by Rory Black
The big man moved behind the tree and attempted to hide his muscular form from the eyes of whoever it was who was coming towards him.
He swallowed hard.
His ears could hear the horse moving through the brush. It was getting louder and closer with every beat of his pounding heart. Was it the vaqueros?
Now he really wished that he had a gun.
Landon bit his lower lip. He needed a weapon, he told himself. Something. Anything. He turned and ran back towards the cabin and the axe he had left in the stump of a tree hours earlier.
He pulled the axe free and then rushed to the open door of his cabin.
‘Stay inside, Wilma,’ Landon whispered to his wife. ‘Keep little Billy quiet. And lock it.’
The woman moved to the door. Her concern showed. ‘What’s wrong, Dan? What’s wrong?’
He patted her arm. ‘I don’t know but I’m gonna find out.’
She was about to speak again but her husband was gone. He ran back to where he had heard the rider.
Wilma closed and bolted the door.
‘What’s wrong, Ma?’ the boy asked.
‘Be quiet, Billy,’ she implored her son. ‘Be as quiet as you can.’
Dan Landon held the long-handled axe in his hands. It was a hefty tool which he prayed he would not have to turn into a weapon. For men like Landon could chop trees down but he wondered whether he could ever do the same to another man.
Could he? The question bored into his mind. His eyes glanced back at the well-hidden cabin and his thoughts were for the two people inside it.
He had his answer.
Dan Landon knew that he could and would do anything to protect them.
He knelt behind the tree trunk and began to pray.
For what felt like several lifetimes, Landon waited. His large hands gripped the handle of the axe as he listened to the horse getting closer.
Then he saw the bushes ahead of him part.
The dim light hung around the horse and its rider as they pushed out into the small clearing between the trees.
Landon leapt to his feet and stepped away from the tree. He raised the axe and then focused his eyes.
‘Sweet lord!’ he gasped in stunned horror.
Chapter Seven
MEN LIKE DAN Landon did not feel fear in the same way that most men did, but the horrific monstrosity which came silently through the bushes chilled him to the bone. It was as if his own worst nightmares had suddenly taken shape and were coming from the very depths of his imagination and manifesting into reality.
Every fiber in Landon’s body wanted to turn and run but he knew that it was impossible. He was unable to move as his eyes focused on the hideous apparition.
For the horseman was not one of the deadly vaqueros he had expected. In fact he looked barely human. The rider was drenched in blood and covered in trail dust. He had slumped over the neck of the large palomino stallion but the high horn and cantle of the Mexican saddle had refused to allow him to fall from his lofty perch.
It was impossible for Landon to tell whether Iron Eyes was asleep or unconscious. The ghostlike figure just swayed like a lifeless shadow.
Landon felt his own sweat trace down his spine as the horse stopped before him. The dirt farmer held on to the bridle and looked hard up at the face of the bounty hunter hidden by the long limp strands of hair. The light was almost gone but there was enough of it left to make the hair on the nape of Landon’s neck rise.
He had seen many things in his time but he had never seen anything like the scarred features of Iron Eyes. Landon was scared to death.
The long limp black hair was something Landon had only previously seen on Apaches, but this was no Indian.
Unsure whether the bounty hunter was alive or dead, Landon cautiously ventured to the saddle and the man’s lean blood-soaked leg. His eyes studied the rider. It appeared that there was very little of this pitiful soul not drenched in blood.
Landon raised a finger and jabbed it into the leg.
‘You alive, stranger?’ he managed to ask fearfully.
It seemed a stupid question, even to the man who had uttered it. His mind told him that nobody who had lost that amount of blood could possibly be anything but dead. Landon peeled the side of the trail-coat away from the bounty hunter’s body. He stared at the bony frame revealed beneath the shredded shirt.
If this man was breathing, Landon certainly could not detect any hint of it.
Landon went to release the coat when he saw the sharp busted rib bones poking out from what had once been bandages. He gritted his teeth. He could almost feel the horseman’s pain.
‘Mister?’ he questioned again.
Iron Eyes still did not move.
