by Rory Black
‘I know you out there someplace,’ Iron Eyes snarled. ‘I ain’t loco. I seen you.’
Then he felt the branding-irons thrust into his busted ribs again. He touched his side with thin fingertips and winced. Looking down at his torn shirt he saw fresh blood seeping through the bandages which encircled him. He gritted his teeth and snorted through his flared nostrils like a raging bull.
Was pain conspiring with the rising heat to trick the bounty hunter? The question raced through his mind. He started to think that the aged sheriff back at Rio Valdo might have been correct when he had advised him to remain in town for a few days until his injuries started to mend.
His narrowed eyes returned to where he had thought he had seen a horseman for the briefest of moments seconds earlier. For what felt like an eternity he just stood and stared out at the distant rise.
Then a mere wisp of dust floated up into the blue morning sky from beyond the hilltop. It was the dust kicked up from the outlaw’s horse’s hoofs.
‘Gotcha.’ Iron Eyes spat blood again.
Every sinew in his injured frame knew that he had not been imagining it. He had caught a fleeting glimpse of his elusive prey.
A cruel smile covered his face. Iron Eyes pushed his left boot back into his stirrup again and grabbed hold of the saddle horn. He pulled himself atop the tired Indian pony and gathered the reins into his hands.
Again he spurred.
Again the pony responded.
Chapter Three
WITH NO THOUGHT for the condition of his already exhausted mount, Iron Eyes feverishly whipped the long tails of his reins across its shoulders and drove on across the parched landscape and then up the hill to where he had spotted the dust floating up into the heavens.
Again attempting to outrun the pain its master kept inflicting upon it, the pony somehow found a pace which was far beyond its capabilities.
It needed rest. It needed water. It needed food.
But Iron Eyes did not think of any of these things as he drove on. Racked by his own pain, all the bounty hunter could think of was Brewster. Iron Eyes knew the outlaw was so close he could smell his fear.
‘C’mon!’ Iron Eyes yelled out as he stabbed his spurs into the flesh of the spent creature beneath him. ‘Run, damn it. We almost got the bastard.’
Driven by fear of the razor-sharp spurs, the pitiful animal tried to achieve the impossible. Yet the pony could no longer keep up the pace demanded by its merciless master. The pathetic animal gave out a chilling noise then dropped suddenly to its knees. White foam came from its mouth. It began to slide back down the hill. Iron Eyes clung on to the reins and kept his boots firmly rammed into the stirrups as his mount continued to slide helplessly.
Only when the animal fell on to its side, did the long-legged man jump away from the pony. Iron Eyes managed to remain upright even though his boots could find no grip on the dusty hillside.
He watched the pony roll over helplessly several times as every ounce of its stamina evaporated from its malnourished body.
It did not stop its brutal descent until it reached the flat sun-bleached range.
There was a sound that filled the ears of the bounty hunter as he carefully made his way back down toward his stricken mount.
It was the stomach churning noise only dying creatures made when death was closing on them.
With gritted teeth. Iron Eyes sighed heavily and glared at his pony. Most riders knew that it was wise to feed and water horses if you expected them to keep going mile after endless mile. But Iron Eyes had never regarded his mounts as anything but things you used to get to where you were going.
He was filled with a mixture of disgust and anger. Not with himself but the pony which had let him down.
‘You just like all the others,’ Iron Eyes growled loudly as the pony looked up at him with wide eyes. ‘I hate horses. They always let you down when the going gets tough.’
Iron Eyes could not understand how he seemed to be capable of surviving without hardly ever eating. He also could not quite work out why most creatures required water when he had always found hard liquor far more sustaining.
He kicked the pony venomously.
‘Get up.’
It did not move.
