by Rory Black
Fontaine could not disguise his horror as he stepped down on to the ground and tried to understand what had occurred. He had given orders for his men to stop the bounty hunter from entering the bank and getting his reward money. There should have been only one body lying on the sand. It should have been Iron Eyes’ carcass attracting flies in the hot mid-morning sun, not so many of his hired guns.
The pale face of the bank-manager stared out from in front of the solid building where Fontaine kept all his money. The man looked in shock and seemed unable to know what to do. He was shaking as he walked towards Fontaine.
‘Sh . . . should I open up the bank, sir?’ the banker asked.
‘That’s what I pay you to do, Sloane,’ Fontaine said. His hands waved the terrified employee away. ‘Open up and do your job!’
The man scurried away.
Again Fontaine looked at his rotting hired guns. So many men that it chilled him. He bit his lower lip and tried to hide his revulsion as he watched Frank Riley, Keno and a few of his surviving men approaching him.
He turned and looked at the twisted pile of wood which cluttered the front of the saloon.
‘Did ya get Iron Eyes, Riley?’ Fontaine asked as the men reached the buggy. ‘Tell me that he’s lying over there with them bodies!’
‘He got away!’ Riley managed to say. ‘That critter just ain’t human like us, boss! We had him cornered and he just up and vanished!’
‘What?’ Fontaine gasped. ‘Do you say that Iron Eyes got away? He escaped? How?’
‘Yep, boss.’ Riley nodded. ‘He just disappeared.’
‘Like a damned ghost!’ Keno added. ‘They say that he ain’t no living man, don’t they? I reckon it’s true. He’s a ghost!’
Fontaine rolled his eyes and started to walk slowly towards the saloon.
‘Ghosts don’t kill folks, Keno! Iron Eyes might be many things but he ain’t no ghost!’
‘But he vanished, boss.’ Riley pushed his hat back off his furrowed brow as he trailed the tall, handsome Fontaine. ‘We searched everywhere for him and didn’t find no trace of the varmint.’
The businessman sighed loudly and pointed at the bodies.
‘How many of our men did he kill?’
‘Twenty-three,’ Riley replied quietly.
Fontaine shook his head. ‘Twenty-three? That bag of bones killed twenty-three of the best guns in the territory?’
‘We killed his horse!’ Keno pointed at the body of Iron Eyes’ mount.
‘Damn shame that Iron Eyes wasn’t sitting on the animal when you shot the worthless nag, ain’t it?’ Fontaine screamed. ‘You might have accidentally managed to shoot him as well!’
The gunslingers walking beside the businessman went silent as they drew closer to the Spinning Wheel. They trailed Fontaine as he walked up to the front of the saloon and paused before the wreckage of the balcony strewn the length of the building.
The town was now awake and the street was filled with curious onlookers. This was the first time that any of the honest hard-working residents of Hope had seen Fontaine’s grip on power challenged.
‘Get them nosy bastards off the boardwalks, Riley!’ Fontaine ordered his men. ‘I don’t want to have them gloating at my expense.’
Riley ushered his remaining men towards the crowd of interested townsfolk and started to force them off the streets and into the buildings, where their muted laughter might not reach Fontaine’s ears.
Fontaine stepped cautiously up on to the loose planks of wood piled up outside the Spinning Wheels entrance and studied them carefully. Then he saw something which drew his attention. He bent down and touched one of the planks. A smiled etched his face.
‘What ya found there, boss?’ Keno asked as he rested a boot on the edge of the boardwalk.
Fontaine straightened up and showed the tips of his fingers to the gunman.
‘Look at it, Keno! Look at it! What do you see?’
‘Blood?’ Keno answered.
‘Exactly!’ Fontaine smiled. ‘Blood! Ghosts don’t bleed, do they? One of you useless bastards managed to hit his target!’
The rest of the gunmen gathered around their boss and stared at his crimson fingertips.
