The Wrath of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western #5) (6 page)

The speeding four-horse wagon thundered out
on to the dusty trail with the skilled hands of the bandit leader
gripping the heavy reins firmly. Malverez glanced over his shoulder
quickly before returning his attention to the twisting dirt road
ahead of him.

Cripple Creek had disappeared in the plume
of dust behind him.

It was five after four.
Malverez and his men had already executed their plan and brutally
abducted the beautiful Rosie Smith. The two remaining bandits had
been waiting for the banker to lock up the Cripple Creek bank
before delivering the note that their leader had painstakingly
written by hand. The two bandits waited at either end of the street
watching the large window to see if it had been accepted and
understood. They watched their three comrades riding past them. The
riders each took a different route out of the town, but would meet
up again across the border. Jed Smith had only just escorted the
last of their customers off the premises and locked the solid doors
of his bank when he heard something tapping against them. The sound
stopped the man in his tracks. The banker turned
and stared at the
piece of paper that had been slipped beneath the doors.

‘
What on earth is that?’
Smith asked aloud, thinking that one of the customers had
accidentally dropped a receipt.

His two cashiers had walked across the
marble flooring towards Smith as he bent down, picked up the paper
and unfolded it. His eyes darted back and forth as he silently read
the message.

‘
Anything important, Mr.
Smith?’ head cashier Clayton Nash asked his boss as Bobby Cooper
the junior clerk looked on curiously.

Smith’s face went pale.

‘
What is it, sir?’ Cooper
asked.

Smith did not reply to either man. He just
stared at the words which had been written in capital letters upon
the paper. His blood seemed to freeze in his veins as he tried
desperately to fathom whether his tired eyes had actually read the
brief message correctly. Smith hurriedly walked away from his two
employees towards his office without answering.

His footsteps resounded around the bank.

The sound of the office door being closed
behind him echoed within the large foyer of the bank as Jed Smith
entered his private sanctuary. Sweat was now tracing down his face
as panic gripped him by the throat.

‘
This cannot be happening,’
Smith muttered in a vain attempt to convince himself that he was
imagining this whole thing, which had brought him face to face with
his worst nightmare.

He was still shaking as he sat at his desk
and read the note again.

DEAR MR SMITH

WE HAVE TAKEN YOUR DAUGHTER, WE
WILL KILL HER UNLESS YOU BRING US $50,000. WE WILL CONTACT YOU
TOMORROW AND GIVE YOU DETAILS OF WHERE YOU HAVE TO BRING MONEY. DO
NOT TELL THE LAW. IF YOU AGREE
TO PAY FOR YOUR DAUGHTERS LIFE, PLACE A
LAMP IN THE BANK WINDOW.

YOUR FRIEND.

The words could not have been plainer. His
daughter had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. Jed
Smith had always feared that one day armed robbers would raid and
rob his bank but he had never once imagined that someone would
kidnap his beloved Rosie to get what they wanted.

Why pick on her?

What sort of person would pick on a helpless
female when they could face a man?

Jed Smith knew that he was probably dealing
with a coward or cowards. But they might just be sick enough to
kill her if he did not comply with their wishes.

There came a knock on the door
of his office. Smith glanced up from the scrap of paper but could
not make out
who was standing behind the frosted glass. His eyes were
filled with tears.

‘
Mr. Smith?’

The banker recognized the voice of Clayton
Nash. He rubbed his eyes dry with the white handkerchief he always
wore in his breast-pocket.

‘
Come in,
Clayton.’

Nash opened the door and looked at the
seated figure. He knew that something was very wrong.

‘
Can I help you,
sir?’

Smith gave a huge sigh and buried his head
in his hands. The sound of sobbing filled the entire bank.

Nash slowly crossed the office and stood
beside the man he had worked for for nearly twenty years.

‘
What is it,
Jed?’

Smith wiped his eyes but it seemed that the
handkerchief was not capable of coping with the flood of tears that
flowed from his swollen eyes.

