Iron Eyes 12 Page 4

  ‘What are you gonna tell me to do, Texas Jack?’ Fargo looked even more confused.

  ‘What do I normally tell you to do, Fargo?’ Kelly pulled out his golden pocket watch and flipped its gleaming lid open. He nodded to himself, then returned the timepiece to his hand-tailored silk vest pocket. ‘Tell me, what is it that you do better than anyone else?’

  A smile came to the gunslinger’s face. He nodded and then drew both his guns faster than most men could even blink. ‘You want me to kill that thief?’

  Kelly did not answer. His calculating eyes simply watched the expert killer twirl both weapons on his index fingers before slipping the matched pair of .45s back into their holsters.

  There was no expression upon the gambler’s face as he chewed the end of his cigar. After a slight nod, Texas Jack patted the side of the gunslinger’s unshaven face, then turned on his heels and headed towards his gleaming gambling-palace and the rest of his hired men.

  ‘C’mon! Let’s get us some whiskey down our necks, boys,’ he boomed. ‘We got us a busy night ahead of us and I for one ain’t gonna face it sober!’

  Fargo paused on the boardwalk outside the gambling-house and again looked along Main Street at the outlaw’s horse. He grinned wide, then trailed the rest of the men into the building.

  Chapter Six

  SUNDOWN CAME QUICKLY in the blistering desert. As the fiery orb began its inevitable journey into night the sky suddenly turned the color of fresh blood. No man-made inferno could have created such an awesome sight as a sky apparently on fire above the oasis and the solitary, brutally wounded rider who had at last managed to reach Desert Springs. Sheer willpower was the only thing that kept the horseman astride the tall muscular stallion as he steered it determinedly ever onward towards the place where he would reluctantly seek the help of other men. Iron Eyes inhaled the scent of civilization and did not like its fragrance. His blood-covered hands fumbled for a cigar which was not covered in his own gore. He found one and forced it between his cracked lips, then ran a thumbnail across a match. He inhaled the smoke but it did not ease the pain. The bounty hunter knew that death was now riding on his shoulder. It had been a constant companion throughout his entire life but now he actually seemed to be hearing its mocking voice.

  ‘You’re mine, Iron Eyes,’ it seemed to say. ‘I’ve got you this time. There’s no escape from your destiny.’

  Iron Eyes sucked hard on the twisted black weed, then screwed up his eyes and stared ahead. There were many people in this strange place, he told himself. He then saw a wooden marker to his right and focused upon it.

  ‘Desert Springs,’ he read.

  The palomino walked steadily past the first building and Iron Eyes saw the reaction of people on its boardwalk. They all raised their hands. Some to shield their eyes from the setting sun, so as to get a better view of the horrific vision. Others simply covered their mouths to muffle their terrified groans.

  Iron Eyes rode on.

  Now, hours since the last of the infamous Brewster clan had ridden into Desert Springs, the marshal and his deputy had returned to the small Main Street cafe to partake of another hot meal. A meal which would enable them to work to the early hours of the following day. But if anything was guaranteed to spoil the appetite of even the heartiest of men it was the sight of Iron Eyes as he came into view from the window of the cafe.

  It was a stunned Monte Bale who lowered his coffee cup when he saw the bloodcurdling vision astride the tall palomino riding down the center of Main Street. The marshal rose to his feet and wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin.

  ‘Good grief! What in tarnation is that?’ he muttered loud enough to draw the attention of all the other diners within the small room.

  An innocent smile etched the face of the deputy. He had never witnessed the expression now carved into the marshal’s face.

  ‘What’s wrong, Monte?’ Joshua asked as he slid the last slice of apple pie into his mouth and chewed. ‘You looks like you seen a ghost.’

  ‘Maybe I have.’ Bale pulled out a silver half-dollar and placed it down next to his plate. ‘Whatever that is he’s sure not like any man I ever seen before.’

  The seated Joshua continued to smile. ‘Are you joshing with me? What you talking about, Monte?’

  ‘That!’

  Hastily the deputy got to his feet, turned and looked out of the window to where his superior was staring in disbelief. When he too set eyes upon the bounty hunter he gasped.

  ‘Oh, deary me! What in the name of my aunt Bessie is that, Marshal?’

