The Spurs of Iron Eyes (Iron Eyes Western #3) (6 page)

‘Y
ou must help my people, Father
Jose.’

The priest led the man into
his private living-quarters and sat him down in a soft chair whilst
he poured him a glass of wine.

‘
Drink
this, Pablo. It is the blood of Christ. It will refresh you and
allow you to tell me everything I need to know.’

Pablo accepted the glass and
drank. Thank you, Father.
’

Father Jose sat next to his
friend and waited anxiously.

The two men who had caught
the attention of Iron Eyes in the saloon and whose images he now
had on the wanted posters within his deep coat pockets had left
town as quietly as they had entered it. They had not arrived in Rio
Vista by chance but through a carefully structured plan which now
seemed to be in doubt. The two outlaws were unlike most of the scum
Iron Eyes usually encountered; they prided themselves on their
intelligence and their ability to plan a crime down to its last,
minute, detail.

Yet, when they had seen
Iron Eyes sitting in the same saloon as themselves the previous
afternoon, they had made a quick exit. Luckily for them, the
infamous bounty hunter seemed unable to place them.

Frank Lewis and his partner in
more than a
score of crimes, Ben Tyler, waited just outside Rio Vista
reluctantly. It was night and cold compared to the heat of the day,
but both men seemed unaware of anything except Iron Eyes. They had
seen the face of the one man who could and would destroy not only
their plans but their very lives.

‘
What
was Iron Eyes doing in town, Ben?’ Lewis growled as he tossed
another handful of dry kindling onto the flames of their
camp-fire.

Picking up the coffee pot
in a gloved hand, and pouring the black beverage into his tin cup,
Tyler shook his head.

‘
Are
you sure it was Iron Eyes, Frank?’

‘It
had to be.’ Lewis held out his own
empty cup and accepted the strong refill. Then his partner rested
the blackened pot back into the heart of the flames. ‘Nobody else
could look the way he looks.’

‘
I
thought he was the kind who shot first and then checked the wanted
posters.’ Tyler blew at the steam which billowed from his
mug.

Iron
Eyes is said to be deadly but even
he’s gotta obey the law’ Lewis rested his butt on the saddle and
stared at their horses tied a mere ten feet away.

‘
He’s
gummed up our plans though,’ Tyler ranted, with more anger than he
had ever previously experienced.

‘
Maybe.’ Frank Lewis sipped at the brew and nodded to
himself as his brain raced.

Tyler kept poking the fire
with a long dry branch, watching the red sparks drift heavenward.
He was restless and it showed in every sinew of his lean
body.

‘
We
can’t do this job with that vulture lurking in the shadows, can
we?’

Lewis cast a glance at his
partner and grinned.

‘
I
figure we could easily pull the job off if old Mr. Iron Eyes had an
accident, Ben.’

‘
You
gonna go up against Iron Eyes? Are you crazy?’ Tyler pulled up and
dropped the stick into the flames of the fire as he consumed the
thought his partner had planted into his mind.

‘I
ain’t crazy,’ Lewis
snarled.

You mean we are gonna try and
bushwhack the
hombre?
Ben Tyler began to understand.

Frank Lewis sipped more of
his brew,

‘
Now
you’re starting to think, Ben.’

Ben Tyler rose to his feet and
strolled around the flames thinking long and hard about the
suggestion. Even merely contemplating trying to ambush someone like
Iron Eyes was more than he cared for. Yet it was compelling and he
knew if they were going to be able to execute the plan which had
brought them to Rio Vista they had to get the tall bounty hunter
out of the way. The
only certain way was to kill him. People like Iron Eyes
took a lot of killing though, Tyler mused.

‘
Iron
Eyes is darn tricky, Frank.’

‘
So
are we.’ Lewis watched his friend slowly coming around to his way
of thinking.

Tyler downed the rest of
his coffee and bent to lift the pot off the fire once
more.

‘
I
reckon we fold our hand and ride out to find something safer,
partner.’

‘
You
scared?’ Frank Lewis taunted his comrade quietly.

‘
Yep,’
Tyler replied honestly. ‘I’m damn scared whenever I think of that
man, Frank. He ain’t human. He’s a damn ghost or
something.’

‘
Hogwash,’ Lewis laughed.

‘
I
tell you he ain’t a living man like us. He’s some kind of monster.
I heard tell how folks have emptied an entire six-shooter into him
and he’s still kept coming with them Navy Colts in his hands
blasting. You can’t kill Iron Eyes.’

‘
You
know, if we don’t fix him, we’ll have to scrap our plans and
that’ll cost us plenty.’ Lewis stared up at his partner as the
troubled man moved around the fire. We can’t afford to ride away
from this job, Ben. We are strapped.’

‘
Look
at us, Frank. We was supposed to be staying in the hotel tonight
but he showed up and we ran. Now we are hiding out here risking our
necks with rattlers. The whole plan has gone sour already. We can’t
fix it. It’s too damn late to fix it.’

Lewis stood and moved
closer to his companion and rested a hand upon the broad
shoulder.

‘
Think
about the prize, Ben.’

Tyler glanced into the eyes
of his partner and swallowed deeply. He knew they could not afford
to ride away from this job and try to find something else as
profitable before their money ran dry. Tyler felt as if he had
suddenly signed his own death warrant by going along with Lewis,
but they had come too far to quit now.

‘
We
drygulch the bastard?’

‘
It’ll
be easy.’

‘
Keep
talking. I ain’t convinced, Frank.’ Tyler rubbed the sweat from his
face and tried to listen to the words from his partner.

