by Rory Black
The tall female strolled away from him in silence as he brooded with his thoughts. Guilt crept over him once more as he realized that he might have sent Iron Eyes to his death. Casting an eye at Jane, Dwan José Valdez watched as she ascended the tiled steps. Taking another drink of water, he crossed himself and said a silent prayer.
Chapter Twenty
Whit Hardy sat looking at the hacienda with a mixture of envy and distaste. Why would anyone want such a large house? His brother Tom was standing at his horse’s head, pouring the last of his precious canteen water into his Stetson for the tired horse to drink.
Tom had been silent for a long time now. Whatever thoughts were passing through his brain, he was keeping them private.
Whit slid off his saddle on to the soft ground and copied his brother’s actions. The horse could have his fill of the water as long as he still had some tequila left in his last bottle, Whit thought.
Tom Hardy watched as his kid brother watered the nag and drank the blinding clear liquor at the same time. He knew that it was his tequila Whit gulped, but he no longer gave a damn.
Sober or drunk, the situation was the same to Tom. They had run out of supplies and water, and the only place they could get fresh provisions was the hacienda before them. The hacienda that the tracks of their prey Iron Eyes led right into.
It was not the way he had planned it. The Apache had screwed everything into the ground. They had confused the elder Hardy brother and made him make errors.
He was starting to doubt himself even more than usual.
‘The tracks lead straight into that place,’ Tom said, looking at the white-washed hacienda.
Sweat ran down his face as he spoke, and he knew that he had to make a decision soon. Very soon, or they would have no chance of surviving.
‘You reckon he’s in there, Tom?’ Whit asked, in his usual slurred way.
‘Could be,’ Tom answered as his horse finished the water, allowing him to return the Stetson on to his head.
‘It don’t figure.’ Whit shook his hat free of the last few drops of water.
‘What?’
‘Why did he turn back from the river?’ Whit knew that it seemed very out of character for the bounty hunter to be heading to the place he had to collect his reward, then change direction and ride into the desert. Everything he had ever heard about the strange Iron Eyes said that he would not have done this, yet he had.
‘I wish I knew.’
‘He was heading for El Paso to collect his reward money.’ Whit watched his exhausted horse licking the ground for further droplets of water. ‘Then he turns and heads here. Why?’
‘Maybe he had no choice,’ Tom pondered.
‘What you mean?’ Whit scratched his head. ‘This is the famous Iron Eyes I’m talking about, Tom.’
‘What about all these horse and wagon tracks?’ Tom pointed at the churned-up soil. ‘He might have been forced to go with these people.’
‘You reckon they are soldiers?’ Whit Hardy became skittish at the thought of an army ‘Could be. There is a hell of a lot of them.’ Tom mounted again and watched as his younger brother followed suit.
‘So what we gonna do?’ Whit looked at the remains of his bottle, and replaced the cork before sliding the glass into his shirt. ‘What we gonna do?’
‘Ride in.’ Tom rubbed his face.
‘Ride into that place?’ Whit stood in his stirrups and pointed at the white building, his face twisted in horror at the thought of entering. It felt too much like suicide.
‘We gotta ride in, boy’ Tom snapped angrily. His temper was not aimed at his brother but at himself for getting them into this situation.
‘Why?’ Whit continued to look troubled.
‘We gotta get water, ain’t we?’ Tom spurred his horse forward and looked over his shoulder at Whit following. ‘We gotta get grub, ain’t we? Come on.’
‘This is crazy Tom,’ Whit protested.
‘Not as crazy as dying of thirst,’ Tom snarled again. ‘I seen folks that died of thirst, and it ain’t a nice sight.’
‘But what if Iron Eyes is in there?’ Whit knew that the bounty-hunter would recognize them from the wanted posters they shared with their late brother Dan. ‘He’ll kill us on sight.’
‘We have to take our chances.’
‘Why?’
‘We might live long enough to kill him, Whit.’ Tom rubbed his grumbling guts as he rode. ‘Besides, I am so hungry that the thought of getting shot don’t worry me at all.’
The two horsemen rode slowly. Very slowly indeed. This was a journey that neither of them wanted to make, but both knew that they had no option.
The sun was low, and there was a chill in the air. As they rode they could see men at the hacienda lighting torches at the arched gateway.
Then they could hear the excited shouting within the courtyard.
They had been spotted.
Both men’s hearts sank as they witnessed the dozen or so vaqueros riding to meet them. The elegant riders in their wide sombreros were soon close enough that the Hardy brothers could see the sweat upon their darkly tanned faces.
Tom reined his mount to a halt first, sending a cloud of trail-dust into the still air. Whit pulled up his nag at his brother’s side with the terrified expression of a sand fox cornered by a puma upon his face.
His eyes flashed from one vaquero to another as Valdez’s men rode nearer and nearer.
‘Easy, boy!’ Tom yelled at his brother, who was fumbling for his .45. ‘Leave your iron in its holster, unless you want us both killed here and now.’
Whit somehow complied, and sat on his horse, gripping his saddle-horn in sheer terror. ‘I don’t like this, Tom,’ he wailed.
‘Neither do I, Whit.’
