by Rory Black
The three frost-covered figures rode slowly through the surrounding mist into the unlit outskirts of the small settlement. They straightened up and shook the sparkling frost which covered their dishevelled forms from their bodies. They shared a knowing smile as their eyes darted around the innocent town.
Soon that innocence would be destroyed by the trio of horsemen. That was their way. The only way they knew how to survive was to kill before they were killed. It did not matter to them who suffered as long as they themselves came out as victors.
The Brooks gang had once been one of the most lethal and skilful bands of bank robbers in the vast territory. They had struck like phantoms, leaving empty bank vaults and lakes of blood in their wake.
For just over a year, the gang had seemed untouchable and went on from one brutal caper to the next. For a short while they had been regarded as the next James gang.
Then Ben Brooks had made the fateful decision which would cost him and his trusty followers dearly. A hundred miles east of Ten Strike had sealed their downfall when the townsfolk recognized one of the Brooks men as he had ridden in to study the bank carefully before reporting back to his fellow outlaws.
Knowing the reputation of the gang, the town soon armed themselves and waited to trap the villainous bank robbers in a lethal crossfire.
The wanted bank robbers had been cut to ribbons as soon as they had arrived in the town and gathered outside the large bank. Brooks, Sol Cohen and Jody Laker had barely escaped with their lives as the rest of the gang had been slaughtered. For once it had been outlaw blood they had left behind them as they fled empty handed.
Since that time, the three outlaws had kept a low profile and vainly tried to regain their lost reputation. Even wanted dead or alive with a value of $2,000 on their combined heads, it seemed that nobody desired to join their ranks.
The horsemen eased back on their reins and slowed the pace of their exhausted mounts as they rode down the twisting main street.
Apart from the saloon and a small hotel, there were no other lights within Ten Strike. Ben Brooks slowed his mount as they rode past a red brick structure bathed in shadow and pointed to his comrades.
‘There it is, boys.’ He chuckled.
‘Kinda puny, ain’t it?’ Laker noted as they continued on toward the oil lantern lights.
‘Small and sweet, Jody,’ Brooks argued. ‘Just the way I like my banks. Small and sweet.’
Cohen nodded as he trailed his partners. ‘Looks like we can empty that place in a matter of minutes, Ben.’
The three riders drew up outside the saloon. The sound of a tinny piano and a fiddle greeted the trio of outlaws as they dismounted.
Brooks glanced up the street at the hotel. ‘We’ll bed down in there for the night after we’ve washed the trail dust out of our throats.’
The three men secured their long leathers and then ducked under the hitching pole and stepped up onto the boardwalk. Brooks glanced up and down the street as the mist trailed along the street like an evil spirit.
His hooded eyes focused on the sheriff’s office bathed in darkness. He pulled out a cigar and ripped off its tip with his teeth. He spat and then struck a match on the saloon’s porch upright. His gloved hands cupped the flame as he touched it to the end of the cigar.
‘Looks like they got themselves a sheriff, boys,’ he said through a cloud of cigar smoke. ‘We’ll have to finish him before we hit the bank.’
‘I don’t figure he’ll give us no trouble.’ Laker grinned.
Cohen nodded and pushed the swing doors apart.
The three outlaws entered the saloon and surveyed its interior as they marched across the sawdust covered floor toward the bar counter. Brooks tossed a silver dollar on the surface of the counter.
‘Whiskey,’ he demanded.
CHAPTER TWO
The looming trees towered over the stagecoach as it thundered through the darkness and ventured deeper into the vast forest in a bid to reach the distant town of Ten Strike. Yet with every stride of the new team of six horses between the traces, it grew more obvious to the feisty female perched high on the driver’s seat that she might have bitten off more than even she could chew. Only faint wisps of moonlight managed to penetrate a path to the rough trail through the dense tree canopy.
