by Rory Black
Dust rose up from around the horse’s hoofs as Iron Eyes swung on his saddle, and looked behind them. The scarred horseman could not tell where the shooting was coming from. Another shot rang out but the before he could search for it, the skittish horse lifted off the ground and bucked. Its hind legs kicked out as it battled with its unseen attacker. Once again, Iron Eyes had to use every ounce of his dwindling strength to control the terrified animal as he fought with the bucking palomino. He grappled with his long leathers and eventually brought the snorting horse under control. Panting like an exhausted hound dog, the gaunt figure gritted his teeth and slapped the horse’s ears.
‘Will you quit trying to throw me, horse?’ he shouted. ‘I’m too tuckered for this kinda nonsense.’
The stallion settled and lowered its head as its master checked his lean frame for any hint of blood. He wondered if he might have been the target for somebody with his mind set on killing. His bony hands inspected every inch of his lean frame in search of a bullet hole and blood.
There was none.
‘At least we ain’t what that varmint’s shooting at, horse,’ he announced before drawing the reins close to his chest and slapping the stallion’s ears again. ‘Calm down. The last horse that bucked me like that got a bullet between his eyes. Don’t go pushing your luck, pretty boy. I still got me plenty of ammunition and I’m loco enough to use it.’
The powerful horse shied as if it understood every word its horrific master uttered.
Holding the golden stallion in check, Iron Eyes looked up at the long winding trail road and then at the trees, which the countless black birds had abandoned as the reverberations of the gunshots faded into the distance. The lethal bounty hunter could not understand where the gunfire had come from or who its intended target was but he had a good idea. Sally was out there somewhere and that troubled Iron Eyes.
He knew only too well that she drew men’s attention like flies to a dung heap. His little Squirrel was handsome in many men’s eyes and that was a recipe for trouble in the West. She was also a crack-shot with her Winchester. Whoever had fired the three shots was unknown, but the dishevelled horseman had a good idea.
Sally was either fending off unwanted advances, killing game for her next meal or being used for target practice by those who wanted to get their hands on her six-horse team and stagecoach.
Any of the theories could be the correct one, but that did not diminish the gut feeling that there was something even more troublesome out there amid the trees. A potential danger he had not yet considered.
The bounty hunter sat astride the tall palomino and awaited the next shot to ring out in the quiet wilderness. It did not come. He kept turning the horse as his narrowed eyes searched for a sign of where the shot had originated. Once again he was not granted resolution.
Iron Eyes needed a target to aim for. He just needed a clue that would betray where the shots had come from. His eyes hungered for a mere glimpse of a wisp of gunsmoke hanging on the air, but there was none. Whoever had fired those shots was far from where he sat with his hand resting upon the grip of his closest Navy Colt.
He patted the neck of the tall stallion. His attention was drawn along the rough trail road that had been carved out of the forest. ‘I got me a feeling in my craw that the shooting came from up there some place, horse. The same place that dumb-ass Squirrel is headed.’
Iron Eyes resolved that he would never see Sally or his one hundred golden eagles again unless he continued on into the depths of the unknown forested hills. He spat the chewed up remnant of the cigar at the ground and then wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve.
His mind raced as it was tormented by the thoughts that haunted him. Like so many others of his profession, the thought of losing the small fortune he had earned south of the border was too much to contemplate – yet it was something far more basic that kept had kept him following the fiery female. Something he would never admit to anyone, let alone himself.
Whatever he said, the truth was that he needed Sally far more than he needed the golden coins she had taken from him back in Mexico. Men of his profession could easily replace the money by killing another wanted outlaw and claiming the bounty upon their heads. It would have been impossible to replace Squirrel Sally and he knew it.
His bony hand reached back and pulled a whiskey bottle from his bags. His teeth gripped its cork and then extracted it before he spat it into the palm of his hand. He raised the bottle to his mutilated lips and drank as his thoughts dwelled upon the young female.
