The Wrath of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western #5) (11 page)

Yet he still felt nothing.

The rocky ground at the edge of the falls
seemed to be coming up at him at a speed he had not anticipated.
Iron Eyes gripped on to the rope as tightly as he could and
wondered whether the old sheriff might have been right.

What if the rope was too long?

If so, he would crash into the rocks at the
side of the lake with such force, it would break every bone in his
body. Yet still he was not afraid.

Only someone who savored life itself feared
losing it.

Suddenly Iron Eyes heard the rope starting
to buzz above him and knew that it had reached its full length. It
went taut and began to whiplash his entire body. Iron Eyes raised
his legs in the air as the rope began to vibrate violently as he
swung over the heads of Tucker and Hardin. Then he hurtled back
into the air once more.

The bounty hunter screwed his
eyes
up and
stared at the slack in the rope above him. He was falling again at
an incredible speed down towards his two companions. He was like a
helpless rag-doll, desperately trying to regain control of the rope
in his hand.

Then he bounced heavenward again. It felt as
if every bone in his body had been stretched to twice its length.
Iron Eyes hung on tightly to the rope as his body was thrown around
in the air, again whipping him like a human slingshot.

Iron Eyes found himself swinging down
towards the wall of water. He was convinced that there was a cave
hidden behind it.

This time he was on target.

Forcing his feet together. Iron Eyes used
every ounce of his dwindling strength to control the wet saddle
rope and to make himself aim straight into the thundering
cascade.

It was like hitting a brick wall as Iron
Eyes’ entire body forced its way straight through the water spray
at the centre of the falls.

Iron Eyes knew that if he was wrong about
there being a cave there, he would crash into a solid rock face,
but there was no time now to worry about trivial things like
death.

He had made his choice and there was nothing
left to do but see it through to the bitter end. He was committed
and convinced that he was right.

His flared nostrils could still smell the
stench of the bandits and the sweet perfume of the female. They
were there all right.

As Iron Eyes’ feet hurtled through the water
he released his grip on the rope with his left hand and tugged at
the slip knot around his waist. He felt the rope give way, then his
thin body was free and flying feet first into the cave.

He held on to the grip of his
pistol with one hand and rubbed the water from his eyes with the
other. Iron Eyes felt his boots hit the floor of the cave and an
agonizing pain ripped through him. He went head over heels,
crashing
heavily into the sleeping bandits.

Tossing his bedraggled long hair off his
face he gritted his teeth and stared around the cave quickly. He
had only a split second to figure out where he was and where each
of his enemies was.

Iron Eyes fired one shot into the roof of
the cave and then felt himself being hauled at by the men all
around him. Arms grabbed at his legs and he instinctively fired
point blank into the stunned bandit’s head. Blood splattered all
over the tall gaunt figure as he kicked out at the lifeless
body.

The four other men scrambled to their feet.
Iron Eyes could see the flashing gun metal of the pistols around
him. He thrashed out with the barrel of his Navy Colt. The bandits
were all around him when he spotted Malverez rising from the side
of the half-naked Rosie Smith.

Iron Eyes felt his temper
rising beyond the point where most men could have coped. He tried
to aim at the bandit leader but felt his frail body
being knocked
sideways by the men who were clawing at him.

Two of the bandits threw themselves into the
falling water and disappeared into the lake as another of the men
closest to Iron Eyes raised his pistol and fired. The bullet passed
through the long wet hair of the stunned bounty hunter. Gun smoke
burned at the flesh of his face as he pressed a boot on top of the
bandit and pushed him back down.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Iron Eyes
blasted at the bandit, who fell backwards on top of another of the
startled men. Trying to wipe the smoldering black powder from his
face, Iron Eyes staggered backwards and tried to see where the man
he had spotted next to the half-naked Rosie Smith had gone.

His question was answered: Malverez fired
both his pistols at Iron Eyes.