  ‘He got an arrow in him, whatever he is, Joshua.’ Bale picked up his hat from the chair next to him, placed it on his head and made his way to the door. ‘C’mon, boy!’

  ‘Sure is our day to have us some pitiful-looking folks visiting town, Monte,’ Joshua observed as he licked the plate and then left it. ‘They’re getting worse-looking, though, if he’s anything to go by.’

  ‘And both coming from the desert,’ Bale added, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘There’s only one reason for two men to come from the same direction.’ Joshua nodded firmly. ‘Sure is. Just one reason. Eh, what exactly would that reason be, Monte?’

  ‘One man has to be trailing the other,’ Bale answered.

  ‘That’s just what I thought,’ the deputy agreed.

  Both marshal and deputy stepped out beneath the porch overhang and paused for a few moments. They looked long and hard at the horseman who was swaying in the saddle as he got closer. There seemed to be no hint of life in the rider. The last rays of the sun highlighted the gore-covered figure and his magnificent mount.

  ‘Sweet Lord!’ Joshua swallowed and rubbed his mouth on his sleeve. ‘Is he alive, Monte? He sure looks deader than anything I ever seen.’

  ‘Well, Joshua, why don’t we go find out?’ Bale rested a hand on the grip of his holstered gun and with his deputy at his side began to make his way across the sand to where the stallion was headed. When he was directly in the horse’s path, Bale raised both arms to the handsome animal.

  To their mutual surprise, Iron Eyes tilted his head up slightly and then pulled back on his reins. The stallion snorted and stopped. The gruesome bounty hunter stared down at the men with stars pinned to their chests.

  ‘You got a sawbones in this town?’ the bounty hunter asked in a low drawl. ‘You might have noticed that I kinda need me some doctorin’, Marshal.’

  ‘Oh, we noticed OK.’ Joshua nodded. Bale looked at the savage bullet hole in the rider’s thigh and then turned his attention to the arrow buried deep in the shoulder of the horseman. The lawman walked around the stallion and winced when he saw the arrowhead of the vicious projectile protruding out of Iron Eyes’ back. Dried blood and flesh clung to the flint tip of the arrow.

  ‘Satisfied?’ Iron Eyes asked drily.

  ‘You must have met up with some Apaches, stranger,’ Bale remarked as he reached the head of the stallion once more.

  ‘Yep!’ Iron Eyes nodded.

  ‘I thought that all the Indians in these parts were friendly,’ Bale added.

  A smile flashed across Iron Eyes’ twisted features. ‘They probably are except when they meets up with the likes of me. Marshal. I tend to bring out the bad in most folks. Indians don’t cotton to me. Never have.’

  ‘Why?’

  Iron Eyes rubbed his fevered brow. ‘Coz I’m Iron Eyes!’

  The deputy edged closer to Bale’s side. His eyes were wide and his mouth open.

  ‘Glory be! He’s alive! I read that he was dead a couple of years back, Monte.’ Bale gritted his teeth. ‘Are you really Iron Eyes?’

  ‘What else would I be?’ Iron Eyes gestured to his face and its hideous scars. ‘You ever heard of another critter who looks even a little like I do, Marshal?’

  ‘Nope,’ Bale admitted.

  Iron Eyes tilted his head backwards again. He inhaled deeply and yet seemed to be unable to fully fill his lungs. A shocked expression emerged through
his scarred features. After what felt like an eternity the horseman managed to find his breath.

  ‘You OK?’ the deputy asked. ‘You looks powerful ill, Mr. Iron Eyes.’

  ‘I bin better, boy!’ Iron Eyes retorted.

  Bale stepped close to the blood-soaked saddle and rested a hand on the palomino’s neck. ‘Who started the ruckus with them Apaches? You or them?’

  ‘It was kinda even. They don’t like me and I ain’t partial to them. We just don’t get on. Seems that all Indians got a short fuse when they meets up with me. I was just defending myself and wasting precious bullets. I hate killing folks who ain’t got bounty on their heads. Ain’t no profit in it. None at all.’

  ‘You kill them all?’ Joshua asked nervously.

  Iron Eyes nodded. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Why are you here, Iron Eyes?’ the marshal asked, stoutly trying not to show his dread of the horrific man who swayed on his saddle above him.

