Blood of Iron Eyes (8 page)

Like a bat out of hell Iron Eyes thundered along the back streets towards the large building which lay on the outskirts of Hope. The building which he knew was Brewster Fontaine’s magnificent home. The grey was as good as the blacksmith had claimed. Its hoofs ate up the ground in response to the bounty hunter’s silent commands.

Iron Eyes whipped the animal’s shoulders with the long ends of his reins and spurred. There was no time to lose. He had to find out whether Ted Cooper had heard correctly. The bounty hunter had to find out if Fontaine and what remained of his army of outlaws were going to masquerade as Indians and attack the way station at Apache Wells.

The injured bounty hunter knew that there was only one certain way to discover the truth. He had somehow to get into the house or its grounds and find out the truth for himself.

But there was no way that he could approach the
house from the front. That would be suicidal if all of Fontaine’s henchmen were there. This was a job which could only be done by using the shadows.

The narrow street came to an abrupt end. Iron Eyes hauled on his reins and stopped the powerful animal beneath his saddle. The grey spun around as its master studied the fences and backs of
buildings
. Then he saw a lane. Instinctively Iron Eyes knew that it must lead to the rear of the house that he had seen as he approached the remote town earlier that day.

Iron Eyes tapped his spurs and steered the grey into the lane to search for the large building. The horse cantered as its rider stood in the stirrups and looked over the high fencing.

For more than 300 yards there seemed to be nothing but trees neatly fenced off. Then he saw it.

Again Iron Eyes reined in hard. This time he drew the reins up to his chest. The horse stopped as the bounty hunter balanced and peered over the fence.

The house was well-illuminated.

At least forty men were milling in and around the substantial building as Fontaine waved his arms around conducting their every move.

Iron Eyes pulled his reins up and tied them to an overhead branch. He then leaned from his horse until his hands gripped the top of the fence. Ignoring the pain in his leg, he shook his left boot free of its stirrup and placed it on top of the 
saddle. He pushed until his thin body cleared the wooden obstacle.

Iron Eyes landed silently inside the fenced-off garden. He lay on his belly and spied on the almost frantic activity twenty yards ahead of him. The gunslingers were stripped to the waist. Their faces and torsos were being covered in some sort of coloured grease. Fontaine had a pile of ragged wigs and crude bandannas as well as a bag of long feathers. The men were indeed being made to look like Indians, Iron Eyes thought. Just as Ted Cooper had said.

None of the gunslingers would pass for any kind of Indian in daylight, but in the dark it was
possible
that they would fool the Easterner and his
military
escort.

Iron Eyes could not hear what Fontaine or his men were saying. He knew that he had to get closer if he were to overhear the details of the man’s plans.

The bounty hunter looked all around him.

He saw that a handful of trees fringed the
right-hand
side of the yard. A few of the gunslingers were standing guard at various points. One was less than twenty feet away from him, leaning against a tree, sipping on a bottle of whiskey.

Iron Eyes wondered why Fontaine had to have any guards at all in his own back yard?

What did someone as powerful as Fontaine certainly was have to fear in this town? A town 
which he practically owned. Then it occurred to him.

Fontaine had only one man to fear in Hope.

He was that man!

Fontaine was afraid that Iron Eyes might spoil his play!

That had to be it!

The most powerful man in Hope was scared of Iron Eyes!

With his eyes still on the nearby guards, Iron Eyes rolled over and pulled both his guns from his belt. He pushed them down into his deep
coat-pockets
and then hauled out his long Bowie knife from his right boot neck. He placed the blade between his teeth and bit down upon it.

It tasted of rust and the blood of countless victims.

Then he started to crawl.

Iron Eyes moved silently. Like a snake, he seemed to slither along the dark edge of the large
fenced-in
yard, Even needle-sharp brambles could not slow his determined progress. The large trees had been there long before any men had found this remote place. Their stout trunks supported hefty branches and large leaves. This was all the cover the infamous bounty hunter required to reach his goal unseen. The nearby guard was between him and the men he wished to overhear.

The shadows which gave Iron Eyes protection also masked any clear view of the gunslinger whom Fontaine had placed on sentry duty.

Iron Eyes shifted his weight from one elbow to another as his long thin body reached the back of the tree upon which the guard was leaning.

