Iron Eyes Must Die (2 page)

There was no reply.

Iron Eyes edged away from the wall.

‘
I’m
gonna kill you for sure, Jed! C’mon! Make a fight of it! You might
get lucky!’

Suddenly a bullet blasted from
somewhere in the large smoke-filled lobby. Iron Eyes moved quickly.
The hot lead burned the skin off the bounty
hunter
’s
cheek. An inch-long gash revealed the bone as Iron Eyes staggered
in agony.

Blood suddenly erupted and poured down his
face.

Instinctively, the bounty hunter fired back.
The sound of shattering wood filled his ears as tables and chairs
were overturned by the last outlaw, who had moved behind them. Jed
Jardine had never considered himself a coward, but he had never
been a fool either. He used every scrap of cover inside the lobby
and fired wildly.

Bullets tore back and forth
across the room until the air was black with
gun smoke.

Iron Eyes dropped to his knees
as chunks of the wall behind him burst
apart as lethal lead hit
it.

He slid one gun into his deep trail-coat
pocket and used the hot barrel of the other to press against the
long, bleeding gash on his cheek. He then removed a bullet from his
gun and gripped the lead ball with his strong teeth. He tugged it
free of its brass casing and spat it out.

Iron Eyes filled the palm of his left hand
with the black powder from the bullet casing and then thrust it on
to the open wound. It burned hotter than Hell itself. Then he
plucked a match from his shirt-pocket and struck it with his
thumbnail. He closed his eyes and put the flame on to the
gunpowder-covered flesh. A flash lit up the corner he was kneeling
in for a brief second.

Iron Eyes gritted his teeth and lowered his
head to the floor.

Every sinew in his body
tightened as he refused to allow himself to scream out and
acknowledge the agonizing pain that had overwhelmed him. The
bleeding had stopped but the side of his
face was swollen to grotesque
proportions.

The room fell into silence as both gunmen
shook spent shells from their guns and slid fresh bullets into the
hot chambers.

Iron Eyes dropped on to the
floor and tried to see his opponent
’s legs beneath either the chairs or
tables. But the last of the Jardines had upturned half the
furniture in the room, making it impossible.

The bounty hunter rolled silently over on his
back until he was close to the lobby desk. His eyes darted to every
stick of furniture trying to work out where his prey was
hiding.

Again, it was impossible.

Iron Eyes then started to look at the large
framed paintings that adorned the once luxurious lobby walls. Each
painting was framed behind glass to protect it from the cigarette,
pipe and cigar smoke which always filled such places.

Iron Eyes suddenly noticed that
he
could
just make out a reflection in one of the larger paintings between
the heavily lace-draped windows.

His eyes narrowed.

Jed Jardine was kneeling behind an upturned
couch directly below a twenty-candle chandelier hanging from the
highest point of the vaulted ceiling. The flames of the candles
flickered as a draught entered the hotel. The bounty hunter knew
that such ornate light-fittings were raised and lowered by either
chains or ropes.

Iron Eyes looked around the bullet-riddled
walls in search of the pulley mechanism. Then his keen vision
spotted it less than ten feet away from where he lay.

It was a rope wrapped around a brass
hook.

The Navy Colt was raised, aimed and
fired.

A deafening noise filled the
hotel. The rope severed and a haunting noise raced across the
ceiling above them. Iron Eyes tilted his head and watched
the startled
reaction of the outlaw in the painting’s glass.

The ceiling groaned. Suddenly, the heavy
chandelier fell like a lead weight. Jed Jardine looked up and then
managed to move as he saw the heavy chandelier heading down towards
him.

It crashed within inches of where he had been
kneeling.

Lighted candles flew off in all directions.
Some hit the outlaw whilst others landed on padded chairs. One hit
a plush drape.

Within seconds the room was ablaze all around
him.

Iron Eyes dragged his other gun from his deep
coat-pocket and cocked its hammer. He stood and headed straight for
the flames with both weapons aimed at the burning chair.

