The Spirit of Iron Eyes (15 page)

‘
Ya
hungry?’ Wall had asked the bounty hunter.

‘
Got
any whiskey?’ Iron Eyes responded.

‘
Nope.
But I got bacon, and flour to make biscuits.’ Wall
smiled.

Iron Eyes shook his head and
continued to roam around searching for anything that he might be
able to use on his long journey away from this place. He managed to
locate the handful of .36
caliber bullets he had lost in his struggle with
the Apaches and tucked them into his trouser pockets.

‘
Reckon that reward money will buy ya plenty of whiskey,
Iron Eyes,’ Tanny Gibson commented.

Iron Eyes spat at the ground and
growled.

‘
I
don’t want no
reward money off that critter, sonny. The marshal can have the
carcass.’

Matty Hume studied the tall man
carefully as he finished tending to the wounded marshal. He had
cleaned the bullet hole as best he could and then made a sling for
Quaid
’s
arm.

‘
Reckon that varmint is ready to drop, Tom.’

Quaid nodded.

‘
That’s what I was thinkin’, Matty,’ the marshal agreed. ‘I
just don’t understand how he ain’t already dead.’

‘
Maybe
he is!’ Hume sighed.

Tom Quaid picked up the two matched Navy
Colts from the sand, then managed to muster the nerve to approach
the tall severely burned man who could no longer hide the pain that
was consuming him.

‘
Can
we talk, Iron Eyes?’

The bounty hunter led Diamond
Back Jones
’s
mount away from the remnants of the camp-fire and picked up his
long coat from the sand. He slipped it over his blistered skin and
accepted his two prized Navy Colts from the frowning
lawman.

‘
Talk,
old man!’

‘
You
could come back to Waco with us, Iron Eyes,’ Quaid said. He opened
the silver lid of his cigar-case and offered the bounty hunter the
last of his expensive smokes.

Iron Eyes slipped the guns into his deep
coat pockets and accepted the cigar. He pulled his long knife from
his boot and carefully cut the cigar into two equal portions.

Tom Quaid accepted the half cigar and placed
it between his lips. He watched Iron Eyes grip his with his small
teeth.

The marshal struck a match and lit both
their smokes.

‘
Well?’

‘
I
never cottoned to Waco, Marshal,’ Iron Eyes said as he stepped into
the stirrup and hoisted his body on to the back of the outlaw’s
horse. ‘Besides, I reckon I’ve got me a longer journey to
negotiate.’

Quaid looked at the man hard.
Blackened skin was peeling from Iron Eyes
’ body as he gathered up the reins
and sucked on the strong cigar.

‘
You
need them wounds tended, son!’ Quaid said. ‘Let me and the boys
help ya.’

Iron Eyes was silent. He could still feel
the venom of the rattlesnake burning at his guts. He gripped the
saddle horn and felt himself leaning forward as the pain grew more
intense inside him.

‘
Look
at me, Iron Eyes!’ Marshal Quaid insisted as he watched the man
above him fighting the agony he was now unable to hide from the
four onlookers. ‘If you don’t let us help ya, you’ll more than
likely die! You was snake bit, boy! Snake bit and God only knows
what else.’

‘
So?’
Iron Eyes gripped the cigar hard.

‘
You
could die!’ Quaid repeated.

Iron Eyes exhaled a cloud of smoke and then
nodded at the concerned lawman. His face was etched by pain.

‘
Too
late, Marshal! Reckon ya a tad too late!’

The Texans watched silently as the bounty
hunter tapped his spurs into the flesh of his newly acquired horse
and rode away from them.

The lone rider headed straight into the
rising sun, leaving the four Texans to wonder what he meant.

With every stride of his
horse
’s long
legs, Iron Eyes slumped further over the neck of the
mount.

As the blinding light of a new day engulfed
the prairie, Iron Eyes was gone.

Piccadilly Publishing is the brainchild of long time
Western fans and Amazon Kindle Number One bestselling Western
writers Mike Stotter and David Whitehead (a.k.a. Ben Bridges). The
company intends to bring back into 'e-print' some of the most
popular and best-loved Western and action-adventure series fiction
of the last forty years.

To visit our website,
click
here

To visit our blog,
click
here

To follow us on
Facebook click
here

Read more on the
Author

Titles in this Series

Iron Eyes

Irons Eyes the Avenger

The Spurs of Iron Eyes

Fury of Iron Eyes

The Wrath of Iron Eyes

The Curse of Iron Eyes