Iron Eyes Must Die (15 page)

Brewster watched in horror as the outlaw
beside him pushed the detonator caps into the soft explosive
sticks.

‘
What
ya doing?’ Brewster yelled out at Starr.

‘
I’m
gonna blow them
critters to hell,’ Starr snapped as his wet hands tried to ignite a
match.

A terrified Brewster made to
run when Iron
Eyes’ bullets cut him down. The one-eared outlaw spun on
his heels and landed face down in the mud beside the steaming body
of a horse. Kyle Parker grabbed his saddle horn, threw himself on
top of his horse and spurred hard.

He rode straight at the two kneeling figures
with his gun blazing.

Duke Hanney stood and brought his shotgun up
swiftly.

The twin barrels blasted. Kyle
Parker
was
virtually cut in half by the lethal buckshot. What was left of him
fell off the back of the galloping horse.

Iron Eyes got to his feet and continued to
fire his smoking Colts. He watched as two of the already wounded
horses fell as his bullets shattered their skulls.

Then he saw the unmistakable
sight of burning fuses. Sparks flew off in all directions from the
sticks of dynamite in Coop Starr
’s right hand.

Iron Eyes steadied himself as the outlaw
launched the deadly projectiles at him and Hanney. The bounty
hunter stood before the livery man and fired both his guns high
into the air at the moving targets.

Even the driving rain could not diminish the
cloud of acrid smoke that hung in the air after the dynamite
exploded violently above the outlaws and their mounts. Red-hot
shafts of molten venom blasted into the creatures beneath it.

Before the cloud of choking
smoke
had
cleared, Iron Eyes had reached them.

Iron Eyes held both his Navy Colts in his
hands and surveyed the scene of carnage. They were all dead, even
the horses. Then the bounty hunter noticed that the greatest prize
was missing.

Hanney ran to his side.

‘
What’s wrong, boy?’

Iron Eyes reloaded both his guns in turn,
then tucked one into his belt. He cocked the hammer of the other as
his eyes darted all around them.

‘
Snake’s gone!’ he muttered angrily.

‘
How’d
he get away?’ Hanney wondered aloud, keeping a firm grip on his
trusty shotgun. ‘We had them critters pinned down darn
good.’

‘
Must
have bin when the dynamite went off!’ Iron Eyes said. He stared at
the muddy ground until he spotted the boot-prints leading towards a
narrow alley away from the hotel. ‘He must have made a break for it
then!’

‘
Where’d he go?’

Iron Eyes pointed at the alley
with
his
Navy Colt. It was veiled in the blackest of shadows.

‘
He
went thataway!’

Hanney screwed up his eyes.

‘
That
alley cuts around the back of a few stores.’

‘
He’s
headed to the saloon!’ Iron Eyes stated firmly. He turned and raced
back towards the brightly lit main street with the older man on his
heels. ‘Snake’s gonna try and get that money off that Jackson Wylie
critter!’

Snake Adams remembered riding past the
brightly lit saloon on his way into Rio Concho. With the mocking
words of Iron Eyes ringing in his ears, he emerged from the dark
alley and made his way to the rear door of the Happy Suds saloon.
He entered with both his guns in his hands. The drunks scattered
out into the street leaving only the bartender and the still
unconscious Jackson Wylie in the bar room.

The outlaw staggered to Wylie.

‘
Get a
bucket of water!’ Adams yelled frantically at the man behind the
long counter. ‘Toss it over this dude. Wake him up!’

The bartender was not going to
argue with the two guns in Adams
’s hands. He carried the bucket to the
table where Wylie was stretched out. He threw the water over the
unconscious man’s face. Wylie coughed and spluttered before he
rolled off the green baize and landed on the sawdust-covered
floor.

‘
W . .
. what’s going on?’ Jackson Wylie gasped.

Adams holstered one of his
guns, dragged the man off the floor and pushed the barrel of his
other weapon into the dazed Easterner
’s face.

‘
Get
the gold, Wylie! It’s me, Snake Adams!’

Wylie looked at the man.

‘
How
do I know you’re Adams?’

Adams holstered his other gun and pulled out
the sodden envelope from inside his shirt.

‘
I got
the document ya want! Here! Take it! Now where’s the
gold?’