A less stubborn person might have quit at sundown but not the ornery Squirrel Sally. She had never been one to admit openly to ever making a mistake but was now beginning to wish that she had listened to Buck Smith back at the sprawling logging town.
The bearded lumberjack had warned her of the danger this seldom used trail posed to the unwary, telling her that it was a treacherous route even in daytime and virtually lethal after dark.
Sally had totally ignored the warnings.
As always she knew better. She had exchanged her exhausted team of horses for a fresh one and set out regardless. After all, she was on a mission to find her beloved Iron Eyes whether he wanted to be found or not.
Her small gloved hands clasped the reins firmly and steered the team further into the blackness. Slowly Sally began to doubt the wisdom of her actions.
She steered the team of horses along the twisting trail across the rugged ground and grimaced at the thought that it would get a lot darker before it grew lighter. Her squinting eyes could hardly see the potholes that threatened to destroy her valiant efforts. The stagecoach jolted unexpectedly as its wheels located a rut in the road.
Sally bit her lip and continued.
The trail was heading toward a massive mountain. Her heart sank as it dawned on her that Buck Smith had not been exaggerating about the dangerous trail.
Sally hated to admit it, even in the privacy of her thoughts, but Buck had been right. This was an unholy trail and no mistake.
At first, the trail which had been carved through the dense forest seemed no better or worse than any other she had travelled but then the sun had set.
Darkness had spread across the untamed terrain like a wildfire. Sally had been quite shocked at how quickly the twisting rough road had succumbed to the enveloping darkness. Black shadows stretched across the team’s path as the moonlight vainly tried to reach the ground. Tall trees and a narrow twisting trail were not the ideal travelling companions for a tired young female wrestling with heavy leathers on a high driver’s board.
Sally’s beautiful eyes strained to see what she was encouraging her horses toward and yet she did not flinch or deviate from her task for even a heartbeat. There was a burning desire inside her that kept her lashing the backs of the powerful animals with her reins.
It was something which she did not fully understand.
Her head was pleading for her to stop but her heart would have none of it. The telegraph wire had said that Iron Eyes was headed for Ten Strike so that was where she was headed.
In her youthful mind, she had no alternative.
Sally knew that she had to find her beloved Iron Eyes as quickly as possible. Something deep inside her pounding heart was screaming to her to find him before it was too late. It was as if his very life depended on her reaching him and yet it made no sense in her young mind.
The trail grew even darker. Sally glanced up at the stars and saw that the tops of the tall trees to either side of the trail were almost touching.
Her journey was going from bad to worse.
As the stagecoach resounded along the eerie trail, Sally became more and more troubled. The coach beneath her rump jolted violently as one of its wheels found another missing chunk on the rough trail.
Sally rocked back and forth as she fought with the long leathers in her hands. The toes of her bare feet were curled around the rim of the driver’s box as she reluctantly had to admit to herself that she could not see the ground ahead of the lead horses.
She was driving blind.
She knew that to continue on was suicidal. Sally stood in the box and hauled back on the reins with every last scrap of her dwindling strength. The six horses slowed as she pushed
the brake pole forward until it was locked off.
The team stopped as their young mistress looped the long leathers around the brake-pole. Sally exhaled as she attempted to suck some air into her lungs. Her eyes screwed up and looked down upon the resting horses. Steam rose off their backs and drifted into the night air like fleeing phantoms.
Sally sat back down and sighed heavily.
Every sinew in her perfectly formed body ached. It felt as though her muscles had been torn from her bones as she pulled off her gloves and set them down beside her.
Sally was exhausted.
She tossed her head of golden curls back and looked up at the dark sky again. There was a moon up there someplace, she told herself but she had yet to see it.
‘That furry Buck was damn right about this trail,’ she muttered to herself and then surveyed the surrounding undergrowth. ‘I ain’t never bin in a place so dark before. One mistake here and I’ll wrap this stage around a dozen trees.’
Sally rubbed the dust from her face.
