by Rory Black
The gangly youth was going to pay a high price, if Barker had anything to say about it. He pounded the bar counters in every saloon they trawled until even he started to believe his fictional account of what had happened during the afternoon.
‘That critter gotta hang for killing Drew,’ Barker screamed at the top of his voice to the dozens of lumberjacks as they supplied him with plenty of free liquor. ‘He done killed like a rabid animal, boys. Me, Drew and Shake was minding our own business when this tall critter come marching down the street and attacked us.’
‘Who was he?’ one of the other lumberjacks asked.
‘Hog already said that he was a stranger,’ another of the burly men chipped in as they crowded around Barker.
Barker lowered his whiskey glass from his lips.
‘He didn’t look like regular folks, boys,’ he drawled as he nursed his bruised face with his free hand. ‘He looked like the Devil himself.’
The collective response amongst the gathering could be heard out in the street as the blacksmith approached to find out what was happening in Silver Creek. Bo Hartson had figured that the killing of Drew Smith would not have gone down well with the majority of the townsfolk. He had been right. He rested a hand on the swing doors and gazed into the noisy interior and began shaking his head.
Hog Barker repeated his statement and then embellished it to ensure that every one of the saloon’s patrons were well and truly fired up.
‘That critter ain’t human, I tell you,’ Barker said loudly. ‘He’s evil. He only came to town to kill and that’s exactly what he did.’
The bartender leaned over his counter.
‘Was he the tall, skinny varmint with long black hair, Hog?’ he asked fearfully. ‘I seen him just before I started work, over by the livery. That critter gave me the willies.’
Hog Barker stomped his sturdy boot on the boards of the saloon floor and gave a nod of his head. ‘That’s the critter, Joe. He looked like an Injun but he weren’t no type of Injun I’ve ever seen before. He was way too tall. All I know is that he’s plumb evil.’
‘Kerm Lang reckoned his name is Iron Eyes,’ another of the crowd offered. ‘He said that critter lives in the forest.’
‘Iron Eyes ain’t a man’s name,’ somebody ventured. ‘It sure sounds like an Injun handle.’
Every eye widened, darting to the informative logger and then back at the seated Barker. The noisy crowd grew even louder as a multitude of theories began to develop.
Hartson forced his way into the saloon and began to wade through the excited crowd toward Barker. The blacksmith could hear the astounding theories being brandished back and forth as he fought his way to the trouble-making Barker.
‘Nobody but stinking Injuns live in them forests, boys,’ Barker snarled as he downed his whiskey and held his empty glass out for one of his fellow loggers to refill it. ‘Nobody human, anyways. No normal man could survive in there with all them lions and bears and Injuns for a day.’
A mutual gasp went through the assembly of loggers as their own imaginations ran riot inside their drunken minds. They moved closer to Barker as he downed his drink, stood and then grabbed the closest whiskey bottle from someone’s grasp.
‘If that critter even dares to enter Silver Creek again we gotta teach him it don’t pay to kill one of our kind,’ Barker raged. ‘We gotta string him up by the neck and let him dance until his scrawny neck snaps.’
The crowd erupted into howling cheers.
‘You just can’t handle being bested by a scrawny youngster,’ Hartson growled at the lumberjack. ‘That kid made you and your pals look like a bunch of fools and now you’re trying to get him lynched.’
Barker swung on his heels and glared at the blacksmith angrily. He grabbed the older man and shook him.
‘You calling me a liar, Bo?’ he spat.
Hartson narrowed his eyes and stared straight at Barker for a few moments and then physically pushed the logger backward. He raised a sturdy finger and pointed it straight at Barker.
‘I sure am, Hog,’ he snorted. ‘I’m calling you a big, fat liar who got his rump kicked and he wants revenge.’
Barker steadied himself and clenched his fists.
‘That critter killed Drew,’ he raged. ‘He stuck a knife in him and killed him for no reason. If he comes back to town he’s gonna kill someone else.’
