by Rory Black
Iron Eyes shook his head. He placed one of his guns on the bed and lifted up the pants.
‘Keep the change,’ he said.
The bartender moved to the door and then looked back at the figure. It seemed impossible that anyone could have such gruesome injuries and still be capable of functioning.
‘I got me a feeling that you ain’t an outlaw like the rest of the folks in Calico.’
Iron Eyes glanced at him. ‘Let’s keep that a secret, amigo. I’ve had me too many accidents in the past twenty-four hours.’
‘I ain’t no gossip, sir.’
The man closed the door and made his way along the corridor to the stairs. As he walked down the carpeted steps he heard the bolt being pushed back into place in room twelve.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Captain Wallis’s face went ashen as the deafening echoes eventually faded from Devil’s Pass. The seasoned officer had stopped his men when the first crescendo of explosions began echoing off the canyon walls.
He sat silently as Sergeant Hanks moved his sweating mount next to the tall charger.
‘Reckon that’s got anything to do with ya orders, sir?’ Hanks asked as he steadied his nervous horse and thought about the secret papers he had been allowed to read hours earlier. Papers that ordered them to investigate the goings-on within the Indian Territory.
Wallis looked across at the brooding trooper. Hanks’ face reflected the same concern that was etched on the eighty other cavalrymen.
‘That sounded as if it came from the territories to me,’ the captain said. ‘What do you think, Hanks?’
Hanks nodded. ‘Reckon ya right.’
The captain’s attention was drawn to Billy Bodine, who had reached their ranks hours earlier with his tall story about Apaches waiting to ambush them. Wallis had thought then that the young trooper had simply had too much sun the previous day and then allowed his vivid imagination to run unchecked. Now with the violent explosions still ringing in his ears, he was not so sure that Bodine was imagining things.
He was simply misinterpreting them.
‘Come here, Billy,’ Wallis called out.
Bodine spurred his quarter horse to the side of the captain and Hanks.
‘Yes, Captain?’
‘How far are we from the narrow side-canyon that you said had two sets of horse tracks?’ Wallis asked.
Bodine smiled. At last the man was starting to believe him.
‘It’s hard to tell in daylight, but as best as I can figure, it can only be another mile or so.’
Hanks looked at the thoughtful officer.
‘You don’t believe the garbage that young Billy here was spouting earlier, do ya?’
Wallis looked at the shimmering trail ahead of them. They were now right in the heart of Devil’s Pass.
‘I never doubted that Billy saw tracks, but I got me an idea that he just didn’t know what they meant.’
Billy leaned forward in his saddle.
‘What is our mission, Captain?’
Wallis glanced at Hanks and then returned his attention to the youthful trooper.
‘I’ll tell you, Billy,’ he began. ‘There are rumors that the Indian Territory has been taken over by outlaws. That’s why we’ve been getting news at Fort Dixon of various bands of Indians roaming around outside their designated land.’
Hanks looked at the younger rider.
‘Our mission is to go into the Indian land and see for ourselves what’s happening.’
Bodine swallowed hard.
‘Ride into Indian land?’
Wallis smiled. ‘That’s about it. Lead the way to that canyon you found the tracks in, Billy.’
Reluctantly, the trooper spurred his chestnut mount on. The captain waved his arm and the platoon started on after the quarter horse.
Hanks scratched his side-whiskers.
‘Do ya think this is a real smart thing for us to be doing, sir?’
‘Orders don’t have to be smart,’ the captain answered, ‘they have to be obeyed.’
Hanks sighed heavily. ‘Which do ya reckon is worse, sir, outlaws or Indians?’
Wallis looked at Hanks.
‘I was just wondering that myself.’
‘That don’t settle me down none.’
Wallis allowed his charger to gather pace behind Bodine.
‘But ask yourself something, old friend. Do you think that Indians would or could have created that explosion we heard a while back?’
Sergeant Hanks allowed his horse to keep pace with his superior’s mount and thought about the question.
Hanks had no answer for it.
Blood ran down the steep incline towards the river which continued to flow swiftly beneath what was left of the bridge. The bullet-ridden bodies were littered over the high embankment and rail tracks next to the carriages behind the huge locomotive, which had come to an abrupt halt just before the destroyed bridge. Those who had managed to survive the bullets had been hacked to death.
The train had arrived at Honcho Wells on schedule. It had taken less than ten minutes for Big Jack Brady’s hired killers to storm its meager defenses and kill every man who tried vainly to protect its valuable cargo.
They were good at their job.
Their lethal gun-skills had been honed by anger and impatience while waiting in the blazing sun for hours. Yet the true fury was born long before in minds that saw nothing wrong with slaughtering anyone who defied them.
It was a madness that made them valuable to people like Big Jack Brady.
Brady had watched from the safe distance he had put between himself and the men who he knew would kill for the price of a bottle of whiskey, let alone an equal share of the profits with which he had tempted them.
His massive bulk shook with excitement as he listened to every unheeded scream.
The slaughter had gone on for far longer than it would have taken just to kill those who were hired to protect the army gold. The big man knew that once his handpicked team of murderers tasted the blood of their victims, they would not stop until every single living creature on the train had also been brutally killed.