Suddenly the howls of wolves or coyotes rang out through the trees. Her beautiful head jerked to one side. She stared vainly at the black wall of lumber. Was that where the sound had come from, she wondered.
Then another more frightening noise echoed through the forest. It was the echoing growl of a cougar. The painful warning cry of the big cat surrounded the small female sat up high on the top of her stagecoach. Sally swallowed hard but her throat was dry.
‘That sounds like a mighty big cat,’ she whispered as the team below her rattled their chains nervously.
Her hand reached for her whiskey bottle and dragged it across the driver’s board toward her. She lifted it up and pulled its cork. She took a long stiff swallow of the fiery liquor and then patted the cork back into the neck of the bottle.
The whiskey only made her yawn. She placed the bottle back under the seat and then pulled a twisted cigar from her tattered shirt pocket and placed it between her teeth. Her honed hunting instinct told her not to panic. Sally knew only too well that when folks panicked, they made mistakes that could get them dead. The last thing she wanted was to end up in the belly of a cougar.
The horses began to whinny and fight against the brakes of the stagecoach they were chained to. Sally looked down at them and whistled to get their attention.
‘Easy, boys,’ her voice soothed. ‘Ain’t no cougar dumb enough to attack the likes of you. That critter’s got his eyes on smaller game like me.’
Sally scratched a match across the seat and then lifted it to her cigar. She cupped its flame and sucked in the powerful smoke deep into her lungs. She coughed and then tossed the match at the ground and inhaled again.
The cougar made another daunting growl to her right. Sally lowered her head and blew smoke at her feet as her young mind raced.
Sally saw the barrel of her Winchester propped up in the box. She stretched out her arm and grabbed the rifle and brought it up to her chest. The big cat was still making nerve-shattering growls from the protection of the trees.
She pushed the hand guard down and then pulled it back. A spent casing flew over her shoulder as she eased the weapon’s wooden stock into her shoulder and aimed.
Suddenly she unleashed the rifle’s fury. A deafening white flash erupted from the barrel of the Winchester and carved a trail through the air in the direction of the big cat.
Another sound came from the trees. It was the sound of a large puma in distress as a bullet came real close to finding its target.
Sally smiled and cocked the smoking rifle again. ‘Reckon that feared you.’
She rested the rifle on her lap and sucked hard on the cigar between her teeth. The strong smoke cleared her head as she squinted at the dark trail before her. A few fleeting shafts of filtered moonlight cut through the trees ahead of her.
Not enough to allow even her keen eyesight to see the trail road clearly. She pulled the cigar from her lips and tapped its ash at the ground.
She wondered if it was smarter to continue on or whether it might prove better to crawl into the coach and bed down for the night.
Whichever choice she made, Sally would not be satisfied with it. She inhaled on the cigar again and tried to make up her mind.
The eerie light did little to illuminate the winding road or highlight the potholes in the dirt track trail. Sally knew that if any of her six horses put a hoof into a hole it might prove costly. She could not afford to lose any of the team if she expected to reach her destination.
She chewed on the black weed between her teeth as she pondered the problem and then nearly jumped out of her skin when the loud howling of several wolves filled her ears. Sally grabbed her rifle again, aimed it at the noise and fired two more shots into the darkness. Their unearthly baying stopped for a few moments.
Although tired, Sally was nervous of bedding down in the heart of a terrain filled with wolves and big cats. There was only one way to guarantee survival in land like this and that was to keep moving through it. Staying put was not an option, she told herself.
Then an idea flashed through her tired mind. She snapped her fingers and grinned.
‘That’s it.’ Sally hung the rifle over her shoulder by its rawhide cord, clambered down the side of the stagecoach and ran along the line of horses. She grabbed the mane of one of the lead horses and then climbed up its harness and chains until she was on the powerful animal’s back. Her eyes stared at the dusty trail ahead of her from her new position.