‘This is the blood of Iron Eyes!’ Fontaine announced. ‘The blood of Iron Eyes!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Blood covered the earthen floor where the wounded Iron Eyes had spent the previous hour. The bartender’s humble shack was less than twelve feet square and had more holes in its roof than there were in the tails of Iron Eyes’ coat. It had a small stove set in the corner with a stack which went up through the roof. The bounty hunter had spent every second he had been inside the shack feeding the stove with kindling until its blackened belly was red-hot. The stove’s heat was unwelcome during the hottest part of the day but Iron Eyes knew it was necessary. The wounded man had lost too much blood and he had to stop the bleeding leg-wound quickly.
Iron Eyes stared at the fire and the poker which was buried in its flames. The metal rod glowed like a branding-iron.
It was ready.
He had already dosed a whole bottle of iodine on to the deep bloody gash in his thigh through the hole he had ripped in his pants’ leg. It had stung like a million hornet stings, but Iron Eyes knew there was a far worse pain to come. One that he had experienced many times before during his violent lifetime.
Iron Eyes removed his twisted cigar butt from his teeth and threw it into the flames. He then replaced it with one of his bullets. He gripped the brass casing firmly with his sharp teeth and then wrapped sacking around his right hand to protect it from the heat of the smoking poker.
Iron Eyes cautiously gripped the end of the poker and then withdrew its length from the stove’s open door.
The tip of the poker was glowing red-hot.
Without a second’s hesitation Iron Eyes pressed it against the bleeding gash in his leg. It hissed like a viper. Smoke rose up into the air. The smell of burning flesh filled his flared nostrils. He bit down on the bullet with all his might and reeled away from the stove.
Pain ripped through his entire body.
The bounty hunter dropped the poker and staggered to the bed set against the opposite wall. His lean body fell on to its sheets.
Iron Eyes inhaled through his nostrils and rocked back and forth until he no longer felt the urge to scream out. He was still aware that the shack’s walls were too thick for him to draw the attention of anyone that might be hunting him.
His heart pounded inside his chest like an Apache war drum as he fought the agonizing torture that he had inflicted upon himself.
He spat the bullet at the dirt floor.
Iron Eyes had lost a lot of blood yet somehow he had managed to retain consciousness. He forced himself to rise until he was upright and sitting with his long legs draped over the edge of the bed. He stared at his smouldering flesh visible through the torn hole in his pants’ leg.
His skin had been crudely melted.
But the bleeding had stopped.
The weary bounty hunter gazed at the small solitary window covered in shredded sackcloth. Sunlight filtered through it into the shack. The day was still young but he was once again unable to do anything except wait for his strength to return. He knew that he was in trouble.
Big trouble.
Iron Eyes dragged the bottle of whiskey off the floor and lifted its neck to his lips. He did not lower it until he had consumed its entire contents. Then he dropped it on to the earth at his feet.
His fingers found one of the cigars that Ted Cooper had given him. He placed it between his teeth. He chewed on its end and tried to control his breathing as his heart began to slow down to somewhere close to normal.
The cuts on his face had already scabbed and the dried blood felt like a mask covering his flesh. Sweat dripped from the limp strands of hair which hung before his unblinking eyes.
He rested his back against the wooden wall and stared at the still-smoking poker resting on the
dirt floor where he had dropped it. He pulled both his guns from his coat pockets, cocked their hammers and set them to either side of him a few inches from his hands. It was a ritual he had practised countless times before in divers places.
His Navy Colts were always within reach of his bony fingers, even when he slept.
Any onlooker would have found it impossible to tell whether he was asleep or awake because the infamous bounty hunter never closed his bullet-coloured eyes. He just remained perfectly still propped against the wall.
He would remain motionless until his honed instincts warned him that someone was close.
Only then would Iron Eyes move again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was a shuffling noise outside the shack which alerted Iron Eyes that someone was close and getting closer. Within a split second his bony hands had grabbed at both the matched pair of guns and drawn them on to his lap. His eyes darted to the door and stared. It was the stare an eagle would use when watching its grounded prey from a high thermal. It was focused and as sharp as a straight razor.
The sound grew closer.
