Iron Eyes 12 Read online

  ‘Glory be,’ Joshua managed to say. ‘This is just awful. It’s a good thing you was out with us and not in here when the bullets started flying. You’d be as dead as these critters and no mistake. Yep, Doc! You’d be lying there in a pool of blood just like they are.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Bale clipped the back of his deputy’s head as he walked from the desk to where the undertaker lay crumpled on the floor. He frowned at the body of Cyril Perkins and raised his eyebrows before pointing.

  ‘Somebody stole Perkins’s pants,’ he said drily. ‘And his long tail coat as well!’

  Both his companions looked at the body of the undertaker and then returned their gaze to the tall marshal.

  ‘Who’d steal old Cyril’s pants and coat, Monte?’ the deputy asked. ‘I mean, the critter was like a beanpole. Who’d fit into his cast-offs anyways?’

  Suddenly Hardy stood and stared straight at the long table in the middle of the room. ‘And who the hell would go and steal Iron Eyes?’

  The marshal went to the table and rested both hands upon it as he tried to work out an answer which made some sense. Suddenly he noticed that the Navy Colts and mule-eared boots were also missing. He glanced back at the seated Hardy.

  ‘Didn’t I see Iron Eyes’ guns and boots over by that chair earlier, Doc?’ he enquired. ‘They seem to have disappeared.’

  Hardy looked at the bullet-scarred chair and nodded. ‘Yep. They was there but they’re sure gone now.’

  Bale turned. ‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that it was Iron Eyes himself that killed those gunmen in your back room, Doc.’

  Joshua gave a half-smile. ‘That ain’t possible, Monte. Doc said he was dead. Ain’t that right, Doc? Iron Eyes was dead.’

  ‘But his guns and boots are gone, Joshua,’ Bale pointed out with a long hard look at the bullet-riddled chair. ‘Who else but Iron Eyes would take them? Who else would even want them?’

  Joshua nodded and shook his head in turn as one thought replaced another in his young mind. ‘But his clothes are still there! He couldn’t go anywheres naked! I know folks around here are pretty casual about most things but I reckon they’d notice a long, tall, naked fella pretty darn fast.’

  Bale smiled then looked back at Perkins’s body. ‘And old Cyril has no pants or coat on! Do you reckon that he and our bounty-hunting friend are about the same size? I do.’

  Hardy rubbed his whiskers even harder. ‘This is madness. It can’t be.’

  ‘Have you another explanation, Doc?’ Bale asked. ‘I can see someone killing for money or even to steal guns but why would anyone steal a body? Crazy as it seems, I think Iron Eyes is somehow still alive.’

  ‘But he was dead,’ the deputy insisted. ‘Doc told us.’

  ‘Wait up a minute.’ Hardy’s expression slowly changed. His mind began to wrestle with the lifetime of knowledge he had gathered and all the knowledge from countless books that he had absorbed over the previous decades. He rose slowly to his feet, ambled to the side of the marshal and his underling. ‘You know something, Monte?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I recall reading about a number of cases years back about folks who were buried alive because folks thought they were dead,’ Hardy said. ‘When they opened up their coffins they found scratch marks on the underside of the coffin lids where the poor critters had desperately tried to get out!’

  Joshua winced. ‘Buried alive?’

  Hardy nodded. ‘Yep! Buried alive! You see, there is a rare medical condition which makes a subject appear to be dead. No detectable pulse or heartbeat and the like but in fact the patient is actually in some kind of deep coma.’

  Bale looked at Hardy. ‘Could Iron Eyes have been in this sort of coma, Doc?’

  The doctor shrugged. ‘I can’t say for certain but it sure looks like it. That gentleman has defied medical science for most of his life judging by all the scars he’s carrying. If anyone could have gone into that sort of deep sleep, it’s him.’

  Joshua looked sickly. ‘That means that when I die and they bury me I might be still alive. I sure don’t like the sound of that!’

  Marshal Bale clipped the back of his deputy’s head again to draw his attention. ‘Don’t go fretting none, Joshua. I’ll make sure that when you’re dead they bury you shallow and put a bugle in the box with you!’