The bounty hunter stopped and stared up from behind the tall lush grass that fringed the entire boundary of the extensive enclosed area. The
smell of the whiskey that the armed guard was drinking from the bottle drifted down into the flared nostrils of Iron Eyes.

His bullet-coloured eyes studied the man as if he were a mere animal just about to be slaughtered. To Iron Eyes, every one of the men who accepted Fontaine’s blood-money was less than vermin.

They deserved whatever fate he was about to dish out to them.

With the Bowie knife still firmly gripped in his teeth, Iron Eyes placed his hands on the trunk of the tree and slowly rose to his feet. Only the
broad-girthed
tree separated the two men. Iron Eyes did not require his knife for this kill, he drew it from his teeth and returned it to the neck of his boot.

When the bounty hunter had reached his full height he pressed his body against the bark and listened. He still had to get closer to Fontaine to hear what the man was saying. Only the sentry sipping on the whiskey bottle lay between himself and that goal.

All pain was forgotten.

Now he was the hunter again.

The hunter driven by a single thought, every sinew in his body tuned for one action: to kill the guard who stood between himself and the group of men close to the rear of the large house.

Iron Eyes took a step around the tree. He was closer now. A mere few feet from the shoulder of the man on sentry duty. The bounty hunter was
close enough to strike.

He raised his hands.

The gunman returned the bottle to his lips. The hands of Iron Eyes struck out like a rattler. One hand went around the front of the man’s throat as the other grabbed the bottle and pushed its neck into his mouth.

Then Iron Eyes hauled the gunslinger off his feet and smashed him into the ground. Faster than the blink of an eye, the lean bounty hunter jumped on to the chest of his prey. He continued to hold the bottle and jerked it until its entire contents flowed into his victim’s mouth.

Only when the clear-glass bottle was empty did Iron Eyes remove it from the mouth and cast it aside. He grabbed the throat of the choking man and glared down at him.

The gunslinger tried to pull the hand away.

He could not.

With not one ounce of mercy, Iron Eyes watched as his victim’s eyeballs rolled up under the lids. He could feel the body shudder beneath him as it suffocated. Then the hands fell from the bony grip and landed limply on to the grass.

Iron Eyes knew when death had claimed another victim.

He got off the corpse, rose to his feet and stepped back to use the tree for cover. He stared across at the group of men who were now actually beginning to resemble Indians. 

Iron Eyes dropped down and started to crawl again. This time he headed straight for Fontaine. He had covered half the distance between them when he began to understand the words that spewed from the well-liquored group.

‘We gonna strike at night, boss?’ Riley shouted out from behind a half-dozen half-naked men who were smothering each other with coloured grease. ‘I thought that Injuns don’t attack at night. Ain’t that gonna be a mite suspicious?’

‘Injuns ain’t all superstitious, Riley!’ Fontaine boomed.

‘We gonna wait for them to head out from Apache Wells or are we attacking the way station itself?’ Keno queried.

Fontaine removed his own fancy shirt and dipped his hands into the tub of coloured grease. He started to cover his own face and body with the vile concoction.

‘It’d be a lot easier if we could wait until they headed out from the way station, boys,’ he answered. ‘Trouble is, they won’t leave there until after sunrise. I reckon they’d cotton on to us not being Indians damn fast in the light of day. No, we have to attack at night!’

‘Mighty risky!’ Keno was quick to note. ‘That place is like a small fort! It can be defended!’

Fontaine laughed.

‘It sure can be defended if the folks there know they’re gonna be attacked, Keno. But them folks 
ain’t got that kind of information, have they? We’ll be able to ride straight in through their gates and start slaughtering before they have any idea what’s happening! Right?’

Iron Eyes heard the unanimous roar of approval. The gunslingers were in a frenzied mood. A killing mood, fuelled by hard liquor and money.

The bounty hunter had heard enough.

Ted Cooper had been right.

Now all Iron Eyes had to do was get out of this place and ride to warn the soldiers and Carmichael at Apache Wells.

It was not quite as straightforward as it sounded.

He turned and started to crawl across the ground back to where he had left the dead body between the trees. He was almost there when his keen instincts heard something. He stopped and turned his head. He stared through his long limp hair and saw another of the guards. He was
walking
beside the fence towards the very spot where Iron Eyes had left the body.

