by Rory Black
Issuing classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!
It was as if some invisible force had drawn the infamous bounty hunter Iron Eyes to the small border town of Rio Vista. Weighed down with saddlebags filled with a fortune in silver and gold coins, the rider no longer seemed to have any reason to exist, for the fortune had become a millstone around his neck.
Then a priest asked him if he would help people of a small Mexican village who had become prey to marauding bandits. It looked like a quick and certain way to die.
But Iron Eyes eagerly accepted the challenge and with newly found resolve headed south – straight into the jaws of an unknown enemy.
He had always lived by his gun, but this time he needed courage and cunning, too!
IRON EYES 3: THE SPURS OF IRON EYES
By Rory Black
First Published by Robert Hale Limited in 2001, under the title Spurs of the Spectre
Copyright © 2001 by Rory Black
Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: July 2013
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading the book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please.Cover image © 2013 by Westworld Designs
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Published by Arrangement with the Author.
To ‘Dusty’ Roy Rogers Jr.
Keeping the memory of his father alive
Prologue
Some people spend an entire lifetime seeking their fortune and forsake everything to achieve their goal. To most men, it would be a dream come true finding themselves suddenly rich.
Iron Eyes was not like most men.
What does a notorious bounty hunter do when he finds himself so wealthy he no longer has to pursue outlaws for the reward money on their heads? Where there is no longer a reason to dish out his own deadly version of justice?
Other men would soak up the trappings wealth would endow without a second thought.
Yet Iron Eyes was unlike other men.
Iron Eyes was no ordinary bounty hunter.
The hefty bag behind the cantle of his saddle was swollen with golden eagles and silver dollars but they had become a curse to the gaunt rider.
Without the scent of his prey in his nostrils, Iron Eyes had lost the only thing which he valued. His self-respect had been torn from his soul.
The thrill of the chase had gone.
Bearing down on the most dangerous vermin in the West had been his only reason to exist. He had never once been scared because only men who fear death understand fear. Iron Eyes lived a life which accepted it as inevitable. Death had ridden on his shoulder for most of his days, waiting to claim him as it had all those who had faced him.
Now only guilt filled his thoughts.
A hundred bottles of rotgut whiskey could not wash away the feelings which had haunted him since leaving Tombstone. He had become a mere shadow of his former self.
It was a weary Iron Eyes who wondered if he might ever find the answers he so desperately sought. Was this, quite literally, the end of the trail?
Chapter One
There had been a lot of towns since Tombstone. Each one no better or worse than the last. Finally, the infamous bounty hunter known simply as Iron Eyes was back in Texas. Even now, as he rode along the Mexican border, deeper and deeper into the arid wastelands he knew so well, he seemed unable to rekindle the inner flame which had once burned so ferociously. He had always been the hunter. Originally, his prey was the animals whose pelts brought him money from fur traders, then he had turned his skills upon the human vermin who were wanted dead or alive. He had always taken the first option and dispatched his lethal justice with the coldness only a true hunter could find within a heart devoid of any emotion. That had been before Tombstone and the bloodbath which had ensued and the thirty thousand in silver and gold he had earned protecting three miners and one strangely compelling creature named Squirrel Tooth Annie. Iron Eyes still could not understand why she had taken a fatal bullet, intended for him.
Iron Eyes had no reason to hunt any longer and it troubled him greatly. Without the hunting and the inevitable kill, he had no reason to exist.
Now, seven long months down the trail, over three-quarters of the money remained in his swollen saddlebags. Iron Eyes had ridden through dozens of towns and known a small fortune in reward had been there for someone to collect it. Yet he had no reason to draw his Navy Colts and lay his life on the line any longer. He had found himself in a situation most men would envy, but to the cold, emotionless bounty hunter, it was like a curse.
As the gaunt rider aimed the weathered gray gelding along the dusty ridge, he stared down at the dozen or so sun-bleached adobe buildings sitting alongside the wide shallow river. Pulling up his reins to stop the horse, he rested a hand upon the saddle cantle and sucked on a thin cigar thoughtfully. Smoke drifted through his sharp, razor-like teeth as he studied the scene carefully. A large church or chapel dominated the town as it stood, whitewashed and proud, at the end of the single street like a hen watching her chicks. A tall bell tower of Mexican design topped by red tiles seemed out of place here among the dry, less opulent structures. Casting his attention across at the wide river, the thin skeletal featured man nodded to himself knowingly. Mexico was a place he had ventured into many times when the scent of his chosen prey had thought the border would grant them security from his determination. How wrong they had all been.
That had been when he still had a purpose. When there had still been a job to do.
Iron Eyes watched the townspeople below him moving around from building to building, going about their daily chores and duties. It seemed a quiet place, far different to many of the towns he had ridden into in the past. Taking in a lungful of smoke he gripped the weed in his teeth before jabbing his large vicious spurs into the scarred animal’s flesh and steering it down toward the settlement.