  Doc Hardy then looked at his desk again. He saw that the plate with its napkin had been removed. ‘Hell! My steak supper’s gone, Monte!’

  Then Joshua grabbed hold of both of his friends and turned them towards the bullet riddled chair where what was left of the bounty hunter’s trail coat lay in mutilated ribbons.

  ‘Look!’ Joshua pointed.

  Both men looked.

  ‘What we looking at, boy?’ Hardy asked.

  ‘I see it!’ Monte Bale began to smile and then took a step closer to the chair and crouched down. His trigger finger pointed at the floor and the unmistakable bloody footprints. ‘This is where a man with bare feet put on his boots!’

  Joshua bent double and found more footprints marked in blood on the floor. ‘Well, glory be! It must be Iron Eyes! He ain’t dead at all!’

  ‘You know what that means, boys?’ Hardy clapped his hands together and for the briefest of moments he looked like someone in prayer.

  ‘Yep!’ Bale stood up to his full height and grinned at the doctor. ‘It means that you saved Iron Eyes’ life!’

  Hardy nodded firmly. ‘Damn right I did!’

  ‘It’s just a shame that he went on a killing spree and slaughtered all these folks though.’ The deputy sighed. ‘Maybe being in that coma unhinged him a tad.’

  ‘Iron Eyes didn’t kill Perkins, Joshua.’ Bale corrected the younger lawman.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Bale pointed at the undertaker’s body. ‘Old Cyril was hit by .45s! Those two gunmen back there have .45s! They killed Perkins, not our bounty-hunting friend!’

  ‘And Iron Eyes killed them varmints by the look of them holes in their chests,’ Hardy added knowingly. ‘Navy Colts are only .36s! Look at the size of the holes in their chests. Small and deadly the way a Navy Colt kills. Yep, he finished them off after they killed old Cyril.’

  ‘That was sure unneighborly of him.’ Joshua frowned.

  The marshal looked from one room to the next. ‘Doc’s dead right. The way I see it is that old Cyril came here in answer to the message Joshua delivered and then those two varmints showed up. They killed Cyril and somehow Iron Eyes recovered fast enough to kill them.’

  ‘Why’d they come here for anyways?’ the deputy asked scratching his head.

  ‘To kill the bounty hunter,’ Bale answered. ‘What other reason would they have?’

  ‘And a bounty hunter is only feared by someone with a price on his head,’ Hardy muttered. ‘Someone was mighty scared that Iron Eyes would recover and then realize that there was a bounty just waiting to be had.’

  Joshua walked to the two dead bodies laid out in the back room and tapped his teeth thoughtfully. ‘You know something? I seen these critters before, Monte.’

  ‘And me, Joshua. They work for Texas Jack,’ Monte Bale said as he strode out of the office. ‘C’mon!’

  ‘Where we going, Monte?’ Joshua called out, trying to keep pace with the marshal.

  ‘To pay a visit to Texas Jack before Iron Eyes gets to him first,’ came the reply.

  Chapter Fifteen

  IT IS SAID that there is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal. The same was true of Iron Eyes. For when he was in pain he became even more lethal. There was an eerie silence across the outskirts of the oasis town as the strangely dressed figure lurched his way toward his goal. Nothing dared make a sound, for the hunter was at large. The hunter of both animal and men alike was on the move. Confused and racked with pain Iron Eyes still knew what he had to do. He had to reach his horse and the saddlebags containing his ammunition. There was only one place where his magnificent stallion could be and that was the town’s livery s
table.

  The clothes he had taken from the undertaker’s body fitted well and there was just enough slack in the waistband to hold his trusty Navy Colts against his skin. Since leaving Doc Hardy’s place he had followed his nose to the livery stable set at the furthermost end of Desert Springs. All stables had an aroma that even blind folks could sense.

  Like a wounded animal he had used every shadow there was to avoid being seen by anyone. Iron Eyes had traveled surprisingly quickly for a man who had, only an hour earlier, been measured for a pine box. It was as if death itself had suited the corpselike figure. Refreshed him in some perverse way.