Dan Landon dropped his axe. He pulled the spurred boot from the stirrup and took the weight of the emaciated figure in his massive arms. He gently pulled Iron Eyes free of the horse and then turned towards his cabin.
He had taken only one step when he realized that this tall figure weighed less than his own wife.
‘I don’t know who you were, friend,’ Landon said as he began to walk. ‘But I’ll bury you and read from the Good Book over your bones.’
Suddenly without warning or sound Landon felt something as cold as ice pushed under his square jaw. He stopped walking when he heard the hammer of the Navy Colt being cocked.
‘I’d rather you didn’t bury me just yet,’ Iron Eyes whispered in a low drawl.
‘You ain’t dead?’ Landon’s voice was confused.
Iron Eyes forced a defiant smile at the face close to his own. ‘Now that’s a matter of opinion that a lotta folks can’t agree on. Some folks reckon I died a long time back but it ain’t smart to listen to that sort of loco bean.’
‘You’re alive!’ Landon gulped.
‘Don’t sound so disappointed.’ Iron Eyes coughed. ‘There’s still time.’ Landon went to lower the lightweight to the ground when Iron Eyes pushed the barrel of his gun up into the throat of the farmer even harder.
‘Take me to that tree stump over yonder. My legs are a tad tired.’
‘OK. OK. Don’t shoot.’ The muscular man did as he was told and carried his bloody cargo to the tree stump close to the front of the cabin. He gently lowered the injured man down until Iron Eyes was seated on the stump. ‘Please don’t shoot me. I got me a wife and boy in there.’
Iron Eyes released the hammer slowly and then dropped the gun back into his trail-coat pocket.
‘I wasn’t gonna shoot you, friend,’ he admitted.
‘Then why’d you ram that pistol in my neck?’ Landon growled loudly.
‘I didn’t want you to drop me.’ The bounty hunter sighed. ‘I don’t figure this old body of mine could take being dropped at the moment.’
Landon marched to the stallion and led it to his cabin and the unexpected guest, who watched his every move through the long sweat-soaked hair. As he reached the bounty hunter he paused and studied the mount and its livery.
‘Ain’t this a strange rig for a man like you to have on a horse?’
Iron Eyes nodded in agreement. ‘I killed a vaquero downstream to get that nag. Best bullet I ever wasted.’
Landon smiled. ‘You killed one of Sanchez’s vaqueros?’
‘Yep.’
‘Then you just made yourself a friend for life!’ Landon explained. ‘There’s bin a whole bunch of vaqueros killing and burning us settlers for the past month or so.’
Iron Eyes studied the man. ‘How come?’
Landon shrugged. ‘It’s all to do with a varmint named Sanchez. He figures he owns this valley and everything in it, and he don’t cotton to trespassers. He runs a small army of vaqueros to do his bidding and they sure relish doing it.’
The bounty hunter pulled a cigar from his pocket and pushed it between his lips. He scratched a match across his pants leg and then inhaled the smoke. His eyes narrowed as he blew the flame from the blackened match. Suddenly he began to understand why the Mexican had opened up
on him.
‘How many of you trespassers are there?’
‘Only three of us left, but we all got family.’
‘You got guns to protect them families?’
‘Nope.’
It was a thoughtful Iron Eyes who brooded for a while as smoke trailed from his mouth. He nodded as if answering a question only he had heard before looking back up at the young man.
‘Reckon you might need a little help by the sounds of it.’
Landon smiled, then reached out and knocked at the cabin door with his large clenched fist.
‘Open up, Wilma honey. We got us a sick friend out here who needs tending.’ Iron Eyes looked down at his side. ‘You’re right. I am in a sort of fix with these ribs of mine.’
‘Did the vaquero do that?’ Landon asked.
‘Nope. An outlaw back at Rio Valdo got lucky.’
‘Outlaw?’
‘Yep.’ Iron Eyes inhaled as much smoke as he could. ‘I’m a bounty hunter and I’m on the trail of a dirty varmint called Joe Brewster. I’m gonna kill that bastard when I catch up with his stinking carcass.’