Iron Eyes glanced behind him.

Fontaine and the others were still laughing, totally unaware of anything apart from the task of making themselves look like Indians. The bounty hunter pushed himself up off the ground. He ran low and fast. The guard had just cleared the second of the trees when Iron Eyes hit hard and high. 

The impact winded the gunfighter.

They both fell.

They wrestled furiously in the ditch beside the fence. Fists flew in both directions until the bounty hunter managed to force his adversary down. Iron Eyes balanced with one hand over the mouth of the startled guard as fingers clawed at his face.

Then Iron Eyes felt the gunman reach down for one of his holstered guns. Iron Eyes raised a knee and pressed it down on the man’s gun hand. Without any hesitation the bounty hunter grabbed the knife from his teeth and went to ram it into the man’s chest. The gunslinger used his left hand to grab Iron Eyes’ wrist.

Both men glared at one another.

It was now a battle of willpower as well as strength.

The Bowie knife hovered above the chest of Fontaine’s henchman as Iron Eyes strained to force it down. He knew that he dare not allow this man to call out and alert the others. The arms of both men shook violently. The tip of the blade touched the guard’s shirt, then it was forced up again. Then Iron Eyes felt the powerful knee of his opponent hit him in the middle of his back.

He rocked but retained his position.

The man kneed him once more. Pain ripped through every muscle in the lean body but Iron Eyes would not allow any weakness to show in his scarred features. 

Iron Eyes head-butted the man beneath him. He could tell that his foe was dazed.

Then he decided to outwit the man. If he could not force the blade down into his opponent, he would do the opposite. Iron Eyes pulled his knife hand up and out of the grip of the guard. Then a punch caught his chin as the frantic man fought for his life.

The bounty hunter could taste the blood in his mouth. He spat it into the eyes of his prey. As the man’s left hand went towards his eyes to wipe away the bloody spittle Iron Eyes stabbed the long blade into the chest of the temporarily blinded guard. He felt it go right through the chest.

He dragged it out and then repeated the action a dozen times more. He only stopped when he was certain that the guard was as dead as his
companion
a few yards away. He pulled the Bowie knife out of the bloody chest and wiped its blade on the dead man’s sleeve.

The fight had exhausted him. Sweat poured from his scalp and traced down along the ancient scars. His cold narrowed eyes watched as it dripped from the ends of the strands of limp hair on to the body between his kneeling legs. He pushed his long fingers through the wet wisps and looked back at the men who seemed to be rejoicing wildly. Iron Eyes wondered whether they might not be celebrating a little prematurely.

Iron Eyes forced himself up on to his feet. He 
pushed the knife down into the neck of his boot and leaned against the nearest tree.

His chest heaved as his pitifully thin body tried to suck in enough air to fill his lungs. His eyes narrowed as he studied the branches of the trees, which formed a canopy and reached far over the wall of fencing.

Iron Eyes reached up and grabbed at the
nearest
branch. He pulled his lightweight body up off the ground and into the dense broad-leafed refuge.

He carefully steadied himself on the widest of one of the tree’s branches. One that went out over the fence.

Iron Eyes spread his arms wide and walked out along the branch, using those that were higher to maintain his balance. When he could see the ground of the narrow lane below him he sat down and dangled his long legs in mid-air. Iron Eyes lowered himself until he was hanging only a few feet above the dusty ground of the dark lane.

For what seemed like an eternity he just hung by his bony hands and looked down at the ground below his feet. Thoughts of the savage leg-wound filled his thoughts. Iron Eyes knew that if he were to land badly and it were to start bleeding again, it would be doubtful whether he would have time to stanch its bleeding a second time.

Mustering every ounce of his dogged
determination
, he released his grip and dropped to the
ground. The bounty hunter steadied himself, then glanced down at his torn pants’ leg and the
gruesome
wound it revealed. The cauterized flesh was inflamed from the brutal fight he had just survived, yet the skin was still somehow intact.

With the raised voices of Fontaine and his cohorts still ringing in his ears, he headed straight towards his grey horse.

Ignoring the pain which racked his entire body, Iron Eyes grabbed the saddle horn and threw himself on to his saddle. He poked both boots into his stirrups and tugged the reins until they came free of the overhead branch.

He dragged the neck of the horse to his right.

Iron Eyes spurred.