Read Online The Curse of Iron Eyes by Rory Black - Free Book Online

began
searching the canyon for the bounty hunter, who had
disappeared.
    Would
Iron Eyes have abandoned his mount and chosen to flee this deadly
place on foot? The large water bag was still hanging from the
saddle horn next to the spurs. It seemed ridiculous to even
consider that any sane man would choose to leave his pony and the
bag full of precious water, but was the bounty hunter
sane?
    The frightened man knew
little of the prey whom he had hunted for so many years, except
that Iron Eyes killed mercilessly, and without regret.
    Before he could move a
muscle he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye on
the white sand. At first he thought that it might be a sidewinder
or a lizard. His head turned and his jaw dropped as he focused on
the sand to his left.
    He began to shake.
    Slowly, Iron Eyes rose
out of the soft white sand with one of his Navy Colts gripped
firmly in his bony right hand.
    ‘ Lookin’ for me,
mister?’ the bounty hunter asked.
    The man stared at the
ghostly apparition as the voice echoed all about him. He had heard
many voices in his lifetime but none that sounded like this
one.
    His wrinkled eyes
widened at the startling sight of the figure that rose out of the
shallow sandy grave before him with the cocked pistol in his hand.
He had not even considered that the bounty hunter would use the
long blade of his Bowie knife to dig a shallow trench in which to
bury himself, to wait patiently for the hunter to get within the
range of his pistol.
    For a
moment the man could not believe the gruesome vision that he was
witnessing. For the white sand had stuck to the blood-soaked bounty
hunter, making him appear like a zombie rising from its
grave.
    ‘ What the hell?’
he croaked as he hastily reloaded the buffalo gun in his shaking
hands.
    Iron Eyes did not wait
for the man to aim the buffalo gun once more. He fired the Navy
Colt, then cocked its hammer again and fired again.
    The wide-eyed man went
flying backwards and hit the canyon wall hard. He slid slowly down
its smooth surface leaving a trail of crimson gore behind him until
he stopped in a sitting position a score of feet from the smoking
barrel of the Navy Colt.
    Iron Eyes staggered to
his feet. He walked towards the body and kicked the rifle out of
its lifeless hands. He then tore the hat from the head and looked
hard at the unseeing face.
    He did not recognize
his pursuer.
    The bony fingers
searched the pockets of the dead man but they could not find
anything that gave a clue as to his identity. All Iron Eyes knew
for sure was that this man had hurt him real bad. He knew that
there were many men like this one, who wanted to settle a score
with the ruthless bounty hunter who had so cold-bloodedly claimed
the lives of their loved ones.
    Iron Eyes lifted his
other Navy Colt off the boulder, tucked it into his belt next to
its still-hot twin and spat at the body at his feet. He then paused
and stared at the dead face again.
    The eyes of the dead
man were still wide open.
    Iron Eyes lifted what
was left of his trail coat off the sand and studied the damage the
buffalo gun had done to it. It was the worse for wear and full of
holes of various sizes but there was still enough of it left to
wear, he thought.
    He slipped it on.
    As he
pulled his mount away from the corpse, Iron Eyes hauled the whiskey
bottle from the saddlebag, swilled what was left of the liquor
around his teeth, then swallowed. He tossed the bottle away,
grabbed the head of the pony and whispered into its ear.
    ‘ He looks as if
he seen a ghost,’ he said, looking at the open eyes of the dead
man.
    The bounty hunter
mounted and tapped his mule-ear boots into the flesh of the still
nervous pony. It responded and began to canter. A few yards beyond
the dead horse he saw the hoof-tracks left in the sand by Harve
Calhoon.
    Iron Eyes continued
tracking the outlaw.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
    Captain Hugh Wallis
reined in his powerful mount. The sound of the buffalo gun still
resounded all