by Rory Black
The bounty hunter reached down into his pockets and found enough bullets to reload his Navy Colts. He looked at the tunnel that Malverez had disappeared into and wondered where it led.
‘One of the varmints ran into there.’ He pointed. ‘Where do you figure it leads, Sheriff?’
‘Maybe nowhere. He could be hiding in there waiting for us to leave,’ Hardin suggested, placing a comforting arm around Rosie’s shoulder.
‘Or there could be a tunnel leading back up to the top of the falls, Sheriff,’ Iron Eyes said urgently.
‘That’s where them hombres left their horses,’ Tom Hardin agreed. ‘It would make sense for him to try and get back to their mounts.’
Iron Eyes tucked both his guns into his belt and started out of the cave.
‘Look after her, Sheriff.’
‘Where ya headed?’ Hardin asked.
‘After the bandit,’ he replied. ‘Stay here until I get back.’
Iron Eyes started out of the cave when the sound of Rosie Smith’s voice filled his ears.
‘I love you, Iron Eyes.’
The bounty hunter turned his head and looked back at her but did not reply. He had a bandit named Malverez to catch.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Black Ben Tucker nursed the deep gash in his side and helped the tall limping bounty hunter to the top of the narrow twisting trail. Iron Eyes held on to one of his trusty pistols and paused for breath as the wounded train-robber rested his back against a sturdy boulder. They had made their way up from the foot of the falls in good time, but it felt to the two injured men as if they had climbed a mountain.
Tucker panted heavily. ‘This is loco.’ ‘You think everything’s loco.’ Iron Eyes ran his fingers through his hair and tried to collect his thoughts. Even now the poison from the Apache arrow still haunted him.
‘You sure that there’s a tunnel leading up here, Iron Eyes?’ Tucker asked. Iron Eyes was squinting directly in the direction of the sun.
‘Nope,’ Iron Eyes replied honestly. He grabbed hold of the shorter man’s arm and pulled Tucker along after him. They were headed back towards the wagon and horses.
‘Then why are we in such a hurry?’
Iron Eyes shrugged.
‘’Cause if I am right and the bandit called Malverez has made his way up here, he’ll either run our horses off or just shoot them so that we can’t follow.’
‘You make it sound logical but I’m bushed and hurting.’
‘Hush up.’ Iron Eyes dragged his companion after him along the edge of the steep cliff towards where they had left their horses.
Black Ben trailed the long-legged man through the thick undergrowth and noticed that Iron Eyes was hardly limping any longer.
‘What the hell are you made of, Iron Eyes?’ Black Ben Tucker asked as they reached the clearing where the six bandit horses had been tethered.
Iron Eyes did not reply. He just forced the train-robber down on to his knees and cocked the hammer of his pistol. He knew that something was wrong.
‘What’s the matter, Iron Eyes?’ Tucker asked.
Iron Eyes remained standing. He placed his left hand on top of Black Ben’s Stetson and forced it down until he stopped talking.
‘Hush up,’ Iron Eyes ordered as he stood trying to work out where the bandit was.
Black Ben Tucker pushed his hat up off his head until he too could see the horses that were standing in a line fifty feet away from them.
‘Wait,’ Tucker said quietly as he counted the horses. ‘I thought that there were six horses there. Now there are only five.’
‘At least you can count. Stay there and cover me.’ Iron Eyes made his way forward with his gun held firmly in his hand.
The tall man edged his way deeper into the brush. He could smell the bandit was close. Just how close was something he would have to find out the hard way.
Then he heard it.
The sound of a gun hammer being primed into position.
Iron Eyes stopped walking and gazed into the thick green bushes which surrounded him completely. Malverez was nearby and waiting for even a half-chance at shooting the tall lean figure who had invaded his world and destroyed his well-laid plans. He wanted nothing more than to kill him.
Neither man would be satisfied with anything less than the total destruction of the other.
Iron Eyes pulled his other Navy Colt from his belt and cocked its hammer. His screwed-up eyes searched the area for even a hint of where Malverez was. He had hurt the young female down in the cave and that was something that could never be forgiven.