‘
Yes, Clayton. You can help
me.’

‘
Anything, sir.’

‘Place a lamp in the large
window,’
Smith managed to say.

‘
Yes, sir.’ Clayton Nash
cleared his own throat and walked out of the office. He was not
going to question the banker any further. It was obvious that the
sobbing man had already reached breaking point.

The two bandits watched the lamp being
placed in the largest of the bank’s impressive windows, then
casually mounted their horses. Neither acknowledged the other and
they rode out of town by separate routes.

They now had to inform Malverez that Jed
Smith had taken the bait and was doing exactly as their leader had
instructed. The trail dust drifted over the street as Clayton Nash
and Bobby Cooper left the bank by the side door. For the first time
since either man had worked in the prosperous bank, they were being
allowed off work early.

The younger of the two, Cooper,
did not ask any questions and ran home but Clayton Nash was made
uneasy by the behavior
of Smith since he had received the
note.

He made his way straight to the sheriff’s
office. Standing on the boardwalk outside the grubby office, the
immaculate man who had never done anything but fill in ledgers and
count other folks’ money, looked through the window at the balding
lawman.

He felt that it was his duty to tell Tom
Hardin about the strange change in his boss, but he was racked with
guilt.

Was it disloyal to talk about Smith?

The question gnawed at the man.

Sheriff Hardin had noticed the figure
casting a long shadow across his office for more than five minutes.
Finally he had to rise from his comfortable chair and find out what
was eating at Nash.

Hardin opened the door.

‘
Come on in and have a cup
of coffee, Clayton.’

The sheriff had a way of
inviting people to do something and making it sound like an order.
Nash followed the overweight man into the stale-smelling
building. The
unpleasant odor of cigar smoke hung on the air inside the
office.

Hardin poured a cup of coffee for the clerk
and thrust it into the man’s hands.

‘
Spit it out.’

‘
What?’

‘
Whatever’s chewing at your
craw. Spit it out.’ The sheriff poured himself a cup of the black
beverage and returned the pot to the top of the stove.

Clayton Nash sipped at the coffee and then
sat down next to the cluttered desk.

‘
I’m not sure I should even
be here, Sheriff.’

Hardin placed his ample rear on to his chair
and sighed.

‘
Must be important,
Clayton. You ain’t the sort to come calling on this old lawman.
Tell me what’s troubling you.’

Nash held the hot cup in the palms of his
hands and looked into the black liquid.

‘Mr. Smith had a note put under
the door
just after closing time. I don’t know what was in it but it
must have been very upsetting. When I left the bank, he was crying
in his office.’

Hardin lowered his cup and looked at the
man.

‘
Crying?’

‘
Yes, sir. Like a
baby.’

‘
Tell me more.’ Hardin
rested his coffee-cup on his desk and looked hard at the man. He
had known Jed Smith for years and could not imagine anything
capable of upsetting the banker.

Nash took a deep breath and gazed up at the
smoke-stained ceiling.

‘
He asked me to put a lamp
in the bank window.’

Sheriff Hardin rubbed his whiskers. ‘Have
you ever been asked to put a lamp in the window before,
Clayton?’

‘
No, sir.
Never.’

Hardin opened the top drawer of his desk and
produced a bottle of whiskey. He waved the bottle at Nash.

‘
You want some of this to
take away the taste of the coffee?’

Nash nodded and held his cup out.

The sheriff poured a shot of the spirit into
Nash’s cup and repeated the action with his own.

‘
He was OK until some
critter slipped the note under the bank door, you say?’

‘
Perfectly OK,
Sheriff.’

‘
Then we can assume that
there was something in that note that shook old Jed up real bad.’
Hardin swallowed his primed coffee in one shot. ‘But
what?’

‘
I have a bad feeling about
this, Sheriff,’ Clayton said. He downed his own coffee in one
swallow.

‘
Have there been any
strangers in the bank?’

