The Curse of Iron Eyes (7 page)

Yet
the further he rode, the less he began to believe that such a place
existed within this canyon pass. For this place was unlike any
other he had ever ridden through. Sweat was now pouring off the
pony and himself.

He had never known
anywhere to be as hot as this pass.

Iron Eyes continued to
whip the now spent pony onward with even more urgency. He glanced
down at his chest. His shirt and skin were covered in the blood
that was still seeping from the knife wounds. His left pants leg
was now also soaked in blood. He was bleeding like a stuck pig and
knew he had to find somewhere to try and stem the flow of blood
real fast.

Then his keen eyes
spotted the thing he had been looking for, a hundred or more yards
ahead of him. Iron Eyes aimed the nose of his mount towards it.

He hauled his reins to
his blood-soaked chest and jumped from the back of the exhausted
mount. A cloud of choking dust rose into the air and covered both
man and beast for a few moments as the bounty hunter caught his
breath.

Iron Eyes held firmly
on to his reins and stared at the sight before him. He then
convinced himself that it was real and not a mirage created by the
blood-loss or unbearable heat.

It was really
there.

A
large rock twice his own height was propped against the canyon
wall. It must have fallen from high above to the canyon floor where
it now lay, he concluded. For it was different from the smooth
walls of sand-colored stone that made up the length of the trail he
had ridden through so far.

He
looked up and stared at the top of the high canyon. His
steel-colored eyes surveyed the entire length of it until he saw
the slight blemish on an otherwise perfect surface. That was where
the boulder had fallen from, he concluded.

For a
few moments Iron Eyes stood perfectly still and listened. If the
rider who was after him had already entered the pass he would have
heard the sound of his horse’s hoofs echoing by now.

There was no noise.

That meant the rider
had yet to enter this devilish place.

He still had time to
put his plan into action.

Iron Eyes led the pony
behind the boulder and tied the reins firmly to a small jagged edge
at its base. He then hauled the large water bag that he had
confiscated from one of the other Apache mounts off the saddle horn
and pulled out its crude stopper.

He lifted the bag to
his cracked lips and swallowed two large mouthfuls of the cool
liquid. It felt good as it made its way through his thin body.

Then he looked at the
pony beside him.

Iron
Eyes knew that he needed this pathetic animal to get him out of
this place. He removed his coat and laid it down on the ground
before the pony’s front legs and poured a couple of pints of the
precious liquid on to it.

He watched as the
grateful horse drank the water. Then he hung the bag back on the
saddle horn again.

Iron Eyes hauled his
weapons from his belt, cocked their hammers and leaned against the
large rock. He wanted to kill this man more than he had ever wanted
to kill anyone.

Even
if there was no price on his pursuer’s head, he wanted to kill
him.

There was still no
noise in the pass.

All Iron Eyes could
hear was the sound of the pony behind him breathing heavily as it
tried desperately to recover from the long hard ride its new master
had inflicted upon it.

Iron
Eyes wanted to hear the sound of his pursuer’s horse galloping
towards him. He craved it like a mountain lion craves the taste of
fresh meat.

The pony snorted. He
turned to look at it and noticed its ears prick forward. It had
heard something his ears could not make out.

Iron Eyes turned back
and looked down the pass to where the dust that his pony had kicked
up as they had galloped to this spot still hung on the hot air.

He dropped on to the
ground, pulled his long black hair away from the side of his head,
and then pressed his ear to the sand.

It sounded like a heart
beating.

Iron
Eyes could hear the approaching horse’s hoofs but they seemed
slower than he expected.

The
rider with the buffalo gun had slowed his mount to a mere canter as
he trailed the bounty hunter in Devil’s Pass.

Slowly he raised his
head off the sand. Iron Eyes got back to his feet and knew that he
might have a much longer wait than he had at first considered.

His pursuer was smart
and cautious.

This was not going to
be as easy as he had planned.

He
knew that the man who chased him might spot the boulder before he
was in range of Iron Eyes’ Navy Colts.

The bounty hunter
picked his still-damp coat up off the ground and then searched its
pockets for a cigar amongst the scores of bullets.

His thin fingers found
a twisted half-smoked cigar. He rammed it between his teeth. He
then located his matches and dragged one along the boulder.

He cupped the flame in
the palms of his hands and sucked in the acrid smoke.

For a brief few seconds
as he held the smoke in his lungs, he could no longer feel the pain
that racked his body.

Then
as he exhaled he heard the sound of the rider’s horse growing
louder. Suddenly he realized that he had to do something that this
man would never expect him to do, if he were going to
survive.

‘
Keep on
coming,
amigo,”
Iron Eyes mumbled as he pulled his Bowie knife from his
mule-ear boot and stared at its bloodstained blade. Iron Eyes ain’t
finished yet.’

Devil’s Pass was virtually silent as the man reined in his
lathered-up mount. It had taken the cautious rider with the buffalo
gun perched on his hip nearly twenty minutes to reach the spot
where he could see the huge boulder jutting out of the soft
sand.

Something was seriously
wrong and the horseman was alert enough to sense it.

But what?

Every
sinew in his aching body told him that this was not going to be as
simple as he had first thought when he had trailed Iron Eyes into
Devil’s Pass. He ran the back of his hand across his dry
mouth.

The brilliant sun was
no longer directly over the pass and shadows bathed one side of the
high canyon walls as the horseman steadied his restless mount. For
the first time since he had started following the tall bounty
hunter, he was nervous.

His mind raced.

Was this a trap?

Had Iron Eyes lured him
to this place to bushwhack him? The rider sat silently in his
saddle as his suspicious eyes weighed up the situation before
him.

