The Curse of Iron Eyes (8 page)

The
long trail coat was covered in blood and Iron Eyes was motionless.
A thousand questions raced unanswered inside the sniper’s brain.
Had Iron Eyes died from the shot that had brought him off his pony
earlier?

With a
speed that defied the heat of Devil’s Pass, he ran forward and
squeezed the trigger. The buffalo gun blasted its deafening charge.
The bullet hit the coat dead center and the boulder exploded into a
thousand pieces.

The man watched it fall
to the ground.

His eyes widened when
he realized that the trail coat had been carefully placed against
the side of the boulder. There was no one inside its already
blood-soaked fabric.

Where was Iron Eyes?
His mind screamed as his fingers desperately pulled another bullet
from the belt hanging over his shoulder. He opened the chamber of
the weapon, pulled out the still-smoking brass casing, then slid
the fresh shell into the chamber. He locked it into place.

Then he heard the sound
of spurs again.

He hauled the hefty
weapon around and stared at the spurs hanging on the saddle horn of
the terrified Indian pony.

‘
What the hell?’
he muttered as the thought that he had been well and truly tricked
sank at last into his fevered brain.

He stared at the coat
on the ground, then searched the area behind the boulder for the
man he was hunting. There was no sign of Iron Eyes anywhere.

Had the bounty hunter
somehow disappeared into thin air?

That was the way it
seemed to the confused man as he lowered the rifle and moved
towards the tethered Indian pony and the long sharp spurs that had
been deliberately left hanging on the saddle horn.

Before he had time to
think, he heard a sudden noise behind him. He twisted on his heels
and fired his buffalo gun again.

Blood splattered all
over him.

He watched in horror as
his horse was nearly cut in half by the shot from his own smoking
weapon. The pitiful creature was knocked backwards and crumpled
heavily into the blood-covered sand.

His startled gaze
darted away from the body of the stricken animal and began
searching the canyon for the bounty hunter, who had
disappeared.

Would
Iron Eyes have abandoned his mount and chosen to flee this deadly
place on foot? The large water bag was still hanging from the
saddle horn next to the spurs. It seemed ridiculous to even
consider that any sane man would choose to leave his pony and the
bag full of precious water, but was the bounty hunter
sane?

The frightened man knew
little of the prey whom he had hunted for so many years, except
that Iron Eyes killed mercilessly, and without regret.

Before he could move a
muscle he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye on
the white sand. At first he thought that it might be a sidewinder
or a lizard. His head turned and his jaw dropped as he focused on
the sand to his left.

He began to shake.

Slowly, Iron Eyes rose
out of the soft white sand with one of his Navy Colts gripped
firmly in his bony right hand.

‘
Lookin’ for me,
mister?’ the bounty hunter asked.

The man stared at the
ghostly apparition as the voice echoed all about him. He had heard
many voices in his lifetime but none that sounded like this
one.

His wrinkled eyes
widened at the startling sight of the figure that rose out of the
shallow sandy grave before him with the cocked pistol in his hand.
He had not even considered that the bounty hunter would use the
long blade of his Bowie knife to dig a shallow trench in which to
bury himself, to wait patiently for the hunter to get within the
range of his pistol.

For a
moment the man could not believe the gruesome vision that he was
witnessing. For the white sand had stuck to the blood-soaked bounty
hunter, making him appear like a zombie rising from its
grave.

‘
What the hell?’
he croaked as he hastily reloaded the buffalo gun in his shaking
hands.

Iron Eyes did not wait
for the man to aim the buffalo gun once more. He fired the Navy
Colt, then cocked its hammer again and fired again.

The wide-eyed man went
flying backwards and hit the canyon wall hard. He slid slowly down
its smooth surface leaving a trail of crimson gore behind him until
he stopped in a sitting position a score of feet from the smoking
barrel of the Navy Colt.

Iron Eyes staggered to
his feet. He walked towards the body and kicked the rifle out of
its lifeless hands. He then tore the hat from the head and looked
hard at the unseeing face.

