by Rory Black
He cocked its hammer and then dismounted the skittish stallion. Iron Eyes tied his reins to a tree branch and looked around the area. Then the gaunt bounty hunter took three paces toward the pool of blood and looked down at the horrific scene.
Just like the dead carcass of the horse, the body was filled with arrows. Iron Eyes surveyed the moonlit area around the Jody Laker’s remains. There were arrows everywhere.
Iron Eyes walked across the bloody ground to where the corpse lay and stared down at it. He focused hard on the body. Although filled with several arrows it was the unrecognizable head of the body which drew the bounty hunter’s attention the most.
This was not the work of any kind of Indian that he knew of. No Indian of any tribe would fire a shot into the face of its already doomed prey, he told himself. Whoever had blown the outlaw’s face to bits was no Kiowa.
Iron Eyes sighed heavily and gritted his teeth.
Every sinew in his lean frame knew that this was Ben Brooks’s handiwork. Iron Eyes had heard too many stories about the bank robber to doubt his merciless traits. Brooks had killed both the men in the bank even though they were unarmed and basically helpless.
Iron Eyes imagined that it was Brooks who had also used his venomous accuracy to destroy the young Kiowa brave. The bounty hunter shook his head angrily. It was not the mindless killing that angered Iron Eyes the most. It was the fact that Brooks had made it impossible to prove that this was one of the wanted outlaws.
Iron Eyes had been cheated by one of the men he was hunting and that riled him. Brooks had robbed him of a valuable bounty.
Like a monstrous nightmare in human form, Iron Eyes turned and strode back across the bloody ground back to his powerful mount. The blood had grown sticky on the moonlit ground and stuck to his boot leather.
Iron Eyes rubbed his boots on the dry sand beside his horse when his keen hearing heard something beyond the wall of trees and bushes.
His bony hand lifted the Navy Colt and rested it against his shoulder as his eyes searched for whatever had caught his attention. He then backed up against the palomino and lifted his free hand until his bony fingers found and grabbed hold of the silver saddle horn.
‘Reckon we got company, horse,’ he whispered as he mounted the stallion in one fluid action. Iron Eyes kept the gun aimed at the place where he had heard the sound as his right hand pulled his long leathers free of the tree branch.
The bounty hunter steadied the powerful horse and wrapped the reins around his wrist as his unblinking eyes continued to burn across the trail.
Suddenly he saw them. At least three feathered Kiowa braves emerged from the cover of the trees and unleashed their arrows at the unholy apparition.
‘Hell!’ Iron Eyes cursed as three lethal projectiles cut through the moonlight toward him. Although the arrows were travelling at speed, the horseman’s stallion bolted into action even faster.
Iron Eyes hung onto the saddle horn and blasted his Navy Colt in response. The intrepid horse thundered away from shadows in a bid to escape the deadly attack. The stallion was galloping before any of the Kiowa arrows were embedded into the tree trunks.
As more arrows flew after the fleeing palomino, the bounty hunter hung low over the neck of his horse and emptied the gun at his attackers. Hidden by the fresh gun smoke and rising mist, the powerful stallion somehow managed to escape the Kiowa war bows’ fury.
Iron Eyes did not slow his pace for more than two miles and only straightened up on his saddle when he felt the stallion start to flag after such a valiant bid to outrun its master’s enemies. He pulled back on his reins and then turned on his saddle and stared back at the hoof dust behind them.
The stallion slowed back to a walk as Iron Eyes looked around them and hastily reloaded the still smoking six-shooter. His eyes then stared back at the ground.
A cruel smile etched his hideous features as he saw the two sets of fresh hoof tracks on the sand. Iron Eyes recognized them both as belonging to the outlaws’ mounts.
A hundred miles had branded them into his mind.
Then as the stallion approached another bend in the trail road, something alerted the palomino beneath him. The stallion shied and stopped as another saddle horse came galloping wildly around the corner. The wide-eyed horse collided into the bounty hunter’s stallion.
