The Wrath of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western #5) (10 page)
Read The Wrath of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western #5) Online
Authors: Rory Black
Tags: #wild west, #cowboys, #old west, #bounty hunters, #rory black, #western pulp fiction, #iron eyes
Twenty
Rosie Smith had wondered what the bowels of
hell must be really like a thousand times over the years of being
taken to church every Sunday morning. She had listened to the
minister rant and rave from his pulpit and noticed more than most
that he hammered his fist down on to the pages of the Good Book at
the end of the every warning.
She had long since lost faith in his words
and had used those services to drift into her own black world where
there was no color to distract her. Long ago she had realized that
the minister did not preach about loving God but used his position
to make people fear the Almighty.
It appeared that everything was bathed in
sin. Yet she had no knowledge of what sin actually was. For her
entire short life she had wondered about that.
What was sin?
As Malverez had turned her over to face him
and the stench of his breath almost made her vomit, she suddenly
began to realize the true meaning of the word.
The bandit leader had peeled the drape from
her and used it to cover them both. The razor-sharp blade of his
stiletto had touched her throat and she had taken this as a warning
not to open her mouth and make a sound.
The roughness of his whiskers as they
scraped the flesh of her soft neck filled her with fear. She had
prayed to be given the gift of sight during the night in order that
she might be able to escape but now as his lips sucked at her skin,
she was thankful that she could not see the monster who held her
tightly.
The knife blade had cut the bodice of her
dress-top and he had scooped her firm breasts in his greasy hands.
He sucked her nipples until they became erect and then grunted like
an animal beneath the cover of the velvet drape.
Rosie shuddered with his every movement. Was
this the sin that the minister had been so obsessed with for so
many years? If so, then it was none of her doing.
Yet would the good churchgoing people of
Cripple Creek take that into consideration when branding her with
the deeds of this creature?
It seemed that there was no part of her body
that the man’s lips, tongue and teeth did not want to explore. She
could feel the pain of the bruises his powerful hands were creating
as they forced her to remain exactly where he wanted her. She did
not need sight to know that the top of her dress had been removed.
Her ears had heard the tearing and her skin felt the cold air
tracing over it.
She was half naked.
Was this a sin?
Even the knowledge of the
deadly knife no longer gave her cause to be fearful as she
squirmed, trying desperately to get away from the man who
was
all over
her. But there was no escaping his hands and mouth. Malverez had
done this many times to many other captive females and she had
never even been kissed before.
Then she felt one of his hands beneath the
curve of her spine as he lifted her off the ground. His fingers
grabbed at her knee and moved along her thigh at a speed that she
had never thought possible. A sensation raced through her but she
could not understand why.
Was this excitement?
She tried to force him away but his strength
seemed to have no limits. She was totally under his control.
Suddenly Rosie gasped. His fingers were
crawling inside her undergarments like worms. She began to realize
what his ultimate goal must be.
Only the sharp tip of the knife at her
throat prevented her from screaming out.
The three men stared down into the lake and
the white spray that rose from the water that crashed continuously
from the hundred-foot-high cliff. Shafts of light arched like a
splintered rainbow over the humid scene. This was not a place in
which any of them felt at ease. A massive tree-trunk was balanced
over the precipice at the top of the falls. Iron Eyes studied it
carefully with interest. Its branches were full of well-nourished
leaves and that told the experienced hunter that the roots of the
fallen tree must still be buried deep into the ground anchoring it
high above the steep drop.
From where the three men stood it was a
perilous journey down to the foot of the waterfall. Iron Eyes knew
that there had to be another trail, otherwise the men could not
have managed to get Rosie Smith or themselves down there. And he
knew that they were down there, he could smell the stench of their
crawling hides filling his nostrils.
The
bounty hunter knew that she was there
too. Even after so many hours, her perfume still lingered on the
air for one capable of sensing it.
‘
Are you sure that they’re
down there?’ Black Ben asked as he felt the hairs beneath his black
bandanna rise.
