The Fury of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western #4) (13 page)

Screwing his eyes up even more
than usual, the bounty hunter tried to seek out
their hidden mounts. His eyes
might not have been able to locate them, but his hearing told him
that they were tied up somewhere beyond the bodies of the Cheyenne.
Somewhere in the darkness of the forest.

Moving on to his belly,
Iron Eyes began to crawl towards his stricken horse. There was
little cover in the high, bright clearing apart from his horse
which lay on its side twenty or so feet ahead of him.

Reaching the prostrate
creature, Iron Eyes dropped both his Navy Colts into his coat
pockets and pulled his Winchester out from its saddle scabbard
before trying to cock its stiff mechanism.

This was a weapon he seldom
used, and it showed. If ever a rifle was in need of attention, it
was this one, but he had no time to rebuke himself. Now he had to
avenge the young Cheyenne hunter called Silent Wolf. Nothing else
mattered.

Digging deep inside the pockets
of his coat, he managed to find a few rifle
shells amongst the dozens of
pistol bullets.

Forcing the three bullets
into the carbine and cranking its rusty lever, Iron Eyes began to
wonder who these men that he wanted to kill so desperately actually
were.

The thought did not have
time to take root in his mind. A swarm of bullets volleyed across
the clearing and ripped into the body of the horse, forcing the
bounty hunter to duck behind its massive bulk.

Rolling over until he could
see beneath the neck of the dead animal, Iron Eyes carefully aimed
the Winchester at the two gunmen he could see firing at
him.

Squeezing the trigger of
the Winchester was easy. Getting it to fire was another matter. The
trigger seemed to jam halfway through its action.

‘
Damn!’ Iron Eyes cursed as
he angrily tossed the rifle away and began to reach in his pocket
for the pair of trusty Navy Colts.

Bob Creedy must have had
the eyes of an eagle, for he spotted the form of the bounty hunter
just behind the twisted neck of the horse. It was only a
half-chance, but that was all he knew his brother needed. Pointing,
Bob handed his own fully-loaded Winchester to Frankie.

‘
That must be Iron Eyes,
boy. Kill him.’

Frankie raised the rifle to
his shoulder and quickly adjusted the sights before squeezing its
trigger. This carbine was unlike the one that the bounty hunter had
tried to use. This one was greased and cleaned to
perfection.

The bullet exploded from
the long barrel of Creedy’s rifle, and would have gone straight
through the skull of Iron Eyes had the bounty hunter not raised one
of his Navy Colts a fraction of a second before the lead ball
reached its target.

Iron Eyes felt an agonizing
pain as the gun was torn from his grip and smashed into his face by
the sheer force
of the accurate bullet.

The pain of the pistol
hitting his face had been bad enough for the bounty hunter, but the
white flash of swirling fog inside his head came as a total shock.
With blood pouring from his face, Iron Eyes battled vainly to cling
on to consciousness, but he knew he had failed when his head fell
back into the damp grass. Suddenly, every one of the honed senses
that he possessed in abundance deserted him. Iron Eyes was out
cold.

‘
You got him!’ Bob Creedy
screamed in delight. ‘You killed the famed Iron Eyes,
Frankie!’

Both men cautiously got to
their feet. They began to advance towards the figure that was lying
outstretched beyond the dead horse. Even now, the Creedys knew they
were not safe. No man of Iron Eyes’ reputation could be so easily
dismissed.

Frankie cocked the rifle again
and kept it trained on the motionless figure as they drew closer,
his elder brother
keeping both his pistols on Iron Eyes.

‘
Is he dead?’ Bob asked as
they circled the neck of the horse hesitantly.

Frankie stared at the face
of Iron Eyes — a face covered in blood caused by the impact of the
Navy Colt.

‘
Looks like I got the
varmint straight between the eyes, Bob.’

Bob Creedy began to grin.
‘What a shot, boy. What a shot. Even old Dan could not have made
such a shot.’

Both men stood over the
still figure and laughed at the sight of their handiwork. Had they
done the impossible? Had they killed the man, who, it was said,
could not be killed?