The bounty hunter felt the heat
of the bullets as they passed through his long trail-coat. Malverez
was still next
to the Smith girl and Iron Eyes knew he did not dare to
return fire. He jumped down behind one of the large boxes filled
with coins from the bandits’ previous ransoms and swiftly reloaded
his Navy Colt.

Another volley of bullets ripped the top of
the boxes apart.

Iron Eyes was covered from head to foot in
burning splinters of smoldering wood. Just as he was about to
return fire he heard the screams of Rosie Smith and stopped.

‘
Help! Help!’ came her
pitiful calls.

Her voice echoed around the interior of the
cave as Iron Eyes dropped down beside the boxes and tried to get
another look, to see whether he could get a clean shot at
Malverez.

It was impossible without risking hitting
her.

Suddenly the bandit who had had
his dead comrade fall upon him managed to crawl free. He rolled
across the floor of the cave to a huge boulder. He scrambled behind
it and blasted two
shots off at Iron Eyes. Neither came close.

Bullets were flying at Iron Eyes from two
different directions now. He was being kept pinned down in a
crossfire.

The sound of gunshots came bouncing off the
walls of the cave from outside. The bounty hunter glanced at the
waterfall and knew that Sheriff Hardin and Black Ben were now busy
with the two bandits who had escaped through the water.

It was a raging battle that he wished he was
part of but he had to take care of two bandits here first.

Another shot tore the side of one of the
treasure boxes apart and long wooden shavings stuck into Iron Eyes’
face. He tore them out and saw the blood on his fingers.

Without a single thought for
the bruised female, Malverez got to his feet and dragged the
helpless Rosie backwards. He was using her as a shield. He
continued walking backwards and firing until he reached the mouth
of a tunnel
carved by nature itself into the solid rock of the huge
cave.

‘
Come on, gringo! Are you
afraid?’ Malverez shouted defiantly before pushing her aside. The
bandit leader did not wait for a reply and disappeared into the
passageway behind him. The cave was honeycombed with a maze of
tunnels leading to dozens of places.

Only the bandits knew where they all
led.

‘Wait for me,
amigo,’
the other bandit
called out to the vanishing heels of Malverez. There was no
response. Malverez had gone.

Iron Eyes crawled back around the boxes
until he could see what was going on inside the cave. He spotted
the sobbing Rosie Smith lying next to the tunnel and then felt the
heat of another bullet as the last remaining bandit blasted at
him.

Dust covered the bounty hunter as he cocked
his pistol again and fired. He heard the lead ball bounce off the
large rock.

Iron Eyes dragged his aching left leg up
underneath him and then steadied himself. He knew that the bandit
was well hidden behind the boulder at the back of the cave and that
it was impossible to get a clean shot at the man.

‘
Malverez?’ the bandit’s
pathetic voice called out. He ought to have known better. Men like
Malverez did not risk their lives for anyone. They took care of
themselves. Only themselves.

Iron Eyes pulled his other Navy Colt from
his deep jacket-pocket and cocked its hammer before laying it on
the ground next to his knee. Then he opened the chamber of the gun
in his hand and emptied all its shells on to the floor of the cave.
The bounty hunter was not a man who used trickery often but
sometimes it was the swiftest way to resolve a problem.

And the bandit hidden twenty yards away
between himself and the sobbing Rosie was a big problem.

Iron Eyes lifted the primed pistol up off
the ground. He held it in his left hand as he leaned around the
boxes, with the empty gun in his right hand.

He cocked its hammer and squeezed its
trigger. The sound of the empty gun reached the ears of the bandit,
who rose and fanned the hammer of his own gun at the treasure
boxes.

Defying the bullets that were flying all
around him, Iron Eyes raised his fully loaded Navy Colt and pulled
back on its hammer until it locked.

Then he squeezed the trigger.

The bullet hit the bandit squarely in the
centre of his chest, sending him spinning on his heels and crashing
into the cave wall behind him. As the bandit’s body slid down the
wall, a red line of blood was left as a reminder of Iron Eyes’
deadly accuracy.

Iron Eyes was about to move in the direction
of the sobbing female when he realized that the battle outside the
cave was still raging.

