The Spirit of Iron Eyes (14 page)

Hume looked into the faces of his two
companions. They averted their eyes from the horrific scene and
looked straight at their captain.

‘
Should we help this old rooster, boys?’

‘
I’m
game!’ Tanny Gibson nodded firmly. ‘I can’t leave no man to them
merciless Apaches, Cap. We gotta help.’

Hume looked at Wall.

‘
What
about you, Col? You figure we ought to give this old Texas lawman a
helping hand?’

Col Wall
’s eyes sparkled in the
moonlight.

‘
Sure
enough, Matty. I ain’t got nothin’ else to do but I still figure we
might be bitin’ off more than we can chew.’

Hume raised an eyebrow at his well-built
friend. A man with an appetite as big as the broad smile that never
seemed to fade.

‘
More
than you can chew? There ain’t no such animal, Col.’

Marshal Tom Quaid leaned across toward the
three nervous Texas Rangers and began to speak.

‘
Listen up, boys. This is my plan ... ’

The explosion was big and unexpected by all,
except the four riders who raced in all directions from their first
well-placed dynamite stick. There was nothing left of the Joshua
tree or any of the dry brush which had surrounded its spiky trunk.
Just a burning scar on the blackened sand. Debris had flown into
the air as the shock waves expanded out from the nucleus of the
explosion.

The three Texas Rangers and the marshal had
waited until a large black cloud had moved between the bright moon
and the land beneath its eerie light before they acted.

The fuse had been trimmed short.

Real short.

It had taken less than a minute
for it to burn down to the detonation cap that was rammed into the
soft dynamite stick. But it had been enough time for the quartet of
horsemen to ride wide of the Apaches
’ camp-fire.

Iron Eyes had thought that the
snake-venom and cruel points of the Indians
’ sharp lances were making him
hallucinate once more. There had been so many nightmares for the
bounty hunter since he had last managed to sleep.

He had watched the four riders in the
distance for what had seemed an eternity from his painful vantage
point high on the face of the crude wooden torture rack.

As the power of the explosion rocked him, he
began to realize that this was actually real. The attention of the
Apaches was suddenly drawn away from their prisoner and aimed at
the distant flames.

It was a confused Iron Eyes who watched as
the stunned painted warriors raced to their lines of ponies. He
could still feel the shock waves rocking the high pole he was
tethered to, as they bounced off the ridge behind him.

The eyes of the bounty hunter
darted from one outstretched arm to the other. The Indians had done
a good job binding his wrists and biceps to the long twisted
crossbar. He was hanging like meat in a butcher
’s shop.

They had used wet rawhide which was designed
to tighten as the moisture evaporated from it.

Now after more than an hour the rawhide had
shrunk to half its original size and was cutting into his
flesh.

His weary eyes could see blood starting to
weep from the leather restraints. Yet there was no pain.

He had not felt any of his
enemies
’
brutal attacks since they had eventually caught him near their
mounts. The poison in his body ensured that nothing else could hurt
him.

Iron Eyes stared around the vast
mist-covered prairie trying to see the four horsemen again. He
could not.

Conchowata and Diamond Back Jones had not
moved away from the massive camp-fire with the rest of their fellow
Apaches and were now the only braves to remain near their precious
prisoner. Yet all thoughts about Iron Eyes had evaporated as their
attention was drawn to the prairie.

The half-dead bounty hunter watched as the
screaming Apaches rode their ponies out towards the still burning
hole in the sand where the four Texans had blown up the
undergrowth. He wondered who they were and why they had acted.

Were they trying to help him? If so,
why?

The tortured man lowered his chin and stared
down at the two men below him. If he were ever going to act, he
knew that it had to be now!

He leaned forward and felt the pole move in
the soft sand far below him. Then he rocked back. Every sinew in
his body screamed out for him to stop, but he could not. Somehow
Iron Eyes managed to make the wooden pole respond to his slightest
change of weight distribution.

The pole was moving a few
inches at first and then more and more as the man strapped to
it
found
hidden reserves of strength somewhere within his determined
spirit.

No fear existed in his lean blood-covered
frame as he managed to get the pole rocking back and forth with
more rapidity. All he could think about was making the base of the
pole either snap or topple out of the soft sand.

But it was a risky business.

Iron Eyes knew that if it did
fall forward he would more than likely land in the flames of the
Apaches
’
massive camp-fire, yet he was unafraid.

Suddenly another massive
explosion erupted near the still-
smoldering hole out on the scarred
prairie. The Texas Rangers had left three more sticks of dynamite
with various lengths of lit fuses.

As the scores of Apache horsemen had neared
the site of the first explosion, the second stick had gone off.
Riders and ponies were thrown into the air as the lethal dynamite
erupted into action.

Then another stick violently blasted and
then the fourth.

It was carnage!

More than half the Apaches were either dead
or maimed by the force of the three later explosions. Those who
were left of the painted riders were stunned and half-blinded by
the unexpected blasts.

As the remaining Apaches managed to regain
control of their ponies, they suddenly heard the sound of rifle
shots echoing out around the immense prairie.

The trio of Texas Rangers had
used the shadows
of the storm clouds well. They had managed to fan out into
the mists that drifted over the ground to their advantage. Now they
were attacking with their long rifles in their experienced hands as
their legs guided the well-trained mounts beneath them.

The Apache horsemen were in a turkey-shoot,
and it was they who were the targets of the skilled riflemen.

Iron Eyes could see every single detail of
the battle that was raging far beyond him. He continued to rock the
pole that he was strapped to as he noticed the Apache chief being
drawn further and further away from him.

