Iron Eyes Must Die (7 page)

Adams pulled out a cigar, bit off its tip and
spat.

‘
I
know the sort!’ he said in a cold voice. ‘I never did like that
kinda person.’

‘
He’ll
not open up willingly, mister,’ the engineer added.

Adams struck a match and lit
his cigar. He blew out the flame and tossed
the match away. He returned his
attention to the car and inhaled the smoke deeply.

‘
You
go and tell him that there are seven of us out here and we’ll kill
the whole bunch of you railroad boys if he don’t unlock that door
and toss out his scattergun.’

The driver nodded. He walked up to the
car.

‘
Hey,
John! There are seven bandits out here and they say they’ll shoot
me and the rest of the boys if n ya don’t open that door! You hear
me, John?’

There was a long silence before the voice
inside the locked car replied.

‘
I
hear you,’ Parsons said in a cold tone. ‘I figure you and the rest
of the boys are gonna die, Herb! Damn shame!’

The two outlaws could hardly believe their
ears. The stunned engineer staggered back from the car.

‘
He’s
willing for you to kill us all!’

‘
You
were right about him being a damn company man.’ Adams shook his
head in disgust. ‘Just for that, I’m gonna let you boys go free and
let Buck handle him! John Parsons is in for a real bad
surprise!’

The engineer blinked hard.

‘
We
can go?’

Snake Adams pointed his gun between the last
two cars.

‘
Yep.
But unhook this car from the rest of the train first. Then you can
skedaddle out of here.’

The frightened man moved between the cars and
did as he was instructed. He then clambered back into the sunshine
and wiped the sweat and grease off his hands on the front of his
overall. His frightened eyes looked at Adams.

‘
Get
going,
amigo’
Adams gestured. ‘Get this train out of here before I change
my mind.’

The driver ran fast for a big
man. He did not slow up until he was back with the rest of the
train crew. Adams watched as they picked up the limp stoker and
dragged him on to the high
engineer’s cab. Smoke billowed out of the train’s
stack as the long locomotive jerked into action and slowly moved
away from its abandoned car.

Mayne and Brewster rode up to their five
cohorts and dismounted.

‘
What
we gonna do, Snake?’

‘
How
come ya let the train go?’

‘
The
next train stop is fifty miles from here, boys,’ Adams informed his
gang. ‘If they did tell anyone about us being here, we’ll be long
gone before any law could reach here.’

The six outlaws stared hard at the solitary
car before them.

‘
I
reckon it’s time we let Coop show us again how good he is with them
dynamite sticks he’s got in his saddlebags, boys,’ Adams said,
puffing on his cigar.

Coop Starr rubbed his hands together and ran
to his horse.

‘
I
thought that you was gonna let me kill someone, Snake!’ Buck Harris
complained.

‘
I
sure am gonna let you kill someone, Buck.’ Adams patted the cheek
of his most deadly follower. ‘Once Coop blows that door off that
car, you got a real ornery critter inside it to kill.’

Harris smiled.

‘
Can I
kill him slow?’

‘
The
slower the better!’ Adams nodded.

The ground shook as a blinding
flash sent black plumes of smoke heavenward. Flames leapt like
wildcats in all directions. A hundred th
underclaps could not have equaled the
deafening blast that filled the area around what was left of the
rail car. Coop Starr lay on his back as debris showered down over
him and the rest of the outlaws.

Starr managed to ease himself up on to his
elbows and brush the smoldering splinters of wood off his burned
face. He stared at the car which still rocked on the tracks. Only
half of the vehicle remained. The entire door section was gone. As
was the roof.

Snake Adams and his cohorts staggered from
the cover of the canyon like phantoms. They were all covered in
sawdust.

‘
What
happened?’ Adams shouted as he tried to hear the sound of his own
voice over the ringing in his ears. ‘What did you do, Coop? How
much dynamite did ya use?’

Starr turned to his companions.

‘
Did
somebody say somethin’? I can’t hear nothin’ ’ceptin’ war
drums!’

Adams slapped the cowboy out of his way.

‘
The
safe better still be there!’

‘
Could
be in Wyoming, Snake,’ Kyle Parker commented dryly. ‘I figure most
of it’s at least two states away by now.’

Buck Harris stormed past the deafened gang.
The blood-crazed outlaw reached what was left of the car and
snorted, his eyes darting at what remained of its interior. He drew
both his guns and cocked their hammers.

‘
Where
are ya, little man?’ Harris screamed at the car.

Suddenly a pile of smoking
planks moved at the end of the car. Harris raised his leg and
placed his boot on the metal step. He hoisted himself up and then
stood on the blackened floor. He
aimed both guns at the moving pile of
lumber.

‘
I see
ya! C’mon out!’

The
woodpile fell aside as the railroad
guard got back to his feet with his scattergun in his
hands.

Both barrels spewed out their deadly venom.
Two barrels of buckshot hit the outlaw. A bloodied Buck Harris was
lifted off his feet by the sheer force of the shotgun blast.
Countless lead pellets had ripped most of his face off, but the
outlaw did not notice. He was dead long before his limp body
crashed on to the blackened floor of the car.

Adams span on his heels.

His Colt .45 cleared its holster in one swift
smooth movement.

Before railroad guard John Parsons had time
to push two more shells into the smoking barrels of his hefty
scattergun, Adams fired.

The outlaw stood like a statue
and watched as his deadly accuracy hit Parsons in the side
of the head. A
cloud of blood and brain-matter burst out from the back of the
railroad guard’s skull.