The horse cantered more through fear than obedience as its master shook his long, limp, black hair loose from beneath the high collar of his long coat. Resting the palm of his right hand upon the grip of one of his lethal Navy Colts, he rode down to the bleak trail leading to the town limits. Iron Eyes had never been to this place before but he imagined they had heard of him, even here.
Bounty hunters of such notoriety seldom entered any town without someone knowing who they were. As he stood in his stirrups and screwed his eyes up against the sunlight, Iron Eyes noted this town was called Rio Vista boasting a population of one hundred and fifty-eight souls.
As was his usual routine, he rode slowly along the main street noting where the hotels, saloons and sheriff’s office were located. When satisfied, he aimed the bedraggled horse back towards the solitary hotel, a solid enough building with its name painted brightly across its whitewashed exterior.
The Rio Vista Hotel looked cleaner than most he had stayed in over the past few years, if its frontage was anything to go by, the tall rider thought, as he headed the animal slowly towards the hitching rail which ran above a large trough filled with clear water beside a large iron pump.
Even here people seemed to be aware this was no normal stranger who had ridden into their midst. This man was anything but normal. Sitting for a few moments in his saddle, Iron Eyes grimly surveyed the people who dared look at him. Their interest soon
evaporated when he dismounted slowly. Tying his reins securely to the long, bleached wooden pole, he watched the wretched animal drink as he looked around the long street.
Untying his saddlebags, the bounty hunter stepped up onto the boardwalk and cast his gaze up and down the street before entering the hotel. The interior of the hotel foyer seemed at least ten degrees cooler than outside in the blazing sun. It suited Iron Eyes, as he strode purposefully toward the small counter, his spurs jangling with each step.
A clerk of more than fifty years looked up from his newspaper and found himself gasping at the terrifying sight walking toward him. Iron Eyes moved like a puma, never wasting an ounce of energy in anything he did. The clerk had never seen anyone as tall or thin as this man was. He had never seen a man with hair quite so long or matted before. He had never seen a face so marked by life, so tortured by time.
He had never seen Iron Eyes until this moment. It was a vision which would never fade from the man’s memory, however long he lived. Nobody who ever set eyes upon the bounty hunter ever forgot him. He remained carved into their darkest nightmares.
Tossing a few silver dollars onto the desk, Iron Eyes paused.
‘Room.’
The clerk nodded nervously and placed a key onto the ledger.
‘Room forty-five. Would you care to sign the register?’
Iron Eyes picked up the key with his thin, bony hand and stared at it before looking down at the man. For a brief moment, the clerk could see the small bullet hole on the edge of the ear beneath the limp, black hair.
‘You sign it. My name’s Iron Eyes.’
The clerk dipped the pen into the inkwell and scribbled the name as his attention was drawn to the pair of Navy Colts tucked into the wide belt tied around the thin waist beneath the long coat. Two lethal guns which seemed to be waiting for action at the slightest provocation.
‘I hope you will enjoy your stay here, sir.’
‘If the room has a bed, I’ll be happy enough,’ Iron Eyes said, as he looked around the large foyer with more than a hint of interest etched across his face.
‘Shall I have someone take care of your horse?’ The clerk raised a trembling finger and pointed at the still drinking animal directly outside the hotel doorway.
The tall bounty hunter raised an eyebrow and looked at his exhausted mount with his usual lack of compassion.
‘If you like. I don’t give a damn.’
The clerk lowered his hand back onto the desk as he cleared his throat.
‘We do have a fine livery stable in Rio Vista, Mr. Iron Eyes. They will take good care of the animal for quite a reasonable price.’
‘I guess he could use a feed,’ Iron Eyes admitted, before reaching into his right pocket and fumbling around in the mixture of pistol and Winchester bullets until his long fingers located another couple of silver dollars. Placing them on the top of the open ledger, he nodded silently down at the man.
‘Thank you. I’ll take care of it personally,’ the small man said.
Iron Eyes grunted as he turned and walked toward the wide staircase and its threadbare carpeting before pausing and looking over his shoulder. His voice seemed sharp like a straight razor as it cut across the distance between them.
‘Bring me up a bottle of good whiskey and some hot vittles.’
‘Right away, Mr. Iron Eyes.’ The clerk felt the sweat flowing down from underneath his armpits while he watched the bounty hunter ascend the stairs silently.
For the first time in his entire life, he knew what it was like to stand face to face with death.
Chapter Two
Drinking alone in a hotel room had never been something the strange killing machine had cared for. Yet he had done it more times than he could recall clearly. After finishing off most of the contents of the whiskey bottle and his meal, Iron Eyes began to take an interest in the town outside the small sealed window which faced the front of the hotel. Resting a hand upon the wall, the cold, bullet-colored pupils glanced down upon the pair of bloodstained spurs resting over the back of the solitary hardback chair where he had placed the saddlebags. He moved around the small clean room like a caged beast. It was quieter out in the street now as the noonday sun blazed its fury down upon Rio Vista and the few citizens mad enough to venture out in its cruel brilliance.
Iron Eyes lowered down the drape by its pull cord and secured it around a nail driven into the window sill.
