The Fury of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western #4) (11 page)
Read The Fury of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western #4) Online
Authors: Rory Black
Tags: #bounty hunter, #pulp fiction, #wild west, #old west, #western fiction, #piccadilly publishing, #rory black, #iron eyes
Iron Eyes and Silent Wolf
reached the clearing roughly twenty minutes after having heard the
last weapon being fired in the short but deadly gunfight. Using
every shadow within the dense forest of tall pine trees, they edged
their way around the clearing until they were convinced that there
was no living soul inside its moonlit parameter.
Cautiously they moved into
the moonlight and tried to work out what had occurred here, and
why. Steam was still rising from the bodies in the brush near where
the Creedys had fought the Cheyenne.
After hearing the raging
gun-battle only minutes earlier, both Iron Eyes and Silent Wolf
were surprised by the silence which now filled this place. They had
expected to find the white men who had shot at them, but there
were
none to
be seen.
Iron Eyes sniffed at the
cold, night air as he ventured forward towards the centre of the
clearing. The air was still tainted with the acrid smell of
gunpowder and death. It was an aroma he had long been used
to.
The bounty hunter stared at
the rising steam which emanated from the three corpses and pointed
them out to his companion. The bodies of the three Cheyenne braves
told the two hunters everything. The men who had tried to kill Iron
Eyes had somehow found themselves in a fight with these
Indians.
‘
White men,’ Silent Wolf
said staring at the ground and the high-heeled-boot prints beside
the tracks of three horses.
‘
Shod horses?’ Iron Eyes
questioned.
‘
And much blood,’ the young
Cheyenne added.
‘
Much blood, huh?’ Iron
Eyes felt himself smile as he repeated his companion’s words. ‘At
least your brother Cheyenne managed to wound one of the
varmints.’
Silent Wolf nodded and then
pointed towards a narrow gap in the trees.
‘
They go down that trail.
Three men.’
The tall bounty hunter
narrowed his eyes as he glared in the direction his companion was
pointing. Whoever they were, they were heading deeper into the
reservation, he thought. Were they insane? Maybe they were just
ignorant of the fact that down there, in the belly of the
reservation, there were thousands of Cheyenne. Maybe they were just
plain dumb.
‘
It don’t figure,’ Iron Eyes
sighed.
‘
Iron Eyes. Look,’ Silent
Wolf said picking up the blood-covered war lance, which had been
broken into two pieces. ‘This why white man hurt.’
Iron Eyes turned and stared
at the lance in the hands of Silent Wolf before stepping closer.
‘So one of them varmints got himself stuck like a pig, little
hunter?’
‘Much blood,’ Silent Wolf said
again as he tossed the war lance away and rubbed his blood-smeared
hands down
his buckskin shirt front. ‘Men take hurt one with
them.’
‘
Good. The bastard will
leave us a nice easy trail to follow if he keeps bleeding.’ Iron
Eyes strolled to where the three dead Indians were lying. His eyes
narrowed as he stared down at the trio of bodies.
They had been killed all
right, but not cleanly the way he would have done it. There was a
panic in the way these men had been killed.
‘
Are these men hunters like
you, Silent Wolf?’
‘
No. They scouts. They make
fire for signals to warn of danger,’ Silent Wolf
replied.
Iron Eyes rammed his pistol
into his belt and walked towards the edge of the trail taken by the
Creedys’. It was black and untouched by the moon. Silent Wolf moved
to the side of the tall, gaunt figure.
‘
They foolish. They go
wrong way. That way mean death to white men.’
Iron Eyes’ head turned slowly
as he
absorbed the words. ‘Would your people kill me if I go down
there?’
‘
Not if you with Silent
Wolf,’ the young warrior said coldly.
‘
What if we gets
separated?’ Iron Eyes pulled a cigar out of his pocket and placed
it between his teeth.
‘
Then Cheyenne might try
and kill you, my friend,’ Silent Wolf said.
‘
That sounds like bad
medicine.’
‘
Heap bad
medicine.’
Iron Eyes struck a match
with his thumb nail and dragged its flame into the black cigar.
Smoke drifted from his teeth whilst he began nodding.
‘
Reckon I better stick close
to you, if I want to stay alive long enough to see morning, Silent
Wolf.’