  A thin, bony, bloody hand forced down into one of the deep pockets of the trail coat and pulled out three crumpled Wanted posters. Iron Eyes handed them to the lawman. Bale flattened them out against the shoulder of the horse and screwed up his eyes as he digested the words printed upon them. He then looked up into the face of the man who was staring down at him.

  ‘You after the Brewster boys?’

  ‘Only one of them,’ Iron Eyes corrected. ‘Joe Brewster.’

  Joshua bravely moved closer. ‘Why not the other two?’

  ‘I already done for them, sonny,’ Iron Eyes spat. ‘I trailed Joe right to the outskirts of this place. He must have come this way. You seen a varmint with a lotta bags full of money in the last few hours?’

  Marshal Bale gave a firm nod as he pushed the posters back into the trail-coat pocket whence they had emerged only seconds earlier.’

  ‘Yep! A stranger rode in a few hours or so back and he was laden down with hefty bags.’

  Excitedly, Iron Eyes clenched both bony fists. ‘Good! I got the bastard! He’s mine! I knew he was close! I can smell him!’

  Joshua stepped back fearfully. ‘He ain’t no critter. Iron Eyes. He’s a man.’

  Iron Eyes looked hard at the youngster. ‘He’s an outlaw with bounty on his head. Dead or alive, boy. That’s what the posters say. He gave up being a man when he became vermin.’

  ‘If he’s wanted by the law it’s my job to bring him to book, Iron Eyes,’ Bale drawled. ‘I don’t want no bounty hunter letting rip in my town. Innocent folks could get hurt.’

  ‘What?’ A rage swept through the bounty hunter. He was about to shout down at the man standing next to his horse when he felt his head start to spin and his eyes blur. Iron Eyes began to shake as he desperately fought against the whirlpool of mist which was filling his head. Then he lost the battle and toppled.

  He fell like a lifeless rag doll from his high perch.

  Monte Bale caught the thin figure in his arms as both Iron Eyes’ trusty Navy Colts fell from his belt into the sand.

  ‘You be careful you don’t strain yourself, Monte,’ Joshua said as he hovered beside his stalwart companion and picked up the two guns. ‘Hell! These guns ain’t very heavy!’

  ‘They’re Navy Colts, Joshua. Just like their owner, they don’t weigh hardly anything at all. Iron Eyes is as light as a feather. No heavier than a little kid,’ the marshal said.

  ‘Is he dead, Monte?’ Joshua asked nervously.

  ‘He sure well ought to be, the amount of blood he’s lost!’ The marshal swung around and began to walk as fast as his legs could manage in the direction of the doctor’s office. ‘C’mon! We gotta get him to Doc Hardy fast.’

  ‘Oh, glory be!’ the deputy mumbled as he raced ahead of the marshal to alert the doctor that he had a new client.

  Within a minute the marshal had reached the door of the doctor’s office and entered after Joshua. Doc Hardy was a man who would never see sixty again and sat at his desk rubbing his whiskers, as all men of that age tend to do. He watched as the powerful lawman lay Iron Eyes’ limp body down on his side on top of the long padded table so that the arrow was not broken off prematurely.

  ‘C’mon, Doc!’ Joshua urged the medical man until he got to his feet. ‘We got you a patient here.’

  Hardy ambled towards the horrific sight, and then gave out a long sigh. He had seen many victims of violence in his time in the West but none quite as bad as what lay before him now. He took his eyeglasses from his coat pocket and placed them on the end of his nose.

  He shook his head sadly. ‘What you bring him here for? The undertaker’s down the street a ways, Monte! What you bring him here for? This pitiful soul is dead!’

  ‘I knew he was a goner.’ Joshua sniffed and looked at the bounty hunter’s guns in his hands.

  Bale moved closer to the motionless bounty hunter. ‘He ain’t dead, Doc. I could feel his heart pounding as I carried him here. Iron Eyes ain’t dead.’

  ‘This is Iron Eyes?’ Hardy raised his bushy eye-brows, then gripped the nearer of the still man’s wrists. His fingers found a pulse and his jaw dropped.

  ‘Well, Doc?’ Joshua pressed.