He loaded his Navy Colts hurriedly.

‘
Stay there, Miss Rosie,’
Iron Eyes shouted across to the girl who was now lying on the
ground near the tunnel. ‘I’ll be right back.’

Iron Eyes limped to the cave entrance and
made his way out towards the sound of the gunfire. No sooner had
the tall bounty hunter stepped away from the falling water than a
bullet bounced off the cave wall.

Fine stone-dust covered Iron Eyes as he
blasted both his guns in retaliation.

‘
Stay where you are, Iron
Eyes,’ Black Ben Tucker snouted from behind the cover of a
tree.

‘
Where’s Hardin?’ Iron Eyes
shouted back as he caught sight of the drenched bandits fifty yards
ahead of him. They were pinned down.

‘
I’m OK,’ the sheriff
shouted from behind a pile of rocks near the water’s
edge.

Iron Eyes ducked as another
bullet came too close to him for comfort. He pulled back the hammer
of his left-hand pistol and fired once. The closest
of the bandits’
head burst with the impact of the lethal shot.

Iron Eyes felt his injured leg hurting and
he stopped his advance. If the bandit wanted a showdown, he would
have to bring it to him.

The other bandit turned his attention on
Iron Eyes and fanned the hammer of his pistol repeatedly until it
was empty.

The bandit dropped his gun and raised both
his arms in the air and waved them around.

‘
He’s finished!’ Hardin
exclaimed, coming out from behind his place of cover. He approached
the bandit.

‘
He’s finished OK,’ Black
Ben Tucker agreed, moving away from the tree he had been hiding
behind.

Suddenly the bandit dropped both his arms
and pulled another gun from inside his shirt. He fired straight at
Tucker, sending the train-robber reeling on his heels. Hardin
stopped in his tracks and squeezed the trigger of his Colt. It was
empty.

The bandit fired again at the
sheriff
and
brought the older man down, clutching his forearm.

Instantly Iron Eyes’ thumbs pulled back the
hammers of both his Navy Colts a fraction of a second before his
index fingers pulled the triggers.

Two bullets tore through the morning air and
caught the Mexican high in his chest. The bandit was lifted off his
feet and landed in the lake. A red cloud of blood encircled the
floating body.

‘
You get the girl, Iron
Eyes. I’m OK.’ Tucker waved his arm at the grim-faced
man.

Iron Eyes looked in the direction of Hardin.
He was getting up from the ground.

‘
Get Rosie, son,’ the
lawman shouted.

Iron Eyes turned and entered the cave again.
He somehow managed to make his way across the huge expanse and
reach her far faster than a man in his condition should have. He
knelt down and stared at the shaking female.

Her near-naked body made him
turn his head. It had been a long time since
he had seen a female looking so
vulnerable and it confused him.

‘
Don’t you worry none, Miss
Rosie. Things will be OK.’

She recognized the voice of the man she had
met only once in the streets of Cripple Creek.

‘
Is that you, Iron
Eyes?’

‘
Yep.’

‘
I knew that if anyone
could rescue me from these animals, it would be you.’ Rosie grabbed
the man and pulled him close. She could feel his heart pounding
beneath his shirt. ‘There was something in your voice. I knew that
you were a good man.’

Iron Eyes seemed to find her attention
flattering. He rose to his feet and moved over to the soiled velvet
drape lying on the ground. Rosie would not loosen her grip on him
for even a second as he bent down, lifted it and shook the dirt
from it.

He wrapped it around her and then managed to
force her away from him.

She appeared to have no idea of
the
temptation her beautiful body could arouse in men. Without
any thought of her upper body being naked she stepped closer to
Iron Eyes again and allowed the drape to fall apart.

‘
I think that you’re very
special, Iron Eyes. You saved my life. I ... I think that I . . .
‘

The tall bounty hunter touched her lips and
stopped her talking. He knew what she was about to say and yet he
did not want to hear it. Iron Eyes had travelled alone for far too
long to even think about anyone as lovely as Jed Smith’s
daughter.