Iron Eyes Must Die (14 page)

‘
His
name’s Jackson Wylie. He was staying at the hotel until it burned
down. He’s bin renting a room upstairs since then.’

‘
Actor?’ Iron Eyes asked.

‘
Talks
and smells like one.’ The bartender shrugged.

‘
I
hate actors almost as much as I hate Apaches!’ Iron Eyes snarled.
‘Reckon he barked up the wrong tree, huh?’

‘
Damn
right!’The bartender grinned.

The swing-doors burst apart and a panting
Duke Hanney ran in with his shotgun across his chest. His eyes were
open wide. He was scared.

‘
Them
riders are almost here, Iron Eyes! C’mon!’

Iron Eyes took another long
swallow of the bottle, placed it on the wet counter-top and then
strode across the sawdust to the livery man. The two men
turned
and
walked out on to the boardwalk. The storm was now at its peak.
Thunder rocked the wooden structures as lightning lit up everything
in a deathly blinding light.

‘
Did
ya manage to find any bullets for my guns?’ Iron Eyes asked,
looking down at the street which was now a mud-bath.

‘
I
could only find the one box of shells in the hardware store, boy.’
Hanney pulled out a box from his shirt and handed it to the bounty
hunter. ‘Is that gonna be enough?’

Iron Eyes emptied the bullets
into the
right-hand pocket of his trail coat and tossed away the
cardboard box.

‘
It’ll
have to be enough, I guess,’ he muttered. ‘Did ya get that
telegraph worker out of the cafe and into his office?’

‘
Sure
did!’ Hanney answered. ‘He’s workin’ on his equipment right now.
Toby figures it’ll take best part of a day to fix everything,
though.’

‘
A
day?’ Iron Eyes sighed. ‘Them bodies are gonna be mush by the time
I gets to claim my bounty money.’

‘
I
figure it ain’t gonna take that long if this here storm quits.
Toby’s gotta climb that pole outside his office to fix the wires,
and he ain’t likely to do it until the lightning stops.’

Iron Eyes pulled one of his guns from his
pocket and cocked its hammer.

‘
You
ready to start fighting again, old-timer?’

Hanney cocked both hammers of his hefty
weapon and nodded firmly.

‘
You
bet I’m ready, boy!’

‘
Good!’ Iron Eyes said, pointing the barrel of his gun.
‘’Cause they’re already here!’

The old man grabbed the bounty
hunter
’s arm
and dragged him into an alley next to the saloon. Both men stood in
the driving rain and watched the six horsemen gallop past
them.

‘
Where’d ya figure they’re headed in such an all-fired
hurry, boy?’ Hanney asked.

Iron Eyes screwed up his face
and stared hard into the burning rain at the
riders as they turned their
mounts around the corner.

‘
What’s down that street?’

‘
The
hotel used to be,’ the livery man replied. ‘Until ya burned it
down, that is.’

Iron Eyes led the bearded man from the alley
along the boardwalk until they reached the corner. He used his left
hand to shield his sore eyes from the rain and gazed along the
dimly lit street.

The six riders had reined in beside the
blackened timbers of what had once been the Avalon Hotel.

‘
Reckon they’re a bit late to get themselves a room.’ Hanney
chuckled.

Iron Eyes did not laugh. He just continued to
stare at the horsemen as they dismounted.

‘
Snake
Adams!’ he said in a hushed tone. ‘That’s Snake Adams, old man.
I’ve bin after that bastard for years! He’s worth a couple of
thousand!’

Hanney wiped the rain from his face with his
wet shirt-sleeve and stepped forward.

‘
Who
the hell is Snake Adams, boy?’

‘
His
face was on one of them wanted posters we looked at earlier!’ Iron
Eyes almost drooled at the thought of even more bounty money. ‘So
were a couple of the other riders!’

‘
Leave
’em be, boy!’ Hanney begged. ‘Ya already done enough killin’ for
one day. There are just too many of them. Why push ya
luck?’

