The Spirit of Iron Eyes (5 page)

For over a month the rider had thought about
the reasons why he had set out on this quest. The haunting images
had flashed through his mind in every waking moment and turned his
sleep into nightmares. In nearly thirty years of being a lawman
nothing had affected him this way before. There was only one reason
why he was after the outlaw.

This was revenge. Pure and simple revenge.
Diamond Back Jones would pay for what he had done back in Texas.
Quaid had vowed that over the graves of his two daughters.

There was nowhere on the face of the earth
that the veteran marshal would not go in order to catch the
bloodthirsty killer. Even if it meant riding into the bowels of
Hell itself. He would never stop his avenging pursuit.

If there had ever been any fear dwelling in
the marshal, it had disappeared since that chilling moment when he
had discovered the bodies of his only remaining family members on
his ranch just outside Waco.

Their
murders had somehow stripped every
ounce of caution from Tom Quaid’s soul. Now he had nothing left to
lose except his life. But that was the one thing he had never truly
valued.

Quaid pulled the front of his Stetson down
until its brim was at eye-level. He knew that when facing his
enemies it paid to be able to see their eyes without them being
able to focus upon his. For the first to blink was usually also the
first to die.

It had been a trick that had
never let him down. He had managed to outdraw more than forty men
in his long career and not lost a second
’s sleep over any of them.

For the vermin that tasted the lead of men
like Tom Quaid were bad and death was their just reward for the
pain they inflicted upon others. Lawmen like Quaid were the only
upholders of justice available for the innocent in the West.

He pulled back on his reins and slowed the
tall black gelding as he entered the wide main street. He had heard
tales of this town and its acrid aroma told him that every one of
the stories must be true.

The sound of a million flies
alerted the marshal that something other than stinking outhouses
had excited them during the hot day. As he allowed his horse to
pass the crude open-fronted funeral
parlor, he realized what that something
was. Blood-soaked bodies were stacked on top of one another. They
spilled out on to the boardwalk. The sound of hammering echoed out
from the rear of the building as coffins were being hastily
assembled.

Tom Quaid inhaled through his gritted teeth
and narrowed his eyes and continued on.

He knew that there had been a real big gun
battle in Dry Gulch and wondered if Diamond Back Jones had anything
to do with it.

There was no fear in Quaid. Others in his
occupation might have hidden their gleaming star in a town such as
Dry Gulch, but not him. He pushed the tails of his topcoat over the
ivory grips of his Remingtons and allowed the star to catch the low
red rays that indicated that the day was almost done. He aimed the
head of his young horse towards the saloon and tapped his spurs
gently to encourage it to reach the hitching rail.

His wrinkled eyes noticed the bloodstained
sand and the walls that had been damaged by what could only have
been a gun battle.

Quaid eased back in his saddle and stopped
his mount. He sat looking all around at the nervous faces that
peered at him from countless doorways and corners.

He dismounted and led the horse to a trough,
then wrapped the reins around a pole. He stood defiant as his horse
drank its fill.

‘
You
lookin’ for somebody, Marshal?’ a large woman asked as she carried
a bucket and mop along the boardwalk past the saloon
front.

Quaid looked at her. He could see that this
was one resident of Dry Gulch who actually worked honestly to make
ends meet.

‘
Yep.
I’m looking for a low-down critter named Diamond Back Jones, ma’am.
You happen to know his whereabouts?’

She paused for a moment and pushed a long
loose strand of hair off her face.

‘
Is he
kinda dark?’

‘
Yep.
He’s a full-blood Apache.’ Quaid nodded. ‘Although he pretends to
be white. A dangerous killer.’

Her face altered. It was obvious that she
did not like Apaches.

‘
He’s
an Indian? Damn! I hate redskins and no mistake. He was in Dry
Gulch ‘til that bounty hunter came a-callin’. I figure that he got
scared.’

‘
Bounty hunter?’ The marshal stepped up on to the boardwalk
and looked down into her face.

‘
Yeah.
He was tall and mean and as thin as a beanpole,’ she informed him.
‘I never seen such a man before. His hair was long and kinda dirty.
The word is that he wanted the bounty on Diamond Back. He sure got
things all fired-up around here.’

‘
I’ve
heard of a bounty hunter like that.’ Quaid sighed, rubbing his
chin. ‘I think they call him Iron Eyes.’

She smiled broadly.
‘That’s his name
OK. I heard the boys saying so. Iron Eyes. What kinda name is that?
Is he an Indian too?’

‘
I
don’t think he is.
What actually happened around here, ma’am?’ Quaid inhaled again and
stared into the low sun down the street towards the funeral parlor.
‘I seen a stack of dead folks piled up down there.’

There was one heck of a
gunfight here earlier,
’ she said rolling her eyes. ‘I thought that we
was all gonna get killed the way them bullets was flying in all
directions. Seems that Iron Eyes was after the same varmint as
you.’

Jones?
’

‘
Yeah.
Well, Jones paid some of the local gutter-rats to stop this Iron
Eyes character whilst he made his getaway,’ she said as she
adjusted the mop in her hand.

Tom Quaid inhaled deeply through his
nostrils.

‘
What
happened?’

‘
That
Iron Eyes killed the whole bunch of them and then lit out after
Diamond Back again,’ she gushed.

‘
He
killed them all?’ There was surprise in the veteran lawman’s
voice.

‘
Every
darn one of them. Good riddance, I say. They were all scum like
Jones himself.’ She spat at the boardwalk as if demonstrating her
disgust. ‘They tried to bushwhack him and he didn’t cotton to
it.’

‘
Thank
you, ma’am.’ Quaid pulled out a silver dollar and offered it to the
woman who gratefully accepted it and slid it into her ample
cleavage.