  The bounty hunter knelt in the bushes beside a stream and stared at the tall building where he knew he would find his palomino stallion. He cupped his hands, brought the ice-cold water to his face and washed the grime from his eyes.

  Then he dropped his hand into the unfamiliar coat pocket and pulled what was left of the steak he had stolen from Doc Hardy’s supper plate. His sharp teeth gnawed at the cold meat like a hound with a bone. He chewed and chewed until only gravy remained on his fingers. He sucked at the gravy until his hand was clean.

  Iron Eyes continued to stare at the tall building as though in a trance. He pulled the bottle of whiskey from the opposite pocket and drank until the taste of the food was washed from his mouth. Then he slowly rose to his full height. Suddenly he heard the horses inside the stable whinnying.

  He was upwind and they could smell his scent.

  After returning the bottle to his pocket he ran his bony fingers through his mane of sweat-soaked hair until his face could feel the gentle night breeze on his skin. He was befuddled at what must have happened to him. All he could recall was talking to the marshal; and then there was nothing until he woke up and saw Cyril Perkins looming over him with a tape measure in his hands.

  Then Iron Eyes remembered the gunslingers. Their loud voices and even louder guns when they opened up. What had happened after that was still clouded in a mixture of nightmare and reality to the bounty hunter. He did recall killing them though.

  But was that really what had happened? Was it? Or was it just part of the mysterious place he had found himself traveling through as he battled with nightmares.

  Then he looked down at his belly and the guns he had rammed into his pants belt. The barrels of his guns were still warm against his belly.

  It had been real.

  His memory began slowly to return. Not all at once but in teasing little wisps. He knew that he had killed them because they had tried to kill him. They had also just killed the man whose clothes he now wore. That was real.

  Iron Eyes knew that now he had to find the man who had paid them. The man they said was wanted dead or alive.

  Texas Jack Kelly. That was the name which kept returning to his thoughts.

  The name of the man the two misfits had claimed had ordered them to do his dirty work.

  Iron Eyes stared at the livery stable. A solitary lantern could be seen inside the building. The tall man listened to the terrified horses. His mind kept chanting the name of Texas Jack Kelly. The gunslingers had said that he was wanted but the bounty hunter could not remember ever hearing of him. He leaned down and pulled the Bowie knife free of his boot neck and stared at its blade.

  His eyes then returned to the livery and he began to walk towards it. The closer he got the louder the horses became. They could always smell him, he thought. Horses could smell the aroma of death no matter how hard he tried to rid himself of its acrid aroma. Even the new clothes could not hide the scent of a man who had lived alongside death for so many years.

  As he reached the wide-open double doors of the loosely constructed building he heard the angry voice of a man obviously woken from a deep sleep.

  Iron Eyes paused and clutched the knife in his hand. He heard the man telling the horses to calm down but they were far too smart to listen to him. He was just a blacksmith and unable to sense the danger which loomed in the darkness beyond the doors.

  ‘Hush the hell up!’ the man said for the umpteenth time as he walked along the line of stalls and tried to pacify the nervous animals. ‘Quiet! I was having me a real nice dream and you critters spoiled it. Hush now! You hear me?’ The man reached for his lantern and turned its wheel. The vast interior of the stables lit up. Then to his horror he saw the ghostlike figure in the doorway.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked, fearfully edging backwards to where he kept his scattergun. ‘Speak up! If you got a name, spill it!’

  ‘Iron Eyes,’ the bounty hunter said in a rasping whisper.

  ‘Is that a name?’ The man continued backing until his groping fingers located the double-barreled weapon propped up against the wall. ‘You stay where you are now!’

  Iron Eyes walked into the livery and looked around until he saw his palomino in a stall at the end of the long line of stalls. He could see his saddle and bags perched on the wooden partition beside it. He kept on walking towards it.

  ‘Where you going?’ The man picked up the scattergun as quietly as he could and pulled back on its large hammers.

  ‘I’ve come for my horse.’ Iron Eyes reached the tall stallion and looked into its eyes. It was the only horse in the building that was not making a sound. ‘And my bags.’

  The man started to walk after the tall figure. ‘Why you dressed like that? You an undertaker?’