Iron Eyes pulled his other gun from his left
pocket. His thumb pulled back its hammer until it fully locked.

‘
That’s what I do! They’re wanted dead or alive!’ he
snapped. ‘I ain’t gonna let them fall into the hands of some other
bounty hunter!’

Hanney tried to hold his fearsome companion
back, but the tall skeletal figure could not be stopped. He had
already started to walk towards the six men.

‘
Stop,
boy!’ Hanney pleaded. ‘This is plumb loco!’

‘
Cover
my back or go hide someplace!’ Iron Eyes said over his
shoulder.

‘
It’s
up to you! There ain’t no third way!’

Hanney cursed silently and ran after the
bounty hunter.

Snake Adams stood in the
pouring rain holding what was left of the hotel sign in his hands.
He could still make out the name
‘Avalon’ amid the charred and cracked
paint.

‘
This
is the hotel where we was meant to meet up with Jackson Wylie,
boys!’ Adams gasped in disbelief. ‘This chunk of charcoal was
it!’

Brewster kicked at the sodden ashes.

‘
Reckon he was in there when it went up?’

Furiously, Adams threw the wooden sign
down.

‘
I
don’t give a hoot about Wylie, One Ear. I’m wondering where our
money is! What if it was in here when the hotel caught
fire?’

Ferdy Mayne shook his head and leaned on his
saddle.

‘
I got
me a feelin’ that them soft beds went up in smoke,
boys.’

Lynch and Parker moved into the
black ashes as if they might find answers to their
leader
’s
question. The two outlaws searched for a few minutes before
returning to the frustrated Adams.

‘
If
that gold is here, I doubt that we’ll ever find it!’ Lynch said.
‘It could have melted.’

‘
Maybe
Wylie was never in here in the first place, Snake,’ Kyle Parker
suggested. ‘Or he got out when the place caught fire.’

Adams rubbed his face anxiously.

‘
What
could have happened here?’ he mumbled under his breath. ‘It don’t
add up.’

The entire area lit up as
lightning erupted in the storm clouds above them. Coop Starr edged
away from their horses to the side of the troubled Adams. He nudged
the outlaw leader
’s arm and pointed at the two approaching
figures.

‘
Somebody’s headed this way, Snake.’

Adams
turned on his heels and looked to
where his cohort was indicating.

‘
It’s
just a couple of nosy locals, Snake. Don’t pay them no heed,’
Brewster said.

The outlaw
leader
’s
eyes narrowed as he focused on the infamous bounty hunter. Adams
swallowed hard and vainly tried to snap his wet fingers to get his
men’s attention.

‘
Ya
see him?’ he yelled. ‘Do ya?’

The five outlaws gathered around Adams.

‘
Sure
we see them, Snake.’ Starr nodded.

‘
No!
Not
them,
just the tall critter! See him? Don’t ya know who that
is?’

None of his followers answered.

‘
That’s Iron Eyes!’ Adams gasped in shock. ‘That’s Iron
Eyes, the bounty hunter!’

‘
The
bounty hunter?’ Mayne cleared his throat and started to pay
attention for the first time in days. ‘I thought he was
dead.’

‘
Yep!
So did I!’ Snake Adams snapped. ‘That animal is the most dangerous
man hunter there ever was! He tried to get me a few years back. I’m
still carryin’ his lead!’

‘
Let’s
get out of here!’ Ben Lynch said, moving to his horse and grabbing
its reins. ‘Iron Eyes don’t take nobody in alive. He’ll kill us
all!’

The five other outlaws followed
Lynch
’s
lead. They all grabbed at their reins, tore them from the long
hitching pole and grabbed their saddle horns.

‘
Ya
better not try and mount them horses!’ Iron Eyes shouted out. ‘I’ll
kill ya if ya do!’

Adams used his tall horse as a shield and
stared over its neck at the awesome vision of the legendary bounty
hunter. The outlaw waved his left hand at his men.

