by Rory Black
Suddenly a noise drew their attention to the balcony of the saloon. It was the sound of a window being opened up on the second floor. The hired guns watched silently as Iron Eyes stepped out on to its weathered balcony.
It was an awesome sight, which chilled even the most hardened of them. A unified gasp went through the hired gunmen.
Iron Eyes had both his Navy Colts gripped in his bony hands as he strode across to the wooden rails and gazed angrily down on them.
‘Look, Frank!’ one of the gunslingers shouted. ‘What in tarnation is that?’
‘That’s the critter we gotta stop gettin’ into the bank, ya dumb bastard!’ Riley felt his heart start pounding inside his chest. Few men could set eyes upon the gaunt bounty hunter’s scarred features without feeling totally horrified.
Iron Eyes moved behind the large wooden façade which had the name ‘Spinning Wheel Saloon’ painted upon it. He stood like a macabre statue watching the large group of men, his guns aimed down at them.
‘Ya lookin’ for me, ya fat fool?’ Iron Eyes asked from his lofty perch. ‘Ya still thinkin’ of tryin’ ya luck?’
Riley felt his mouth and throat drying.
‘Ya don’t scare me, ya freak! I’ve killed worse-lookin’ folks than you in my time!’
‘There ain’t nobody worse-lookin’ than me, ya liar!’ the bounty hunter drawled.
‘Ya better ride on out of Hope, Iron Eyes!’ Riley waved a hand at the man who looked down on them. ‘Ride out or we’ll kill ya for sure!’
‘Ya got a lot of guts when enough of ya gather together!’ the gaunt figure shouted down at Fontaine’s men. ‘It don’t bother me none though! I’ll kill ya all if’n that’s what it takes for me to get paid!’
Riley steadied his mount again. Unlike its master, it had horse sense and wanted to flee.
‘We bin ordered to make sure ya don’t get one red cent, Iron Eyes!’ Riley shouted. ‘It’d be best if ya just rode out of this town and kept on going until this territory is just a bad memory!’
‘Ya deaf or somethin’, Riley?’ Iron Eyes questioned. ‘I just told ya that I’ll kill ya all to get what I’m owed! That ain’t no threat, that’s what they call a prophecy!’
‘How ya gonna manage that, Iron Eyes?’ Riley laughed. ‘Ya only got twelve bullets in them guns! Can’t ya count? There gotta be sixty or more of us here! Fontaine got even more men around the range! Well?’
‘I count fifty-nine,’ the bounty hunter contradicted. ‘Don’t go frettin’ about how many bullets I got, Riley! My coat pockets are full of ammunition. I could put two shells in each of ya and still have a few left over for ya boss!’
Riley looked at the men behind him. The smiles had long gone from their troubled faces. They were starting to get nervous of the sheer arrogance of the bounty hunter. He gritted his teeth and yelled out loud.
‘We gonna let that scarecrow bad mouth us, boys? He ain’t nothin’ but a back-shooter! His breed don’t have a chance against real gunmen!’
The men gave a reasoned grunt. None of them was willing to let the rest see his fear. Riley turned back, gathered up his reins and smiled at the man who held both his Navy Colts at hip-level, with their barrels trained down at them.
‘Ya gonna die, bounty hunter!’ Riley laughed. ‘It’ll be slow and darn painful! Well?’
Iron Eyes did not move an inch.
‘I’m tryin’ to keep my temper, Riley! The law would be on my side if I killed you all just like I did Kane! Outlaws wanted dead or alive don’t deserve no favours from me!’
‘There ain’t no law in these parts!’ Riley snarled loudly. ‘Only gun law!’
Iron Eyes stroked the hammers of his guns with his thumbs.
‘That’s my favourite sort!’
Swiftly, Riley dismounted and led his horse through the gunslingers. As he reached the narrow alley at the side of the bank he shouted out:
‘Kill him, boys! Kill him! He wants to eat lead, so fill his worthless belly!’
Every finger squeezed a trigger. No thunderclap could have sounded louder as lethal lead exploded from the barrels of the gunslingers’ guns.
A dense choking cloud of gunsmoke filled the street and shielded all view of the tall, defiant bounty hunter. Iron Eyes had felt the heat of the first few bullets as they passed within inches of his lean frame. His long loose coat tails were lifted up as hot lead tore through the seasoned fabric.