It was that of feet.
Someone was coming towards the shack.
Iron Eyes went to move but agonizing pain tore through his weary body like the blade of a Bowie knife. He fell backwards until his spine was once more resting against the wooden wall of the shack. The bounty hunter felt helpless. He glanced at the Navy Colts in his hands. The last thing he ought to do was fire his guns. That would bring what was left of Fontaine’s men down on him like vultures on a fresh carcass, he shrewdly thought.
If anyone were to enter the shack, the sensible thing he should do was dispose of the critter quietly. Either with the grip of one of his guns or anything else that was heavy enough to crush a skull.
Yet Iron Eyes was as stiff as a board and soaked in his own sweat. He was feverish. He only had the guns.
His mind raced.
Ted Cooper had told him that he finished work at the saloon at seven. The sun was still high outside the shack, its fiery light still visible through the sacking drapes. It was still only half-way through the afternoon, he calculated. No later than three or four. Whoever it was coming toward the shack, it was not the friendly bartender.
The feet were definitely getting closer.
Who was it?
Iron Eyes strained to hear.
His fevered mind knew that the footsteps were not that of a young person. They were the feet of someone either old or lame. They slid across the hard ground instead of lifting between steps. The bounty hunter gritted his teeth and felt the cigar fall from his mouth on to his shirt.
He had bitten right through it just as he had almost done with the bullet-casing earlier.
This was a new experience for Iron Eyes. He had never been unable to get to his feet before.
He did not like the experience.
Sweat dripped from his matted hair.
Iron Eyes tried to move again, and failed.
He was stiff. Every sinew in his lean body seemed to have locked up and refused to respond. His leg no longer hurt, yet he knew that it was the cause of all his problems. Maybe he had not managed to get all the glass out of the wound before he put the red-hot poker on to his torn flesh.
Could that have been why he was feverish?
Iron Eyes licked his dry lips and listened to the noise which grew louder to his trained hunting instincts. How many thousands of animals had he heard move towards him over the years as he lay in deadly wait?
Yet he had been agile then, unlike now.
Now he was stuck like a crippled deer caught in a trap.
Pain burned through him. It seemed to be moving around his body like a wave.
More sweat dripped from his head. He was confused. The last time he had felt this way he had been bitten by a rattler. The leg throbbed. He glanced at the wound. It was hideous. His only consolation was that the bleeding had stopped. His eyes glanced at the earthen floor. He knew that it had soaked up at least a quarter of his blood before he had managed to seal the deep wound.
The trapped man blew the long, wet hair off his face and continued to stare at the door. He raised both guns and trained them at the ill-fitting shack door. His hands started to shake as if unable to cope with the lightweight weapons in his grip.
Iron Eyes was even more confused.
What was happening to him?
His eyes darted down at the shaking guns in his hands.
What was happening to him? his brain asked again and again.
Then he heard a voice.
It was a woman’s voice. An old woman’s voice.
‘Teddy? Are ya in there, son?’
The door started to be pushed inward. Iron Eyes lowered the guns which had started to feel like lead weights. He rested them on his lap and waited.
‘Teddy? I seen the smoke. What ya doin’ home so early?’
She was tiny. Less than five feet in height. At least six inches less. Her frame was buckled as so may old women’s frames were when they reached a certain age. Her hair was white like snow and her face weathered by at least seventy years of existence. A shawl covered her shoulders and she carried a small basket in her left hand.
At first she did not seem to notice that the man on her son’s bed was not her son. She slid one foot ahead of another until she reached half-way into the shack. Then she stopped and looked at Iron Eyes.
The bounty hunter could see that the pupils of both her eyes were white. She was half-blind.
‘That ain’t you is it, Teddy?’ she asked feebly.
‘I’m his friend,’ Iron Eyes said in a low drawl.
Her head tilted. Iron Eyes could see that she was vainly straining to see who had spoken to her. Her feet shuffled a little as she tried to maintain her balance. It was like looking at a toddler who had just learned how to remain upright, he thought.