He did not recognize
his pursuer.

The bony fingers
searched the pockets of the dead man but they could not find
anything that gave a clue as to his identity. All Iron Eyes knew
for sure was that this man had hurt him real bad. He knew that
there were many men like this one, who wanted to settle a score
with the ruthless bounty hunter who had so cold-bloodedly claimed
the lives of their loved ones.

Iron Eyes lifted his
other Navy Colt off the boulder, tucked it into his belt next to
its still-hot twin and spat at the body at his feet. He then paused
and stared at the dead face again.

The eyes of the dead
man were still wide open.

Iron Eyes lifted what
was left of his trail coat off the sand and studied the damage the
buffalo gun had done to it. It was the worse for wear and full of
holes of various sizes but there was still enough of it left to
wear, he thought.

He slipped it on.

As he
pulled his mount away from the corpse, Iron Eyes hauled the whiskey
bottle from the saddlebag, swilled what was left of the liquor
around his teeth, then swallowed. He tossed the bottle away,
grabbed the head of the pony and whispered into its ear.

‘
He looks as if
he seen a ghost,’ he said, looking at the open eyes of the dead
man.

The bounty hunter
mounted and tapped his mule-ear boots into the flesh of the still
nervous pony. It responded and began to canter. A few yards beyond
the dead horse he saw the hoof-tracks left in the sand by Harve
Calhoon.

Iron Eyes continued
tracking the outlaw.

Captain Hugh Wallis
reined in his powerful mount. The sound of the buffalo gun still
resounded all about him and his platoon of weary troopers. At first
it had sounded to the horseman like a distant thunderclap, until
his ears heard the rest of the brief battle echoing around
them.

It had been a long time
since he had heard the unmistakable sound of a buffalo gun being
fired. It had once been a common noise on the Plains until the vast
herds of nomadic buffalo disappeared.

The experienced officer
held his mount firmly in check with both his white-gauntleted
hands. He looked behind him at the troubled faces of his men as
their eyes vainly searched the walls of the pass for a hint of
where the shots had come from.

Wallis signaled to
Hanks.

Hanks
rode along the line of horsemen until he reached Wallis’s side then
he dragged his reins up to his chest and pushed his battered
cavalry hat off his tanned brow.

‘
What in
tarnation was that, sir?’ Hanks asked anxiously.
‘Dynamite?’

Wallis inhaled deeply
and then heard the echoes of the fainter sound of the Navy Colt
also bouncing off the high canyon walls.

‘
That was not
dynamite, Hanks. But maybe something almost as destructive.’ The
officer sighed.

The
sergeant looked hard at the captain. ‘What in tarnation is anywhere
as destructive as dynamite, sir?’

The
officer’s eyes flashed at Hanks.

‘
A buffalo gun,
Hanks! A buffalo gun!’

Hanks
steadied his horse. ‘A buffalo gun?’

Wallis nodded.

‘
And a handgun.
It seems to me that someone along the trail has been having
themselves an old-fashioned shootout by the sounds of it,
Hanks.’

Hanks
scratched his side-whiskers.

‘
But who on
earth would have a buffalo gun nowadays? It must be five years
since the last buffalo was seen around here.’

Wallis had no
answers.

‘
Maybe we ought
to try and find out. Get Billy Bodine,’ he ordered.

Hanks
stood in his stirrups and called back at the two columns of
troopers for the young corporal, who was renowned for his
horsemanship. It did not take long for the trooper to make himself
seen as he steered his magnificent chestnut quarter horse from next
to the distant chuck wagon and headed for the shouting sergeant.
Bodine galloped through the long, darkening shadows past the eighty
cavalrymen until he reached the two riders at the head of the
column.

Billy Bodine had
enlisted a year earlier and had quickly gained promotion, mainly
due to his skill atop a horse. He was fearless and had never once
hesitated to obey an order however dangerous it might be.

