Iron Eyes, no. 1 (3 page)

The two men
that rode into Rio Drago were the sort of people every
law-respecting person dreads to see arriving. Their horses showed
the signs of hard riding as they plodded heavy-footed down the
wide, sun-baked street. People scattered at the sight of the two
riders.

They surveyed
the scene with an amusement born out of years of killing and bank
robberies.

They had
arrived on time as instructed.

Both men knew
that this was a place that no smart person would ever visit and
that made it perfect. They had been told to meet their brother
here. They were low on cash and when his wire had arrived back in
Laramie, they took the opportunity to skip out and ride. This had
been a place where they always came to meet up with Dan.

Tom and Whit
Hardy were younger than their sibling by many years, and knew
little about anything apart from doing as he instructed. They were
just the hired help of a very clever man, even if they were
kin.

Tom Hardy had
always been the second man behind Dan. He could not shoot as well
as his elder brother, but knew how to scare folks into listening to
the older man. He was back-up for the older, wiser, more skilled
robber. Tom knew his place. His place was right behind Dan
Hardy.

Whit Hardy was
young underneath all his whiskers. Young, and very drunk.
Drunkenness was his natural state and had been for over five years.
When he was drunk he could not remember to be scared, and he was
always scared. His was the lowest rung on the Hardy ladder, and all
he wanted from life was money women and liquor. Not necessarily in
that order.

Whenever they
went into action he drank more and more until he reached a state
that folks seldom ever reached without falling down. Whit had
become a shadow of his former self; and the yellowing of his teeth
was matched by the pupils of his eyes. No man could drink as much
as he consumed without shooting holes in their liver. Whit was a
young man on the brink of death, and quite happy to continue
heading in that downward spiral.

Drinking one’s
self to death was a darn sight better way to go than the
alternative. Whit was the man who stood in the street outside the
banks that his elder brothers were robbing. His job was to hold the
horses and shoot up the town, making sure that people ran away
before his brothers came out with the loot.

Not the most
demanding of jobs, but when you are of a nervous nature, and
pickled in alcohol, it takes every ounce of energy to do that
simple task. Whit Hardy knew his place.

The two riders
drew their mounts up outside the cantina and dismounted. They tied
the horses up firmly to the dried wooden poles that fronted the
trough, before entering the place that rang out with the sounds of
Mexican music.

They were caked
in the dust and grime that only days on such fiery terrain as that
which led to Rio Drago could bake on to visitors.

‘
I’m as dry as hell, Tom,’ Whit gasped as he stepped up on to
the creaking boardwalk.

‘
And you needs a drink,’ the elder man said.

‘
That’s about it, I guess,’ Whit coughed, as they pushed their
way in through the beaded curtain.

It was dark
inside this place. Dark and cool. A welcome relief from the
exterior that seemed to burn under the blazing noon sun.

As they walked
to the bartender they watched as the few regulars seemed to cast
their eyes away from them. It was obvious that something was wrong.
Very wrong indeed.

‘
Got any whiskey?’ Tom asked as they leaned on the filthy
bar.

‘
We only got tequila,’ the bartender said, in a very quiet
tone.

‘
Two bottles of that then,’ Whit gushed as he fumbled for a few
coins in his pocket.

Tom Hardy said
nothing as he watched the man behind the bar get two of the bottles
off the makeshift shelf behind him. The elder of the brothers
turned to study the people who were sitting behind them, when his
eyes caught sight of the blood-stained walls in the far corner.
Tapping Whit’s arm he strolled across the cantina, past the
guitarist who was trying to earn a few cents, up to the dark
corner.

Tom Hardy’s
eyes travelled over the scene of the bullets and blood that
confronted him.

It was no
normal sight, even for his tired eyes.

‘
That weren’t there last time we was here, Tom,’ Whit drawled
as he touched the holes in the wall. ‘Looks fresh to
me.’

Tom turned and
retraced his steps back to the bar He was still silent as he poured
himself a tall glass of the clear liquor and downed it in one. Then
he repeated the action, before looking up at the timid man behind
the bar.

‘
Who did that?’

A man. An evil
man. Gringo like you,’ the stammering bartender replied.

‘
Name?’ Tom snapped.

‘
He called Iron Eyes, I think.’

Whit grabbed
his brother’s sleeve. ‘The bounty-hunter.’

‘
Yep. The stinking gut-slime bounty-hunter.’

Tom swallowed
another drink.

‘
Who did he kill?’ Whit swigged from his bottle.

The man behind the bar went suddenly very pale as he trembled
before them. ‘I am afraid it was your brother Dan,
amigo
.’

‘
Dan?’ Tom went weak at his knees as he spoke his brother’s
name.

‘
Not Dan,’ Whit dribbled in disbelief ‘Nobody was as fast as
Dan. Nobody at all.’

‘
This varmint called Iron Eyes was very fast.’ The barman shook
his head in sorrow at the loss of such a good patron.

Tom Hardy
poured himself another drink in an attempt to try and calm himself
down. He swallowed the drink and rubbed his wet mouth with his
dirty sleeve before managing to speak once again.

‘
Where is this Iron Eyes?’

‘
I think he left town,’ the bartender replied.

‘
With my brother’s body?’

‘
No. He went alone.’

Tom led the way
out of the cantina, with his brother close behind, and headed for
the small white building with the word ‘SHERIFF’ painted upon its
frontage.

‘
What we doing?’ Whit asked as he walked, holding on to his
bottle tightly.

‘
Going to see the sheriff,’ Tom replied.

‘
What for?’

Tom Hardy did
not answer as he strode angrily across the wide open space between
the cantina and the small home of the law. His feet were suddenly
filled with a strength that only anger can muster.

The door of the
sheriff’s office flew open as the elder Hardy brother marched in
and scared the life out of the small man with the star pinned to
his chest.

