The Fury of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western #4) (7 page)

‘
Well?’ Fergis growled with
his clenched fists resting on his hips.

‘
The daylight is almost
gone, Mr. Fergis. So far it seems that we have not been spotted,’
Roberts sighed.

‘
We ought to cut out of
here by now,’ Bull Fergis said as he leaned down until their noses
were almost touching. ‘I’ve spoken to all my men and they want to
get out of here. To hell with the gold.’

Major Roberts nodded. ‘I
agree, but there is something you forget.’

Fergis’s face went blank as
he straightened up trying to think of what the army officer
meant.

Thomas Roberts rose to his
feet and looked across at his men waiting in their shallow ditches.
Slowly he turned and stared down into the harsh features of the
gold miner.

‘
You boys have your orders
and I’ve got mine. If I disobey mine I’ll be kicked out of the
army, and if you break your contract with the mining company, you
and your men will probably be sued.’

Bull Fergis scratched at
his long beard. ‘But we was lied to by the agent,
Major.’

‘
I was told the truth,’
Roberts said. ‘The trouble is, I was given no alternative than to
lead this insane mission. If I take you boys back to Fort Bruce,
they’ll nail my hide to the wall.’

‘
So you’ll risk keeping us
all here just to save your damn career?’ Fergis snarled
loudly.

Major Roberts noticed the
faces of his young troopers looking in his direction. Their trust
was being betrayed by his own selfishness. They deserved better
than to be waiting for certain death, he thought. Yet this was the
fate he was preparing them for.

‘
You’re absolutely right,
Mr. Fergis. Let us try and get out of here before
sunset.’

Fergis snorted and nodded
violently. ‘You figure we’ve got time?’

‘If you get your oxen hitched
up to your wagons as fast as possible, there is a chance we can
slip back out of here
before the Cheyenne spot us,’ Major Roberts said
as he tried to remain calm.

The large shadow of
Sergeant Walker covered both men as he walked up to them. As their
faces looked up into his, they both noticed the pained expression
carved in his features.

‘
What is it, John?’ Roberts
asked fearfully.

The big sergeant aimed the
barrel of his Springfield rifle up at the hills to their right and
then waved it like a fan. Both the gold miner and the officer went
silent as they saw the plumes of smoke rising from at least five
points along the forested hills.

‘
Reckon they’ve spotted us,
sir.’

‘
What are we gonna do,
Major?’ Fergis raged.

Roberts kicked at the
ground and then turned away. He had no answers to give either
man.

He could have been no more
than sixteen summers old, yet had a nobility far beyond his years.
There was a beauty in the clean features of the youthful rider that
transcended race. His skin was no darker than the average tanned
cowboy out on the Texas range, yet his braided hair laced with two
eagle feathers and immaculate beaded-buckskin clothing made it
obvious, even from a distance, that this was a Cheyenne
brave.

Astride a highly decorated
gelded grey pony, the youthful rider had silently been moving up
through the mountainous forest trails for several days. The
peaceful reservation of the Southern Cheyenne held no challenges
for his kind to prove themselves as in earlier times.

The rituals of days gone by had
died
with
the last of the Indian wars, and were no longer demanded by the
tribal elders. Now, young bucks did not have to have the talons of
an eagle skewered through their chest and be hung by rawhide ropes
until the Great Spirit pronounced them warriors. They no longer had
to seek out and take the heart of their enemies to prove their
manhood.

For braves such as the one
who rose up through the tall straight trees in search of game, the
old days were but a memory he had heard others talk about around
the campfires.

They had called him Silent
Wolf. As he had grown into his early manhood, the name seemed more
and more accurate. The Cheyenne brave had few equals when it came
to hunting, and the elders wondered whether he was capable of
changing into a real wolf when he was out in the hills and
mountains searching for fresh game.

Surely, they mused, only a real
‘silent wolf could have managed to hunt so
successfully. Many other braves
wanted to ride with the young Cheyenne when he went hunting, but
Silent Wolf always rode alone.

Even at his tender age,
Silent Wolf had become almost legendary amongst his own people. For
in the folklore of the Cheyenne, as well as other tribes of the
plains, it was said that certain Indians possessed the ability to
change into animals whenever they wished. It was a gift, bestowed
by the Great Spirit.

Whatever the truth of it,
Silent Wolf was different to the majority of his people. He kept
himself to himself and preferred to ride alone through the majestic
forests whenever possible.