Now he had two guns ready and able to stop this evil creature from continuing his reign of terror.
He stepped forward slowly with his bony hands gripping his gun handles. He knew that Malverez was close enough to spit at and was holding his horse in check. But the nervous animal was breathing heavily, giving the hunter a direction in which to aim his pointed mule-ear boots.
Then he felt the venom of the lethal lead as it blasted at him. Branches were blown off the trees all around him but he did not pause even for a second.
Malverez had to be a lot more accurate than that if he wanted to stop Iron Eyes. For he now had the scent of his prey in his nostrils and nothing could stop him from continuing to hunt him down.
Nothing except death itself. But for the man who was like a living ghost, it was doubtful whether even death could stop him.
‘You better run away, gringo,’ Malverez’s voice called out from deep in the dense brush. ‘I will surely kill you if you do not.’
Iron Eyes heard the footsteps coming from behind him. To his sensitive ears, it sounded like an approaching carthorse. He knew that it was Black Ben Tucker.
‘You OK, Iron Eyes?’
‘I told you to stay where you were,’ Iron Eyes responded angrily.
‘You might need my help,’ Tucker said.
Iron Eyes shook his head.
‘I read your Wanted poster, Black Ben. It said that you were a real good train-robber but there was nothing about you being a good shot.’
‘There wasn’t? Hell!’ Black Ben looked almost hurt.
‘Are you?’ Iron Eyes gritted his teeth and studied the brush to their right. Even though it was only a hundred feet away, it was dried and withered. The spray of the waterfall did not seem to touch that place.
A place where the kindling was brittle and cracked beneath the feet of anyone who walked over it. The way that Malverez was doing right now.
Quickly Iron Eyes took three steps forward with Black Ben at his side. He fired both guns at once and then pulled back the hammers of his Navy Colts again and waited for the gun smoke to drift away from the clearing.
‘Who you shooting at?’ Black Ben asked.
Before Iron Eyes could answer the question he felt the heat of two more bullets cutting past him and then saw the train-robber being knocked off his feet. The sound of the gunfire echoed all around the tall bounty hunter.
Iron Eyes dropped down next to the man who had saved his life a mere dozen or so hours earlier. A man whom he had trailed with the intention of killing for the bounty on his head. A man whom he had grown to like.
The bounty hunter rammed one of his guns into his pocket and stared down at the large hole in the middle of the wide-eyed train robber.
Black Ben was finished and both men knew it.
‘You’re hurt bad, Black Ben.’
‘I figured that out myself, Iron Eyes.’
‘You didn’t answer my question, Black Ben.’
‘What question was that?’ Tucker tried to lift his head up from the grass but failed. He stared into the face of the man whom he had grown to respect.
‘Are you a good shot?’ Iron Eyes pulled the blood-soaked shirt-front over the gaping hole in the man’s midriff.
‘Nope.’ Tucker forced a smile. ‘Never could get the hang of hitting things with a gun.’
Iron Eyes patted the shoulder of the train-robber.
‘
Stay here. I’m gonna kill that bastard Malverez.’
Black Ben Tucker coughed and tasted the blood in his mouth. He watched Iron Eyes run back and untie the reins of one of the bandit horses. The bounty hunter sank his spurs into the unsuspecting mount and thundered straight at the dried-up thicket.
Both his guns were blasting.
‘I ain’t going nowhere,’ Tucker mumbled to himself.
Chapter Twenty-Three
As the wide-eyed horse crashed through the wall of dry branches, Iron Eyes hauled his reins up to his chest and stared angrily out at the white sand to the south. He could see the dust rising off the hoofs of the bandit leader’s mount as it sped deeper into the barren Mexican wasteland.
Without a second thought, the bounty hunter thrashed both sides of the horse with the ends of the long reins and forced the animal on.
Iron Eyes stood in the stirrups and thundered across the dried brush and out on to the sand at a pace that no other rider could have managed to urge from the bandit horse. His razor-sharp spurs jabbed deep into the flesh of the mount until it gathered pace and was racing at full speed.