They were soon surrounded by the vaqueros and looking down the barrels of numerous pistols.
Whit gave his brother a long, hard glare. ‘I reckon this was not one of your best ideas, Tom.’
‘Shut the hell up, boy,’ Tom Hardy snapped. He had a feeling that for once his kid brother might just be right.
Chapter Twenty-One
Darkness had arrived exactly on cue. Leaving the black stallion tied up to a dead white tree-stump,
Iron Eyes had entered the mountain range on foot, carrying his Winchester over his back on a leather strap. Bats swooped around his head and their high-pitched squeaking filled his ears. The half moon overhead gave him ample light to see and not be seen, as he moved up and over the rounded rock formations which looked as if they had fallen off the moon itself. Storm clouds in the distance seemed to be heading in the direction of the mountain range, and lightning flashes lit up the far-off prairie.
Iron Eyes hoped that the storm would catch up with him before he caught up with the bandits.
The confusion of a violent storm never hurt his chances.
This was no normal place, he thought. This was a place of danger. His nostrils filled with the aroma of distant humans. Humans always left a smell on the air, wherever they dwelled. It was the stench of dirt. Human dirt.
Iron Eyes pulled out both his loaded Navy Colts and gripped them firmly, as his long legs took him up across the tops of the rocks.
Higher and higher he climbed. He had the agility of a puma as he hopped from one huge boulder to the next.
It was as if he had some in-built ability to be drawn to whomever he was pursuing. Below him, the canyon floor wound into many forks. Some gaining altitude whilst others stayed almost level.
These were the dried-up remains of ancient riverbeds. Climbing above these sandy trails and using the rocks to cross the great distances of the vast mountain range, Iron Eyes knew that he would have more chance of spotting the bandits before they spotted him.
The shadows were interlocking amid the rounded rocky peaks that seemed to go on forever.
Iron Eyes used every one of those shadows to move further into the heart of the mountains.
Suddenly, he saw the lone sentry ahead of him.
A fat, small man with a battered sombrero sitting upon a large rock, wrapped in a thick blanket. Between his legs he held his trusty rifle.
Iron Eyes pushed both his guns into his belt and drew out a long, thin stiletto from inside his left boot. The sharp blade fitted neatly between his broken teeth as he crept on all fours up the smooth rock-face, toward the seated sentry.
It was almost as if he were a phantom. Iron Eyes could move without making a single noise.
This was an art that he had perfected over a dozen or more years of his grisly trade.
Iron Eyes was suddenly behind the sentry. Removing the blade from his mouth, he swiftly drove it deeply into the man’s heart, with enough force to break several ribs. He screwed the blade around as if gutting a fish, before pulling the blood-soaked stiletto from the man’s body. The fat man’s life had ended silently Iron Eyes wiped the blade on the dead man’s blanket, before sliding it back into his boot. Then he continued his quest as if nothing had happened.
Deeper and deeper he penetrated the mountain fortress. Then he could hear them as well as smell them.
Crouching down, Iron Eyes edged forward over the rocks and boulders until he was at a point several hundred feet above the camp.
For a moment he just lay upon his flat stomach staring down at the scene below his vantage point.
A blazing fire set between the small group of wooden shacks illuminated the entire area. It was like a miniature town. The wine must have been flowing, he thought, as he watched the revelry below him. None of the people he watched seemed able to walk properly. They were staggering from one depraved activity to another.
Staring about the opposite rock-faces he looked for more sentries. There were none.
Iron Eyes focused hard on the scene below him as he started his gradual descent through the rocks and dark shadows. The thunder seemed to be getting closer, as he could smell the freshness in the air he breathed. He knew that the storm was heading toward the bandits’ camp. Iron Eyes prayed that he would have time to reach the canyon floor before the storm arrived. There was nothing worse than trying to climb down a rock-face that was lashed with rain.
He did not relish the thought of losing his footing and sliding down two hundred feet of solid rock.
Although dark, the moonlight made everything appear blue. Only the bandits’ campfire contained any true colours. Iron Eyes moved like a big cat toward the dozens of people who were totally unaware of his approaching.
Every few minutes the sky lit up with the flashing of nature’s electricity. The sound of rumbling thunder grew louder as it started to echo around the canyon walls. Yet none of the bandits or their women seemed to give a damn. They just carried on with their festivities.
The descent took over thirty minutes, but the bounty-hunter knew he had to move slowly, using every shadow as a shield. He was hopelessly outnumbered yet this only increased his determination to complete his task.
Iron Eyes had tasted blood once this evening, and knew that he wanted more. Killing human vermin was the only thing that he was any good at. He knew that it was an evil trade, but to him it was totally justified.
Some folks could only be cured by death. After dying, they never repeated their mistakes.
The floor of the canyon was flat, as if pressed by an unseen, giant hand. As he reached it, Iron Eyes slid behind a large boulder and sat in the black shadow, getting his wind back.
Behind him he could hear the noise of drunken bandits and their women having a good time.
That sort of happiness had always eluded the bounty-hunter. For him, nothing was that simple.
As he sat in the dark shadows he checked his guns once more.