As the grey pony reached the
summit of the tall trail, the Indian dragged at the animal’s mane.
The mount stopped and its master stared wide-eyed at the sight
before him. Silent Wolf had ridden this route countless times
before seeking deer and other game, but his keen eyes had never
witnessed anything like the horrific vision before him in
the
dying
rays of the sun.

For a brief moment, the
young Cheyenne had thought he was looking at one of his own people
lying on the ground, at the feet of the tall, nervous horse. Silent
Wolf squinted in the half-light down at the wrists of the fallen
rider. They were still wrapped in the reins, keeping the animal
from fleeing. The warrior knew that must have been why the mount
had not deserted its master.

Perhaps it was the long,
black hair which cascaded over the collar of his stained coat which
had made Silent Wolf think he was looking at the body of one of his
fellow Cheyenne. It had only taken a few moments for the young
rider to realize that whoever this was lying on the ground, he was
not an Indian.

Throwing a leg over the
neck of his grey pony, Silent Wolf slid to the ground and began
advancing towards the motionless figure.

With each step he took, Silent
Wolf
felt
his heart beating faster. As he stood a few feet from the
stretched-out figure, he noticed the terrible wound which appeared
to go from the front of the man’s skull to the crown. Silent Wolf
had never seen such a wound, not such an example of the white man’s
medicine. The stitches still held Iron Eyes’ scalp together, but
were seeping blood.

The Indian drew his long
knife from his belt and held it tightly as he knelt down beside the
crumpled body. With his free hand he touched Iron Eyes. There was
no reaction.

Silent Wolf had met few
white men during his life, but none of them had looked anything
like Iron Eyes. The mane of black hair confused the Cheyenne as he
moved around the figure trying to work out whether he was still
alive.

He had no knowledge of
white men having hair as long as his own. As he turned the face
away from the ground, Silent Wolf studied the scarred
features.

The face looked like none
he had ever seen before. It did not look like that of any Indian he
had heard of, and yet it did not look like a white man’s either.
Neither did it look like the face of someone of mixed
race.

What had he discovered?
What breed of man was this lying on the ground beside
him?

Silent Wolf was curious yet
nervous. He, like the rest of his people, had a thousand legends,
and the warrior’s brain raced as he wondered if this strange
manifestation fitted any of the tales he had been told.

Then Iron Eyes grunted. The
young Cheyenne recoiled backwards in shock as he realized who or
whatever this man was, he was still alive. It seemed impossible to
the skilled Indian hunter that anyone in such condition could be
anything but dead, yet the man was now groaning.

Silent Wolf jumped to his feet
and stared hard at Iron Eyes, as the bounty hunter rolled over on
to his side and
finally opened his eyes.

The two men looked fixedly
at one another. The sky had gone red above them as the sun set, and
filled the small clearing in a haunting crimson light.

Neither seemed very sure of
what they were looking at.

Darkness had come only a
few minutes after the three riders had reached the forest and
entered following the trail left by Iron Eyes’ horse. There was a
chilling terror in this place which over-whelmed the three
Creedys.

They halted their mounts
and waited for a sign. There was none. Bob Creedy seemed first to
be able to see what surrounded them and dismounted. Faint echoes of
a large moon somehow managed to penetrate the canopy of branches
above them and filtered into the forest interior. Its eerie light
chilled their bones.

‘
What you doing, Bob?’
Treat Creedy asked his brother as the older man walked slowly
around their horses, studying the ground.

‘
Looking for tracks,’ Bob
replied.

‘It’s
kinda dark to see any tracks, Bob,’
Frankie snapped angrily as he watched the shimmering moonlight
creating horrific images all around them — images he knew were
simply tricks of the poor light, yet made the hair on the nape of
his neck stand on end.

‘
I can see good enough,’
Bob replied as he knelt down on the moist ground. ‘Iron Eyes headed
up that way.’

Treat and Frankie stared in
the direction their older brother was pointing, at the trail which
rose up through the tall, black tree trunks.

‘
Are you sure?’ Treat asked
as he watched Bob stepping into his stirrup and mounting his
horse.

Gathering his reins in his
hands, Bob nodded and gently spurred his horse. As he slowly
allowed the creature to walk up the narrow trail he called back,
‘You coming?’

The two riders spurred
their own horses and followed.