The Fury of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western #4) (8 page)

Night had quickly found the
valley where Major Thomas Roberts was encamped with his hundred
troopers and the gold miners. Yet the hours of night were not to
bring them any security due to the brilliant moon which had
replaced the blazing sun. Roberts knew they required a black sky if
they were to make a successful retreat from this dangerous place.
The officer could still see the smoke rising from the forested
hills against the hazy night sky, but now he could also make out
the flames which were being fanned.

They were being warned to
get off the reservation of the Southern Cheyenne and Major Roberts
intended to heed that warning. There was no glory in fighting a foe
when you knew, with every sinew of your being, that it was you who
were in the wrong.

Roberts prayed that he
still had time to get his caravan of miners, wagons and troopers
out of the valley before sun-up. He also prayed that he had not
left it too late.

A sound began to chill his
entire company as they remained in their shallow ditches. It was a
sound that had not filled the officer’s ears for many years, but it
haunted his memory. It was the sound of distant drumming echoing
around the dark hills of trees. It was impossible to tell where the
drumming was coming from, but wherever it was originating, it
seemed to be getting louder with every passing second.

‘
Are we gonna be attacked by
Indians, Major?’ one of the troopers asked Roberts as he walked
slowly along the line of men in their foxholes.

‘
Easy, son,’ Roberts’s calm
voice soothed.

Bull Fergis rushed from his
wagons up to the major and gasped as he spoke.

‘My
boys have hitched up all the oxen to
the wagons. We’re ready and able to skedaddle out of here when
you’ve a mind to give the order.’

‘
Good.’ Roberts patted the
man on his solid shoulder as he walked through the long, moist
grass to where Sergeant Walker was waiting. ‘Are the horses saddled
and readied, John?’

‘
Like you ordered, sir,’
Walker nodded.

Thomas Roberts removed his
white gauntlets from his black belt and pulled them on to his
hands.

‘
Gentlemen, we have to do
this properly if we are to escape with our hair. We must make a
quiet evacuation of this place. It is obvious that we are being
watched and the Cheyenne could strike at any time, but I think they
will allow us to leave their land peacefully.’

‘
I heard tell that Injuns
don’t attack at night, Major,’ Bull Fergis said.

‘
I’m afraid that is not
exactly accurate, Mr. Fergis,’ Roberts informed the
miner.

‘
It ain’t?’

‘
It ain’t!’Walker
grunted.

‘
I suggest you offload as
much heavy tools and machinery as possible from your wagons,’
Roberts instructed Fergis.

‘
But all our money is tied
up in our equipment,’ Bull Fergis protested. ‘We can’t just dump
it.’

‘
It will slow you and us
up, Mr. Fergis,’ Roberts said in a stern voice.

‘
But it’s valuable,’ Fergis
protested.

‘
More valuable than your
hair?’

‘
My hair?’ Bull Fergis’s
eyes widened as he looked into the face of the officer. It was a
face with every last bit of humor drained from it. ‘What ya
mean?’

‘
I could be wrong about the
mood of the Cheyenne. They might be just boiling over to have a
fight with us, Mr. Fergis,’ Major Roberts sighed. ‘Oxen don’t run
very fast at the best of times, let alone when they are pulling
heavy wagons.’

‘What about the explosives?’
Bull Fergis swallowed hard as he suddenly
began to realize that their escape
from this lush valley was by no means a certainty.

‘
Keep all your weaponry,
liquor and explosives on your wagons, Mr. Fergis,’ Roberts advised.
‘We do not want them falling into the wrong hands, do
we?’

It was a pale-faced Fergis
who turned around towards his fellow miners.

‘
We’d better strip some of
the heavy equipment off the wagons, boys. We might have to make a
run for it.’

Roberts leaned closer to
his burly sergeant.

‘
Get a dozen troopers and
bring all our horses here. I do not wish to waste a single second
when the miners have stripped some weight off their
wagons.’