‘Kill him?’
‘Yep. That’s what I do. I kill bad folks.’
The door opened and the small fragile female looked out at her husband. For a moment she did not see the crouched figure seated on the tree stump. When the bounty hunter turned his head she raised a hand to her mouth in shock.
Landon moved to her. ‘Don’t be feared, Wilma.’
The bounty hunter gripped the cigar in his teeth. ‘The name’s Iron Eyes, ma’am. I’m sorry to have frightened you.’
She was trembling. ‘My name’s Wilma Landon. I’m Dan’s woman, Mr. Iron Eyes.’
Iron Eyes nodded slowly but he was looking past her dress at the small boy who was watching him intently from the cover of the doorway.
‘And what they call you, young’un?’
The boy said nothing. He just kept watching the horrific figure beside his father.
‘This is Billy, Iron Eyes.’ Landon said proudly.
Somehow the thin man with the cigar gripped between his teeth managed to get to his feet and stumble towards the wide-eyed child. Billy Landon stood his ground even though he had never seen anyone like Iron Eyes before.
‘I like you, Billy,’ Iron Eyes said. ‘You don’t waste time gabbing like us old ’uns. You listen and watch. That’s the mark of a real man.’
Dan Landon stepped up close to the bounty hunter and supported him with his powerful arms.
‘Come inside, Iron Eyes. I’ll tend your wounds and Wilma will rustle up some vittles for you.’
Wilma followed her man into the cabin. ‘You think it’s safe for me to light the fire so I can cook something hot, Dan?’
Dan helped the bounty hunter on to a cot.
‘Light the fire, Wilma. I can’t figure why but I ain’t scared no more.’
Chapter Eight
THERE WERE EIGHT of them. Eight riders who all bore the same allegiance to Don Miguel Sanchez that their fallen comrade Pedro Ruiz had shared. They, like the settlers they sought, had heard the brief salvo hours earlier when the sun had been high. The sound of two gunshots had lasted barely longer than the beat of a heart and yet their echoes had travelled ten miles along the unnamed valley’s high-walled sides.
Each of the vaqueros in turn had been drawn by the invisible strings of curiosity away from the dense woods to either side of the creek and started their long ride together to the very end of the lush valley.
A million stars had replaced the blue sky long before the eight horsemen had managed to reach the place where the merciless desert lay, just beyond the mouth of the fertile valley. Even the dim light of the stars could not conceal the total dissimilarity between the two lands. Water sprayed up from the hoofs of the powerful mounts as their masters drove them through the shallow waters to where the sound of shooting had come from hours earlier. For a moment none of them could see anything untoward. Then the lead rider stood in his stirrups and eased back on his reins.
It was Pepe Gomez who had drawn rein when his black stallion had suddenly shied. The violent and abrupt refusal of the mount to go any further would have thrown most riders from their saddles, but not Gomez. The experienced vaquero steadied his spooked horse as his seven companions stopped around him.
Gomez balanced and looked just ahead of the line of riders at something on the wet soil just ahead of them.
There was an unnerving aroma hanging on the air and the eight horses had sensed it long before their masters.
Each unnerved animal clawed at the ground with its hoofs and attempted to back away.
‘What is wrong, Pepe?’ one of the other horsemen asked.
Gomez held his powerful animal in check, then raised a long finger and pointed to what looked like a black log on the soil close to the edge of the creek.
‘There!’ Gomez said. ‘See it, amigos?’
‘It is just a log or something, Pepe.’
‘Smell the air, my friend,’ Gomez said knowingly. ‘Logs do not smell of death.’
One of the vaqueros dropped from his saddle and tossed his reins to Gomez.
‘I will look,’ he said.
The seven mounted men watched as the vaquero walked through the strange bluish starlight towards the black object. Then they saw him turn in disbelief.
‘It is Pedro!’ he gasped.
Gomez looked around the area and then back at his fellow riders. He sighed heavily.
‘What are you looking for, Pepe?’