It was a knowledge that he had kept from the dynamite man.
Harve Calhoon had said nothing as he watched and listened in horror from beside the wagon with Black Roy Hart and the excited Brady as the carnage was carried out above them.
The outlaw felt his stomach turn over when his ears picked up the unmistakable sound of women and children screaming in the carriages of the helpless train.
The gunshots ended all the pitiful pleas for mercy that drifted on the warm air towards them.
Every one of his misgivings about working for Brady had been realized. The outlaw felt sick, yet he knew that it would be suicidal to voice his objections. He had already done his job and was now expendable.
‘They done it, Harve,’ Brady said, gleefully clapping his hands together. ‘I told ya that them boys are the best there is in all of the badlands. They know how to kill.’
Calhoon had robbed many banks in his time but he had never been involved in anything like this.
It was like a nightmare.
‘I told ya that my boys are the best,’ Brady repeatedly boomed as his huge hand pointed at his men who were now throwing large metal strongboxes down into the valley.
Calhoon stood and rubbed the sweat off his mouth. His eyes saw Black Roy’s face. It bore the same fevered expression as was etched on that of Big Jack.
The grin seemed to go from ear to ear.
‘We had better take the wagon to the bottom of the slope, boys, and collect all them strongboxes,’ Big Jack Brady gushed eagerly. ‘I want that gold on the flatbed.’
Calhoon said nothing as he gathered up his reins and watched the huge man climbing up on to the driver’s seat of the wagon, next to Black Roy.
The smaller man lashed the long reins down hard on the backs of the four-horse team. He guided the wagon along the riverbank to where the strongboxes were piling up.
Harve Calhoon mounted and sat in his saddle, watching in disbelief. He wanted to ride away from this blood bath but knew he would not reach safety before a bullet found his back.
He teased his horse after the wagon and wondered if he would survive once Brady had realized that he no longer needed him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Iron Eyes had not lost any of his instincts over the years since he had stopped hunting animals and had transferred his lethal skills to tracking down men for the price upon their heads. He could wait. For as long as it took, he would wait.
For hunters had patience.
That was what made him the most dangerous of all the bounty hunters who roamed the West looking for the elusive outlaws who had managed to make themselves more valuable dead than alive.
Harve Calhoon had no idea what fate the rest of his gang had met at the hands of Iron Eyes at Waco. He would return to Calico unaware that the skeletal hands of the famed Iron Eyes would be aiming his deadly Navy Colts at him. There was still one creased and worn Wanted poster remaining in the deep bullet-filled pocket of the brand-new trail coat that had yet to be claimed.
Iron Eyes had not slept since realizing that he still had one of the notorious Calhoon gang left to kill.
The bounty hunter had not wasted a single minute of the long hot day. He knew that wherever Harve Calhoon and the rest of Brady’s gang had disappeared to, they would have eventually to return to Calico.
He had been standing on the boardwalk outside the Wayward Gun watching the sun slowly setting for more than two hours. If anyone in the busy outlaw town had recognized his brutalized features, they had kept it to themselves.
Iron Eyes stood like a statue in his new clothes, watching.
Watching and waiting.
The cold, calculating eyes blinked only occasionally as he stared out at the trail along which he knew his prey would come. He did not have to do anything except bide his time until the outlaw came into his web.
The sky above Calico went red as the sun fell beneath the horizon. Darkness was slow to envelop the township as Iron Eyes watched men moving along the streets, lighting the street-lanterns.
The boards behind the tall waiting figure creaked but Iron Eyes did not turn to look to see who it was. He knew it was the bartender returning to the Wayward Gun to start work again.
‘You still here?’ the man asked.
Iron Eyes grunted. He struck a match with his thumbnail, lifted it to the end of the long thin cigar and inhaled.
The bartender moved closer and stared at the pair of gun grips that poked out from just above the belt buckle. He had never before seen anyone use his pants rather than a gunbelt and holster to support his weapons.
‘How come you don’t use holsters, sir?’ the man asked respectfully.
Iron Eyes glanced down at the bartender. He could not understand why he seemed continually to hang around him.
‘I don’t need holsters,’ came the simple reply.
The bartender nodded. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Nope. Not yet’
The man looked at the trail road that led off to the distant Honcho Wells and then back at the bounty hunter.
‘Who are you waiting for?’
‘Harve Calhoon.’ Iron Eyes said the name as smoke drifted through his teeth.
‘But he’s in with Big Jack Brady and his men,’ the bartender warned him. ‘They’ll not give up one of their own without a fight.’
‘If they want to fight, I’ll oblige them.’
‘Who are you?’ the bartender asked quietly.
‘Reckon it’s best that you don’t know that, mister.’ The reply came quietly from Iron Eyes’ lips.
The bartender nodded and began to move away towards the saloon’s swing-doors. Then he paused and stared at the awesome figure who continued to focus on the trail as the evening grew darker and darker.
‘You gonna kill this Calhoon critter?’
Iron Eyes flicked the ash from his cigar. ‘Yep.’
The dozen riders surrounded the wagon when it rolled into the quiet streets of Calico. Harve Calhoon knew that he had to say nothing and simply go along with the brutal Brady if he were to have even half a chance of getting out of the badlands alive.
