the brightly painted marks on the Apache’s torso.

  It was a target that he could not resist.

  Iron Eyes gritted his teeth and squeezed the trigger of his left gun. The fiery explosion sent a bullet at the image but another arrow came back, less than a heartbeat later. This time the arrow found its mark and sank into his left shoulder. The impact jolted him hard enough for him to drop the still-smoking Navy Colt.

  ‘You damn bastard!’ the bounty hunter screamed out, rage mingled with the sudden unexpected pain. He groped at the sand, grabbed the gun again and hauled its hammer back until it locked. Then he forced himself up off the sand and began to walk straight towards his well-hidden foe.

  He fired one gun after the other as he somehow managed to defy his pain. Only one more arrow came back in answer. It missed. It was vintage Iron Eyes. A man who refused to die like other men.

  ‘Eat lead!’ he repeated over and over.

  Iron Eyes continued walking and firing until both his weapons were empty. Then as the gunsmoke cleared he saw the wounded Apache ahead of him lying against a rockface. The heavily painted brave had taken more than one of Iron Eyes’ bullets squarely in his guts. Blood poured from the belly of the warrior as he watched the ghostlike apparition approach.

  ‘Iron Eyes?’ the Apache spat in surprise. ‘But you are dead! My people kill you many moons ago.’

  Iron Eyes dropped both his guns into the deep pockets on either side of his narrow hips, then leaned down and dragged his Bowie knife from the neck of his right boot.

  ‘Damn right!’ With no hint of any emotion, the tail man wrapped his fingers around the knife-blade. He mustered every ounce of his strength and threw it with all his force. The Indian slumped as the knife went straight into his heart. ‘You just bin killed by a ghost!’

  Iron Eyes staggered to the body and retrieved the gore-covered knife. He then turned his head and looked at the arrow stuck in his shoulder. He grabbed its shaft and ripped it from his flesh. There was no blood.
It was as if he no longer had any left to spill. He tossed it away, then something caught his eye.

  The nervous painted pony stood a mere twenty feet from where Iron Eyes was standing.

  But it was not the animal itself that managed to bring a smile to his cracked lips. It was the sight of the swollen water bag that hung over the animal’s neck. It drew him across the sand like a magnet. He pulled the stopper and inhaled the scent of the fresh liquid inside the large leather bag.

  He tilted the neck of the bag and allowed the cool water to wash over his face and into his mouth. He drank slowly for more than a minute and then returned the stopper to the neck of the bag. His bony hands gripped the crude rope reins that were looped around the pony’s head and neck.

  It was a refreshed Iron Eyes who gave the dead Indian a sideways glance. He smiled.

  ‘Don’t that take the biscuit, boy? You just saved the bacon of Iron Eyes! I got me a feeling that they’ll never let you into Apache heaven now.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Little Johnny Cooper was probably the youngest of all the Texas Rangers who had followed Caufield Cotter from Apache Wells to this barren prairie. Standing less than five feet from head to toe, the youngster was small by any standards, yet his courage equaled that of his fellow Rangers. He claimed to be eighteen, yet few believed he had even seen his sixteenth birthday.

  Above all, he was a true Texan and a crack shot with any weapon thrust into his hands. He also had no concept of fear.

  Johnny Cooper rose abruptly and dropped his tin plate on the sand. There was a look of surprise on his face as he turned to look over the heads of his seated companions towards Theo Newton, who was near the chuck wagon.

  ‘I heard me a whole bunch of shots, Lieutenant,’ Johnny said, pointing to the east. ‘They was close, I reckon.’

  Newton handed his plate back to the cook, then walked along the line of resting Texas Rangers until he was standing next to Cooper.

  ‘Are you sure, Johnny?’ Newton had not heard anything except the noise of forks on plates and the chatter of weary men.