‘
Right away, Major.’ Walker
touched the brim of his hat. Then he ran along the line of troopers
lying on their bellies and gathered enough men together to
accomplish his orders.

Thomas Roberts knew that if the
Cheyenne were to attack, they would
not ride at his men offering themselves as
target, but crawl through the long grass unseen and then
strike.

For
all Roberts knew, they were already
doing just that.

The tall, ghost-like figure
of Iron Eyes stepped to the very edge of the clearing and stared
down at the vast, tree-covered scenery below him. He was suddenly
nervous.

‘
What wrong, Iron Eyes?’
Silent Wolf asked.

‘
You smell
smoke?’

‘
Yes,’ Silent Wolf nodded
as he sniffed the air. ‘Fire!’

Both men tried to work out
where the burning scent was coming from as they moved around the
lip of a sheer drop. Then the young Cheyenne pointed to their
right. Even though it was still night, the moonlight showed the
dark swirling clouds drifting on the still air.

‘
There. See?’

‘Yep. I see it
okay. Is it a
forest fire, Silent Wolf?’ Iron Eyes asked his
companion.

‘
No. Smoke come from many
signal fires.’

Iron Eyes looked perplexed.
‘I don’t get it.’

‘
Smoke signals. Warning of
intruders,’ the young Cheyenne added as he gestured with his hands,
the way many plains tribes communicated to one another when unsure
of the other’s dialect.

‘Maybe your people noticed me.’
The bounty hunter moved away from the sheer drop and studied his
newly-found friend. It was something he found aw
^k
ward as he had never felt the emotion of
friendship before. ‘Maybe I got them all riled up.’

‘
Not you. Must be others.
Many others.’ Silent Wolf moved back to his pony. ‘Smoke only used
when our land is violated by outsiders.’

‘
What do you mean by
outsiders, little hunter?’ Iron Eyes gazed at the handsome Indian
curiously.

‘My people only make smoke
signals when army or other big enemy enters
reservation, Iron Eyes,’ the
youth explained.

‘
What would soldiers want to
enter your reservation for?’

‘
This land has the yellow
stones white men like.’

‘
You mean gold?’ Iron Eyes
had never understood why so many men seemed to lose their sanity
when it came to gold. To him it was worthless unless made into a
golden eagle coin.

‘
Yes. Gold.’ The Cheyenne
threw himself on to the back of his mount and gathered up the
crude, rawhide-rope rein with one hand as his other held the
animal’s mane.

‘
Maybe we ought to go take
a look at what’s gotten your people so worked up, Silent Wolf,’
Iron Eyes said through gritted teeth as he moved towards his
horse.

‘
We go and see,’ the
Cheyenne hunter nodded as he expertly controlled his
pony.

Iron Eyes raised an
eyebrow. ‘Is it healthy for me to be seen by your
tribe?’

‘
You safe with me. They not
harm friend of Silent Wolf.’

Reluctantly, Iron Eyes
stepped into his stirrup and hauled himself atop his
horse.

‘
Okay.
But if they start shooting at me, I’ll shoot back.’

‘
They say man never see or
hear bullet or arrow that kill him, Iron Eyes,’ Silent Wolf said as
he turned his pony around.

‘
Maybe so, but I’ll kill the
varmint who kills me.’ Iron Eyes stared at the brave Cheyenne and
nudged his mount closer. There was something about the Indian which
intrigued the battle-scarred bounty hunter. Perhaps he reminded him
of himself at that age. ‘Are you as good a hunter as you look,
Silent Wolf?’

‘
There are those who say I
am blessed by the Great Spirit and able to turn into a real wolf
whenever I wish,’ Silent Wolf said calmly.

‘
Is it true?’

‘
Maybe true. Maybe not
true.’

‘
You teasing a fellow
hunter, Silent Wolf?’ Iron Eyes gave the young brave a long,
knowing look.

‘
Me no understand, Iron
Eyes.’ The Cheyenne almost smiled as he kicked his heels into the
sides of his pony and started down the overgrown trail.