  Hardy dragged his coat off and began rolling up his shirt sleeves.

  ‘Damn it all! You’re right, Monte. He ain’t dead! Don’t ask me how but Iron Eyes is somehow still alive!’

  Chapter Seven

  DARKNESS ENVELOPED DESERT Springs beneath its canopy of black velvet and crystal-clear stars. There was no moon and that suited the outlaw as he walked down the back stairs of the hotel and went out into the shadows. Now clad in well-tailored town attire and fresh from bathing, the clean-shaven Joe Brewster barely resembled the disheveled rider who had ridden in to the remote settlement only five hours earlier. That suited the man as he moved unseen and unheard across the hotel’s yard and into a lane which led toward the busy main thoroughfare. The closer he got to the main street the louder the town’s noises became to his alert ears.

  When he reached the corner of the hotel Brewster paused and placed a cigar into his mouth. His cold, merciless eyes watched a man lighting in succession the lanterns atop their tall wooden poles. With the light from countless stores cascading out on to the street it was quickly becoming a place devoid of shadows. The outlaw scratched a match down a wall and cupped its flame in his hands. He inhaled the smoke and then proceeded on to the boardwalk beneath the overhead canopy. Brewster rested a shoulder against an upright and studied the scene carefully.

  The main street seemed to be even busier now than it had been during the hours of daylight. Riders seemed to be heading in both directions with an urgency that Brewster failed to comprehend. He sucked hard on the cigar and then tossed the match at the sand which had already started to dust up his new boots.

  A stagecoach thundered away from the stage depot and traveled the length of the street quickly as its driver lashed the backs of his four-horse team with a bullwhip. The interior of the coach was empty. It seemed that people came to Desert Springs but few left.

  The outlaw turned his head and glanced up the street. His gaze focused upon the building he had been seeking. He had heard that the gambling-house was being constructed when he and his brothers had set out on their last job. Now it was completed and open for business.

  Flaming torches had been erected all around the entrance of the gambling-hall. Their light illuminated the facade of the freshly painted structure.

  ‘The Texas House.’ Brewster whispered through a line of grey smoke. ‘Mighty fine-looking!’

  With skilled hands he checked his gunbelt and the guns it carried. Both safety loops were pulled off the gun hammers by the man whose eyes never left their target. A thought crept into his mind about the two hefty bags in his room. He patted his left pants leg pocket and felt the key he had used to secure the room’s lock. The outlaw’s thoughts then quickly returned to the street before him: the long street with the brightly illuminated edifice at its end.

  He watched the crowds of men.

  Joe Brewste
r was well-used to watching streets. He had done it for most of his adult life. It had been his job to study many streets whilst his two brothers had entered banks and robbed them of most of their assets. He would remain mounted and clear streets of any possible dangers to his more ruthless brothers, buying them enough time to mount up and ride. Yet unlike his siblings, Joe Brewster was an expert shot with both pistol and Winchester. His skill had saved their lives many times by picking off lawmen and ambitious townsfolk alike.

  But now he was alone.

  Alone to finish the job they had started. Doubts filled his mind as to the logic of what Clem and Frank had arranged with Kelly but he was willing to see it through. Would Texas Jack honor his promise? Would he? A gnawing in his innards told him the opposite.

  The outlaw dropped the cigar next to the spent match. He crushed it with his boot heel before setting off towards the place which seemed to be attracting scores of men like moths to a naked flame.

  Brewster did not want to gamble or partake in the pleasures of the imported females who would fill the upper floor of the newly constructed edifice. He had another reason to head to The Texas House.

  A more important reason.

  One which Texas Jack Kelly was well aware of.

  It was a long walk to The Texas House. Yet Brewster was in no rush. If the outlaw had any nerves, they were well disguised and totally under control. For the first time in his entire career Brewster was without the support of his siblings. Frank and Clem had always made the decisions and Joe had followed their lead. It had been Clem who had arranged the meeting with Texas Jack nearly four months earlier, but now it would be the only surviving member of the gang who would actually encounter the mysterious gambler.

  It seemed as though no one even noticed the outlaw as he moved gradually towards the gambling-house. He remained on the opposite side of the street as he gradually approached the flaming torches.