The ghost-like horseman grabbed at the animal’s loose leathers and dragged it to a sudden halt beside his tall palomino. Iron Eyes looked down at the blood-covered saddle and then released his grip.
This was another of the outlaw’s horses, he thought.
And by the state of the saddle, its rider had not been as lucky as the gaunt bounty hunter. Iron Eyes released his grip on the horse, wiped the blood from the palms of his hands down the front to his long coat and then spurred and grimly rode forward.
The powerful stallion trotted around the corner as its master kept a firm grip on the Navy Colt. The horse continued on into the shadowy depths of the trail as the bounty hunter stared ahead in search of the last two outlaws and the bank money they had escaped Ten Strike with.
For what felt like an eternity, Iron Eyes did not see or hear a thing. Then as the palomino reached a clearing at the foot of a hill, the bounty hunter saw what was left of Sol Cohen stretched out on a grassy verge.
‘Not another damn body.’
Iron Eyes rode toward the lifeless Cohen. The outlaw was in a heap beneath the telling moon. As the notorious horseman neared the body, he saw the face of the dead outlaw looking up at the cloudless night sky with glazed eyes.
He slid the six-shooter behind his belt buckle and wrapped his reins around the silver saddle horn.
The bounty hunter dismounted and moved to above Cohen. He had never seen a face so drained of colour before. Then Iron Eyes looked to where the arrow had gone through the outlaw’s thigh. Cohen’s pants leg was soaking wet with the blood he had lost after being hit by the Kiowa arrow.
Every drop of Cohen’s life’s blood had poured from the savage wound in his leg. He was satisfied that at least this outlaw was still recognizable.
‘I’ll collect the bounty on you later,’ he whispered.
Iron Eyes shook his head and then turned back to where his horse waited. He strode back to the high shouldered animal and rested a bony hand on the silver saddle horn. He slid his boot into his stirrup and mounted. He glanced down at the body bathed in moonlight.
‘You’ll keep until I ride back this way, amigo,’ he told the corpse coldly. ‘Reckon by the looks of it, Ben Brooks has gotten all the money again. Now ain’t that a surprise?’
His eyes focused to the top of the rise. The night sky seemed to be glowing just above the horizon. He stood in his stirrups and squinted hard at the glowing light before satisfying himself at what he was looking at.
‘That’s gotta be the Durango railhead lights,’ he muttered as his bony hand held his mount in check. ‘C’mon, horse. We gotta kill us a varmint and collect some money.’
Iron Eyes pulled one of his Navy Colts from behind his belt buckle and cocked its hammer. His eyes screwed up as they focused on the glowing lights.
He cracked the long leathers at the ground and got his magnificent stallion moving. Within a few heartbeats, the palomino had reached a gallop.
Although Iron Eyes did not have any idea how far it was to the railhead, he knew that was where he would find the outlaw he had tracked for the last hundred miles.
Like a moth drawn to a naked flame, Iron Eyes kept on riding toward the tell-tale sign of the distant lights as they lit up the hill top.
Apart from the sound of the horse being carefully steered through the dense scenery, there were no other noises. Not one living creature dared to make a sound in case the man who carried death on his shoulders turned his weaponry on them instead.
The palomino stallion gathered pace.
Iron Eyes kept the cocked six-shooter aimed at the glowing lights as his horse continued to close the distance between the railhead and
himself.
As the powerful stallion continued heading toward the railhead lights, Iron Eyes placed a cigar between his lips and scratched a match with his thumbnail and cupped its flame to its tip. Smoke trailed over the wide shoulders of the gaunt rider as he neared the crest of the hill.
Iron Eyes raised a skinny hand, pulled the cigar from his scarred lips and exhaled a line of grey smoke. His eyes narrowed as the stallion reached the top of the hill.
The bounty hunter steadied the palomino and looked down at the railhead set on the outskirts of the sprawling Durango with a cruel glint in his unblinking eyes. Every one of his senses knew that somewhere down there, among the metal tracks and buildings, was the last of the gang he sought.
Iron Eyes could almost smell Ben Brooks.
‘He’s down there, horse,’ the bounty hunter whispered as he noticed the lantern lit railhead. ‘All we gotta do is find and kill the bastard.’