Even the darkness could not conceal the smile which covered her joyful face. Sally had a far clearer view of what lay ahead of the horses from her new perch. She grabbed the leathers that were clipped to the horse’s bridle and nodded to herself.
‘There’s more than one way to skin a possum.’ She laughed triumphantly. ‘C’mon, horse.’
With the blood-curdling noise of timber wolves still ringing around the forest, Sally slapped the neck of the horse and then shook its bridle feverishly. The snorting animal started to move again as the youngster kicked its wide girth with her bare feet.
The stagecoach gathered speed as the rest of the team kept pace with the horse between Sally’s thighs.
Within a few precious heartbeats, it was making good time along the shadowy road which she had been told would lead her to Ten Strike and enable her to find the infamous Iron Eyes.
As the stagecoach gathered pace, Sally was totally unaware that she was now heading into the jaws of even more danger.
CHAPTER THREE
The moonlit clearing sat amid millions of trees bathed in a coating of fresh frost beneath the cloudless sky. The handsome palomino walked across the crisp ground as its master studied the frost like an eagle on a high thermal seeking its next meal. He had trailed the wanted outlaws for close to a hundred miles and only now had all signs of them disappeared from view. The fresh frost was thick on the exposed ground and obliterated the three sets of hoof tracks from his narrowed eyes.
Iron Eyes drew back on his reins and stared across the frosty clearing at the ground which lay before him. He knew that the only town anywhere near this desolate place was a small settlement known by the name of Ten Strike. That was where he intended confronting them.
He looped his long thin leg over the neck of his palomino stallion and slid to the ground. The bounty hunter knelt and brushed the white covering off the ground and studied the three sets of hoof tracks.
They were exactly where he had thought they would be.
A wicked grin fought with the scars on his face as he rose back up to his full height. His bullet coloured eyes stared into the mist which faced him as he pulled both his Navy Colts from his belt and checked their chambers. Both his guns were fully loaded and ready to do his talking for him. Iron Eyes then pushed their barrels down behind his belt buckle and rested his wrists on their jutting ivory grips.
Iron Eyes pulled a half-smoked cigar from his shirt pocket and rammed it between his teeth. He then scratched a match with his thumbnail a
nd lit the twisted black weed. He inhaled the acrid smoke deeply and then tossed the cigar out onto the blanket of white.
He exhaled slowly as thoughts of his long chase filled his mind. The grey smoke hung on the cold air as the bounty hunter thought about the three deadly men he was hunting. Each of them was as deadly as he was with their guns but Iron Eyes was unafraid. Not even death frightened the gaunt bounty hunter, for it had become an old friend.
His bony hand took hold of the reins which hung from the palomino’s bridle. He was cold and tired and knew that if he were to face the Brooks gang in his present condition, it might be a costly mistake.
For more days than he cared to recall, the only rest which Iron Eyes had allowed himself had been whilst riding after his unsuspecting prey. For years, the skeletal horseman had learned how to sleep in his saddle as his pure-bred palomino stallion continued to follow the trail of those he hunted.
The haunting figure could sense with every sinew of his emaciated body that he was gaining on his prey. Like most men who crossed the vast expanses of land in the West, they had bedded down every night around a campfire to sleep unlike the monstrous bounty hunter who trailed them.
He had continued riding while they slept. Iron Eyes knew that he had closed the distance between himself and the wanted bank robbers every single night that they rested. Now he was within spitting distance of the deadly remnants of the once renowned gang, but every muscle and bone in his body ached.
The last three members of the Brooks gang were now so close he could smell them in his flared nostrils. Although he could not see the remote settlement, Iron Eyes was well aware that he was getting close to Ten Strike.
The putrid scent of civilization hung on the cold night air. The hoof tracks were leading right to where Iron Eyes could smell Ten Strike.
Soon the bounty hunter knew that he would catch up with the Brooks gang and administer his own brand of justice. He would do what the law was either unwilling or unable to do.
