The Ghost of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western Book 8) (2 page)

Yet he had survived. The
faintest spark of life had still burned in his tortured carcass. It
was enough to keep the tall, thin, infamous figure from falling
into the bowels of Hell. A place that he knew had waited patiently
for him for most of his days.

Lucifer
was never far from the thoughts
of the man who had once been a hunter of animals until he found
that wanted men brought far greater rewards for his deadly skills.
But that felt as if it were a lifetime ago. Now he was barely able
to kill enough game to feed himself. Rattlesnake poison still
coursed its way through his veins like acid.

The dry relentless wind refused
to stop blowing the fine sand and dust granules through the
twisting canyons. They continued to cut into what remained of the
wounded man
’s flesh as if nature itself had decided that it too would
punish him.

But perhaps it was this that
had kept him alive against all the odds. Kept reminding him that if
he could still feel the pain, it meant that he could not be dead.
The incessant sand which tried to smooth off his rough edges, as it
had done to the canyon rockface, never ceased its torture. It was
like the stings of a million crazed hornets, but it prevented him
from falling into the pit
that he knew no man could ever escape
from.

The bounty hunter knew that
his reputation had become almost mythical in the minds of those he
had hunted so mercilessly across the vast stretches of the west.
Outlaws feared the coldblooded determination of the man who, once
on their trail, would never give up until he had claimed the reward
on their heads. Most Indian tribes hated him even more than the
outlaws did, but it was the Apache who had more reason than most to
want him dead. Their mutual hatred and battles had become
legendary.

But no matter how hard any
of them tried to execute their plans for destroying him, they
failed. It had been said that it was impossible to kill him,
because he was already dead.

His bullet-
colored eyes stared around the
arid canyon where he rested his long skeletal frame. If only his
enemies could see him now, he thought. They would realize how wrong
they had all been.

He had tried to muster the
strength to leave this remote maze of canyons many times over the
previous months. But he had failed on every single
occasion.

Even the horse that had
brought him here had deserted him during one of the numerous bouts
of fever that had plagued his fragile body.

Was there no escape? Was
this where it was to end?

The bruised mind of the man
who had found himself in this most unholy of places knew that he
might never discover the answers to the questions he posed
himself.

He pressed his scarred face
against the rocks and felt the small trickle of water touch his
cracked lips. From somewhere far above him, water defied the
searing heat, traced its way down over the uneven surface and
soaked into the sand beside him.

It was all he had between
life and death, but he had survived on less.

The unbearable heat of the days
was
matched
equally by the freezing cold of the nights and yet it had only been
three days since the disheveled bounty hunter had started to
notice.

Suddenly something caught
his eye.

A snake appeared a few feet
from his outstretched legs, winding its way through the hot sand.
He instinctively drew one of his Navy Colts from his belt, cocked
its hammer and fired in a mere heartbeat.

The bullet severed the head of
the sidewinder with lethal accuracy. The man dropped the smoking
weapon, then crawled towards the snake
’s body. His bony left hand plucked
it off the sand. He dragged his long-bladed Bowie knife from the
neck of his right mule-eared boot and started expertly to skin the
viper.

Once again he had managed to
kill his supper and knew that he would survive another
day.

The razor sharp teeth tore
at the flesh of the snake and started to chew.

Iron Eyes was still
alive!

There was trouble spreading
unchecked across the West like a wildfire, consuming everything in
its path. Like a cancer devouring every decent particle of humanity
until there was little left except vain hope. No tidal wave could
have caused so much destruction or despair. It seemed that no town
however large or small could do anything to prevent the inevitable
arrival of the well-armed gangs of outlaws. Totally outnumbered by
the vermin who preyed on the innocent souls who had worked hard to
create what little civilization there was in the West, the law
found itself helpless.

Only the most experienced,
dedicated and fearless of lawmen remained to face the outlaws, yet
even they could not understand what was happening.

For
some inexplicable reason the most
ruthless of desperadoes appeared to have lost all fear of the law
itself. It was if they believed themselves immune to any possible
chance of retribution. The remnants of every gang that had plagued
Texas and its borders with neighboring territories had merged into
larger, more disciplined outfits.

They appeared to consider
themselves indestructible.

Yet even this did not
explain the question which dogged the lawmen. Why should the gangs
suddenly have found the courage to ride by day as well as night? To
throw caution to the wind and defy the men with the stars pinned to
their vests, was unheard of in the short bloody history of this
still wild land.

It was as if they knew that the
one man who could have stopped them, was gone. Gone
forever.

For the most fearful of
creatures to stalk outlaws had never been the posse, it had been
the bounty hunter! And of that rare ruthless breed, the most
deadly and infamous
had vanished.

Iron Eyes had
disappeared!

Marshal Lane Clark had been
a lawman for twenty or more years and had never been faced with so
many pleas for help from so many sheriffs in so many
towns.

What had changed?

The veteran lawman knew that
something must have altered for the scum of the West to have
crawled out from under their rocks with such an abundance of
disregard for retribution.

But what had
changed?

Why were the outlaws now
unafraid?

They were not a breed of man
that ever boasted about their bravery. Outlaws by their sheer
nature were the most cowardly of creatures. Relying on their skills
with weaponry and the ability to back-shoot with no
remorse.

Yet now it seemed as if they
were more than willing to let folks know of their exploits. They
were almost bragging out loud about their deeds to all and
sundry.