‘That gal is like a rash,’ he muttered as he allowed the whiskey to burn a trail down into his belly. ‘She just keeps on itching at you. Squirrel don’t let up.’
He returned the cork to the bottle neck and then slid the clear glass vessel back into his bags. He thought about how much money he had left and then checked the deep pockets of his trail coat. His spider-like fingers located a few silver coins amid the loose bullets.
His gruesome eyes stared at the coins, ‘Damn it all. There’s even less than I figured. I’d best catch up to that crazy minx damn fast. I ain’t got enough money left to buy me a box of cigars let alone fill my bags with whiskey. This is getting serious.’
For the first time the skeletal bounty hunter was forced to admit that he was running low on money and provisions. His icy stare narrowed on the trail road. He had to find Squirrel Sally and retrieve the bag of golden coins.
There was no alternative. Not unless he intended going without cigars and gut-burning whiskey. He rubbed his jaw and thought about the shots he had just heard and pondered the fact that they seemed to be far closer than they actually were. His brutal eyes darted at the trees that flanked both sides of the crude trail road. Sound travelled unheeded along the valley between the high trees, he reasoned.
There was nothing to stop any noise from moving with the stiff breeze between the avenue of high firs and oaks. He straightened up on the palomino and started to nod as his razor-sharp spurs jabbed into the flanks of the stallion.
‘Come on, horse,’ he hissed as the powerful mount started to walk between the wheel rim grooves. ‘We got us a real ornery little runt to catch.’
The horse started to trot.
‘We gotta catch that gal mighty quick. We need the money she stole. I’m running out of whiskey and cigars, horse,’ he snarled as his kept studying every shadow between the countless trees. ‘If we don’t rope Squirrel soon, we’re as good as dead. I don’t hanker to this place. It smells of death.’
His long hair flapped on his wide shoulders as the palomino gathered pace. Iron Eyes would have turned his large mount around and headed back to civilization had it not been for the hundred golden eagles Sally had taken.
Then another thought filled his weary mind.
What if it had been Squirrel Sally shooting at someone or something? She might be in trouble. She was a dead-shot just like him and usually hit what she was aiming at the first time. He had heard three shots being fired.
A bead of sweat trailed down his mutilated face.
‘Squirrel don’t waste lead,’ he reminded himself. ‘That could have bin her either shooting a critter for supper or putting an end to a varmint she took a dislike to.’
Iron Eyes jabbed his spurs into the flesh of the stallion. The high-shouldered horse started to canter as he raised his lean frame up and balanced in his stirrups.
He rubbed beads of sweat from his upper lip and whipped the palomino’s tail with his long leathers. The palomino started to gallop.
Within a mere heartbeat, the stallion was moving at pace along the wide trail road. As the horse quickened its speed, Iron Eyes glanced to both sides at the trees that flanked him.
The emaciated bounty hunter spat in anger and gripped the reins in his left hand whilst one of his Navy Colts filled the palm of the other. There still was no sign of anyone. A million thoughts raced through his mind as he glared from beneath the wide brim of the sombrero.
The stallion wa
s now a full gallop.
Yet Iron Eyes demanded the powerful horse go faster. In the darkest recess of his weary soul he sensed that Squirrel Sally was in trouble.
His thin frame leaned over the neck of the racing stallion and continued to drive his spurs into the palomino’s flanks.
The gaunt horseman knew that it was a race against time if his innards were right. The palomino stallion thundered along the trail road. It had never run as quickly before.
The bounty hunter was approaching a split in the trail road. It forked into two very different trails. One continued on up the tree covered mountain while the other disappeared down into a hollow. As he eased back on his reins and stared at the divided trail a series of shots rang out from the trees. This time they were closer.
Too close.
Iron Eyes felt the heat of the hot bullets as they passed within inches of him.
He dragged his long leathers to his left and spurred as he aimed the palomino at the lower road. The horse had only just managed to find its footing on the rough road when the bounty hunter felt his shoulder punched by one of the rifle bullets. He buckled but kept urging the stallion forward.