The street-lanterns flickered as Black Roy Hart hauled the wagon reins to his chest and then pushed the brake-pole on with his foot.
The men who stopped their horses all around the wagon wanted their share of the army gold payroll and it showed in their gruesome expressions.
Big Jack Brady carefully maneuvered his three hundred-pound bulk down from the driver’s seat of the wagon to the ground. He hauled the tarp back and stared at the eight strongboxes lying next to the remainder of the dynamite and fuses.
Even in the light which escaped from the large store windows on to the street, Calhoon could clearly see Brady drooling as if he were looking at one of the countless meals he must have consumed in his life.
Brady studied the padlock of the closest of the large metal boxes and then hauled one of his pistols from its holster. He aimed at the padlock and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet shattered the lock into a thousand fragments.
Brady rammed his gun back into its holster. He pulled up the steel flap of the box and lifted the heavy lid.
He had never seen so many freshly minted golden eagles in all his days. Drool dripped from his open mouth.
‘Look at it, boys. We struck pay dirt and no mistake.’
Harve Calhoon dismounted and led his horse to the closest hitching rail and wrapped the reins around it. He kept trying to tell himself that he was an outlaw and this was what his kind did, but it did not work.
However bad he thought he was, he was a saint in comparison to these men.
‘We sharing it out now?’ one of the riders asked in a voice that caused all the other horsemen to nod in agreement.
Brady lowered the lid of the strongbox and turned to face the riders who encircled him.
His eyes sought out the one who had asked the question.
‘Nope. We ain’t.’
The riders began to mutter amongst themselves as they eased their horses closer to the huge man.
‘We want our share now, Brady,’ shouted another of them.
Harve Calhoon stood beside his mount. He saw the figures coming out of the various buildings into the wide street. It was as if every outlaw in Calico could smell the gold within the boundaries of their town.
Big Jack waved a finger at the horsemen.
‘We can’t stay in Calico, boys. We have to hightail it out of here if we are gonna share out this loot.’
They did not seem to like the idea.
‘We want our share now, Big Jack.’
Brady felt the hair on the back of his fat neck tingle but he defied his own fears and stayed firmly planted to the spot.
‘The army will come swarming in here as soon as they discover the train, boys. We have to get out of the badlands and head south. Then we can split the money equally.’
The words did not seem to wash with the mounted gunmen.
‘Some folks might say that old Big Jack is trying to run a scam on us, boys,’ growled one of the riders. His fellow outlaws all grunted in agreement.
Big Jack Brady’s eyes searched the faces of the onlookers as his mind wondered where his personal bodyguards were. He had left them in Calico when he had headed to Honcho Wells with this bunch of killers. Now he needed them to back him up.
‘This is a mistake, boys.’ He tried to convince them. ‘Even Calico ain’t no protection should the army come looking for its money. Can’t you understand that?’
Suddenly the crowd made a unified gasp.
Brady and the riders all turned to face the crowd which had gathered outside the Wayward Gun saloon. Even in the lantern light, it was clear that a tall figure was moving down from the boardwalk.
Each of the outlaws around Brady turned his horse to square up to the tall, emaciat
ed figure before them.
‘You’re just like a bunch of hyenas fighting over a rotting carcass,’ Iron Eyes said loud enough for Brady and all of his followers to hear.
‘Who the hell is that?’ Brady asked. He stepped away from the wagon and rested his hands on the grips of his guns.
A mumble went through his hired riders until one name became clearly audible.
‘Iron Eyes!’ they all seemed to say at once.
‘Iron Eyes?’ Even Big Jack Brady had heard of the infamous bounty hunter.
The man who looked more dead than alive stepped out into the light that bathed the street and allowed them to study his hideous features in more detail. He rested his bony hands on his hips and lowered his head.
Iron Eyes stared through his long, limp hair at the men who faced him. It was a look that many men had seen just before he had killed them.
‘That’s right. I’m Iron Eyes.’
Brady defiantly took another step forward.
‘The stinking bounty hunter?’
A wry smile etched Iron Eyes’ scarred face.
‘Yep,’ he agreed.
Brady waved his left arm at his riders.
‘Kill him!’
The order was loud enough to echo off the wooden walls of every building in Calico. The men frantically reached for their guns.
Before the first outlaw’s finger had found its trigger, Iron Eyes had hauled both his Navy Colts from his belt and thrown himself sideways towards the line of horses tied up outside the saloon.
Bullets tore through the air towards the thin figure. Iron Eyes rolled over until he was on one knee. His deadly aim had not deserted him.
With every beat of his heart, Iron Eyes shot one outlaw after another off his horse as Black Roy jumped to the ground and Brady ducked behind the wagon.
A half-dozen bullets sprayed into the horse beside the kneeling bounty hunter. He heard a pitiful whinny and then had to dive backwards as the heavy creature landed heavily beside him.
Iron Eyes narrowed his icy stare and watched silently as the crowd disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Bullets were cutting across the warm night air in both directions as Iron Eyes crawled beneath the nearest boardwalk and hastily reloaded his guns.