Before the
shaking man could rise from his chair behind the brittle desk, the
hands of Tom Hardy had dragged him up into the air.

‘
Where is the body of my brother Dan?’ he screamed at the man
he was holding.

‘
Over in the undertaker’s. Across the street,’ came the reply
that vibrated with every shake forced into it.

Tom Hardy
released his grip and watched as the man fell to his knees.

‘
And Iron Eyes?’ he shouted.

The smaller man
clambered up on to his legs and shook with terror before answering.
‘He had to go to El Paso to collect his reward money.’

‘
Reward money? Blood money you mean,’ Tom snapped as he stood
breathing hard.

‘
Si,
amigo
.
Blood money,’ the man agreed. ‘I could not stop him. He was evil.
Possessed.’

Whit Hardy
grabbed at his brother’s sleeve.

‘
What the hell do you want, boy?’ Tom shouted.

‘
Let’s go.’

‘
Where?’

Any place,’
Whit swigged at his bottle, ‘away from here.’

‘
You scared?’ Tom looked at his brother’s face hard and long,
watching the sweat pouring down from under his Stetson.

‘
You bet I’m scared,’ Whit nodded.

‘
I ain’t. I’m angry. Angrier than hell.’ Tom Hardy looked at
the lawman again. ‘When did this Iron Eyes lit out?’

‘
Some days ago,
amigo
.’

Tom strode out
of the small building and across the street, with his brother at
his heels once more.

‘
What’re you thinking, Tom?’

Tom opened the
door and walked into the dark, shadowy place, coming to a sudden
halt at the sight before him. Whit bumped into his back as they
were confronted by the true horror of the situation.

Lying naked to
the waist on a slab of stone lay what was left of Dan Hardy It was
a vision of what their profession held for them both in the near
future. The bullet holes had been washed clean, but the sight was
still more than either man had expected when they had walked into
this gloomy place.

Tom was the
first to leave the building, and he found the edge of a
water-trough comfort for his backside. He sat there for many
minutes as his younger sibling threw up the contents of his guts
into the sand at the side of the white-washed building.

Vengeance is
mine, the Lord said in the good book.

Tom Hardy
forced himself upright once more with those words and thoughts
filling his mind.

He would not
wait for God to catch up with Iron Eyes, he had to do this
himself

Whit finally
quit being sick and staggered to the side of his brother, who had
the strangest look in his eyes.

‘
What’re you thinking, Tom?’

‘
We are gonna do some hunting, boy,’ Tom growled.

‘
What?’

‘
We are gonna hunt that Iron Eyes varmint down and kill him for
what he done to Dan.’ Tom Hardy started to walk again.

‘
Don’t start going crazy, Tom,’ Whit pleaded as he tried to
keep pace.

‘
Crazy?’ Tom grunted. ‘It ain’t crazy to avenge a wrong, is
it?’

Whit followed
his brother into the cool cantina once again, and knew that he had
more good reasons to get himself well oiled. If they were going to
start tracking the man who was known throughout the West as the
living ghost, he had better be real drunk in case they caught up
with the critter.

Iron Eyes took
no prisoners.

‘
Dead or alive’ meant dead to the bounty-hunter.

Even through
the haze of liquor that permanently blurred his thoughts, Whit knew
they were heading into the lion’s mouth head-first by going after
him.

Even Whit knew
that.

So how come Tom
was so darned eager to chase this killer of men and collector of
rewards?

Could he want
to die so badly that he would risk everything by pursuing the man
in the long coat?

As they
prepared to eat another bowl of chilli and biscuits as hard as
stones, Whit knew that he had to stick with his brother and hope
the fire would leave him before it was too late. Dan was gone, and
so were their futures. Without Dan they would find it hard to rob
old ladies, let alone banks.

Times were
changing for the Hardys.

Whit and Tom
Hardy were like two grizzly bears as they saddled up their reliable
mounts.

They had sore
heads and sore butts. The silence was overwhelming as the two
remaining Hardy brothers gathered up their few belongings into the
faded leather saddle-bags.

The two men had
ridden into Rio Drago the previous afternoon, only to find their
elder brother laid out upon a slab in the back of the undertaker’s
office.

Even after
laying the few reasonable town whores and drinking their fill of
the locally distilled tequila, they were still angry They had spent
almost all their money since their last job and had joined their
brother to plan another. Not that they could plan anything
themselves. It had always been Dan who had made all the
decisions.

Dan knew how to
stage a hold-up.

Dan knew from
which side to enter each town, and which was the quickest route to
safety after they had done their deed. Now Dan was lying upon a
slab, and his only use was to allow the numerous varieties of flies
to lay their eggs upon his rotting carcass.

The drink had
made the pair even more angry than they originally were upon
discovering Dan’s death.

Now they had
hangovers which matched their moods.

The throbbing
of the blood as it tried to penetrate their brains was like drums
as it echoed around their skulls.

Pain had driven
the two men into making the decision to find and kill Iron
Eyes.

Not the pain of
grief but the pain of self-infliction.

Revenge brooded
in both men’s hearts as they managed to absorb the simple fact that
Iron Eyes had blown their brother away for the bounty upon his
unwashed head.

Having an
instinctive dislike for men who made their living out of blood
money, the two Hardys decided to try and catch up with the lone
gunman before he reached El Paso.

It might not
have been a perfect plan, as Tom and Whit were also wanted for
exactly the same reasons as their late sibling, but brains never
had been their strong point.

They were going
to chase and catch Iron Eyes.

They were also
going to shoot and kill the son of a bitch.

Neither man had
half a brain between them, and had followed Dan’s lead all their
lives. He said draw your guns and they drew their guns.

Dan said shoot
up the town and they shot up the town.