‘
Howdy,
Captain.’ Bodine smiled as he ran his gloved hand along the neck of
his mount. ‘Reckon you must want me to go scouting for
you?’

Wallis
tried not to show his amusement at the youngster’s total inability
to be browbeaten by any man whatever his rank.

‘
Correct, Billy.
I want you to ride that fine animal of yours up this canyon to try
and find out who is doing all the shooting.’

Bodine looked happy as
he gathered his reins together in one hand.

‘
You want me
join in the fight, Captain? If’n they start shooting at
me?’

‘
No. Just check
it out and then get back here as fast as you can and let me know
what you find out.’ Wallis sighed. ‘I don’t want to lead the
platoon into a bloodbath.’

‘
Could be
Indians up there, sir,’ Hanks said thoughtfully.

‘
Possibly. We
are close to the Indian territories.’ Wallis nodded knowingly. ‘But
it seems doubtful that they would have a buffalo gun.’

‘
What if it is
Indians, Captain?’ Bodine queried. ‘Should I keep my
distance?’

‘
I’ll leave that
up to your judgment, Billy. Just don’t bring a whole bunch of them
on your heels when you return back here. I’m in no mood to fight
Indians.’

Billy
Bodine gave out a yell that alerted his highly-strung quarter horse
to start running.

Wallis and Hanks
watched as the skilled young trooper thundered away from them into
the distance. Neither man had ever seen anyone who could ride as
well as Bodine. He seemed to be part of the horse that he rode.

‘
A fine young
man,’ Wallis said.

‘
Yep. A real
horseman.’ Hanks agreed.

The officer looked up
at the darkening sky above the tops of the canyon walls. He knew
that they ought to make camp again but something told him that the
time was not quite right. He could sense danger this night and knew
that it was far wiser to keep his men in the saddle.

‘
What you
thinking about, sir?’ Hanks asked.

‘
I’m thinking
that we should continue along the pass for the time being, Hanks,’
Captain Wallis replied.

The
sergeant knew exactly what the seasoned campaigner was thinking
about. He wanted to venture deeper into Devil’s Pass whilst the sun
was off the men behind them.

‘
I’ll inform the
men, sir.’

Wallis
reached across to the veteran sergeant’s shoulder and cleared his
throat.

‘
Wait a few
minutes, Hanks.’

Hanks
held his mount in check. ‘Sir?’

Wallis removed one of
his gauntlets, then unbuttoned his breast pocket. He pulled out the
two folded sheets of paper and handed them to the surprised
rider.

‘
I thought that
you might wish to read the orders first.’

Hanks gave a wry smile
and unfolded the papers.

‘
About time,
sir.’

Wallis
did not reply. He had too much weighing on his mind to say another
word until his second-in-command knew why they were in this unholy
place. He watched Hanks reading and then stared at the dust still
hanging in the hot air. Dust that had been kicked up off the hoofs
of Bodine’s galloping mount.

He wondered how eager
the sergeant would be to continue once he had read the orders.

It had been dark for a
couple of hours but Calico was no cooler than it had been when the
sun had been blazing down on its wooden buildings. The rooms above
the Wayward Gun saloon were nothing more than practical. A bed and
a chair plus a small dresser with a jug of water and a bowl on its
top were all you got for five dollars a night, but most who spent
time within the small square rooms were grateful just to have a
roof above their heads for a change.

Harve Calhoon had been
surprised when Big Jack Brady had knocked heavily on the door of
his hotel room. The low booming voice was unmistakable, though, as
it instructed the outlaw to join him and the rest of his men
downstairs in the back room.

‘
OK, Big Jack,’
Calhoon shouted at the locked door.

Calhoon heard the heavy footsteps walking back along the
passage away from his room before he lowered his legs from his bed
to the floor. He was tired and wanted to sleep but knew that Brady
was not the sort of man you ignored.

He stared out of the
window at the rising moon, then hauled his boots on over his worn
socks. He was beginning to worry about why Brady needed a dynamite
expert in the first place.