Reluctantly the gaunt man plucked his four canteens from the sand where they had been strewn when the pony had hit the level ground. He raised each of the canteens in turn and shook them. One had water remaining in it whilst the others were empty. Iron Eyes tossed the empty canteens aside and then walked with the one which was half-full to the pony’s head. He stepped over the creatures neck and unscrewed the stopper of the canteen. He stared down at the pony and began to pour the water over its open mouth. Most spilled over the sand but some found its target. Iron Eyes returned the stopper to the neck of the canteen and began to turn it. His eyes watched the animal as if a miracle might occur but it was too little too late.
The pony remained on the ground.
Angrily, Iron Eyes turned and made his way back to where his saddle-bags lay half-covered by the pony.
One of the satchels was under the animal’s hindquarters, whilst its twin was close to the mount’s black tail. Iron Eyes went to bend down when he felt the sharp pain cut into his flesh again. He winced but continued to reach down for the weathered and worn leather bags that contained his entire wealth. One satchel was filled with the three thousand dollar reward money which he had received before leaving Rio Valdo. The other held two bottles of good whiskey.
Dropping the canteen beside him, Iron Eyes was forced to kneel before he could get hold of the bag with both hands. He pushed at the satchel and could feel the bounty money inside it. It was a mixture of paper and coins. But as he started to drag at the bag, he did not even think about the small fortune within his grasp. All he could think about was the two bottles of whiskey beneath the pony.
‘You better not have busted them bottles, hoss,’ Iron Eyes snarled at the animal who was incapable of moving.
Feverishly his bony hands scooped sand away until he found the other bag. To his horror it was damp. Damp with precious liquor. Fumes rose over the kneeling man. Mustering all his strength Iron Eyes pulled the bag free of the pony and then raised his hands to his nostrils. The scent of good whiskey filled him.
‘Damn it all, hoss.’ Iron Eyes cursed as his fingers unbuckled the satchel. He shook the contents on to the sand and stared in dismay. Broken glass and amber liquid spilled out. Both bottles had been crushed by the impact. ‘You stupid lump of glue. You broke my liquor. You’re gonna pay for that.’
Iron Eyes stood up. He kicked at the pony again. It did not move or make a sound. He snorted and pulled one of his Navy Colts from his belt. He cocked its hammer, aimed at the head of the stricken Indian pony and then squeezed its trigger. A white flash spewed from the long, blue metal barrel. The pony shook as the lead ball crushed its skull.
The deafening sound echoed off the surrounding hills all around. Without a trace of emotion, Iron Eyes blew down the barrel of the .36 and then pushed the weapon back into his belt beside its twin.
‘That’ll teach you.’
It was an unnamed creek in an unnamed valley and it led to the mighty yet distant Rio Grande. It was a place where soft fertile soil set between two thirty-mile-long stretches of sand-colored rock walls had proved to be more valuable than gold itself. For this was an oasis in an otherwise arid country. For ten years this had been part of the empire belonging to powerful Don Miguel Sanchez. Sanchez was a Spanish nobleman who had come to Mexico in a brief lull between revolutions and used his fortune to create another one ten times bigger.
Sanchez was well-educated and fluent in four languages, which he had used to his advantage for most of his forty-two years of existence. An expert swordsman and shot, Sanchez had proved himself a true leader of men.
With an army of well-paid vaqueros he had used the vast valley to fatten up his cattle to sell to the Texas ranchers. They in turn would make thousands on the de
als by reselling the beef on the hoof to the lucrative Eastern cattle buyers. For a decade everyone had prospered. None more so than Sanchez himself.
Sanchez had built his hacienda at the southernmost point of the valley where the rocks began. The massive whitewashed building stood in grounds of more than twenty acres. Resembling a small castle, the high-walled fortress had stables for fifty horses as well as quarters for his vaqueros and their families. At its core was a house for Don Miguel Sanchez and his family.
Few if any military structures in Mexico could equal the Sanchez hacienda for either size or quality. The empire which Sanchez had built for himself was just remote enough from the Mexican government. It was a country unto itself. It had its own laws and rituals which had nothing to do with the outside world.