‘As I hear it, you and Drew picked on the scrawny bastard and started shooting at him,’ Hartson stated with a nod of his head. ‘Seems to me that you got off lucky that he didn’t teach you the same lesson that he taught Drew.’
‘What you saying?’ Barker snarled.
‘I’m saying that Drew was a cold-blooded killer and he got exactly what he deserved, Hog,’ Hartson retorted. ‘The trouble with bullies is that they don’t like it when they meet their match or their betters.’
Barker spat at the floorboards between them as the gathered crowd grew even more fevered. ‘Me and the boys weren’t doing nothing wrong, old man. That Iron Eyes just went loco and gutted Drew.’
Before the blacksmith had time to continue his argument, one of the lumberjacks standing behind him smashed a bottle across the back of his skull. Hartson staggered and then fell at the feet of Barker.
Barker looked at his fellow loggers and punched the air.
‘C’mon, boys,’ he shouted. ‘Let’s get us some guns and torches and head on up to that damn forest. If that monster puts up a fight, we’ll burn him out.’
Like a troupe of circus elephants, every single one of the lumberjacks mindlessly piled out of the saloon to do just as Barker had instructed them. The drunken mob was hell-bent on getting their hands on the young hunter and stretching his neck. As the noisy crowd of lumberjacks went looking for anything they might use as fiery torches, the blacksmith lay in a pool of his own blood. Blood which seeped from the brutal gash on the back of his head.
Bo Hartson lay face down upon the sawdust-covered floor utterly oblivious to what was occurring. Yet even if he had not been unconscious it was doubtful that he could have stopped the lumberjacks.
Hog Barker had gotten exactly what he wanted.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There was something going on amid the Indians as they flocked around their newly erected tepees. Iron Eyes did not know it but they were preparing a feast to celebrate the return of the hunting party. More than a thousand men, women and children had moved their entire encampment across the forest to where it now stood. The tribal elders sat cross-legged and brooded about how they had been forced to move their entire camp as the lumberjacks had encroached into their territory.
Flames from a dozen campfires burned brightly between the tents as scores of squaws of various ages went about their nightly rituals and prepared meals. When it came to laborious duties, it was only the females who actually did anything while the menfolk watched as they shared tomahawk pipes.
The aroma of cooking filled the entire area and drifted through the surrounding trees. As Iron Eyes moved through the highest branches of the trees, the scent of cooking made even his mouth water.
The gaunt figure stopped above the camp and stared down at the numerous Indians below his high perch. Iron Eyes knew that there were far more of them than he had ever been able to calculate during all the times that he had encroached into their land. Yet as he gripped a branch in one hand and hovered above them, his mind tried to work out why they had uprooted themselves and travelled into what he deemed to be his domain.
There was no way for Iron Eyes to know that the Indians had not intentionally moved toward him, but in truth had moved away from the lumberjacks on the other side of the forest. The Indians were wise enough to realize that soon their old camp would have been exposed by the felling of the woodlands most mature and valuable assets.
Iron Eyes watched them from his perilous perch curiously.
His eyes narrowed against the flickering firelight as he looked down upon them. It did not make any sense to the young hunt
er for an entire tribe to leave one part of the forest and go to another.
Iron Eyes knew that the hunting was far poorer here than it was at their original site. He bit his lip and then straddled the branch as he vainly tried to understand the motives behind the Indians’ move.
They had not uprooted through choice, but the naïve young hunter was blissfully ignorant of this. To his inexperienced mind, the Indians were just provoking the one they considered to be an evil forest spirit.
Iron Eyes had a simple outlook on everything. Black or white, hunter or hunted, life or death. If anyone wronged him, he would fight and assumed the Indians would do the same but they were far wiser than that. They knew that bows and arrows were no match for the heavily-armed loggers.
Iron Eyes pondered the hundreds of people he could see below him like a cunning cougar. The Indians were totally unaware of his presence as always. Just like all of the other times when he had dared their wrath and entered their encampment, Iron Eyes was confident that he would achieve what he had come here to do.