With every stride that the horse beneath him made, Iron Eyes could see Malverez getting closer.
He was gaining on the bandit with every beat of his heart and knew that it was only a matter of time before he was within range. Malverez was going to have to pay dearly for the violation of Rosie Smith and the gunning down of Black Ben Tucker, he thought.
But unlike that of any of the other men he had hunted over the years, this was not going to be a swift neat killing that he would unleash.
Iron Eyes wanted to make this man suffer.
He would extract his own brand of justice slowly.
The horse galloped faster and faster after the fleeing Mexican bandit as if trying to get away from the vicious spurs of the determined bounty hunter.
Yet there was no escaping them.
Iron Eyes drove them deep into the animal, knowing that this was the only way he would ever catch up with Malverez.
As both riders climbed the soft sandy rise that led to the desert, Iron Eyes aimed and fired one of his Navy Colts.
Malverez’s horse collapsed suddenly, sending its rider flying over its head into the sand.
Iron Eyes continued to force his mount up the steep soft incline until he reached the grounded bandit. The bounty hunter aimed the nose of the skittish mount straight at Malverez as he tried desperately to rise to his feet. Iron Eyes pulled his left boot from its stirrup and leapt from his saddle on top of the stunned man.
Even Malverez had never seen such an unholy-looking adversary before. With his long black hair flowing behind the collar of his trail-coat and his bloodstained face with eyes the color of bullets, the bandit suddenly realized that this was one gringo he should never have encountered.
Iron Eyes felt the hot lead of the bandit’s pistol as it fired at him. The bullets had torn through the skin beneath his arm but that did not stop him. He crashed down on to the man heavily and smashed a fist into the unshaven jaw.
Malverez fell back into the soft white sand and tried to fire again. Iron Eyes squeezed the trigger of his right-hand Navy Colt and watched as half the bandit’s hand was blown off.
The desert was filled with the screams of the bandit as he vainly tried to reach his other gun with his left hand.
Once again, Iron Eyes blasted at the other hand with his trusty Colt. Fingers flew off in all directions as Malverez yelled out in agony.
Iron Eyes heard none of the pitiful pleas for mercy. There was no mercy in the soul of the bounty hunter as he felt his own blood trickling down from beneath his arm.
He was about to fire again when an arrow landed at his feet and made Iron Eyes look up towards the top of a nearby sandy dune a hundred yards away.
‘Ochawas!’ Iron Eyes gasped in horror as he looked across at the five remaining Apache braves whom he had encountered the previous day.
He had found out the hard way about their poisonous arrowheads and did not want to repeat what he had gone through when hit by one.
The Apaches were yelling out as they drove their painted ponies down the dune towards him.
With a last full-blooded kick of his boot into the face of the bandit, Iron Eyes turned and grabbed the reins and saddle horn of the horse and threw himself on to its back. Arrows flew over his head as the bounty hunter galloped back in the direction of the waterfall.
When he had covered a quarter of a mile, Iron Eyes turned his head and stared over his shoulder through the rising dust behind his horse. The Ochawas had found what was left of Malverez and were doing to him what Iron Eyes felt certain they would have done to him, if he had not driven his horse out of there at top speed.
Most men would have felt pity at the sight that he witnessed as he galloped away from the Apaches.
But Iron Eyes felt only anger.
He had been robbed of the chance to finish Malverez off and it riled him. He had been cheated of torturing the bandit the way that ruthless kidnapper had done to so many of his victims.
Iron Eyes had wanted to extract every ounce of the man’s blood from his worthless veins personally.
Yet as he rode the exhausted horse back into the brush at the top of the waterfall and saw Black Ben lying helplessly on the blood-soaked sand, Iron Eyes knew that the Ochawas were probably far better at inflicting death than he was himself.
He was used to killing swiftly and they had made an art of doing the exact opposite.
Dismounting, Iron Eyes rushed to the side of Tucker and knelt down.
‘I got the varmint, Black Ben.’