‘Where is his horse?’ Gomez asked curiously. ‘Where is Pedro’s magnificent horse? It would never leave him.’
All eight men searched the darkness for any sign of Pedro Ruiz’s palomino.
There was none.
‘Someone has killed Pedro and stolen his stallion,’ another of the vaqueros said.
Gomez dismounted and walked to where Ruiz’s body lay. He had never liked the vaquero and had secretly feared him for years but he still knew that there was an unwritten law that he and his men all lived and died by. When one of your own is killed, it was your duty to avenge your fallen comrade.
Gomez knelt and turned the body over until it lay on its back. The lifeless eyes were dull. The vaquero reached over and closed Ruiz’s eyes with his long fingers. Gomez then looked at the body carefully. He wanted to discover how this ruthless man had met his death.
To his utter surprise he could see just one well-placed bullet hole.
The vaquero’s gun was still in Ruiz’s stiffening hand. Gomez pulled the gun free and opened its chamber to inspect the bullets in its cylinder. He knew that Don Miguel Sanchez’s top gun always kept his weapon fully loaded. Only one brass casing showed that it had been struck by the firing-pin on the gun hammer. The five other bullets were untouched and intact.
‘Pedro fired only one bullet, mi amigos,’ he informed the other vaqueros.
Two more of the vaqueros dropped from their mounts and moved towards the kneeling man curiously.
‘Are you sure Pedro fired only once?’ one of them asked in amazement.
‘How many bullets hit him, Pepe?’ another vaquero queried.
Gomez looked at the approaching men. ‘Just one. I think he was dead before he had a chance to fire again.’ Both vaqueros stopped.
‘Was he shot in the back?’
Gomez rose up and shook his head. ‘No, amigos. This was no ambush. Pedro had a showdown with someone and he lost. Whoever it was who shot him was either the luckiest of men or the most deadly shot I have ever seen.’
There was a stunned silence. None of them could imagine who could have outdrawn Ruiz and used just one bullet to end his life. It seemed impossible. They had all seen Ruiz shoot the head off a chicken from the back of a galloping horse. Who could have bettered Pedro Ruiz?
Gomez studied the churned-up ground thoughtfully. He looked at the others and then pointed to the dense woodland to his right.
‘Pedro’s horse went tha
t way.’
‘What shall we do, Pepe? Should we follow?’
Gomez removed his sombrero and ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair.
‘Luis shall take Pedro’s body back to the hacienda and inform Don Miguel of what has happened.’ Gomez said firmly. ‘The rest of us shall make camp here and when the sun rises again we shall follow the tracks to find and kill the murderer.’
‘Who do you think did this, Pepe?’ Gomez returned his hat to his head and tightened its drawstring. His eyes cast across the faces of the seven others in turn.
‘Only the Devil himself could have done this, amigos.’
Chapter Nine
EVEN DARKNESS COULD not hide the massive whitewashed hacienda which Don Miguel Sanchez had erected as a monument and proof of his unparalleled power. It seemed to all who approached it to fill the very sky, looming over the southern end of the valley as a warning to anyone who dared enter the lands claimed by Sanchez.
Blazing torches were perched along its high walls and to either side of its well-fortified entrance. Their flickering light illuminated the trail which led to its solitary entrance.
Luis Fernandez had made good time back to the imposing edifice considering the weight of the lifeless body which was tied behind his high cantle. It had taken barely five hours to negotiate the long ride through the valley but every stride of his stallion had brought fear to the vaquero.
Fernandez slowed his mount and then called out across the darkness to the sentries who he knew would be guarding their leader and all those who dwelled behind the high walls. There were always at least half a dozen well-armed men on duty throughout the night.
The rider reined in and waited a hundred yards from the sturdy drawbridge until he heard the chains begin to lower the heavy wooden gangway to the ground.
Only when he saw two of the guards venture out and signal to him did Fernandez jab his spurs into the sides of the muscular stallion beneath him. The horse responded and rode across the clearing and over the wooden drawbridge. He had no sooner entered the courtyard than he heard the sturdy chains raising the drawbridge back up again.