He quickly stepped backwards.
Yet Iron Eyes did not return fire.
He knew Riley had been correct when he had said that his trusty guns only held twelve bullets between them. Iron Eyes knew that he had to ensure that he did not waste any of his precious ammunition. It took time to reload, and that time might be the difference between life and death.
The thin-framed man stooped and ran unseen to the end of the long balcony. He knelt, screwed up his eyes and aimed at the men who continued to fire their deafening volleys of bullets up at the saloon’s façade.
Then he started.
One by one he picked off the gunslingers. Each one of his bullets found its target. Gunmen spun on their boot-heels before crashing into the sand. Within seconds the ground was stained crimson.
It reminded the bounty hunter of days when he had witnessed the wholesale slaughter of the buffalo herds on the plains. The hunters would simply move downwind toward the grazing herds and then start to pick off the animals one by one. For some reason that Iron Eyes had never been able to fathom, the buffalo would see animals fall after being shot, but they remained grazing.
Just like the buffalo, the hired gunmen did not seem to grasp what was happening to them. With bodies falling, they continued to fire up to where they had last seen the bounty hunter. Not one of them realized that their chosen prey was no longer behind the saloon’s façade. They seemed incapable of understanding that Iron Eyes was picking them off from the corner of the balcony.
Perhaps it was because the street was filled with black acrid gunsmoke, which blinded the gunslingers’ view of their target. Maybe it was because their own weaponry was making such a deafening din that they could not hear that the shots were coming from a different direction.
Whatever the reason, Iron Eyes was not about to turn down a gift horse. He would continue picking off Fontaine’s small army with deadly accuracy. Yet with every squeeze of his triggers he kept seeing the images of the buffalo in his mind’s eye.
Unlike the rest of the gunmen gathered in the street, Riley had yet to use his own guns. He remained in the alley beside the bank and watched like a seasoned army general.
This was not the way it was meant to be. Riley glanced at the dozen or more bodies and tried to work out how one man could kill so many.
What he was witnessing confused him. With every beat of his black heart he was seeing one of his men drop lifelessly to the ground. He then realized that the shots that were felling his men were not coming from the façade. They were coming from the corner.
Riley ran to the opposite wall and frantically searched the balcony for Iron Eyes. It did not take long to spot the kneeling figure as he fired one gun after another.
Fontaine’s top gun dragged one of his .45s from its holster and cocked the hammer. He shouted a warning at his men, but none of them could hear anything above the sound of their blazing guns. Riley looked again at the bounty hunter with the smoking guns in his hands. Again Iron Eyes fired. Another of the gunslingers fell face first into the sand.
‘I’m gonna pluck ya like a Thanksgiving turkey, Iron Eyes!’ Riley spat. He raised his gun and aimed at the painfully thin target.
The gunslinger’s .45 unleashed its lead in a plume of smoke and red-hot flame. Riley fired again. He had not lived to his forty-second year for nothing. He was a good shot.
Riley dragged his other Colt and fired both weapons. He smiled in satisfaction as the wooden rails that Iron Eyes was kneeling behind shattered and blasted splinters into the bounty hunter’s face.
Iron Eye
s screwed up his eyes. No porcupine’s quills could have inflicted more blinding pain.
Riley’s next two shots came even closer to the determined bounty hunter. More hot slivers of wooden fragments hit Iron Eyes straight in the face when the hot lead smashed two more rails into mere matchsticks.
Iron Eyes fell backwards in agony and landed on his bony spine. The skin around his eyes was bleeding from the countless splinters embedded in his flesh.
He rolled over until he was on his knees. He dropped his weapons on to the boards of the balcony and feverishly tore the sharp wooden fragments from his face. Blood flowed like water over Iron Eyes’ hands and fingers as he tried to pull the slivers of wood from his flesh.
‘Now I’m damn angry, fat man!’ Iron Eyes snatched up his Navy Colts and rubbed the blood from his face across the back of his sleeve. He was looking through a swirling fog, trying desperately to see the gunman. At last his vision cleared enough for him to see Riley blasting both his guns at him from the side of the bank. Vainly Iron Eyes returned fire until the chambers of his trusty guns were empty.