Jardine leapt into the air. The
outlaw
’s
left shirtsleeve was alight. He tried to beat out the flames as his
eyes spotted the horrific figure of Iron Eyes closing in on
him.

Jardine started to shoot
wildly, but
there was no stopping Iron Eyes.

The bounty hunter squeezed the triggers of
his Navy .36s. The impact of the bullets hit the fiery figure off
his feet. Jardine went through the largest of the windows. Lace
wrapped around the man before he hit the boardwalk and rolled into
the dusty street.

It was engulfed in flames.

A stunned crowd outside the
hotel watched in horror as Iron Eyes turned away from the window
and walked right through the flames back into the hotel. When the
bruised and battered bounty hunter reappeared out of the blazing
building, he was dragging the other two Jardine
brothers
’
bodies by the scruffs of their necks.

Every terrified eye was on Iron Eyes.

He dragged the dead outlaws up to the crowd
and dropped them on the dusty ground. The hollow eyes of the tall
emaciated figure looked at the frightened audience before him.

‘
Find
the sheriff!’ he demanded as he placed a long thin cigar between
his teeth. ‘I got me some bounty here and I want paying for it
now!’

The blazing hotel collapsed, sending a plume
of red sparks high into the night sky behind him. Red-hot embers
showered over the bounty hunter, but he did not seem to notice or
care. Iron Eyes picked up a burning sliver of wood and touched it
to the tip of his cigar.

‘
I’ll
pay a golden half-eagle for a bottle of whiskey with a fancy label
on it!’ he said coldly through a cloud of smoke.

‘
The
law’s already here!’ a loud voice boomed out from the shadows
before him.

Suddenly, the familiar sound of Winchesters
being cocked into action surrounded the bounty hunter. His eyes
flashed all around him. He saw five men with stars pinned to their
shirts moving towards him in the flickering red light of the fire.
Each rifle barrel was trained on him.

Iron Eyes felt his thin hands
instinctively twitch as they hovered over his
deep trail-coat pockets, where
his lethal guns rested amid bullets and crumpled wanted posters.
Most men who cornered him the way these men were doing, would have
been dead by now.

Yet they were lawmen.

He knew that he dared not draw on this
breed.

‘
Get
them rifles off me!’ Iron Eyes demanded.

‘
Who
are ya, mister?’ the sheriff growled as he rammed the barrel of his
rifle into the thin middle of the wounded Iron Eyes.

‘
Iron
Eyes!’ came the whispered reply.

‘
What
kinda handle is that?’ The sheriff rammed his rifle harder into the
stomach. ‘What’s ya real name, boy?’

One of the deputies tugged at the mane of
long, black hair which hung over the collar of the tall man.

‘
Looks
like an Injun, Sheriff!’

‘
He
smells bad enough to be an Injun!’ another deputy added from behind
the protection of his repeating rifle.

Iron Eyes
’ head lowered. He stared down
at the deputy.

‘
I
ain’t no stinkin’ Injun! I’m a bounty hunter!’

The four grim-faced deputies moved all around
the thin figure. He felt hands drag out his precious Navy Colts
from his coat pockets.

‘
Any
stinkin’ varmint can say he’s a bounty hunter!’ the sheriff said.
‘All I know is that you just killed people and wounded a lot of
honest law-abiding folks. Ya also burned down the
Avalon!’

‘
I
never shot anybody ’ceptin’ the Jardine brothers!’ Iron Eyes fumed.
‘Them outlaws shot the folks in that hotel! I only use lead on
folks with bounty on their worthless heads! Ain’t no profit killin’
ordinary folks!’

The
sheriff’s rifle barrel was raised
until it pressed under the jaw of the famed hunter of men. He
stared at the swollen, burned features of the bounty
hunter.

‘
I’ve
never heard of you, boy! But that don’t matter none! I’m gonna make
sure you swing for this!’