Sweat trickled down from his forehead and dripped off his smooth jaw line freely. Unlike most grown men, whiskers had never chosen to propagate over his scarred face. Some had suggested the infamous bounty hunter must be an Indian, but even he had no idea of what he truly was. If he were a white man, he was unlike any other in the West. He was an outcast.
Iron Eyes was one of a kind. A unique being who seemed to be destined never to fit in anywhere with anyone. There was no place for him. Perhaps this was why he had taken to killing so easily and so expertly.
The residents of Rio Vista, like most people in border towns, seemed to be an even mixture of Mexican and Texan by those he had observed from his high vantage point. Iron Eyes knew most Mexicans preferred to sleep during the sun’s highest point and spend the night enjoying themselves. Texans were a different breed altogether: they tended to work during the day, until the sun burned the skin off their backs, then spent the night sleeping.
Iron Eyes wondered which was the smartest way to live. Neither seemed to hold any clear advantage to a man who had seldom, if ever, experienced pleasure. Hard liquor had never managed to smooth away the blackness of his nature, however much of it he consumed. Most men who lived by the gun spent their free time and blood money seeking and finding women to satisfy their basic needs. Yet Iron Eyes had never done so. Females who plied their trade within saloons and dance halls never came close to men with his threatening appearance. Not that he had ever had any real desire for a woman to come too close anyway.
Iron Eyes sat down on the soft mattress and touched the sharp spurs resting upon the chair before him. Blood ran from his fingertips the way it always seeped from his horse’s flanks when he drove them on and on brutally. How many miles had he ridden in search of one wanted outlaw after another? Forcing his thin fingers through his long hair, he wondered why he had come to this place called Rio Vista. Since leaving Tombstone, he had travelled continuously south, as if drawn by an invisible power he neither knew or understood.
Why had he come here?
Was there a reason?
Lying back on the bed, he stared at the wall where his coat hung covered in the stains of a life devoted to slaughtering those wanted by the law. His saddlebags sat heavily on the small wooden chair taunting his every waking moment below the vicious spurs. Exhaling heavily, he pulled the two matched Navy Colt pistols from his broad belt and rested them at his sides and tried to sleep. The drawn drape failed to keep the brilliant sunlight out of the room which was beginning to annoy the cold-hearted bounty hunter, when the sound of knuckles on the room’s wooden door drew him into a sitting position.
‘Who is it?’ Iron Eyes growled, staring at the door handle, waiting for it to start turning.
‘Sheriff Bass,’ came the reply.
It ain’t locked, Sheriff.’ Iron Eyes glanced quickly down at his guns and then back up at the door as it began to slowly open inward.
‘I ain’t armed, Iron Eyes,’ the voice informed the watching man, as the door revealed the stout lawman.
Iron Eyes remained upon the bed as he saw the cautious man stepping into his room. When satisfied the sheriff was telling the truth, Iron Eyes lay back against the pillows.
‘I like you, Bass. You got brains.’
‘I guess that’s fine, Iron Eyes,’ Bass said, removing his hat and holding it across his ample belly. You also got a lot of guts to come visiting someone like me, Bass.’ Iron Eyes watched the man with his cold, hypnotic steel-colored pupils.
The sweating sheriff edged closer until he was at the foot of the bed lookin
g straight down at the man whose reputation he was intelligent enough to fear. Even with his Navy Colts lying to either side of his thin frame, it was evident to the lawman this was probably the most dangerous few moments of his entire life.
‘You in town for a reason, Iron Eyes?’
‘To rest.’
‘You ain’t hankering to kill nobody, are you?’ Bass tried to control his voice, as he felt every sinew in his body shaking in terror.
Iron Eyes pulled a long thin cigar from off the small table next to him and placed it between his teeth before striking a match across his belt buckle.
‘I ain’t hunting no bounty in Rio Vista, Bass.’
The sheriff watched, as Iron Eyes sucked in the smoke as the flickering flame of his match teased the end of the foul-smelling weed.
‘I find that hard to swallow. Men like you don’t just ride into a peaceful town to take in the scenery.’
Iron Eyes blew out the match and tossed it at his food tray before sucking the strong smoke into his emaciated body.
‘I’m telling the truth, Bass.’
The lawman nodded, the way all men nod when faced with a man known for his speed with his weaponry.
Then why come here?’
‘I ain’t intending settling down in Rio Vista, if that’s what you’re frightened about,’ Iron Eyes smiled, through a cloud of gray choking smoke.
‘When you riding out again?’ Bass blurted.
‘I can’t say for sure. When I’m ready, I’ll go.’ There was a coldness in Iron Eyes’ voice as he savored the flavor of his cigar.
The sheriff began to edge himself backward towards the door once again.
‘There are a lot of folks in town who might not believe you, Iron Eyes,’ he warned.
‘So?’
‘I don’t want no blood spilt in Rio Vista.’
‘Then tell them to keep their guns holstered and they’ll live long enough to see me riding out, Bass.’ Iron Eyes stared coldly at the rotund man before him making his way slowly to the door.