‘
Yep. They’re all down
there OK.’ Iron Eyes pointed a bony finger. ‘I figure they must be
behind that waterfall.’
‘
Impossible!’ Hardin heard
himself say.
‘
There’s a cave there,’
Iron Eyes insisted. ‘Look at the way the sunlight is reflecting off
that water. There has to be a cave there.’
Tucker moved to the side of the taller man
and swallowed hard as he looked down at the drop. ‘There ain’t no
way of even getting down there from here. They must be holed up
around here someplace.’
‘
I sure can’t see no trail
leading down there, Iron Eyes,’ Tom Hardin added.
‘There is one and I’ll find it
with or without you.’ Iron Eyes pulled out a
cigar from inside one of his
deep jacket pockets and placed it between his teeth. He struck a
match with his thumbnail, cupped the flame to the tip of his cigar
and inhaled.
Black Ben stared at the face of the tall
man. Its pale chiseled features showed the strain that the last
twenty-four hours had racked on the pitifully lean frame.
‘
I ain’t hankering to break
my neck trying to get down there, Iron Eyes.’
‘
Then stay here like a
couple of old women. I’m headin’ on down.’ The bounty hunter moved
to his left and forced his way through the brush. Nervously, the
two other men followed him even though they were less than a couple
of feet from the edge of the sheer drop.
After twenty yards Iron Eyes stopped and
stared at the ground at his feet. He pointed and his two companions
bent over to study the tracks he had just discovered.
‘
Boot-prints,’ Tucker
gasped.
‘
Boot-prints heading toward
the edge of the cliff.’ Hardin sighed heavily.
Iron Eyes looked at Tucker.
‘
Go and get me a saddle
rope off one of them horses back there, Black Ben.’
The train-robber raised an eyebrow. ‘Saddle
rope?’
‘
Yep!’ Iron Eyes watched as
the handsome outlaw obediently turned and headed off through the
undergrowth towards the horses that they had passed a score of
yards behind them.
Sheriff Hardin knew that he had now to come
clean with the obviously weary bounty hunter. He had to tell him
the truth. ‘This is gonna be tough for me to say, son. But I’ve got
to tell you before you
Iron Eyes looked down at the sweating face
before him and moved to the man’s side. ‘You got a secret?’
‘
It’s about Rosie,’ Hardin
mumbled.
‘
She’s blind,’ Iron Eyes
announced. He turned his head to look at Black Ben returning with
the long coiled cutting rope over his shoulder.
The lawman gulped. ‘You knew?’
‘
Yeah, I knew.’ Iron Eyes’
voice faded into silence.
Black Ben Tucker reached the two men and
handed the rope to Iron Eyes.
‘
What’s wrong?’
‘
Nothing’s wrong, Black
Ben.’ Iron Eyes began to unwind the rope as he walked in the tracks
of the bandits. ‘Hardin seemed to think that I’d not figure out
that only a blind girl could look me in the face. I knew she
couldn’t see with them beautiful eyes of hers. Maybe I just liked
the idea that I was wrong.’
‘
To rescue a blind girl
might prove a tad difficult,’ Tucker observed.
‘
She’s worth it,’ Iron Eyes
said over his shoulder.
The sheriff and the
train-robber followed the tall figure through the dense brush
towards the very top of the high waterfall. Without any hint of
fear for his own safety, Iron Eyes stepped to the edge of the
cliff-top and stared at the narrow trail which wound its way
down to the foot of
the waterfall.
‘
Why do you want the
cutting rope, Iron Eyes?’ Tucker asked the injured man, who
continued to unwind the long rope as he limped towards the fallen
tree which jutted out a good twenty feet past the top of the
waterfall.
Iron Eyes made a lasso and tossed it over
the largest of the stocky branches, then tightened it.
‘
I got me an
idea.’
Neither man liked the sound of Iron Eyes’
reply. It hinted at his doing something that bordered on the
suicidal.