  ‘Nope, but the man who owned these clothes was.’ Iron Eyes turned and stared at the ostler. The man stopped in his tracks when he saw the face which was looking straight back at him.

  ‘Holy smoke!’ The man started to shake. He brought the massive gun up and trained it on the bounty hunter. ‘Who did you say you was?’

  ‘Iron Eyes.’

  The man swallowed hard. ‘I heard that name earlier. They said you was dead over at Doc Hardy’s.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Git out of here.’

  ‘I’d drop that cannon if I was you,’ Iron Eyes said in a low, threatening tone.

  The ostler saw the knife in the bony hand. A bead of sweat ran down his face.

  ‘Now why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Because I’ll kill you if you don’t.’ Iron Eyes looked at the stallion. From the corner of his eye he could see the scattergun being lowered. ‘You got brains.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  WHEN SOME MEN wear a marshal’s tin star it takes on the aura of a medieval warrior’s shield. For courage can never be measured in the same way that men measure other things by. Courage is invisible and it is only its champions and their selfless bravado that makes evil men shy away back into the slime from which they crawled. With torchlight bathing over him and his deputy, Marshal Bale rested his knuckles on the grips of his holstered guns and squared up to the two guards outside The Texas House.

  ‘Get out of my way!’ Bale demanded.

  ‘And why should we do that, Marshal?’ the nearest guard asked in a low sneer.

  ‘Because if you don’t your boss might up and find himself dead,’ the marshal growled. ‘You understand?’

  ‘What?’ the other guard chipped in.

  ‘There’s a varmint coming to get Texas Jack!’ Joshua added over the shoulder of the marshal.

  ‘Texas Jack ain’t scared of nobody,’ one of the heavily armed men informed the deputy.

  ‘He oughta be real scared because Iron Eyes just killed two of your worthless gun-packers.’ Bale smiled. ‘Now we reckon he’s coming to kill the varmint who sent them to their deaths!’

  The information hit both men hard. One guard looked to the other and then they parted as sweetly as the Red Sea when confronted by Moses. Bale led Joshua into the gambling-hall, then paused as a handsome female no more than sixteen years old moved towards them with a tray bearing fluted glasses filled with sparkling wine.

  ‘You boys want a drink?’ she asked them. ‘It’s free!’

  Joshua reached out, then felt the palm of Bale’s left hand catch him behind the ear. He winced and saw
the broad-shouldered marshal lean close to the sweet-smelling female and whisper something into her ear. Her face suddenly lost the smile and she pointed up the stairs. Bale touched the brim of his hat, then glanced at his deputy before marching towards the carpeted flight of steps. ‘C’ mon!’

  The pair of lawmen climbed the staircase to the landing and looked around. Bale aimed a finger down the long corridor to the door with ‘private’ painted upon it.

  ‘Is that his office, Monte?’ Joshua straightened his gunbelt and blinked nervously.

  Bale did not say a word. He just started for the door with a stride few men could have matched for length or purpose. The deputy was almost running just to keep up with his superior.

  The marshal grabbed hold of the gleaming doorhandle and turned it hard. He entered the room fast and unexpectedly.

  ‘Kelly!’ Bale boomed at the man behind the desk.

  Texas Jack jumped up from his chair in surprise. His eyes strayed from the intruders and darted to the large area in the room from where the blood-soaked carpet and the body had only just been removed. He then returned his attention to the man with the marshal’s star pinned to his chest. He tried to look calm but for once his poker face let him down. Sweat trailed down from his neatly combed hair as he walked round his desk with his hand held out.

  ‘Marshal Bale,’ Kelly greeted in a faltering tone. ‘I’m pleased that you have decided to honor me with a visit on this our opening night of business.’

  Bale did not shake the hand.

  ‘You just lost two of your boys, Texas Jack.’

  The gambler’s hand fell to his side as the words sank in. He turned away from the pair of uninvited guests and made his way to a cabinet where numerous bottles and glasses stood. He poured himself a whiskey and then downed it. His head tilted and his eyes stared at the large lawman.

  ‘How could that be, Bale?’ Kelly bluffed. ‘All my boys are here. Some downstairs and some around the building. I don’t have anyone missing.’