Yet for the first time, the valley was under threat.
Not from armies but from a smaller, less noticeable enemy. For places like the unnamed valley and its sweet-water creek could not be kept a secret forever. Its sheer fertility had started to draw those who craved to eat something better than the dust which they had become accustomed to in the rest of the borderland. Families both American and Mexican had arrived secretly and set up small farms within the lush terrain.
With a milk cow, some hens, a little trapping of game and a small vegetable garden they too could enjoy a small taste of paradise. For nearly a year the dozen settlers had gone unnoticed by Sanchez. For even with thousands of steers grazing along the length of the thirty-mile valley there was still more than a third of the lush land remaining untouched and unused. It was in this part of the valley that the homesteaders had grouped themselves together. Their small cabins were virtually impossible to see from the creek that ran through the middle of the wide valley.
Set deep in the woods close to the foot of the tall stone rockface the settlers’ arrival had gone totally unnoticed until the weather had briefly changed for the worse. The smoke of the settlers’ chimneys had been spotted by some of the vaqueros and the news taken back to Sanchez.
Men like Don Miguel Sanchez protected what they regarded as theirs by any means they liked. Trespassing on land which the noble Spaniard regarded as his alone brought a swift, brutal and bloody response.
For there was no law in this remote land.
Only the law of Sanchez’s own creation.
Like a medieval monarch Don Miguel Sanchez was judge, jury and executioner within the confines of his own vast kingdom. He bowed to no other authority than the one he had bestowed upon himself.
During the previous month one cabin after another had been discovered and then burned to the ground until there were only three left standing. Those who had occupied the destroyed cabins had either been killed or simply fled for fear of what Sanchez would do next. The last few cabins merely existed because they had not yet been discovered by the vaqueros.
The three remaining cabins were set roughly a quarter of a mile apart. One twenty-foot-square structure built with tree-trunks was occupied by more than eight souls from the parched Mexican heartland. Jose Garcia and his beloved wife Maria were peasants who had struggled to feed their six children until they had joined the inflow of settlers into the valley. Now for the first time in their lives they were able to feed their offspring and themselves.
Another was the home of the James family. Stan James was only in his forties yet looked at least ten years older. Hard toil had taken its toll upon the man who claimed to be from Scotland and yet sounded as though he hailed from Kentucky. His wife was a small woman named Olive whose white hair belied her thirty-two years. They had two daughters who were five and eight years of age.
Both Garcia and James had wanted to pack up their wagons and follow the survivors out of the valley when the burning and killing had started. But they had been stopped by the encouraging words of their neighbor Dan Landon.
Landon was six feet in height and as strong as an ox. He and his wife Wilma had arrived first in the valley with their seven year old son Billy. Landon was a man who knew how to wield an axe, and had built practically all of the settlers’ cabins himself. Unlike the others who had followed his lead and entered the fertile valley, Landon had not feared the reputation of Don Miguel Sanchez.
He had a blind faith that this place was where he was meant to be. No man, however powerful he might be, would ever frighten him off what he regarded as his own small piece of happiness.
He had found the garden of Eden.
No snake in human form was going to trick or spook him into leaving without a fight. Yet Landon was no fool. He knew that danger was looming with every passing day as Sanchez’s vaqueros continued their search for more trespassers. Each day the well-armed riders had come closer. It was only a matter of time before the vaqueros found what they were seeking.
Landon wanted to fight but knew that the lives of many innocents were dependent upon him. The children of the three remaining families were defenseless. Even with a body packed with powerful muscles, as his was, Landon was wise enough to know that a single bullet could end his days.
Apart from his strength and courage, Landon only had a squirrel gun to defend so many. It was not enough. Knowing the vaqueros were getting even closer as their search widened, he had ordered that neither James nor Garcia should allow their women to light their fires to cook. All meals had to be cold until the danger passed. If it ever passed.