Adams twirled his gun on his index finger and
holstered it before the body fell into a crumpled heap. He turned
and looked into the faces of his stunned followers.

‘
I
reckon Buck’s dead, Snake,’ Ben Lynch said.

‘
Yep.
Good and dead.’ Adams nodded as he pulled his tight kid gloves on
once more.

‘
And
that guard looks dead as well,’ Parker added. Snake Adams sighed
heavily.

‘
I’m
surrounded by geniuses.’

‘
What
ya mean?’ Lynch leaned forward.

‘
They
both had their heads blown apart, Ben. What else could they be, but
dead?’

Coop Starr hit the side of his head with the
palm of his right hand in a vain attempt to clear his still ringing
ears.

‘
I’m
deaf!’ he shouted.

‘
It’s
ya own fault, Coop,’ Adams shouted even more loudly. He started
towards the wrecked car through the debris that still fell like
snow over the arid landscape. ‘Next time count them dynamite sticks
before you light their fuses.’

Starr looked at the other outlaws.

‘
What
he say? Did he say anything?’

The five men trailed Adams to
the rail car and watched h
im climb up on to the still smoldering wreckage.
He looked down on Buck Harris’s body stretched out with a bloody
mess where his face had once been before turning his ice-cold gaze
on the railroad guard. Adams spat and then stepped over the chunks
of green wooden fragments until he located the safe. His gloved
hands brushed it clean.

‘
Is
the thing ya looking for inside that safe, Snake?’ Parker
asked.

‘
The
thing you reckoned was worth more than money?’ Lynch smiled as he
stared up at the emotionless Adams.

Adams did not reply. He knelt
down beside the iron safe and turned its dial
back and forth three times. He
then pushed the lever down. He pulled open the three-inch-thick
door and retrieved its meager contents. His men looked at the pile
of papers in his hands.

‘
How
come ya knew the combination to that safe, Snake?’ Brewster
asked.

‘
I
paid good money for it, One Ear!’ Adams snapped. He studied the
papers in his hands and discarded all but one brown envelope. He
tore its flap and looked inside. His lips carved a smile across his
face. He folded the envelope and placed it inside his
shirt.

‘
What
ya got there, Snake?’ Brewster asked curiously. He stared at the
grinning features of his leader. ‘Looks like nothing more than a
scruffy old envelope to me!’

Adams nodded.

‘
Yep,
One Ear. That’s exactly right. It is an envelope. But it’s what’s
inside the envelope that makes it valuable!’

Ferdy Mayne scratched his head.

‘
Ya
talkin’ in riddles.’

The five outlaws watched
curiously
as
he jumped back down on to the debris-littered sand. He patted his
shirt.

‘
This
ain’t no riddle, Ferdy. This, my dusty friends, is pure dynamite!
What’s in here is worth more than a bucketful of gold
nuggets!’

‘
Did
ya say dynamite, Snake?’ Coop Starr shouted.

Adams rolled his eyes and started towards
their horses.

‘
C’mon!’ he snorted.

‘
Where
we headed, Snake?’ Lynch asked.

‘
Rio
Concho!’ Adams spat. ‘Rio Concho!’

The three determined horsemen
galloped out of the high brush and reined in at the awesome sight
before them. Deadman
’s Flats was well named. It dared and taunted all those who
set eyes upon it to try and cross its vast expanse. None of the
trio had expected the desolation which greeted their sand-burned
eyes. Dust drifted over the riders as they sat and stared out at
the barren landscape ahead of them.

There was no life to been seen anywhere on
the arid plain which stretched off into the heat haze. No trees,
not even a blade of grass. No living creatures of any description.
Not even in the sky.

They had trailed the
hoof-tracks of the seven outlaw horses south for weeks through a
half-dozen climates to reach this
unholy place. For Snake Adams and his
deadly cohorts had left a hill of corpses back in the high
country.

Too many corpses for even the mainly lawless
territories to ignore. The fearful citizens of Waco had enlisted
the help of the most renowned lawman west of the Pecos. They had
paid him $1,000 in gold. Marshal Casey Layne was the only man who
had a chance of catching the notorious gang before they vanished
across the border into Mexico.

The hoof-tracks seemed to head across a land
that none of them wished to cross. The ground was dark and dead.
They knew that to follow Snake Adams and his gang across this windy
plain might leave them in the same condition as the land
itself.

Dead!

United States Marshal Casey
Layne rubbed some of the grime from his face with the tails of his
bandanna, sighed heavily and turned to his two deputies. Josh
Walker and Tray Donner were seasoned lawmen like the big man they
followed, but even they had never faced
anything so devoid of life
before.

‘
That
ain’t no place to ride over without a couple of full canteens,
boys,’ Layne said, easing himself up off his saddle. ‘Reckon old
Snake and his gang have gotten the better of us this
time.’

‘
But
how could them outlaws make it across that darned plain, Marshal?’
Walker asked.

‘
Must
have had themselves a few spare canteens, Josh,’ Layne replied. ‘I
figure Snake planned this.’

‘
Ya
mean that stinkin’ low-life son of a bitch led us here so we’d die
trying to follow him?’ Donner snarled.

Marshal Layne glanced at the deputy.

‘
I’m
not sure, Tray. I ain’t even sure he knows that we’re doggin’ his
trail. Snake Adams might have himself some business out
there.’

‘
Ya
reckon there might be a town out there?’ Walker asked.

‘
Could
be, but I kinda doubt it,’ the marshal replied.

‘
He
must be headed someplace important to risk riding over that hunk of
death.’ Donner shrugged. ‘There ain’t nothin’ out there to be seen
’ceptin’ black sand.’