As the horse thundered down into the dense tree-lined hollow Iron Eyes glanced at his shoulder. The coat was ripped at the shoulder and droplets of blood were staining its fabric.
Iron Eyes slumped over the neck of his powerful horse and kept spurring. The bullets of unknown bushwhackers kept pace with his mount’s every stride. Dust was kicked up into the air all around the hoofs of the stallion as the unknown riflemen tried to finish off the legendary bounty hunter.
CHAPTER THREE
Danger was growing ever closer to the skeletal horseman as he whipped his charging palomino in a bid to escape the bushwhacker’s deadly bullets. Yet even wounded, Iron Eyes knew that no horse could ever outrun hot lead for long. Eventually his hidden foes would get him in their sights again and finish the job they had started.
Most men would have waited for that fateful bullet to end their misery, but Iron Eyes was not most men. For years he had ridden with impending death on his shoulder. It held no fear for the man considered already dead.
As the palomino stallion valiantly attempted to obey its master’s vicious spurs, Iron Eyes was totally unaware who his attackers were even though they shared the same dubious profession.
Nothing could have warned Iron Eyes that two men he had briefly encountered a week earlier in one of the many remote settlements dotted along the uncharted borders between the territories, had been lying in wait for him. The infamous bounty hunter, known to honest and dishonest men alike as Iron Eyes, would never have believed that men of his own bloody trade would knowingly attempt to slaughter him. Yet that was what they were trying to do.
Chet Simmons and his fellow bounty hunter Moses Carter had been drinking at the Silver Dollar Saloon when they spotted Iron Eyes as he purchased two bottles of rye whiskey before heading to the local hotel.
Although they had never met, there was no mistaking the ravaged figure of Iron Eyes. His description was vivid and both bounty hunters knew that no two men could look like he did. Although they had been across the saloon from Iron Eyes when he had purchased his daily ration of whiskey, Carter and Simmons suddenly realized who they were looking at.
Both men were correct in identifying the infamous bounty hunter but wrong about why he was in town. Neither realized that Iron Eyes was only trailing Squirrel Sally and not after the same outlaw bounties that they were hoping to get.
Simmons and Carter considered themselves his equal when in truth they were just pathetic copies. They were like so many others who plied their trade under the guise of acting for the general good. They killed because they enjoyed killing and savoured the rewards being bounty hunters brought them. The trouble was they considered Iron Eyes far too good a rival to tolerate.
It had been obvious to both the bounty hunters who the stranger was as soon as they had set eyes upon his horrific features. Only one man could look the way that Iron Eyes looked. They had heard that Iron Eyes face resembled a skull with skin stretched across its bony countenance. In reality it looked far worse.
Carter and Simmons had travelled fifty miles before arriving at Broken Spur in pursuit of the three wanted outlaws they intended claiming the bounty for.
To men like Simmons and Carter, seeing the notorious Iron Eyes was like a red rag to a bull. They had wrongly assumed that he was after the same outlaws as they were. Each knew that he was far more likely to catch the outlaws than they were.
That was something they could not allow to happen.
The numerous stories they had heard over the years of how others in their lethal trade had lost out to Iron Eyes’ superior hunting skills gnawed at their craws.
They had spent far too much money trailing the trio of wanted outlaws to see the reward money go to the gaunt Iron Eyes.
As the skeletal figure had left the saloon Moses Carter and Chet Simmons brooded and planned over a further bottle of amber liquor as to how they could prevent the famed Iron Eyes from once again beating his fellow bounty hunters to the hefty reward money.
There was only one certain way to prevent Iron Eyes and that was to kill him. Neither of the bounty hunters shied away from executing anybody and Iron Eyes was no exception.
Just seeing him in Broken Spur had alerted the pair to the fact that if he continued on up into the mountainous forest after the Denver gang, they would lose the $5,000 bounty for sure.
‘We gotta stop that bastard,’ Simmons had snarled.