To the naive observer,
it would have seemed that there was nothing wrong. But this rider
was far from naive. He could feel the danger that lurked a couple
of hundred yards ahead of him in the shimmering heat and taunting
shadows.

Iron Eyes was not a man
who would be easily killed, and the horseman was well aware of that
chilling fact.

His
finger continually stroked the large trigger of the buffalo gun as
his eyes sought out the bounty hunter. The rider’s attention kept
returning to the huge boulder and he wondered whether his prey was
behind its granite bulk. He tapped his spurs gently and allowed his
horse to move forward slowly.

Then he reined in again
and listened.

He was scared.

All he
required was a mere glimpse of Iron Eyes and he would unleash the
fury of the deadly rifle. He knew that not even the legendary
bounty hunter could survive being hit by one of the buffalo gun’s
bullets.

He focused on the
boulder, which was now half in shadow.

Was Iron Eyes hiding
behind it?

Cautiously, the rider lifted his right leg over the neck of
his mount and slid to the ground. The sand was soft beneath his
high-heeled boots.

He held the huge weapon
in both hands and walked beside his horse towards the boulder.
Every few steps, the man stopped and tried to see if his quarry was
hiding behind the big chunk of rock.

The shimmering heat
haze that rose off the soft white sand, together with the
lengthening shadows, began to play tricks on his tired eyes.

He held the buffalo gun
ahead of him and carefully edged his way closer and closer to the
boulder.

Sweat
was now pouring down the hunter’s spine beneath his shirt. This was
a game that he had no experience of. This was not the way he had
planned it.

This was getting
complicated.

Was this a cunning
trick created by the devilish Iron Eyes, or was he allowing his own
vivid imagination to get the better of him?

One mistake now could
prove fatal.

He was determined not
to make that mistake. All he wanted to do was get one clean shot at
the infamous Iron Eyes and cut him in half with his lethal
weapon.

For
revenge was the one thing that had driven the man onward for the
previous three years in his relentless search for the man who was
known as the living ghost. It was all the rider had thought about
since his outlaw brother had fallen victim to the bounty hunter’s
deadly Navy Colts.

Vengeance meant an eye for an eye in this man’s mind, and he
had travelled a long way to claim this God-given right. Yet he
could not take his eyes off the towering boulder before him, for he
knew that death might be waiting just behind it.

His death!

This
was not the way he had thought it would be. With every step, he
began to feel that he had somehow stumbled into a web of Iron Eyes’
design.

And he was the fly in
that web.

He
knew that he was still way beyond the range of Iron Eyes’ Navy
Colts and he intended to keep that advantage if
possible.

He moved to his right
and crouched against the canyon wall. He caught a glimpse of
something moving behind the boulder through a two-foot gap at its
base. Then he heard the distinctive sound of spurs softly echoing
off the canyon walls beyond the massive rock.

‘
Iron Eyes!’ the
man whispered excitedly to himself as he felt a sense of relief
filling him. The bounty hunter was lying in wait for him. He had
been right to be cautious.

His right thumb pulled
back on the hammer of the hefty weapon until it locked fully into
position. He knew that he had to try and make the bounty hunter
show himself if he were going to be able to blast him into
Hell.

Then
the unmistakable jangling of spurs rang out again around the
canyon, sending a chill up his spine. Every muscle in his body told
him that the elusive Iron Eyes was there OK. Just beyond that lump
of taunting rock.

He had to outwit the
bounty hunter, even if it were only for a split second. All he
needed was the time it would take to aim and fire. The buffalo gun
would do the rest.

The man looked at his
horse and then back at the boulder. An idea began to hatch in his
fevered brain.

Could Iron Eyes be
distracted if he were to send his horse galloping down the canyon
past the boulder? Would the ruthless bounty hunter be drawn out
from the impenetrable cover of the large rock just long enough for
the gunman to get a target?

There was only one way
to find out.

He stood to his full
height and then kicked the rear of the animal as hard as he could.
The horse raced down the narrow canyon towards the boulder, making
an awful lot of noise as it did so.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the man ran behind his spooked
horse with the primed buffalo gun gripped firmly in his hands. The
dust that kicked up by the hoofs of his mount gave him a little
cover and he intended to use that to his advantage. As he got
closer to the huge boulder his eyes were locked on to the gap
between it and the rock face.

His squinting eyes
could clearly see movement beyond its huge bulk. Shadows danced on
the canyon wall.

The low-life Iron Eyes
was hiding there, waiting to ambush him, he thought.

His horse had only just
passed the boulder when it slowed to a halt, then turned to look at
whatever was hiding behind the large rock. It too had seen
something behind the boulder, the man told himself.

The man was now within
the range of the Navy Colts. He had to act quickly if he were to
survive a showdown with such a devious and skilled enemy. He would
have to get a clean shot with his buffalo gun to finish the bounty
hunter off with one bullet. The man knew that he would have little
time to reload the mighty single-shot rifle in his hands if he
missed his target.

It was a thought too
awesome to even dwell upon.

This had to be done
swiftly.

He
crouched into the floating dust and then ran to the opposite rock
face. He could see the Apache pony clearly just behind the rock as
it vainly fought against its bonds.

Where was Iron
Eyes?

Knowing that he was risking walking into the deadly sights of
Iron Eyes’ Navy Colts, he trained the barrel of his buffalo gun in
the direction of the skittish pony and cautiously edged
forward.

Inch by inch, his boots
moved along the canyon wall through the soft sand.

Sweat poured from
beneath his Stetson hatband and ran unchecked down his weathered
face.

Then
he caught sight of the bounty hunter’s long trail coat against the
boulder and the distinctive blue gun resting by its frayed
sleeve-cuff halfway up the jagged rock.

A sense of panic
suddenly overwhelmed him.