The Spurs of Iron Eyes (Iron Eyes Western #3) (3 page)

Rio Vista could have been any
other Texas border town when the sun finally decided to set.
Cowboys and
vaqueros
seemed to arrive from invisible hideaways and fill the long
street and various saloons as the lamps were being lit along its
single dry thoroughfare. From the security of his room, Iron Eyes
watched the slow interesting change in the atmosphere below with
singular curiosity. The small town now glowed eerily as the street
lights began to spill their illumination over its simple
configuration. Horses tied to hitching rails filled the street
opposite the hotel as they waited for their masters. Piano playing
echoed about the otherwise quiet street as the tall bounty hunter
plucked his coat off its hook once more. Placing each mule-ear boot
on the seat of the hard chair in turn, Iron Eyes tied on his savage
spurs and glared through the small window panes. Although he had no
intention of riding this night, he still wore his spurs. There had
been times when their lethally sharp prongs had ripped the flesh
from his enemies’ bones. Iron Eyes knew only too well that during
hand-to-hand combat, that inflicting a split second of agony
allowed him to draw and fire both his Navy Colts.

Straightening up and stomping
on both boots on the bare boards, Iron Eyes gritted his teeth
before picking up the hefty
saddlebags and tossing them over his
shoulder.

Stepping out of his room
and locking the door behind him, he pulled another long, thin cigar
from his pocket and placed it between his teeth. Striking a match
along the whitewashed landing wall, he made his way to the top of
the staircase, sucking on the lit cigar and blowing out a long line
of smoke.

It was a watchful Iron Eyes who
ventured out slowly from the hotel with the heavy
saddlebags still
hanging over his right shoulder.

The swollen leather bulging
with silver dollars weighed massively but it did not show on the
lank frame of Iron Eyes. He seemed unable or unwilling to leave the
fortune out of his sight for even a few moments. As smoke drifted
from his
narrow mouth, he walked along the street towards the
building which towered over all the others in Rio Vista.

Moving along the
boardwalks, using the shadows as a shield, he seemed unable to take
his attention off the large chapel for more than a few seconds at a
time. It was unlike Iron Eyes to be drawn to anything, but this
building attracted his interest even whilst bathed in moonlight and
glowing torches. The sound of laughter flowed out of the saloons
opposite him as he made his way down the long street.

Before the troubled man had
realized it, he was standing below the
colorfully tiled steps leading to the
large carved wooden double doors. A pair of flickering torches set
to either side of the steps seemed to draw him like a moth between
their flames.

Turning the large ring handle,
Iron Eyes allowed the door to open as he stood gazing inside. He
had never set foot into any place where a hundred candles burned
upon an altar graced by a solid gold crucifix before. When he
slowly proceeded within the chapel, the smell of incense filled his
nostrils and made him feel uneasy. The weight of the heavy burden
upon his shoulder began to tax his mind as he stared up at the
beautifully carved figure attached to the golden
cross. Iron Eyes
stared at the crucifix as the candle flames licked its image and
wondered who it was or what it meant.

‘
You
seem confused, my son.’ A voice flavored with the charms of Mexico
came from the shadows to his right.

Iron Eyes turned his head
and studied the man moving towards him wearing brown robes tied by
a single cord around his middle.

‘
Who
are you?’

The priest moved before the
altar and dropped onto one knee and crossed himself quickly before
reaching the side of the tall stranger.

‘
Have
you never been .inside the house of the Lord before, my
son?’

Iron Eyes stared down at the
face of the man.

‘
Nope.’

‘
Why
are you here now?’ the smaller man asked.

‘
Ain’t
too sure,’ Iron Eyes responded honestly, as he stepped closer to
the altar and the candles.

‘
Are
you worried about something?’ the priest enquired, in a tone Iron
Eyes had seldom heard aimed in his direction.

Iron Eyes gritted his teeth and
sucked on the cigar thoughtfully.
‘I just came in to take me a look, that’s
all.’

The priest followed Iron Eyes
as he headed
back to the door down the centre aisle. With each step, the
tall man glanced over his shoulder at the sight which confused
him.

‘
You
asked me my name.’

‘
I
did,’ Iron Eyes stopped and turned to look down at the face of his
pursuer.

‘I
am Father Jose.’ The priest looked at
Iron Eyes’ face, then down to his spurred boots and back again.
There seemed to be no judgment in the man’s eyes, no sign of
distaste in either his appearance or his looks. Father Jose simply
accepted what was before him.

‘
Father Jose?’ Iron Eyes gazed back at the altar again and
rubbed his chin.

‘
What
is troubling you, my friend?’

‘
Who
is the
hombre
on the cross? He looks in a bad way.’

‘
Have
you never seen Jesus before, my son?’ The priest could hardly
believe anyone could have lived so long without ever coming into
contact with even the most basic knowledge of the Bible.

‘
Nope.
Can’t say I’ve ever heard of him before. Looks a tad on the thin
side to be nailed up like that.’ Iron Eyes could not understand why
someone would torture a person rather than simply kill quickly as
he had always done. ‘Indians do it?’

Father Jose smiled.
‘It was long ago in
a far off land. He died to save us. I do not think Indians were
around in those parts.’

‘
Looks
like something the Apache might do, given half a chance.’ Iron Eyes
shrugged. ‘I don’t put nothing past an Apache when he’s liquored
up.’

‘
Do
you wish to stay and talk, my friend?’ The priest tried vainly to
make eye contact with the tall bounty hunter.

‘
Nope,’ Iron Eyes grunted.

‘
If
you do, I am here.’