Across the way, a crude corral held over two dozen horses of various types. Some looked good and others scrawny very much like the bandits themselves.
Another flash and a deafening explosion of thunder shook the entire area around him.
Then the dark clouds drifted over the roof of the canyon and blocked out the moonlight. The raindrops that followed were warm and sparse. Using the additional darkness to his advantage, Iron Eyes rose to his feet and ran silently toward the shack on the outermost edge of the camp. Then the rain became heavier and cooler.
As the rain hit the large campfire it began to hiss like an outraged diamond-back, sending plumes of smoke around the area. None of this seemed to have any effect on the bandits or their women as they continued to enjoy their drunken orgy.
The tall bounty-hunter moved silently behind the coarse shacks, staring into the open doorways and windows as he passed. He had never witnessed such open displays of` uninhibited carnal activities before. It was as if he had fallen into a Tombstone whorehouse.
Yet nothing he saw had the slightest effect upon him. It was as if he had never had such feelings himself. There was nothing in his heart except death.
His was a black soul. Void of humanity.
Still holding his pistols tightly in his bony hands, he found the shack that he had sought for several minutes. Staring through the small hole that pretended to be a window, he spied a small, huddled form cowering like a whipped dog in a corner. At first he thought she was just another of the camp women. Then the terrible truth dawned upon him.
This was Maria Valdez.
This tortured creature was the daughter of Dwan José.
Iron Eyes leaned back into the shadows as his heart raced. It was not that he had never seen cruelty before. He was guilty of inflicting it upon others in his time himself. Yet not like this.
Crawling through the sand, he moved around the shack to get a better look at the crowd.
The rain was now sweeping across the dancing, drinking souls, who stayed close to their huge fire.
Logs were being tossed on to its red heart, keeping its flames well nourished. The yellow light that flickered lit up the men and women. Iron Eyes studied each and every male face that he could see. He had the wanted poster image in his mind, and was searching the many faces for a match.
Then he saw the man that he had been hunting.
The Snake was drinking his fill, and grabbing every female that came close enough to his strong hands.
The gold tooth glinted in the light of the fire as the rain fell around the canyon. Steam rose off the gathering as they continued their revelry
Iron Eyes gritted his teeth as he moved back to the small window. Getting to his feet, he removed his long coat and rifle before dropping them silently to the ground. Then he pushed one of his Navy Colts into his belt, whilst retaining the other in his left hand. He used his long legs to step up into the window, and fell silently into the dark, stinking shack.
Maria’s sobbing sent cold chills through his spine as he crouched below the window. His eyes darted from the doorway to the girl and then back again. Slowly, he moved toward her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The hacienda was its usual brightly lit self. That was the only thing that seemed normal on this night.
This was an evening filled with worry and concern.
Dwan José Valdez had not trusted either of the strange men his vaqueros had brought to him at gunpoint a few hours earlier. It was strange for this most generous of men to distrust anyone, but the Hardy brothers just brought out the worst in the elderly gentleman.
He had supplied them with food and with wine, but not with the things that he normally provided. These were men that did not seem worthy of his trust. Therefore he did not give them any
The vaqueros had removed all the Hardy brothers’ weapons before bringing them into the hacienda courtyard.
Valdez had ordered them not to be left unguarded. He had more on his mind than two stray drifters. His thoughts were with the tall, shadowlike Iron Eyes.
Tom and Whit were treated well. The brothers had their horses groomed, watered and fed by Valdez’s stable hands.
Supplies were given to them freely before Dwan José Valdez came to the small tack room where they were being kept.
Tom gazed up at the old man, who was flanked by his heavily armed vaqueros. ‘You ordering us out of Mexico?’
‘I am.’ Valdez’s eyes narrowed.
‘What the hell for?’ Tom felt insulted.
‘Because we have enough filth in our country without stealing more from yours.’ The elderly man was in no mood to argue with anyone.
‘Can he kick us out of Mexico, Tom?’ Whit Hardy was still enjoying the free wine that had been provided by their host.
‘I can do anything I want,’ Valdez interrupted.
‘Guess we are leaving,’ Tom shrugged.
‘We have seen to your horses. They are fresh now, and able to carry you back home.’ Valdez turned to leave the tack room, when he was stopped by a question that struck him unexpectedly.
‘You heard of a critter named Iron Eyes?’ Tom Hardy asked.
Valdez kept his back to the men. ‘I think you will leave my hacienda very quickly.’
‘How come, old-timer?’ Tom stood and smiled at the back of his host.
Dwan José turned. ‘Otherwise my men will shoot you and bury you out in the sand for the ants to eat.’
Whit jumped to his feet and grabbed his older brother’s arm in terror.
‘What’s wrong, boy?’ Tom asked.
‘Shut the hell up, Tom. These folks ain’t civilized like us.’
Tom shook his head at the floor.
‘You still scared of ants, Whit?’ he sighed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Snake had no idea of what lay in waiting for him as he headed drunkenly back to his shack and the awaiting Maria.
Pushing his way through the bandits and the females, the man with the golden tooth began to stagger as he walked. Pausing for only a brief moment to finish off yet another black glass bottle of wine, he burped before proceeding.