Chief Conchowata looked in horror at his
warriors being killed and knew that he could do nothing about it.
The Apache leader ran to his pony, leapt across its back and then
galloped off towards the raging battle. He knew that he would
probably not survive, but he chose to fight and die with his
braves.

Diamond Back Jones drew both
his Colts from his holsters and cocked their hammers. Unlike the
rest of his tribe, he had no sense of
honor or loyalty. He knew that he now
had to escape from the unexpected mayhem.

Jones was just about to approach his own
horse when he heard the creaking of the pole behind him.

With the speed of a puma, he
spun on his heels and looked at their prisoner. The face of Iron
Eyes
was
without expression as he forced the pole forward for the last
time.

There was a loud cracking sound at the base
of the pole. It seemed to shudder as it tumbled with its helpless
victim tied to its frame.

Jones moved toward the fire and aimed both
pistols into the air. But the pole was falling faster than even he
could squeeze his triggers.

A million burning splinters rose into the
air as Iron Eyes disappeared into the flames.

The Apache outlaw fired over and over again
into the inferno before him as he tried to approach the hot
blinding wall of fire that spewed burning debris in all directions.
Jones knew that the bounty hunter had been engulfed by flames and
there was no escape.

Before Jones could holster his guns, he felt
the gun in his left hand being torn from his grip as the deafening
sound of a bullet crossed the distance between the approaching
rider and the outlaw.

Diamond Back Jones turned and looked
straight at the black gelding which was galloping toward him. The
star of the lawman flashed in the firelight.

The outlaw cocked the hammer of his
remaining Colt and then quickly fired at the marshal.

Tom Quaid felt his faithful mount collapse
beneath him. He flew helpless through the air and crashed into the
soft forgiving sand. He rolled over several times before finding
himself at the feet of the outlaw.

Jones laughed as he cocked the hammer of his
gun and aimed it at the head of the dazed marshal who was lying on
the sand.

‘
Looks
like it’s my lucky day, Marshal Quaid!’ The outlaw grinned as he
closed the distance between them. ‘First I gets to see old Iron
Eyes killed and now I gets to kill you.’

Tom Quaid blinked hard and
stared into the barrel of Jones
’s primed pistol.

‘
Shoot, ya bastard! Kill me like ya killed my
daughters!’

Diamond Back Jones grinned even wider.

‘
Was
them your daughters? They was sweet. Never tasted sweeter, Marshal!
It was a shame to kill them afterwards, but they was sort of messed
up. I figured it would be kinder to put the bitches out of their
misery!’

Furiously, Quaid felt himself
rising off the sand. The outlaw
’s gun fired and a bullet caught him in
the shoulder. But the lawman still came up off the sand at the
outlaw.

Tm gonna kill ya,
Jones!
’

Quaid
’s hands grabbed at the throat of the
Apache outlaw, who began to cock his pistol once again. The marshal
felt the cold barrel of the weapon push into his belly as he
squeezed Jones’s throat with every ounce of his being. If he
couldn’t get a noose around Jones’s neck, he’d do the job with his
fingers, he silently vowed.

Then as their faces were just
inches apart, Quaid felt the outlaw shudder. Diamond Back
Jones’s eyes
widened and he dropped the gun. The marshal continued to throttle
the man in his grip until he realized that the outlaw was somehow
already dead.

A confused Quaid released his
grip. The lifeless outlaw fell in a heap at the
marshal
’s
feet.

Tom Quaid narrowed his eyes and saw the long
Bowie knife in the back of the outlaw lying before him. He blinked
hard again and lifted his head. He stared in disbelief at the
horrific image of Iron Eyes staggering away from the flames of the
camp-fire towards him.

He had never before seen anyone still
somehow alive who looked quite as dead as the bounty hunter
did.

It seemed impossible to the marshal that
anyone could have survived falling into such a ferocious fire as
the one the Apaches had made. Yet Iron Eyes was staggering across
the scorched, bloodstained sand defiantly.

The bounty hunter was burned beyond
description. Smoke drifted off every part of him. Only his long
sweat-sodden hair remained untouched by the fire he had fallen
into.

Iron Eyes bent down and dragged
his knife out of the body and tucked it back into his
smoldering
boot.

‘
They
never even thought that I might have me a knife tucked into my
boot,’ Iron Eyes said wearily.

‘
Are
you OK, son?’ Marshal Quaid heard himself ask the ridiculous
question.

Iron Eyes looked at the triumphant Texas
Rangers who were headed towards them. He then glanced back at the
lawman.

‘
I’
ve bin better, old man!’

The Texas Rangers had managed to survive
their battle with the Apaches out on the prairie but they knew that
without the four sticks of deadly dynamite, it would have been a
very different story indeed.

To their utter amazement, Conchowata had
fearlessly ridden into the hail of Winchester bullets and guided
what was left of his defeated tribe away to the safety of the mists
that continued to trace their way across the moonlit sand.

Matty Hume, Col Wall and Tanny Gibson had
allowed the Apache chief safe passage until he and his surviving
braves had headed back into the uncharted territory which had
spawned them. The Texas Rangers had no desire to kill any more of
their worthy opponents and were grateful that luck had been on
their side.

But it was the scene that
greeted them when
they had followed Tom Quaid’s trail to beneath the ridge
which had taken them by surprise.

None of the three horsemen had
expected to set eyes upon anything quite so gruesome as the sight
of the badly injured Iron Eyes, who had saved the wounded marshal.
As a few rays of light moved across the sky
signaling an end to the
seemingly eternal night, Iron Eyes totally ignored them.

Col Wall had started to use the
dying embers of the Indians
’ fire to rustle up some breakfast.