The smoke had brought death and only luck had saved them from the same fate as the other settlers.
There was a time when caution was the safest option.
Landon and his neighbors had to be vigilant.
The only other option was to die.
Chapter Four
IF THE DEVIL had ever designed a landscape to suit his every need, it would have been the one in which the infamous Iron Eyes had found himself trapped. If there had ever been any grass across the rolling range and hillsides it had been burned to the root long ago by the ceaseless beating down of the unrelenting sun. It was hotter than hell and there was no shade. The thin, injured figure had somehow defied his own severe pain and the wound which refused to stop bleeding and had vainly tried to find the tracks of the outlaw he sought.
The blood had already soaked him in its own brutal shade of crimson but Iron Eyes stubbornly staggered on. It was as though there was more blood on his ragged clothing than remained flowing through his veins. Iron Eyes had left his saddle strapped to the dead pony and taken only the canteen and saddle-bags with him on his quest. But even these were beginning to weigh him down as he forced one foot ahead of another to keep moving forward.
He had cleared the first hill easily but now his strength was beginning to ebb. He held his hand over the broken ribs which had poked through the catgut stitches and the bandages and kept on. The sound of the remaining drops of water inside the canteen blended with the noise of his bloodstained spurs. Even though he still had a half-pint of water remaining. Iron Eyes felt no desire to consume it. The fumes from the saddle-bag satchel over his wide shoulder was enough to fuel his appetite for the time being.
Shadows swept steadily across the ground ahead of him. He glanced up and saw the wide wing-spans of the vultures, which were either interested in the corpse of the pony or the exhausted figure of its sweat-soaked master.
Iron Eyes tried to lick his cracked lips but there was no spittle. He inhaled the whiskey fumes deep and thought about the amber liquor he craved.
He knew that there just had to be some hard liquor ahead of him some place. Wherever more than a few men gathered together for any length of time, one of them would manage to make something resembling whiskey. All he had to do was find some men and he would also find something worth quenching his thirst with. He had enough money in his bags to buy an ocean of whiskey and would willingly have exchanged it all for a bottle.
He looked around him. The heat haze was sickening. It rippled the very air itself. It masked everything further than twenty yards away from his sand-caked eyes.
Then a s
ound caught his attention. He reached the top of the hill, paused, blinked hard and listened. He recognized the sound of fast-flowing water.
The sun was high overhead and beat down mercilessly. Iron Eyes studied the parched landscape towards where the sun danced upon the creek’s waters. Most travelers might have noticed the marked difference in the scenery that he observed from that which had tortured him for so many endless miles. But Iron Eyes only saw a place where he might be able to find another horse. And another bottle.
He rubbed his cracked lips across the sleeve of his free arm and sighed heavily. Every breath was now a nightmare. It was like being skewered by a butcher’s rod.
Once more Iron Eyes defied his pain and began to make his way down the hillside towards the creek.
To his left trees and lush undergrowth fed off the fast-flowing water which ran through the valley but this meant nothing to the bounty hunter who carefully edged his way down the sun-burned hillside.
His attention was on the ground before him. His eyes searched for the hoof tracks of which he had somehow lost sight a few miles back. This ground was rougher than any he had ever tracked across before. Sand and millions of small sharp stones gave no clues as to where Joe Brewster had gone. An army could have ridden across this ground without leaving a trace.
Iron Eyes knew that if he had not been wounded he would never have lost sight of the hoof tracks. But he was wounded and his renowned hunting skills had deserted him.
After what felt like a lifetime, Iron Eyes reached the level ground and paused. He pulled his blood-soaked trail-coat away from his skeletal frame and looked down at the broken tips of ribs which protruded from the bandages. Everything was soaked in red yet the bounty hunter felt no alarm. He had seen far worse in his days.
Then the sound of the water drew his attention again.
Iron Eyes lifted his chin and stared at the glistening shallow water which flowed from the valley out into the harsher land to his right.