Both the Navy Colts were
yards away from the thick hands of the bounty hunter. This was no
trick, they both thought. Iron Eyes was dead.

‘
We ought to empty our guns
into him, Frankie,’ Bob suggested.

‘
Why? I already done for
him.’

‘For Dan and Treat, boy. And
maybe just for fun.’ Bob Creedy slowly aimed the
barrels of his
pistols at the blood-covered face of Iron Eyes.

Before Frankie had time to
reply or lift the Winchester up to his shoulder, the sound of a
howling wolf filled their ears as it bayed at the large moon. The
creature was close.

Both brothers spun on their
heels and frantically glanced around the clearing. Then they saw
it.

‘
A wolf!’ Frankie gasped as
the handsome animal walked steadily towards them. The yellow pupils
of its eyes seemed fixed on the outlaws as it
approached.

‘
Easy, boy,’ said Bob
Creedy as he tried to control his shaking hands and aim at the
advancing creature.

The wolf shook its head and
bared its fangs. The growl was something neither man had ever heard
before. It was far louder than they had imagined it could possibly
be.

The animal continued walking
towards the Creedys as Iron Eyes blinked behind them and focused on
the two figures. Rolling over unnoticed,
the bounty hunter was about to reach
for one of his Navy Colts when he too saw the wolf.

‘
Kill it, boy. Kill that
critter,’ Bob demanded.

Both men began to fire
their weaponry with a mixture of fear and desperation. It was as if
the sound of thunder filled the mountain clearing. The acrid
gunsmoke soon blurred their vision, but the sound of the wolf
continued.

No amount of bullets seemed
able to stop the advance of the growling wolf. Then it
struck.

Iron Eyes managed to crawl
to the closest of his pistols, and lay with his back against the
saddle of his fallen horse. The black smoke of so many gun and
rifle shots masked his eyes from seeing the men vainly trying to
fend off the wolf, but he heard every sound.

The jaws of the raging
animal ripped and tore at the Creedy brothers. Their pitiful
screams chilled even Iron Eyes.

Then it went
silent.

Iron Eyes waited like a
condemned man until the black smoke finally drifted off the side of
the mountain and he could see the carnage before him. Swallowing
hard, he stared at the proud wolf that stood a mere twenty feet
from him beside the bodies of the Creedy brothers.

Iron Eyes used his coat
sleeve to wipe the blood from his face and gripped his gun tightly,
whilst the wolf slowly began to walk through the wet grass towards
him. Was it now his turn to be torn apart by the blood-covered
fangs? He rested the Navy Colt on his leg and continued staring
into the eyes of the approaching wolf.

Then his mind was filled with
the memory of the face of young Silent Wolf. As the creature drew
ever closer to the seated Iron Eyes, he noticed that
the animal was not
growling as it had done with the two outlaws.

For some reason that even
he could not understand, Iron Eyes released his grip on the pistol
and allowed it to slide off his leg into the grass beside
him.

The animal stopped beside
the blood-stained boots of Iron Eyes and began panting. The yellow
eyes of the wolf fixed on to those of the injured bounty
hunter.

‘
Little hunter?’ Iron Eyes
heard himself say.

The wolf bowed its handsome
head, turned and disappeared into the mist, which was rising from
the grass as the first rays of the sun began to warm a new
day.

It took the bounty hunter
less than an hour to do what he had to do.

Riding one of the mounts left
by the savaged Creedy brothers, Iron Eyes headed back along the
trail he had used to enter the forest. The other horse was laden
down with what was left of the two outlaws. If they had a price on
their
heads,
he was going to claim it.

Reaching the hot prairie,
Iron Eyes aimed the horse towards the distant town of
Bonny.

Tapping his spurs into the
flesh of the mount, Iron Eyes could hear the howling of a wolf
coming from the highest point of the tree-covered mountains behind
him.

He did not turn to
look.

Iron Eyes knew exactly what
Silent Wolf looked like.

Piccadilly
Publishing

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If you have enjoyed this book
then we suggest the following in the
Iron Eyes s
eries:

IRON EYES

IRON EYES THE
AVENGE

THE SPURS OF IRON
EYES