Jackson
Wylie
’s eyes
suddenly brightened.

‘
Upstairs! I have your money upstairs! Room Two! Now give me
that envelope!’

Adams handed the envelope to the still
stunned man and headed for the carpeted staircase. Suddenly a voice
froze him in his tracks. He turned and stared at the bounty
hunter.

‘
Reckon I’m gonna have to spoil ya business deal, Snake,’
Iron Eyes snarled as the swing-doors napped behind him. ‘Ya gonna
have to kill me to get out of this town!’

Snake Adams twisted and drew both his
guns.

The saloon rocked as both men
blasted their guns at one another until their bullets ran out. As
the
gun
smoke cleared, only one man remained on his feet.

Iron Eyes lowered his Navy Colts and looked
down at the bleeding bullet hole in his leg.

‘
Damn!’ he growled.

The blazing sun burned down
mercilessly upon the border town of Rio Concho as its residents
gradually came to grips with the fact that they no longer had to
fear another new day. The ground was bone dry and showed no
evidence of the previous night
’s storm. The livery man ambled down the street
towards his stables with the US marshal at his side. Both men
watched the silent brooding figure of Iron Eyes seated upon an
upturned water-barrel.

The bounty hunter held an almost empty
whiskey bottle in his bony hands and watched the approaching
men.

‘
The
telegraph is workin’, boy,’ Hanney said as he and the lawman
reached the exhausted bounty hunter. ‘Ya got a whole heap of money
coming.’

Iron Eyes looked at the marshal.

‘
Ya
took ya time getting here, Marshal.’

Casey Layne nodded.

‘
Me
and my boys rode day and night trying to catch up with Snake Adams
and his gang,’ he admitted. ‘They led us a merry dance. We got here
though.’

Iron Eyes looked at his
bloodstained leg and the neat bullet hole in his
pants
’
leg.

‘
Ya
should have reached here sooner. I might not have gotten myself
plugged again.’

Layne leaned against the wall of the livery
stable.

‘
I can
give you a banker’s draft for the full amount of the bounty you’ve
accumulated, Iron Eyes. You can cash it at the first bank you
hit.’

Iron Eyes accepted the paper, pushed it into
his deep pocket and almost smiled.

‘
Is
that for all the outlaws I killed, Marshal?’

Layne nodded.

‘
Yep!
I added it up myself.’

Iron Eyes finished the whiskey, tossed the
bottle aside and then stood. He limped to the Indian pony and
gathered up his reins.

‘
Reckon my business is finally done in Rio
Concho.’

Hanney walked to the head of the pony and
held its crude rope bridle as the bounty hunter mounted. He looked
up at the scarred face of the man he had grown to respect during
the hours they had fought together.

‘
Ya
ought to have a doctor look at that leg, boy,’ he
advised.

‘
I
don’t need no medicine-man, Hanney!’ Iron Eyes said, gathering up
his reins in his bony hands. ‘I’ll cut the bullet out when I’m good
and ready.’

The bearded man nodded. He had learned that
it did not pay to argue with the infamous bounty hunter. Iron Eyes
lived his life by his own rules. Rules that had served him well
over the years.

‘
Where
ya headed, Iron Eyes?’

The thin man turned the head of
his pony and stared out at the prairie. It
looked refreshed after the hours of
violence that nature had inflicted upon it. There was color beyond
the boundaries of the town now.

Iron Eyes glanced up at the blue, cloudless
sky and knew it would not last.

‘
Reckon I’ll have to find me a town with some money in it so
I can cash this banker’s draft, old-timer.’

Marshal Layne stepped towards the pony and
pushed his Stetson off his weathered face.

‘
You
know anything about the bag of gold coin we found on that Jackson
Wylie critter, Iron Eyes?’

Iron Eyes glanced down at the lawman.

‘
I’d
search that perfumed critter if I was you, Marshal. Snake gave him
a darn important document a few minutes before I gunned him down.
Might answer ya questions for ya.’

Layne touched the brim of his hat.

‘
Thanks, son.’

‘
Adios,
boy.’ Hanney smiled.

Iron Eyes jabbed his spurs into the pony and
thundered off towards the prairie. His long black mane of hair
bounced on his shoulders like the wings of a bat.

When the dust had settled, Iron Eyes was
gone.

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