‘
Silent Wolf will never
leave Iron Eyes. Me owe you my life.’
‘
Go and get our horses,
little hunter. We got us some prey to catch,’ Iron Eyes
whispered.
These were young Cheyenne
warriors who had tasted the blood of their mortal enemies for the
first time. They had triumphed and destroyed the troopers and the
gold miners who had not been able to follow Major Thomas Roberts
through the wall of fire and back on to the relative safety of
distant prairie.
The glory of war had
returned to the hearts of the braves who had managed to trap the
invaders in the narrow valley. To the majority of them, it was a
new experience.
Having dispatched the last of
the soldiers and the miners the same way that their fathers had
done to other enemies a generation before, the younger braves
seemed almost drunk with the brutal power of it all. Victory tasted
good, but not as good
as the barrels of hard liquor they had discovered
in the captured wagons before setting the vehicles
alight.
Now more than a hundred of
the Cheyenne warriors were drinking and dancing around the blazing
wagons and the mutilated bodies of their victims. Primed by the
rotgut whiskey, they soon found themselves fuelled by something far
more dangerous than any of them had experienced before. To them,
battles were something they had only heard spoken about around the
campfires by their elders. Now the taste of blood filled their
souls and poisoned their judgment.
They wanted
more.
Iron Eyes allowed his younger
companion to lead the way down into the darkness of the steep
trail. Both knew this had been where the white riders had fled
after the fight back in the mountain
clearing, because they had left tracks
that even a blind man could follow. Branches were broken where the
shoulders of the three mounted outlaws had ridden on their frantic
journey down into the unknown. To the pair of experienced hunters,
it was the easiest tracking either of them had ever encountered.
Only the lack of light slowed Silent Wolf, yet even in the
blackness of a place that the moonlight could not penetrate, the
pair of expert hunters saw every sign left by the Creedy
brothers.
It was almost as if they
wanted to be caught, Iron Eyes thought, as he teased the reins of
his tall horse. This was too easy. Far too easy.
The grey pony walked slowly
down the dark trail, as its master sat gripping on to its mane.
Silent Wolf s keen senses missed nothing as he steered the animal
along the trail. Iron Eyes allowed his more nervous mount to
follow.
This was not his land. It
belonged to Silent Wolf and his tribe. He had never hunted
men through terrain
such as this, and knew every tree posed the threat of an ambush.
With one hand on his reins and the other on the grip of one of his
Navy Colts, the bounty hunter’s eyes darted from one side of the
trail to the other.
Iron Eyes knew he should
have somehow managed to persuade Silent Wolf to hunt these ruthless
killers alone, yet to do so would have put him at the mercy of the
entire Cheyenne nation.
Silent Wolf was his
lifeline. However much it stuck in Iron Eye’s craw, he knew he
needed the handsome brave, if only to stay alive long enough to get
out of this hauntingly beautiful reservation.
Iron Eyes touched his scalp
for the first time in hours. It hurt, but had stopped bleeding
again. His head no longer ached and the only drumming he could now
hear was coming from down in the heart of the forest.
They had been riding for no
more than ten minutes when the young hunter
dragged his crude reins and
pony’s mane back. The grey gelding stopped.
Silently, Iron Eyes moved
his horse to the side of the pony and then halted. ‘What is
it?’
‘
There!’ Silent Wolf
pointed through the thicket of trees to a point forty or so feet
below them. A place where the moonlight had found a gap in the
dense tree-canopies above them.
Iron Eyes stood in his
stirrups and squinted. Gradually his eyes managed to focus on the
exact point his companion was pointing at. ‘That’s them, little
hunter.’
Silent Wolf pulled his
ancient rifle up from where it hung in the bag across the grey
pony’s shoulders. ‘We shoot them now?’
Iron Eyes shook his head
and pushed the barrel of the rifle down. ‘Nope. Not from here. We
ain’t got a clean shot from this distance, little
hunter.’
‘
Too many trees?’ Silent
Wolf asked as he thought about his actions more clearly.
‘
Yep.’ Iron Eyes dismounted
and tethered his reins to a stout branch. ‘I got to get
closer.’
Silent Wolf swiftly leapt
from the back of his pony and landed beside the gruesome-featured
man.
‘
We go.’