‘
The hell you
don’t.’

The smell of smoke filled
the bounty hunter’s nostrils as he gathered up his loose reins.
Suddenly Iron Eyes was reminded that he and Silent Wolf were not
alone in this vast forest.

Iron Eyes tapped his spurs
into the flesh of his horse and began to follow the young brave
into the black shadows. He had heard of the legends which told of
certain Indians being able to turn into animals and birds at will.
Until now, he had thought they were just tall tales, yet Iron Eyes
knew there was something different about the elegant Cheyenne he
was following. If there was an Indian capable of transforming into
another creature, it was Silent Wolf, Iron Eyes thought.

As the bounty hunter’s tall
horse followed the grey pony deeper and deeper along the dark,
narrow trail which wound its way between the straight pine trees,
Iron Eyes knew in his guts that they were heading into a place he
had been to many times. A place called trouble.

‘
There!’ Silent Wolf pointed
as the two riders reached another clearing halfway down the steep
mountain trail. ‘See them, Iron Eyes? Soldiers!’

‘
I see them, Silent Wolf,’
Iron Eyes growled as he focused on the valley below their high
vantage point. Even the moonlight could not disguise the
white-canvas-topped wagons and scores of mounted cavalry milling
around in the valley of swaying grass. ‘What the hell are them
soldier boys doing there? If this is an Indian reservation, they
got no right to even enter.’

‘
They on Cheyenne land.
Why?’ Silent Wolf asked angrily as he pulled his ancient rifle from
its hiding place inside a large hide bag, hanging across the
shoulders of his pony.

‘Reckon it must be something to
do with the gold you told me about, little
hunter.’ Iron Eyes held his reins
high to his chest as he balanced in his stirrups watching the
activity below. ‘A lot of white folks would skin their mothers to
get hold of a few ounces of gold.’

Silent Wolf raised his
rifle and nestled its wooden stock against his shoulder, whilst
looking down its length trying to line up its rusty
sights.

‘
I kill white
men.’

‘
No! You can’t just start
killing troopers.’ Iron Eyes reached across and pushed the barrel
down.

‘
Why, Iron Eyes?’

‘
Cos it would give them
critters an excuse to attack your people, Silent Wolf,’ Iron Eyes
reasoned. He had seen it happen many times. ‘That sort don’t need
any excuse to kill more Indians.’

Suddenly Silent Wolf aimed
his index finger at the densely-wooded hill opposite the one they
were on.

‘
Big trouble
coming.’

Iron Eyes could see what the
young brave was talking about as he stared in
the direction his companion was
indicating. At first it just looked like spots of light moving in a
long line through a forest trail. Then, Iron Eyes realized it was
the light of the large moon catching the raised war lances and
rifles of hundreds of Cheyenne riders as they made their way to a
point above the encamped soldiers.

‘
Looks like them soldiers
are in for a fight.’ Iron Eyes ran his fingers through his mane of
black hair and felt the pain of his stitched-up scalp. His head
still ached but he no longer heard the throbbing drumming inside
his skull. The only drumming he heard now was coming from somewhere
below in the heartland of the Cheyenne as their warriors advanced
on the cavalry.

‘
Why soldiers want gold?’
the young brave asked his grim-faced companion.

‘Greed
,’ Iron Eyes muttered under his
breath.

‘
No understand,’ Silent
Wolf said as he looked back into the stony features of the bounty
hunter. ‘What is greed?’

‘It’s
when one man wants what another man
has,’ Iron Eyes informed.

‘
You mean they want
Cheyenne gold?’

Iron Eyes nudged his horse
closer to the younger man’s pony. ‘They probably want your entire
reservation as well.’

‘
That is wrong,’ Silent Wolf
breathed heavily as his chest heaved. ‘My people would give them
the yellow rocks if they asked, for it is of no use. Gold is not
strong enough make knife. It is heavy. It useless.’