Iron Eyes sighed as he
walked out of the chapel and paused upon the top of the steps
whilst staring along the busy street of Rio Vista. Turning he saw
the priest moving beside him once again.

‘
What
is your name, my son?’

They call me Iron Eyes,
Jose.
’

‘I
think I have heard of you.’ There was
no sign in the man’s voice he had ever heard anything either good
or bad about the bounty hunter.

‘
Figures.’ Iron Eyes adjusted the heavy bags on his shoulder
as he stared out into the street.

‘
What
brought you to the chapel of Rio Vista, Iron Eyes?’ Father Jose
tried for the final time to get the thin man to look directly at
him. This time, just for the briefest of moments, their eyes met
and both men glimpsed each other’s soul.

‘
I
ain’t figured what brought me to Rio Vista yet, Father Joe,’ Iron
Eyes admitted. ‘I reckon something did though.’

The priest watched as the
tall man with the flowing hair walked slowly down the tiled steps
and strode forcefully towards the illuminated buildings opposite
the chapel. This time Iron Eyes aimed his pointed toecaps in the
direction of the saloons. With each stride of his long painfully
thin legs, the sound of his razor-sharp spurs seemed to ring on the
cool evening air.

It was a haunting
sound.

Reluctantly, Iron Eyes walked
away from the chapel as if he were turning his back on something
far more important than he dared consider. His spurs seemed to echo
around the street as he slowly aimed his boots down the long uneven
boardwalks past the fronts of whitewashed buildings bathed in
moonlight and flickering orange oil lamps. Hesitating outside the
sheriff
’s
office, he stared at the drawn shade through the glass window.
Looking up at the small pair of windows above the office doorway,
he wondered if the lawman had finally retired for the night, or was
he one of those rare sheriffs who roamed around his town never
hindered by weariness, always ready to prevent trouble at any
costs? Iron Eyes moved his head slightly to one side and stared at
the chapel and the lone figure upon the steps.

Like Bass, Father Jose
troubled the bounty hunter too. A chill seemed to race up his long
bony spine as he watched the man moving back inside the
building.

Iron Eyes suddenly heard
the sound of laughter over his shoulder and turned to face the line
of buildings ahead of him. The smell of saloons drifted out and
onto the street along with their wasted light. As Iron Eyes
continued his slow deliberate walk his keen eyes studied the
shadows of people moving in the yellow lights which traced across
the wide dry street from the different saloons.

The first saloon Iron Eyes had
entered was crammed full of cowboys all drinking and playing as
hard as their monthly wages would allow. The smell of cattle seemed
to fill the air, as he moved to the bar and ordered a single shot
of rye. Why he was studying these people was a mystery even to Iron
Eyes himself, but study them he did. Within the time it took for
the hand to navigate the face of the clock behind the bar, he had
seen all he wanted. Whatever it was burning a hole inside his
troubled soul, Iron Eyes did not see it here. There were no answers
in this drinking hole, only cowboys wearing the scent of manure and
the aroma of stale alcohol. Swallowing his drink in one swift
mouthful, he returned to the
boardwalk and listened to a pitiful piano ringing
in the air from up the street.

It took some twenty-eight steps
to reach the entrance of the second saloon. Pausing to look over
the bleached swing doors, Iron Eyes sucked his cigar down to its
last inch before spitting it out. A haze of smoke hung in the air,
only moving as cowboys and a few
vaqueros
cut through it as they staggered from keno
tables to the bar. There was nothing of interest here either to the
troubled, ghost-like, man.

Iron Eyes turned away and
began heading towards the saloon he had visited earlier that day
when the sun had tortured the men and women foolish enough to be
out at that hour. Of the trio, this was by far the cleanest and
obviously most profitable of the saloons. Even the sawdust had
seemed cleaner.

Once more he found himself
pausing by the doorway and staring at the familiar room. Now filled
to overflowing, it seemed to have taken on an entirely different
character. It buzzed like an angry hornet trying to find its
hive.

Iron Eyes drew himself up to
his full height and decided to enter this drinking
parlor once more.
Somewhere in Rio Vista, there were answers to the questions he had
yet to think about asking. Somewhere, perhaps in this saloon, he
might just find the reason for his being here of all
places.

For a while, nobody seemed
to notice the extra body moving across the fresh sawdust toward the
long bar through the acrid cigarette and cigar smoke which hung at
shoulder height. Yet, as the man who resembled a living corpse
rested his wrists upon the wooden bar top, eyes began to focus on
him. Slowly, the room began to fall into a hushed silence as each
and every one of the customers noticed the distinctive bounty
hunter hovering like a ghost at the end of the bar
counter.

Placing another of his
seemingly endless supply of thin cigars between his teeth, Iron
Eyes felt the fear within the room touch his face as he struck a
match and placed its flame to the end of the weed. Sucking in the
strong smoke he moved around the now vacant corner of the bar until
he faced the nicotine-stained mirror. Images were blurred, but to
Iron Eyes it mattered little; his keen hunter
’s vision didn’t miss a
thing.

He lowered his head and allowed
his hair to fall over his face. Through its matted tresses, he
watched them as they watched him. As he spat an accurate shot of
tobacco spit into the gleaming spittoon at his feet beside the
brass foot rail, he continued watching the assembled gathering.
There were more females here now. Some almost
pleasing to look at, he noted.
The majority of the men appeared to be locals by their clothing.
These men had not ridden along dusty trails into town, they were
devoid of grime. They had walked to this place to drink and find
women who would do what their wives had once done before morality
soured them.

‘
Whiskey, stranger?’ the fat bartender asked familiarly,
placing a glass before the famed bounty hunter.