Nash shook his head. ‘None that I can
remember. Just the regulars.’

Tom Hardin rose from his chair and adjusted
his gun belt.

‘
You did the right thing
coming over and telling me about this, Clayton. Go home now and
I’ll try and find out what the hell’s going on.’

Nash stood up and placed his
empty
cup on
the desk. ‘Please do not tell Mr. Smith that it was I who spoke
with you.’

Hardin nodded. ‘Don’t fret none. I’ll not
tell him that we talked.’

Nash hurried out of the office and made his
way along the boardwalk in the direction of his lodgings. The
sheriff lifted his Stetson off a hat rack and placed it on his
head. He closed the door behind him and stared at the bank down the
street.

Something was going on in Cripple Creek and
he wanted to know what it was.

‘
Looks like I’m gonna pay
Jed Smith a visit,’ Hardin told himself.

Hardin seated himself in the plush leather
chair and looked over the magnificent desk at the
uncharacteristically upset banker. He had hammered at the side door
for more than five minutes with a fist that was now feeling
bruised, before Jed Smith allowed his old friend in.

‘
Why are you here, Tom?’
Smith asked, resting his elbows on the green-leather desk
top.

Sheriff Hardin rubbed the side of his
hand.

‘
I just thought that it was
a while since you offered me any of that fine French brandy you
hide in that bureau.’

Smith lowered his head until his brow rested
on the knuckles of his hands. He remained seated.

‘
Help yourself, Tom. You
know where it is.’

The lawman quietly got up from the chair,
walked to the mahogany bureau and opened the large lower-left door.
He bent down and lifted the silver-plated tray and carried the
crystal-cut decanter with four matching glasses across to Smith’s
desk.

Tom Hardin said nothing as he removed the
stopper from the neck of the decanter and poured two large measures
of the aromatic brandy into the crystal-cut glasses.

Smith accepted his drink with a hand that
could not stop trembling. Somehow he managed to put the glass to
his dry lips and swallow a mouthful of the fiery liquid. For a
moment it seemed that the fumes of the alcohol had lifted the man’s
spirits as he leaned back against the padded leather of his
chair.

The sheriff took a sip of the brandy and
then proceeded to top up both their glasses before resting his hip
on the edge of the large desk.

He watched the banker the way
that an eagle watches its chosen prey whilst
floating on a high warm
thermal. He too was waiting for an opportunity when he might find
his friend composed enough to tell him what was wrong and why his
face was stained with the unmistakable marks of tears.

‘
Sorry about your window,
Jed,’ Hardin said as warm brandy trickled down his
throat.

‘
Window?’ Smith had another
sip of his drink.

‘
The one that Iron Eyes
shot out this morning,’ the sheriff reminded the confused
banker.

Smith shrugged. ‘I’d forgotten all about
that. It seems like a million years ago.’

Hardin had noticed the scrap of paper tucked
under the blotter near the banker’s elbow. He rested his hand on
the desk and tried to divert the attention of the man who seemed to
be guarding it from prying eyes.

‘
You ought to have that old
bureau checked out, Jed. Looks like there’s woodworm in
it.’

Smith turned his head and stared blankly at
the tall bureau. He was about to speak when the lawman’s hand
grabbed at the note and pulled it from its hiding-place. Tom Hardin
unfolded it, then read it as he moved away from the desk. Before
Smith had reached his friend to retrieve the paper, Hardin had
already taken in its words.

‘
So that’s why you’re
spooked,’ the sheriff said as Smith’s shaking hands grabbed the
paper from him.

Both men stood face to face in the centre of
the office. For what seemed an eternity nothing was said. Then the
banker’s shoulders began to shake as emotion overwhelmed him once
more.

Hardin grabbed his friend’s shoulders and
pulled him to him.

‘
Don’t you worry, Jed. You
ain’t alone in this. Whoever has Rosie ain’t gonna know what hit
them.’