‘I’
ve been sitting here thinking.
Planning. I got it all figured out, Ben.’ Frank Lewis ran a hand
around the shoulder of his friend and led him back to the heat of
their fire.

‘Y
ou’ve got it all figured?’

‘
Every
little detail.’

‘
How
we gonna do this without getting our heads blown off?’

‘I
t’ll be easy’ Frank smiled. ‘I’ll
take all the risks and all you gotta do is be waiting with your
guns. You gotta aim straight and true and then....’

‘
OK,
Frank. Guess you’re right.’

‘
Want
a little rye in that brew, Ben?’ Frank pulled out his silver hip
flask from his back pocket.

‘
Sure.
It’ll warm me up a tad, I guess.’ Tyler shrugged as he watched his
partner pouring a few fingers of the liquor into his tin
mug.

‘
One
night under the stars ain’t gonna hurt us,’ Lewis grinned, as he
made his way towards his bedroll leaving the brooding Ben Tyler to
fret as he sipped the now flavored Java. ‘I figure it’s almost
daybreak anyway.’

Tyler thought to himself,
all that stood between them and their goal was a bounty hunter
named Iron Eyes.

Sheriff Bass walked along the
boardwalk towards the hotel as the morning sunshine burned into the
back of his well-worn vest. He had been awoken, stiff and angry, in
his office chair twenty minutes earlier when the
town
’s
roosters began greeting the rising sun. It was a new day but
tarnished with all the same problems as the previous one. Bass had
felt as if he were walking on egg shells just trying to keep the
oddly quiet Iron Eyes from exploding into his renowned habits. In
all the years he had been its sheriff, Bass had never seen anyone
killed within the town limits of Rio Vista. He intended keeping it
that way.

As he entered the strangely
quiet hotel, the aroma of cooking breakfasts filled his nostrils
and led him into the large square dining area.

The hotel clerk looked up
nervously as the lawman paused for a moment to study the two very
different souls seated within the cool room. If ever there were
total opposites, it was these two. Near the window, a small,
attractive female ate her breakfast delicately, watching the
scenery through the lace curtains apparently oblivious to her
fellow guest. In a corner with his spine pushed up against a wall,
the drawn-featured Iron Eyes ate like a man who knew he might not
get another chance for quite a while. Iron Eyes looked up through
the hair which shielded his face from onlookers at the sheriff who
walked directly towards him through the half-dozen empty
tables.

Bass pulled out a chair and
sat down beside the gaunt man who continued eating his meal
hurriedly.

‘You
find the posters you were looking
for?’ Bass growled stiffly.

‘
Yep.
I found them,’ Iron Eyes responded, tearing a chunk of fresh bread
off the long loaf and running it around the centre of his
plate.

‘
So,
they are wanted, just like you figured?’ Bass rubbed his whiskers
as he pondered the thought of this deadly man running amok in his
peaceful town. It was a thought which terrified the old sheriff. He
had heard tell of how this eerie man would leave a trail of bodies
in his wake when he had the scent of his prey in his nostrils and
the shape of the outlaw in his sights. Nothing stopped Iron Eyes;
no living man had ever managed to do so.

‘
Dead
or alive, Bass, just the way I like them.’ Iron Eyes smiled as he
chewed the moist bread.

Bass reached across the round
table and rested a hand on Iron Eyes
’ arm.

‘
You
don’t have to go hunting them in my town, do you?’

‘
Nope.’ The simple reply came fast from the thin lips as
Iron Eyes watched the neatly dressed female enjoying her meal
across the room.

‘I’d
be grateful if you don’t start
nothing in Rio Vista, Iron Eyes.’ The tone in which this was said
warranted respect.

The bounty hunter swallowed
his food and reached for his cup where a strong black brew of
coffee waited. Lifting it to his lips he sipped at it, studying the
older man.

‘I
ain’t promising nothing.’

Bass nodded.

‘I
understand that, son.’

‘
Good.’ Iron Eyes snapped his fingers at the waitress who
was hiding behind a partition watching with fear written across her
young face. The girl moved to the table and stood, with a notebook
in her hands, waiting silently.

‘
Bring
my friend a big breakfast and another cup so he can help me drink
this coffee,’ Iron Eyes commanded.

The girl said nothing. Her
feet took her into the kitchen faster than the blink of an
eye.

‘
Seriously, are you intending to do anything about these two
outlaws, Iron Eyes?’ Sheriff Bass removed his hat and placed it
upon the chair next to him before resting his elbows on the
table.

Iron Eyes stared at the
female opposite his table. She was bathed in sunlight and seemed so
different from the women he usually encountered.

‘
I
ain’t figuring on killing anyone ever again, Bass.’

The words shocked the
lawman.

‘
Did I
hear right?’

Iron Eyes glanced at the
man briefly before looking back at the far more pleasing sight near
the window.

‘I’ve
got me a fortune in golden eagles and
silver dollars up in my room, Bass. Why the hell would I wanna go
risking my neck for a few dollars’ reward money?’

Bass took the cup and
saucer from the girl who rushed away as quickly as she had
appeared. Placing it down before him, he poured coffee and added
three spoonfuls of sugar.

‘You mean it, don’t
you?’

‘
Yep,’
Iron Eyes nodded, as he leaned back in his chair and sipped his
drink slowly.

The money in your
saddlebags is
enough for you to quit being a bounty hunter?’ The sheriff stirred
a spoon around his cup slowly.

Iron Eyes grunted.
‘Stop fretting,
Bass. I’m too damn rich to be tempted by anyone or anything. My
interest in those two outlaws is just professional, I guess. I like
to know who might get nervous when I’m around.’