He reached back and pulled a whiskey bottle from his saddlebags. His teeth gripped its cork and dragged it free.
Iron Eyes spat the cork at the ground and drained the bottle’s contents. As the strong fumes filled his flared nostrils, he threw the glass vessel over his shoulder and then held his cigar between his teeth. He inhaled deeply and then spat it at the dust.
‘Let’s do this, horse,’ he growled. ‘Let’s get him.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
Iron Eyes slapped the animal into motion with the tails of his reins. His emaciated body hung on to his long leathers as the palomino stallion thundered down toward the railhead bathed in the amber light of its numerous lanterns. Few men had ever seen the infamous bounty hunter charging toward them with a fully loaded six-gun in his hand.
Even fewer had lived to tell the tale.
The eerie moonlight only increased the horror which thundered down across the steep slope like a living corpse fleeing the fiery inferno his undead spirit had just escaped from. No monstrous nightmare could have appeared quite so daunting as the sight of his scarred face that stared with unblinking eyes at the array of wooden structures set around the gleaming rail tracks.
This was no ordinary man who sat astride the thundering stallion with one of his famed Navy Colts in his skeletal hand. This was something far more deadly that rode like a bat out of Hell after his latest prey.
As the powerful horse galloped beneath him, Iron Eyes stared at the scattering of wooden structures in search of Ben Brooks.
The famed hunter of men navigated the magnificent palomino through the tall grass and between the trees and yet did not seem to move a muscle.
Iron Eyes thrust his blood-stained spurs into the flanks of the high-shouldered stallion as the scent of his prey filled his flared nostrils. The galloping horse ate up the ground between itself and the railhead at unimaginable speed, while its master watched the quiet railhead for any sign of Ben Brooks and the money he had stolen from the bank at Ten Strike.
Then, as the golden stallion neared the railhead, a shot rang out from the shadows of the largest of the wooden buildings.
Iron Eyes had seen the red hot taper of lethal lead cut a course toward him a heartbeat before he heard the deafening sound of the rifle shot.
The bullet hurtled toward the approaching rider and caught Iron Eyes in his right shoulder. He was knocked sideways by the impact of the bullet and nearly fell from his high perch as he saw another red hot taper cutting through the moonlight toward him. Iron Eyes ducked as the bullet passed inches over his head.
He was now less than fifty yards from the shadowy main building but knew he was a sitting duck on top of his muscular stallion.
Iron Eyes leapt from his saddle. His boots hit the ground and he rolled over a few times before coming to a rest close to a tree amid tall dry grass. Venomously, Iron Eyes fired a shot into the shadows and then watched his stallion trot to safety.
‘That horse must be smarter than me,’ the bounty hunter hissed as he fired another shot into the depths of the shadows. ‘He knows when to quit.’
Brooks fired two more rifle shots in quick succession from his hiding place at the very end of the long structure. The bullets came so close to hitting the bounty hunter, Iron Eyes felt their heat as they skimmed over his scalp.
‘I gotta get closer,’ Iron Eyes said as he got to his knees. ‘I ain’t got the range that his Winchester has.’
Iron Eyes raised the Navy Colt and squeezed its trigger in reply and then threw himself down the slope. He rolled over and rested his back against a well-nourished tree. Brooks let loose with another volley of lethal lead.
A deafening crescendo of rifle shots filled the night air as chunks of the tree bark were torn from its trunk. Iron Eyes was showered in smouldering sawdust as his sharp eyes stared across at the rifle smoke drifting from the side of the long building.
He knew that Brooks was still beyond the range of his Navy Colt. He had to get closer if he were to be able to hit his target.
Iron Eyes slowly stood behind the tree.
Brooks fired another handful of shots at the gaunt bounty hunter. Again Iron Eyes heard the sound of the deadly accurate bullets tear bark from the tree trunk’s surface.
‘Another shot or two and that rifle will need reloading,’ the emaciated man hunter murmured as he looked at his shoulder and saw the hole in his coat. He pushed the smoking barrel of his gun under the weathered material and lifted it.