Again Riley’s bullets forced the bounty hunter even further back from the edge of the balcony. Iron Eyes snarled as his fingers searched in his deep pockets for bullets to reload his guns. He scooped out a handful, dropped them on to the boards and shook the spent casings from the smoking weapons.
The blood on his fingers made the bullets slippery as he tried to push them into the smoking chambers. It felt like an eternity before he managed to achieve this simple goal. For the first time since the gunfight had started, the bounty hunter realized that he was cornered.
Iron Eyes snapped both chambers shut and pulled the hammers back with his thumbs.
Frank Riley ran to his men and pointed to where he knew the bounty hunter was trapped. Within a few seconds every one of the hired guns was firing up at the balcony.
Burning sawdust fell like a blizzard’s snow over the crouching figure as Iron Eyes’ mind raced. There had to be a way out of this fix, he told himself. If there was, Iron Eyes had yet to figure it.
All he could do was try and avoid the lethal volley of bullets that kept him pinned down. He looked through the wooden railings to where he had left his exhausted horse. The animal was still there but it was dead. Countless shots had torn chunks out of the horse’s flesh.
‘Keep shootin’! We got the critter stuck, boys!’ Riley shouted at the thirty or so remaining hired guns. ‘He can’t go no place from there!’
Another of the gunslingers who went by the name of Keno moved to Riley’s side and tugged at the man’s sleeve.
‘How we gonna get him down from there?’
‘I got me an idea, Keno!’ Riley said. He ran to his horse and dragged the rope from its saddle horn. Riley swiftly looped it over the horn and tightened it, then led his horse through his men to one of the balcony’s four supports. He wrapped the rope around the wooden pole several times, then tied a secure knot.
‘What ya doin’ that for, Frank?’ another of the gunslingers asked as he watched the top gun mount the nervous animal.
‘If’n Iron Eyes won’t come down,’ Riley answered, ‘I figured we ought to bring him down!’
As his men fired over the dead bodies of their fellow hired guns, Riley spurred hard and forced his mount to haul at the wooden support. The rope went taut and started to vibrate. Riley spurred and spurred. The wooden pole began to crack under the strain. Then it gave and was dragged away from the boardwalk. The gunman dismounted and untied the rope. Riley threw it to Keno who then looped it around the end upright, directly beneath the corner of the balcony. Riley leapt back on to his saddle and drove his spurs into his animal’s flanks.
The rope tightened once more as the horse pulled.
Iron Eyes realized what was happening and got to his feet. He started to run back towards the façade when he felt the boards beneath his boots move. The bounty hunter stopped and saw a gap appear between the saloon wall and the balcony. The entire length creaked and swayed.
Iron Eyes was still thirty feet from the open window that he had used to step out on to the balcony, but there were a few closed ones next to him.
The sound of lumber breaking under the strain of being pulled away from the wall was so loud that, for a brief moment, Iron Eyes had not been able to hear the guns below him. Nails flew like daggers in all directions. Iron Eyes tried to steady himself as the boards beneath his boots began to fall away. He could see the boardwalk through the gaps as planks fell to the ground.
There was no time to waste. Iron Eyes had to act and act fast.
As Riley’s horse eventually managed to drag the corner upright away, the bounty hunter leapt for the nearest window.
The guns in his outstretched hands shattered the panes as his thin body followed them through the window frame. Iron Eyes landed heavily in a bedroom amid a million slivers of glass. He steadied himself and then spotted a six-inch piece of broken glass sticking out of his leg. He pulled it out and tossed it aside.
With blood pouring from the jagged gash, he staggered to his feet and glanced out of the window just as the entire balcony disintegrated and collapsed. A cloud of dust billowed up from the street.
‘This is gettin’ darn painful!’ Iron Eyes snarled under his breath. He limped across the room, opened the door and then ignoring his own pain, rushed into the corridor.
The sound of gunfire was no quieter even in the centre of the building. Yet Iron Eyes ignored it and forged on. Somehow the bleeding figure moved like quicksilver along the carpeted corridor until he found the staircase which led down into the heart of the saloon.
He had left a trail of blood in his wake.