Iron Eyes suddenly realized that Black Ben Tucker could not hear him. He was quite dead and yet the face still had a hint of the roguish smile that had endeared him to Iron Eyes. The thin bony fingers of the bounty hunter closed the lifeless eyes and he sighed heavily.
Why had Black Ben saved the life of a total stranger? Iron Eyes pondered.
Black Ben Tucker knew the answer, but he had taken it to his maker. It would remain a secret until their trails crossed again in wherever it is that train-robbers and bounty hunters go once death finally claims them.
He began to dig into the soft sand with his bare hands. Iron Eyes was going to bury the man whom he knew was worth two thousand dollars dead or alive.
This was one bounty he was not willing to collect.
Finale
Iron Eyes had felt certain that darkness was the best time to return the beautiful Rosie Smith to her father. The hours after sundown offered a little more privacy and dignity to one who had suffered so much at the hands of the men he had destroyed. There were no prying eyes peering through lace curtains or around corners to see her arriving back with her torn dress that was barely capable of concealing her blushes.
Iron Eyes had sent Sheriff Tom Hardin back to Cripple Creek a couple of hours earlier to tell Jed Smith that all was well.
With his dapple-gray tied to the tail-gate of the wagon, Iron Eyes had sat next to the beautiful female for hours as he steered the four-horse team back across the border towards her home town.
For hours she had sat next to him covered in the remains of her once-pristine dress and the heavy velvet drape. Mile after mile she had leaned into the shoulder of the man whom she felt so drawn to.
The man who, she knew, had saved her from a fate worse than death and possibly even death itself.
Rosie Smith had not stopped talking for even a fleeting moment of their long journey as she clung to his arm. Perhaps, he thought, she was in shock. Maybe she always talked to people this way, or was it because she actually believed that she did love the tall stranger?
Iron Eyes slapped the reins down on to the backs of the team of horses and steered them slowly and quietly into the boundaries of Cripple Creek.
He knew which of the small town’s streets were the least likely to be busy and guided the team down them. As they turned the last corner and headed into the street where her larg
e home was situated, Iron Eyes felt her gripping his hands and pulling back on the reins.
‘Stop, Iron Eyes,’ she said, with panic in her soft young voice. ‘We have to talk.’
Iron Eyes rested his right boot on the brake-pole and held the horses in check.
‘You ain’t stopped talking since we headed out for here, Miss Rosie,’ he told her.
‘We are only a short way from my home,’ Rosie said.
‘How do you know that?’ Iron Eyes felt her hand touching his face in the darkness and swallowed hard as her fingers traced his scarred features.
‘I can smell the honeysuckle,’ Rosie continued touching his face with her soft gentle fingers. He liked it. ‘You have been in many, many fights. I can feel all the scars that you have suffered over the years.’
Iron Eyes tried to pull her hands away from his face but she just hugged him around the neck instead and whispered into his ear.
‘I meant it, you know. I do love you. I have done since the moment we first met outside my home.’
Iron Eyes pulled her arms off him and looked hard into her face. He still found it hard to grasp that such beautiful eyes could not see.
‘You’re just grateful that I saved you, Miss Rosie.’
‘No, Iron Eyes. I really do love you.’
‘If n you could see what I look like, you’d not say that.’
She touched his face again.
‘Maybe I can see some things that folks with vision can’t see, Iron Eyes.’
He shook his head, released the brake-pole and encouraged the horses to continue down the dark, quiet street.
As the wagon pulled up outside the white picket-fence, Iron Eyes stopped it again and wrapped the long reins around the brake-pole. He climbed down and then used his long arms to reach up to her and pluck her from the passenger seat.
He held her in his arms and stared into her face for what felt like an eternity. Then he turned and walked through the open gateway and towards the front door of the large house. A mere two steps from the door, she buried her lips on his.
She kissed him with every ounce of the love she had proclaimed for the tall bounty hunter. He allowed her to do so and savored every moment until the door began to open. He had never been kissed by anyone before and doubted that it would ever happen again.