His eyes stared at the graze. Although it was bleeding freely, Iron Eyes realized how lucky he had come. He flexed his fingers and pulled his other Navy Colt from his deep bullet-filled pocket.
He cocked both guns and waited.
Two more rifle shots came from Brooks’s Winchester and splintered off the side of the tree. Iron Eyes’s keen hearing heard the tell-tale sound of the rifle’s hammer falling on the empty rifle magazine.
That was what he had been waiting for.
Faster than a hound chasing a fox, Iron Eyes dashed across the clearing toward the long building. He knew that it takes time to reload a repeating rifle. A lot more time than it takes to reload a six-shooter.
The panting bounty hunter pressed his back against the wall at the opposite end of the long structure. He leaned around and fired two shots down to the opposite end of the building.
Brooks fired back, taking the corner off the side wall beside Iron Eyes’s head. A knowing smile came to the mutilated features of the bounty hunter.
Iron Eyes fired again into the distant shadows and heard his bullet ricochet off something. He did not attempt looking to see what it was he had hit because he knew it was not the outlaw.
Another few rifle shots blasted at the structure he was resting beside. The smell of burning wood shavings filled the air beside the emaciated figure. Another chunk of the wall had been whittled off the corner of the building.
Iron Eyes responded by firing his Colts four times at the outlaw and then swung back and shook the spent casings from both his guns. As his long thin fingers plucked fresh bullets from his deep trail coat pocket and filled his smoking chambers, he saw another few shots rip even more wood from the building’s corner.
He snapped both his guns shut and pushed their ramrods back into position and then cocked their hammers.
Over and over Iron Eyes fired and cocked his guns until the air was full of choking smoke.
‘How’d you know I was after you, Brooks?’ Iron Eyes yelled out from his hiding place. ‘Or don’t it matter none to you if you kill innocent drifters?’
‘I heard the shooting back there,’ Brooks shouted back. ‘I figured you had to be on my trail to be riding through Injun country. Reckon you must be all that’s left of a posse, huh?’
‘Nope,’ Iron Eyes disagreed loudly. ‘I ain’t no posse.’
Ben Brooks paused for a moment and frowned. ‘How’d you know my name?’
‘I know the name of every varmint I hunt, Brooks,’ Iron Eyes shouted at the top of his lungs. ‘I also know how much you’re worth dead or alive.’
‘Are you a stinking bounty hunter?’ Brooks snarled. ‘Is that what you are? A stinking bounty hunter?’
‘Yep, there ain’t nobody stinks as good as me,’ Iron Eyes’s voice echoed around the buildings. ‘I reckon you’ll get a good whiff just before I kill you.’
Troubled by the seemingly fearless man that he had so far failed to kill, Brooks edged away from the wooden building back to where he had secured his mount and pulled the three canvas bags off its shoulders. His eyes glanced up at a large, white-faced clock dial and wondered when the next train would arrive for him to make his escape with his loot.
‘You ready to die yet?’ the haunting voice of Iron Eyes rang out in the night air. ‘If you are, I’ll oblige.’
‘You’re the one that’s gonna die.’ Brooks raised his rifle and fired another shot down at the corner of the long building. There was no reply. Not a single shot came from the bounty hunter. Brooks fired his rifle again and again but his tormentor did not respond.
The outlaw was troubled.
Brooks carried the swollen money bags across the gleaming rails to the other side of the tracks.
As the outlaw rested his back against a red brick wall and pushed bullets from his gun belt into the magazine of the Winchester, he heard the sound of spurs echoing all around him. His hooded eyes darted as he cocked his rifle.
‘Are you ready to die yet, Brooks?’ Iron Eyes yelled out again.
The haunting voice gnawed into the outlaw’s mind. Brooks pressed his back up against the wall and frowned.
‘I’m gonna kill you slow, stranger,’ Brooks screamed in reply. ‘Slow and painful.’
Suddenly there was no sound at all. No mocking voice or jangling spurs for the deadly outlaw to aim his rifle barrel toward.