Iron Eyes walked down the dark stairwell and paused behind the door. He could still hear the shooting echoing inside the Spinning Wheel from the street. He pushed the door open with the barrels of his guns and narrowed his eyes.
The bartender was still hiding behind the mahogany bar counter. Except for him, the huge room was empty. Riley and his men were still firing their guns at shadows in the smoke and dust.
Iron Eyes walked from the door and behind the bar. He stopped above the shaking bartender.
‘Give me my bottle, Ted Cooper!’ Iron Eyes demanded.
Cooper did as commanded and gave the bottle of rye to the bleeding figure. He watched in stunned awe as the bounty hunter raised the whiskey above his head and poured its fiery contents over his face and then the wound in his leg.
‘That’s gotta hurt!’ Cooper exclaimed.
Iron Eyes nodded, then took a long swallow from the bottle’s neck. He exhaled heavily and placed the bottle down on the counter.
‘Got any cigars?’
The bartender raised both eyebrows and picked a box off the shelves next to him. He opened its lid and picked one out for the injured man beside him.
Iron Eyes accepted the cigar and bit off its tip. He placed it between his teeth and straightened up. His eyes were still not seeing clearly. He heard the match being struck and allowed the bartender to light his cigar for him.
‘Thanks, amigo!’ the bounty hunter said through a cloud of smoke.
‘What ya gonna do?’ Cooper asked.
‘Reckon I’m either gonna die or I might get lucky!’
Cooper stood up beside the taller man. He stared at the gruesome face, which had blood trailing from untold cuts around the eyes.
‘There’s too many of them!’ the bartender said firmly.
‘There usually are!’ Iron Eyes sighed as he sucked more smoke into his lungs. ‘They killed my horse! I’ve gotta stay here now and try and finish the rest of them critters off!’
‘I got me a horse out back, Iron Eyes!’ Cooper said. ‘You can have it if’n ya wants! Well?’
‘I ain’t the sort to hightail it!’ The bounty hunter’s bleeding eyes stared through the windows at the wreckage of the balcony, which was piled up high outside the front of the virtually empty saloon. He knew that he still had some tim
e left before any of his attackers would be able to get inside the Spinning Wheel, but he had to make a decision soon. Time was running out quickly.
‘Ya ain’t gotta chance against all of them boys!’ Cooper insisted. ‘They’re scum!’
Iron Eyes took another long swallow of the whiskey and then drew in smoke from the cigar. He flashed his eyes at the man beside him. A man who was showing concern.
‘Fontaine owes me a thousand bucks, Ted! I ain’t gonna ride out of this town without it!’
‘I’ve got a small shack on the outskirts of town,’ Cooper said. ‘You can hole up there until dark. There’s iodine and bandages there. You could fix up that leg. I finish work at seven tonight. I’ll come and let ya know what’s happening! What ya reckon?’
‘I ain’t sure why ya want to help me,’ Iron Eyes muttered in a low tone. ‘Most folks won’t come within spittin’ distance of me. How come ya want to help me?’
‘Maybe I’m just sick of Fontaine and his vermin.’ Cooper shrugged. ‘Ya might be an ugly critter but ya a damn sight more honest than them killers out there! Maybe you can bring some justice to Hope!’
Iron Eyes nodded and grabbed a handful of the cigars.
‘OK! What kinda horse ya got out back?’
‘He ain’t much to look at, Iron Eyes. Just an old chestnut with grey whiskers on his chin, but he can still gallop.’
Iron Eyes slid the bottle into one of his deep pockets.
‘OK!’
Cooper led the bleeding man out of the rear of the large building to the horse. He pointed to where his shack was situated at the town’s edge and told him to let the old horse take him there. It knew the route by heart.
Iron Eyes slapped the reins across the shoulders of the animal and hung on tight. Cooper had been correct. The chestnut could still gallop. It also knew the shortest way through the back lanes to the bartender’s small shack.
CHAPTER SIX
The sight which greeted Brewster Fontaine was not what he had either expected or could have imagined possible. This was carnage. He pulled back on his reins and stopped the buggy a few dozen yards away from the pile of blood-soaked bodies which blocked the main street. The sun had already started to do its worst and the stench of death filled the main street.