Iron Eyes blinked hard. He was confused.

‘
But
them critters were wanted dead or alive, Sheriff! Check the posters
in my pockets.’

‘
You
tryin’ to tell me my job, you ugly bastard?’ the sheriff
asked.

‘
I
ain’t gonna hang, Sheriff!’

Sheriff Brook Payne grunted and turned.

‘
C’mon, boys. Let’s take this animal to the jail. I’ll wire
the circuit judge to come on over here.’

The deputies pushed the bounty
hunter with their rifle barrels. He silently trailed the senior law
officer through the crowd of onlookers towards the dimly
illuminated
sheriff’s office.

‘
Judge
Travis’11 sure have himself a fine old time trying this worthless
piece of garbage,’ Payne said loudly over his shoulder.

These lawmen might not have
recognized the name of Iron Eyes, but
the injured bounty hunter knew the
name of Judge Travis. Franklin Travis was known and feared
throughout the south-west.

He was the hanging judge!

Iron Eyes had never been caged
before. He did not like it one bit. There was only one cell inside
the Rio Concho
sheriff’s office. It was less than eight feet square with a
high barred window close to the ceiling. Two plastered walls and a
wall of bars faced another wall, with an oil-lantern hanging on a
rusted nail. To the left of the cell a metal door separated the
jail from the office. The walls had recently been painted in
whitewash and had a strange aroma.

The bounty hunter sat down on the rickety cot
and glared up at the faces of the five smiling men. His narrowed
eyes watched as the sheriff turned the key in the lock and secured
the barred door.

‘
Ya
gonna hang, son.’ Sheriff Payne grinned.

‘
Yep.
Looks that way.’ The bounty hunter sighed.

‘
You
sure you ain’t an Injun?’ one of the deputies asked from behind the
stout sheriff.

Iron Eyes gritted his teeth and tried to
fight his anger. They had stripped him of his weathered long coat
where he kept most of his valued belongings.

‘
Look
in my coat pockets, Sheriff!’ he said for the tenth time. ‘I got
the wanted posters in them. The Jardine brothers and their two
cohorts were all wanted dead or alive. I claim the reward
money!’

‘
Wanted posters don’t prove a damn thing!’ the sheriff
snapped at his prisoner. ‘Any low-life can get his hands on any
amount of wanted posters, boy! Ya killed them folks and that’s
murder!’

Iron Eyes inhaled deeply.

‘
Check
out the images on them wanted posters against them dead outlaws’
faces!’

‘
Ain’t
worth the trouble!’ Payne shrugged.

‘
Ya
sure are keen on stretchin’ my neck, Sheriff!’ The bounty hunter
sighed. ‘Reckon ya must like a good hangin’ in these
parts!’

The sheriff nodded.

‘
Always draws a good crowd, boy! Good for business! Nothing
like a good old-fashioned hanging!’

Iron Eyes touched the throbbing side of his
burned face with the palm of his hand. He fell silent as his
fevered brain tried to make sense of the situation he had found
himself in.

Sheriff Payne looked at his deputies. A wry
smile crossed his face as he started to usher them out into his
office.

‘
I
reckon them outlaw carcasses are worth over five thousand dollars,
boys.’ He laughed. ‘That’s a pretty penny apiece, and no
mistake.’

Swiftly, Iron Eyes rose to his full height as
the words penetrated his brain.

Even after the metal door was
closed and bolted he could still hear the sound of the men laughing
loudly in the
sheriff’s office. He now knew what was going on in this
remote border town.

These lawmen knew that he was a
genuine bounty hunter. They had known that since first setting eyes
upon him after he had killed the three outlaws. But they wanted the
Jardine brothers
’ bounty money for themselves.

There was only one way to ensure that.

Iron Eyes had to die!

None of them would have lasted
more than a few minutes in a showdown. But in a court of law the
odds were stacked in their
favor. He knew that there was no jury in the land
that would believe him over men with stars.