‘
Thank
you, Marshal,’ she said. ‘Say, I’d be careful if I was you. They
don’t cotton to the law in this darn town. There’s still plenty of
back shooters who’d kill ya for the gold in ya
fillings.’

‘
In my
experience, there ain’t many towns which do cotton to the law,
ma’am.’ Tom Quaid smiled. ‘And my teeth are store-bought
anyway.’

Quaid touched the brim of his Stetson and
nodded. He watched as she went on her way.

‘
Who
the hell are you, dude?’

The marshal turned to face the gravel voice
that came from the saloon doorway. His eyes narrowed as he surveyed
the large figure standing with one hand on the top of the
swing-doors and the other resting on the grip of his Colt.

‘
You
talking to me?’ Quaid asked, squaring up to the man.

The dying rays of the sun flashed off the
well-polished star pinned to the silk vest.

‘
Are
you a lawman, dude?’ the man gruffed in a mixture of shock and
surprise. ’Cause if’n ya are, ya must be damn loco to come to Dry
Gulch.’

Quaid lowered his head slightly so that he
could watch the eyes of his adversary.

‘
I’m
looking for Diamond Back Jones, friend.’

The big man spat a lump of dark goo on to
the bleached boards between them.

‘
He
rode out hours back with that bounty hunter on his
tail.’

‘
I
know,’ Quaid said,
flexing his fingers over the grips of his guns.

‘
Then
what are ya still doing in town?’ the man growled like an angry
bear. ‘Get going. Your sort ain’t welcome in Dry Gulch.’

‘
I
figured that
already, friend.’ Quaid sighed heavily as he could sense that once
more his gun skills would be tested. ‘But if I was you, I’d go find
myself a rock to hide behind.’

The man released his grip on the swing-doors
and then lowered his hand to waist-level.

‘
We’ve
had a real bad day here. I think ya ought to quit while you’re
ahead. Get going.’

‘
I’m
going when I decide to go and not when some fat scum tells me. OK?’
the marshal said firmly.

‘
I
ain’t fat!’ the man
protested. ‘I just got me big bones, ya old bastard.’

‘
Even
your fingers are fat, son!’ Tom Quaid said. ‘You try to draw on me
with those fingers and you’ll surely regret it.’

The large man made a noise that sounded like
a stuck pig. Whatever words might have spewed furiously from his
mouth, the marshal could not understand any of them.

Quaid saw the
man
’s right
hand move as it began to haul the Colt from its holster. His own
hands moved far more swiftly. Both his Remingtons were drawn from
their hand-tooled holsters in one fraction of a
heartbeat.

The marshal cocked the gun hammers and
squeezed both triggers at exactly the same moment.

One bullet severed the holster
from the large man
’s gun belt as the other tore the battered Stetson off his
head.

There was a look of
astonishment on the man
’s sweat-soaked face as his gun fell on to the
boardwalk. His left hand patted the top of his head in a vain
search for his hat.

‘
Stop
fretting, tubby. Your head’s still there,’ Tom Quaid said. ‘Not
that you seem to use it much.’

‘
Who
the hell are ya?’ the confused figure asked.

‘
Tom
Quaid.’

‘
I
heard of ya. Texan
trash.’

Quaid walked up to the large
figure and poked one of his gun barrels into the bulging belly with
as much force as he could muster. The man yelped. As the sweating
head came forward it was met with the ivory gun grip which glanced
across his chin-bone. The sound of teeth breaking echoed inside the
large man
’s
mouth. He staggered, then felt the boot catching him across his
wide rear. The dazed man fell like a sack of potatoes on to the
sand beside the boardwalk.

‘
Reckon you’ll not try and draw on a stranger quite so
quickly in future,’ Quaid said. The man rolled over on the sand
until his bewildered face was looking straight at him. ‘Some old
folks are a damn sight more lively than they look.’

The marshal slid both his guns back into
their holsters and shook his head in disbelief at the pitiful
figure who was staring up at him.

‘
Tell
me, my big-boned friend. What are you?’

‘
I’m
an outlaw.’ The man mumbled as blood and teeth fragments trickled
from his mouth.

‘
An
outlaw?’ Quaid tried not to laugh.

‘
Yeah!’ More blood fell from the crimson mouth. ‘I’m an
outlaw.’

Quaid exhaled.
‘Well I suggest you
quit, sonny. I reckon it’s time you found yourself a new
occupation.’

‘
What
ya trying to say?’

Tom Quaid shouted down at the
man.
‘Find
yourself a new career! You just ain’t no good at this one, you dumb
bastard.’

The large man watched helplessly as Quaid
defiantly entered the saloon. Somehow, he knew that the veteran
lawman was right.

The sky was on fire with every tone of red
that nature could muster on its infinite palette, but the cornered
bounty hunter had no time to notice. Bullets tore all around the
mouth of the cave entrance as Iron Eyes lay on his belly with his
long coat beside him. He had just managed to crawl into the cave
only moments before the screaming Apache horsemen had reached the
base of the ridge and started firing at him with their rifles and
bows.

The arrows had no power in them by the time
they had reached the high sanctuary but the bullets were as deadly
as ever.

The Apaches continued firing
for more than five minutes after they had witnessed their prey
scrambling up the sand-
colored rocks and into the dark cave. Their
bullets were relentless as they vainly tried to shoot the exhausted
bounty hunter. Dust showered over Iron Eyes as he waited for the
volley to ease up for just a single moment.

A heartbeat of precious time to try and work
out what was happening to him.

All he needed was a little time to get his
thoughts together so that he could work out what his next move
should be.