He would steal one of their ponies. To him, it was as simple as that. He did not even consider failure. Iron Eyes smiled and then caught sight of the ponies below his lofty perch. He squinted and stared through the rising smoke from their many fires at the animals hidden just beyond the dozens of tepees.
The ponies were well concealed as always, but not from his keen eyes high above them. Iron Eyes leapt to his feet and hurried to the very end of the stout tree branch. With one hand holding a branch above his head, he balanced on the slender extension.
There were at least fifteen ponies hidden from view behind countess trees. They were far smaller than the horseflesh Iron Eyes had seen in Silver Creek but no less capable.
A crude rope encircled the sturdy animals and kept them contained between the trees. His appetite to get his hands on one of the creatures grew as he observed the animals milling around in the shadows below.
There was just one brave guarding the small herd. The Indian was seated and looked asleep to Iron Eyes. Even though he could only catch fleeting glimpses of the ponies, that was enough for the skeletal hunter.
He wanted a horse and there they were, he thought.
Iron Eyes reached down. His bony hands gripped the branch at his feet as he swung silently and then dropped to another even broader branch and steadied himself.
His mouth started to drool. Whether it was the aromatic scent of the cooking food that wafted up into the trees where he had secreted his lean form, or just being close to so many horses that had wetted his appetite, Iron Eyes was totally oblivious.
All he knew was that forty feet below his dangerously high vantage point, there were horses. He just needed one to get out of the forest.
Just one.
It had not occurred to the painfully thin young dare-devil that he had never even attempted to mount a horse, let alone ride one. In his naïve mind it could not be that difficult if white and red men alike were capable of doing it.
Iron Eyes dried his mouth on his shirt sleeve and was just about to descend from the perilously tree branch when he heard many raised voices.
He dropped on to his knees and looked through the moonlit foliage at the scene which was unfolding in the camp. The entire camp raced to where the noise was coming from as Iron Eyes silently watched.
The hunting party had returned. Other braves ran to their aid and helped support the wounded as the three young warriors fell on to their knees and accepted wooden cups of water.
With the agility of a big cat, Iron Eyes moved across the camp by the trees and then carefully climbed down to a lower branch so that he might overhear their words.
Iron Eyes remained unseen and studied the hundreds of Indians as they gathered around the three exhausted warriors who had just returned. He had learned their unique language long ago when he had first started to enter their camp to steal from them.
Iron Eyes listened intently as all three warriors embellished the story of their bloody encounter with him. A wry smile lit up his face as he slumped against the trunk of the tree.
The only truths that he heard come from any of the trio’s mouths were those concerning his archery. Everything else was totally fabricated. The descriptions of Iron Eyes made it sound as if they had encountered a monster of some sort and waged a valiant battle with the creature.
To the Indians that listened intently to every word the three warriors uttered, all of the stories they had heard concerning the strange evil shadow spirit were true.
Iron Eyes frowned in utter confusion.
He knew nothing of lies or exaggeration.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
There were at least a hundred massively built lumberjacks gathered in the middle of Silver Creek as Hog Barker moved into the centre of the whiskey-soaked men. The logger had a sadistic grin on his bruised face as he pushed through the men as they lit their torches and started to wave them above their heads.
Barker clapped his hands together and then accepted a double-barrelled scattergun from Shake Norris. The evil hothead pushed two red cartridges into its chambers and then snapped it shut.
‘Are you ready, boys?’ he shouted above the din the mob was making. ‘Are you ready to get that stinking Injun Iron Eyes and his cronies?’
The mob roared and shook their torches in answer.
‘Who got the rope?’ Barker asked as his eyes darted across the faces of the vengeful loggers.
‘I got me a rope, Hog.’ A lumberjack moved forward and patted a coiled rope, which was looped over his shoulder.
‘Have y’all got guns?’ Barker yelled out again.
Once again the mob growled in unison.