It made no sense to the marshal
as he stared at the dozens of telegraph wires that he had received
from the
neighboring towns around his Waco office.

Lane Clark was troubled and
it showed in every line upon his weathered face. He had witnessed
the problem growing for the best part of a year and could neither
understand it or work out what he ought to do.

Two score years and he felt
like a rookie who was still wet behind his ears.

He had tried and failed to
stem the flow of lawlessness with every power at his disposal, but
he had failed. It was as if he were attempting to prevent a dam
from rupturing. But it was not mere water that was washing away the
innocent people who relied upon him and his like. It was countless
bloodthirsty outlaws killing, stealing and doing whatever they
pleased who were destroying the fragile landscape.

The office doorway burst open
and
drew the
marshal’s attention to the gasping telegraph officer before
him.

‘
I got
me a wire here, Lane!’ Olin Turner said, holding the small scrap of
paper in his shaking hand until the lawman took it and started to
read its words. ‘I don’t like it. It’s wrong!’

‘
What
ya mean?’ Clark muttered.

‘
That
message started to come through from Diamond City and then it up
and stopped. I checked the operator’s line but it’s dead,’ Turner
stuttered.

‘
Somebody made sure the message was never completed,
huh?’

‘
Yep!’
the telegraph man replied, wiping his face free of sweat. ‘Read
it!’

Lane Clark inhaled and
read.

‘
URGENT. GANG OF THIRTEEN RIDERS.’

‘
See?’Turner gulped. ‘Must be one of them gangs. They must
have taken over Diamond City by my reckoning, Lane.’

Clark ran a thumbnail across
the tip of a match and touched the end of his long slim cigar. He
inhaled deeply and then allowed the smoke to filter through his
untrimmed moustache.

‘
Thanks, Olin. Get back to your office in case something
else comes through.’

Turner nodded and walked out of
the marshal
’s office at the same speed that he had entered.

‘
We
got us a whole heap of trouble, Col. And it’s getting darn close.
Too darn close for comfort.’ Lane Clark tapped the ash off his
cigar and swung his chair around until he was facing Col Drake, his
fresh-faced deputy. ‘Olin might be wrong about that message from
Diamond City. The wires might have come down ‘coz of a storm or
suchlike, but I kinda doubt that.’

‘
Me
too, marshal,’ the deputy agreed.

Lane Clark stared at the
pile of wires stacked before him.

‘
First
them outlaws hit Black Rock and then a half-dozen smaller towns
along the fringe of the ridge. Then only three days back it was
Springville.’

‘
And
Diamond City is only a day’s ride from there,’ Drake added
knowingly. ‘You reckon it’s the same bunch, Lane?’

‘
Yep.
It has to be Jardine and the vermin he’s gathered around
him.’

‘
We
need the Texas Rangers, Marshal!’

‘
But
they’re stretched like a rubber band, son. There ain’t no way that
we can muster their help on this.’ Clark ran the ash of his cigar
along the glass ashtray, then returned it to his teeth. ‘Them folks
need help now!’

‘
Apart
from me, you’ve only got three other deputies.’ Col Drake lowered
his chin until it rested on his colorful bandanna. ‘And I doubt if
anyone else would wanna get tangled up with them outlaws,
Lane.’

‘
Me
neither!’

‘
I
reckon you’ve gotta big problem there,’ Drake said, resting his hip
on the edge of the desk and scratching his unshaven
chin.

Clark nodded.

‘
I got
me wires from every darn town in the county begging for help. And
then this half note from Diamond City. Something’s darn
wrong.’

‘
But
why have these outlaws suddenly got brave all of a sudden, Lane?’
Drake shook his head vainly trying to think of an answer to his own
question.

Marshal Clark rose from his
chair and sucked hard on the cigar. He paced around the office,
silently puffing until he reached the blackened
coffeepot resting on top of the
wood-stove.

‘
That’s what I can’t figure, Col. For years the gangs have
kept their heads low. They rob a train or stage or bank and we
rustle up a posse and chase the varmints. Sometimes we catch ’em,
sometimes they get away. But this is loco. It’s like they all
suddenly got a jugful of bravery and drank the whole thing in one
go. They just ain’t afraid anymore.’

‘
I
read me a bunch of them wires earlier,’ Drake stated as he watched
the marshal pour two cups of the black beverage. ‘I was kinda
shocked by how many of them outlaws are wanted, dead or alive. Some
have darn big bounty on their heads. You would think that they
would be keeping their heads low, wouldn’t you?’

Marshal Clark walked to
Drake and handed him one of the steaming cups.

‘
Yeah,
that’s right. Them critters are worth a lotta money dead and yet
they’re leading gangs into towns as if they don’t care who sees
’em. Ain’t they smart enough to figure that they’ll be adding value
to their wanted posters?’

Drake sipped at the bitter
coffee.

‘
Ain’t
like the old days.’

‘
What
you mean?’ The older man raised an eyebrow and looked hard at his
top deputy.

‘
You
know what I mean, Marshal,’ Drake said. ‘When we had a few bounty
hunters roamin’ around. Them varmints can stretch the law a tad
further than we can!’

Suddenly Lane Clark lowered
the cup from his lips.

‘
That’s it. It has to be.’

‘
What
you talkin’ about?’