‘
Hold on there, son,’ the
sheriff said, moving to the hunter’s side. ‘What you figurin’ on
doing?’
Tucker removed his hat and dried his brow on
his black sleeve.
‘
He’s figuring on using
that rope to lower himself down to the floor of the waterfall,
Sheriff.’
The cold eyes flashed at Tucker
and then to Hardin. Iron Eyes said nothing as he pulled at the rope
knot until he
was convinced that the branch would take his
weight.
Sheriff Hardin raised his hands in the
air.
‘
Are you loco? You ain’t
strong enough to climb down that rope, son. It must be a fifty- or
sixty-foot drop.’
Iron Eyes wrapped the end of the rope around
his waist and tied a knot.
‘
Nearer to a hundred foot
by my reckoning, Sheriff. But I ain’t gonna walk down that track on
this leg.’ Iron Eyes corrected the older man as he stepped up on to
the broad trunk of the tree and checked his balance. Sweat was
dripping like water from the strands of limp hair that hung over
his face. He was in agony but refused to let either of the men who
had tagged along with him know.
To them, as to every other person who had
ever encountered Iron Eyes, he had to give the appearance of being
invincible. To show any sign of weakness was simply not in his
nature.
The bounty hunter lifted the
yards of
slack rope up in his bony hands and then started to make
his way tentatively along the tree-trunk.
The poison that had tortured him throughout
the previous night still haunted Iron Eyes. His head kept filling
with the remnants of the venomous fog but somehow he managed to
shake it off.
‘
Are you OK?’ Black Ben
shouted out over the noise of the rumbling waterfall. ‘You look
like death itself.’
‘
Thank you kindly, Black
Ben. I just hope this rope is long enough. I’d hate to end up
dangling half-way down,’ Iron Eyes said, looking at how much slack
rope he had and trying to judge how far it was to the bottom of the
wet cliff.
‘
You better pray that it
ain’t too long,’ Sheriff Hardin called out.
Iron Eyes shrugged and took another
step.
‘
I hadn’t thought about
that, old man. Could be real messy if n it is.’
Hardin and Tucker watched in
total
awe as
Iron Eyes limped towards the end of the fallen tree. He was already
past the point of no return when he turned and looked at his
companions.
‘
You two had better make
your way down the trail and get them hammers cocked ready for
action.’ Iron Eyes stared into the rising spray that obscured
everything below the prostrate tree. ‘Because I’m gonna jump in
about two minutes time. I’d hate to get there before you
do.’
The two men turned and rushed through the
tall grass at the top of the cliff. Carefully they scrambled down
the steep trail with their guns in their hands.
They knew that they had to reach the foot of
the waterfall and see if their companion was right about there
being a cave behind it.
The narrow trail was damp with the morning
dew that the slowly rising sun had yet to find and dry. They slid
and staggered on their way down the twisting trail.
At last they reached the banks of the lake
and stared at the wet rocks which rose up behind the falling
water.
Black Ben Tucker tapped the sheriff’s arm
and pointed behind the white cascading spray. They could just make
out the black outline of a cave set back behind the crashing
waterfall.
‘
Iron Eyes was right. There
is a damn cave.’
Their weaponry was cocked just as Iron Eyes
had ordered.
Twenty-One
Most men would have been afraid. But Iron
Eyes was unlike most men. He defied death because it had been his
constant companion since he had first felt its cruel hand resting
on his broad bony shoulders. Inhaling deeply on the remnants of his
cigar, Iron Eyes held firmly on to the rope with his left hand and
to one of his cocked Navy Colts with the other. He edged closer to
the end of the tree. His cold eyes gazed down at the lake far below
him and at his two companions. They were in position and ready.
Now it was his turn.
He tossed the cigar away and
watch it disappear beneath his high vantage point. With smoke
trailing from his teeth, the bounty hunter leapt off the massive
tree and out into the air. Iron Eyes hurtled down through the
misty
spray
of the waterfall far faster than he had imagined
possible.