‘
Wait
up, boys! He means it. He’ll kill us all if we try and ride out of
here.’

The outlaws remained between their horses.
They knew that even the deadly Iron Eyes could not shoot through
the body of a half-dozen mounts.

Iron Eyes held both his guns at hip height
and stood like a statue before the outlaws. It was as if he were
daring them to react. Daring them to try and outgun him.

‘
What’s Snake Adams doing in this neck of the woods?’ the
thin man shouted. ‘Come to let me kill ya?’

Adams cocked the hammers of his gun.

‘
We
don’t want no truck with you, Iron Eyes! We was only here on
business. Leave us be and we’ll ride.’

‘
Ya
want me to let you go?’ Iron Eyes shouted.

‘
We’d
be obliged ifn ya did. Like I said, we are only here to meet up
with an Eastern gent. He owes us some money.’

The keen mind of the bounty hunter started to
work on the words coming at him from Adams.

‘
What
was the name of this gent, Snake?’

‘
Jackson Wylie!’ Adams called back. ‘You know
him?’

Lighting flashed again. The horses spooked
but their masters managed to keep them in check.

‘
Maybe!’ Iron Eyes thought about the man he had knocked out
a few minutes earlier in the saloon. He tried to figure out what
sort of connection there could be between a city dude and the six
outlaws.

‘
I
reckon ya toying with us, Iron Eyes!’ Adams shouted again at the
bounty hunter. ‘Tell us what ya know about him. Is he alive or
dead?’

‘
Why
would he wanna do business with gutter slime like you, Snake?’ Iron
Eyes taunted.

‘’
Cause
I got somethin’ he
wants!’ Adams yelled.

‘
Well
he ain’t gonna give ya no money at the moment, Snake,’ Iron Eyes
snarled. ‘I left him knocked out in the saloon. I kinda
misunderstood what he was talkin’ about. Reckon he thought I was
you.’

Suddenly the loudest
thunderclap any of the men had ever heard exploded
all around them.
The muddy ground beneath their feet shook violently. Iron Eyes felt
himself stagger sideways as all six of the terrified horses reared
up, leaving their masters exposed. Their hoofs tried to kick out at
the invisible monsters which had frightened them.

‘
Kill
him, boys!’ Adams ordered.

Iron Eyes saw Adams and his men under the
bellies of their mounts as the horses continued to rear up into the
air. The guns of all six outlaws spewed out their deadly lead at
the bounty hunter. Bullets cut through the air all round the thin
figure as he squeezed both his triggers at exactly the same
time.

Ben Lynch gave out a pitiful
cry as the two bullets went straight through his middle. He fell
into the mud as his skittish horse
’s hoofs crashed down on to his unguarded
head.

Parker and Brewster moved from
between the horses and blasted their guns at the bounty hunter.
Iron Eyes felt the heat of the hot lead as his coat tails were hit.
He fell into the mud and
fought to drag his boots from the
quagmire.

Hanney rushed to the aid of his friend and
fired both barrels of his shotgun straight into the tightly grouped
bunch of men and horseflesh. There was a chilling sound that only
death can muster.

The wounded Brewster and Parker limped back
to the horses.

One of the horses fell heavily as the
buckshot tore its neck and shoulder apart. None of the outlaws or
their mounts escaped the lead shot as Ferdy Mayne disappeared
beneath the massive weight of the horse. The outlaws did not have
time to make a sound as every bone in his body was crushed.

Iron Eyes dragged his thin legs out of the
mud and dropped on to the boardwalk beside his older companion.
Bullets cut up the wooden walkway, sending a million splinters over
the two men. He rolled over and fired blindly into the heart of the
outlaws.

Coop
Starr ducked beneath his mount as it
reared up and waited for its forelegs to land. He then opened up
his saddle-bag’s satchel and pulled out two sticks of dynamite and
a length of fuse wire.