Carter had nodded in agreement. ‘Yep, we gotta kill that critter before he catches up with Jody Denver and his boys and nabs them. Iron Eyes will steal that bounty from under our noses if we don’t stop him.’
The pair was in total agreement as they left the saloon and wandered across the street toward the high-sided livery stable. The two ruthless gunmen checked with the blacksmith that Iron Eyes had left his prized stallion for the night.
Simmons had realized that they could get well ahead of the emaciated Iron Eyes if they set out for the tree-covered hills while he slept in his hotel room. Once there, they could lie in wait and kill the unsuspecting Iron Eyes when he appeared the following morning. They intended cutting him down in a lethal crossfire and stomping what was left into the ground until he was virtually unrecognizable. After that they could set out after the valuable outlaws unhampered.
It had been a simple plan.
If Iron Eyes were not in their equation it might have worked like all the other times they had ambushed their unsuspecting prey. The trouble was that Iron Eyes did not die easy. His painfully lean frame had a knack of escaping the majority of bullets that were fired at it.
Both men paid the blacksmith what they owed and led their mounts out into the quiet street. With Broken Spur bathed in darkness, they had hauled their drunken frames on to their horses and started to head along the main street toward the forest.
Fuelled by whiskey fumes, they knew that if they did not stop Iron Eyes, he would hunt down their prey before they even realized it. They had spent far too much money and time in their hunt for the Denver boys to see it squandered.
This was one bounty they had determined would not end up in Iron Eyes’ pockets.
There was only one route up into the vast forest. A wide road carved out by loggers years earlier. Simmons and Carter agreed that Iron Eyes would have to take it.
As their mounts snorted beneath them, Carter and Simmons spurred and rode out of the remote settlement, they glanced at the hotel as they passed its wooden structure. One dimly lit lamp glowed behind the lace drape on the second floor.
‘Reckon he’s sleeping, Moses?’ Simmons grunted as they had headed toward the trees that dominated the territory.
‘I reckon so,’ Carter nodded. ‘It’ll be the last damn sleep he gets before we cut him down to size.’
The bounty hunters spurred.
CHAPTER FOUR
The pow
erful palomino had continued thundering along the sun baked trail road for more than ten minutes when it suddenly felt the weight fall from its high shoulders. Iron Eyes hit the ground hard as the whirlpool of sickening unconsciousness overwhelmed him. Yet unlike most normal men, the shock of hitting the solid ground woke him up. His eyes opened as he bounced over and over before finding his lean frame crashing into the brush.
Thorny bushes and tree trunks halted his progress after he hit the undergrowth. For a moment the bounty hunter just lay on his back and stared up at the dark branches that loomed over him. He blinked hard and then placed his bony hands on the treacherous ground. Thorns cut into the hands of his outstretched palms as he forced his emaciated body off the ground until he was in a sitting position.
As he stared through blurred eyes he could hear the sound of horses’ hoofs pounding as they approached. Iron Eyes grabbed at a vine and hauled his bruised body upright and then fell against a damp tree trunk.
His dazed mind seemed incapable of clearing. Every bone in his body hurt as his stick-like digits pressed into his throbbing temples. An entire tribe of hostile Apaches were hammering war drums inside his pounding skull. He swung around on his boot leather and rested his back against the tree as he tried to gather his wits together.
‘Wake up,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘This ain’t over. You gotta fight them bastards if’n you intend catching up with little Squirrel.’
He opened his eyes again and stared through the blurred swirls of dancing colours in a bid to regain his sight. The sound of the horses’ hoofs was getting louder.
Iron Eyes buried his face into his hands and rubbed his eye’s hard. He opened them and blinked several times. The waterfall cleared and he was able to focus. The palomino stallion was standing thirty feet from him. The tall animal was staring back at him.
The emaciated bounty hunter went to walk toward it when he glanced over his right shoulder. Iron Eyes stopped in his tracks as he saw the two riders.