Iron Eyes gripped the
shoulders of the smaller figure. ‘Nope. I go down there alone. This
ain’t your fight, it’s mine. You stay here where it’s safe, little
hunter.’
Silent Wolf was about to
argue when he felt the strength of Iron Eyes’ hands squeezing his
shoulders. Suddenly he knew the tall, rawboned figure meant
it.
Reluctantly, the Cheyenne
youth bowed his head in obedient frustration. ‘I come if there is
trouble, Iron Eyes.’
Iron Eyes smiled.
‘
Okay. If I
get myself in a fix, you come and help me.’
After patting Silent Wolf
on his shoulder, Iron Eyes studied the winding trail before them.
Then he stared through the trees down the steep incline filled with
straight tree-trunks.
He knew to take the safer
route on foot would cost him far too much time. Time he could not
afford. The direct path was dangerous but also one that would give
him the element of surprise. Glancing at the face of Silent Wolf he
nodded, and then slipped into the undergrowth and began heading
down towards where he could just make out the three
figures.
He knew he could have stuck
to the less hazardous trail used by the riders, but instinctively
felt that it would have taken too long. He had to cut down through
the steep, wooded slope if he were to take these men.
The slope was slippery
underfoot and the long legs of the bounty hunter seemed ill-suited
to the difficult terrain. Yet he persevered on down to where the
moon illuminated his prey.
Using the straight, slim trees
to stop himself from falling off the mountainside, Iron Eyes knew
whoever the three men were, they would not expect anyone to drop in
on their makeshift
camp from this deadly direction.
Halfway down, Iron Eyes had
to muster every ounce of his waning strength just to remain
upright. Leaning against the trunk of one of the many trees he had
encountered on his descent, Iron Eyes peered down on the
men.
Screwing up his eyes, the
infamous figure suddenly began to notice that this greasy, sloping
incline was not as he had first suspected when he had started down
through the trees. Now he could make out a ledge between where he
had stopped to catch his breath, and the three figures. Iron Eyes
began to wonder how high the ledge was from the flat ground below
it. Ten feet? Maybe twenty?
However big the drop was,
Iron Eyes knew he had to take even more care on the final part of
his descent. The last thing he wanted to do was to fall and break
his neck after surviving the slippery slope.
Iron Eyes saw the men more
clearly
when
he moved down to the next tree and rested against its trunk. Two of
them were tending the injuries of the third. For a moment Iron Eyes
wondered why they were bothering. Even at this distance and
elevation, the bounty hunter could see that the figure was more
dead than alive.
Having never had any kin
himself, Iron Eyes knew nothing of the bond between siblings. The
Creedys might have been ruthless killers and thieves, but they were
also brothers. Brothers refused to write one another off until the
very last breath had left their bodies. To Iron Eyes it seemed
totally pointless.
The ground beneath his feet
was covered in moss, and seemed to defy anyone or anything standing
on it. Licking his dry lips, Iron Eyes knew that unless he was
extremely cautious, he would more than likely lose his footing and
fall.
Looking at his mule-ear boots,
the bounty hunter wondered if his vicious
spurs might help him from sliding
down the moist, muddy slope, if he tried to use them as an anchor.
Pushing himself from the tree, he edged away from it and looked
down at the next similar pine about ten feet below him. Iron Eyes
knew that if he could reach that tree, he had a chance.
Jabbing the spur on his
right boot backwards into the wet ground, Iron Eyes cautiously
moved his left foot from the trunk of the tree he had been balanced
against. Then it happened.
Without knowing how, Iron
Eyes felt himself falling on to his back heavily. As his skull
cracked on to the wet ground he felt his entire body moving quickly
downward. His long coat beneath his lightweight frame offered no
resistance.
Sliding helplessly down at
a speed which increased with every passing heartbeat, Iron Eyes
could see the moon above him through the black canopy of the pine
tree branches.
Desperately, Iron Eyes clawed
at the soft soil to either side of him, feeling the
heat of friction
beneath his spine as he continued thundering down towards the rim
of the ledge he had noticed a few seconds earlier.
Raising his head to look at
his boots, Iron Eyes felt a strange sensation racing through
him.
As his body slid off the
side of the steep mountain, he realized he was flying through the
air straight at the trio of men below.
For the first time in his
entire life, Iron Eyes felt fear.