‘Have you critters got knives?’ Barker bellowed to the excited men who faced him. ‘We gotta have knives so we can skin that varmint after we stretch his scrawny neck.’
The street echoed with laughter as the majority of the burly loggers echoed Barker’s words. One after another knives of various sizes were drawn from the lumberjacks’ belts and scabbards and raised into the night air.
The honed steel caught the bright illumination of the long torch poles wrapped in blazing coal tar. Every blade glinted in the eerily lit street as nearly every one of the lumberjacks responded to Barker’s venomous ranting and displayed their knives.
Barker knew that he had achieved his goal. He had his fellow tree-fellers under his control. He continued to encourage the eager mob into hysterical chanting by shouting every vile and repugnant word in his vengeful mind.
They resembled a pack of hunting hounds with the scent of a fleeing fox in their nostrils. The crowd wanted blood. They wanted Iron Eyes’ blood because that was what Barker had instilled into their drunken minds.
Silver Creek resounded to the ever-increasing noise of the lumberjacks. The rest of the remote settlement remained off the streets for fear of falling victim to the mob’s unpredictable wrath. Barker moved in front of his motley assembly and waved his twin-barrelled shotgun above his head.
‘C’mon, boys,’ he yelled. A cruel sneer filled the rough features of Hog Barker. He swung around on his heels and started marching along the moonlit street and out of Silver Creek toward the ominously dark forest.
The intoxicated lumberjacks carried their flaming torches above their heads and marched behind Barker. The strange sight of the vast expanse of trees bathed in eerie moonlight drew them like moths to naked flames. The collective thuds of their heavy boots seemed to shake the very ground they trod across.
With every stride, Barker’s smile grew wider.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Like the gossamer wisps of a phantom, the athletic young hunter jumped from branch to branch unseen and unheard by anyone or anything. Iron Eyes moved through the campfire smoke above the tepees back to where he had detected the hidden ponies. As he reached a tall oak, he stopped his momentum and then dropped to the ground far below.
He landed inside the Indian camp.
Only the un-clea
red brush stood between the majority of the Indians and the young hunter. Iron Eyes ran his bony fingers through his long hair and pushed it off his face. He crouched and rested the fingers of one hand on the damp soil as his other hand hovered above the knife hilt in the neck of his boot.
For what felt like an eternity, Iron Eyes just rested where he had silently landed until he was sure that none of the Indians had detected his arrival in the camp.
He squinted into the blackness and caught a satisfying brief glimpse of the horses as the small herd milled around beyond the tepees.
Slowly he rose up to his full imposing height as his narrowed eyes stared through the branches at the excited Indians two hundred yards from where he stood. None of them were concerned about anything other than their returning heroes as they flocked around the exhausted warriors.
Iron Eyes clenched his fists angrily as he recalled the words the warriors had uttered to the rest of the tribe. They had managed to make themselves sound more like heroes than what they truly were.
They were nothing but defeated, Iron Eyes thought as he watched the distant proceedings with an icy stare. Then as one of the ponies snorted, his attention returned to why he had dared enter the Indian encampment.
Iron Eyes pulled one of his recently acquired six-shooters from his belt and held its wooden grip firmly in his hand. He moved silently through the undergrowth toward the tepees between the ponies and himself. The sleeping Indian who it seemed was meant to guard the horses, had not moved an inch from where he sat.
Without pausing for even a heartbeat, Iron Eyes stepped up beside the Indian and then smashed the gun barrel across the top of the brave’s scalp. As the Indian fell on to his side, blood ran freely from the savage wound.
Iron Eyes glanced over his shoulder and then wiped the hot sticky gore from the gun on to his shirt tail. He pushed the gun back into his pants next to the other and then carefully stepped over the body.
His skeletal hand pushed the branches apart, allowing a narrow gap for him to slide his slender frame through. He had only just entered the enclosure where the ponies were gathered when he heard an unfamiliar noise coming from over his left shoulder.