Life, if lived long enough, turns full circle.
‘Teddy never said that anyone was comin’ here, mister,’ she said before carefully making her way to the only chair in the small structure. ‘I thought that it was strange. Teddy never comes home early. Them folks who own the saloon keep him workin’ all hours for a pittance.’
‘Does Fontaine own the saloon?’ Iron Eyes asked.
‘Reckon so, young ‘un. He owns everythin’. Damn crook.’ She lowered her ancient frame down on to the chair and gave out a sigh of relief. ‘Who are ya, boy?’
‘My names Iron Eyes.’
‘Injun?’
‘Nope.’
‘Damn Injuns killed my brother.’ She sighed.
‘Folks around here don’t seem to like Fontaine, do they?’
She smiled. It was a beautiful smile. Her looks had long since faded into history and her teeth were worn down, but the bounty hunter could still see what she had once been. A spark still burned in her spirited frame.
‘Ain’t it no wonder? That man came in here and just took over. His sort always do. I’ve seen his kind many times over the years. They just come in and steal everythin’, Iron Eyes.’
Iron Eyes went to sit forward but pain forced him to remain exactly where he was. He gave out a gasp.
‘Ya hurt, ain’t ya?’ she said firmly.
‘Yep!’ Iron Eyes admitted. ‘I had me a run-in with a lot of Fontaine’s hired guns, ma’am.’
‘They shoot ya?’ She seemed concerned.
‘No, ma’am. But they sure tried.’
‘What’s wrong with ya then?’ Her head kept moving as her eyes vainly attempted to see.
‘I had to throw myself through a window.’ Iron Eyes sighed as he gently rubbed his leg. ‘It was closed at the time. I managed to get a chunk of the glass in my leg.’
‘Ya need a doctor?’
‘Nope. I tended myself, ma’am.’ Iron Eyes felt hot. Hotter than he should have felt. Sweat had soaked every stitch of his clothing. ‘I just got me a real strange feelin’. I’ve got a fever, I reckon. Must have bin the glass. Must have bi
n dirty or somethin’.’
The old woman rose carefully. She opened up the basket and looked inside it. She tutted and then squinted at him.
‘Ya needs mould,’ she said. ‘Mouldy cheese or bread or the likes. Mould can break a fever. Don’t know how or why, but it does.’
‘Mould? Ain’t that poison?’ the bounty hunter queried. ‘I don’t wanna eat nothin’ that’s poisonous, ma’am. Thanks all the same.’
She shuffled toward the door.
‘Don’t ya go arguin’ with old Bessie Cooper, boy. My ma always said that mould could break a fever. Ya don’t wanna go callin’ my ma a liar, do ya?’
‘I’m too tuckered to argue, ma’am.’
‘Good! I might be old but I can still look after myself!’ She muttered. ‘Stay there! I’ll make ya better!’
‘Where ya goin’?’ Iron Eyes asked.
‘To get some mouldy bread from my larder! she replied. ‘My shacks only a few yards from here! You stay put! Right! That’s an order!’
Iron Eyes watched as she went back out into the sunlight. He rested the back of his head against the wooden wall and exhaled.
‘OK, Bessie Cooper. I reckon you’d win if we tussled.’
CHAPTER NINE
The afternoon sun was falling across the fertile grassland range on its daily descent to signal to the multitude of creatures below its fiery orb that night was only an hour or so away. The swaying grass which belied the arid deserts that dominated most of the vast territory continued to feed the thousands of steers as it had done since the first pioneers discovered this Eden, in a territory that some claimed had been created by the Satan himself. Red sheets of cloud whispers hung across the blue sky as the blazing sun headed earthward the same way it had done since time began. The buildings of Hope seemed bathed in a crimson paint that only the devil would have chosen from his fiery palette.
The innocent men and women who lived within the boundaries of the sun-bleached town felt that it might be an omen. They had already seen the stranger battle against Brewster Fontaine’s men in deadly combat. For the first time they had witnessed someone actually getting the better of Fontaine’s army of hired gunmen.