The Spirit of Iron Eyes (11 page)

Diamond Back Jones pulled one
of his guns from its holster and cocked its hammer until it
locked fully into
position. He glanced across the troubled faces of the other braves,
then turned.

Like the Apache that he had always been, he
moved like a mountain lion up the steep rugged rocks toward his
goal. The moonlight still covered the warm face of the ridge and
made the ascent easy for the agile figure.

Jones held the primed pistol in his right
hand as he used the fingers of his left to claw at the rocks and
assist his balance as he went swiftly higher and higher.

It seemed too easy for the deadly
killer.

He knew that only a few hours
earlier, the bounty hunter had used his high vantage point to shoot
every one of the Apache warriors who dared to climb up towards the
cave mouth, off the sand-
colored ridge.

Now there was no sign of the man who had
become a legend in the hearts of the Indians. A man who had
attained almost mythical prowess.

As Diamond Back Jones got within ten feet of
the gaping cave entrance, he stopped and listened for any hint of
movement above him.

There was nothing but silence.

Where was the man who, it was said, could
not be killed because he was already dead? The outlaw began to move
slowly up the narrow ledge again, with his gun aimed ahead of
him.

He was waiting for any sign of
the bounty hunter to emerge from the cave. Diamond Back Jones knew
that Iron Eyes was faster than any other
human being with his deadly Navy
Colts. As he carefully edged his way up the rock face, he waited
for the haunting figure to move out of the sanctuary he had found
and start blasting with his guns.

Jones knew that he was dicing
with death just trying to reach the cave. He had already witnessed
the lethal accuracy of the bounty hunter
’s guns and knew that Iron Eyes had
no gods dictating to him when he could or could not kill his
enemies.

Why had Iron Eyes not fired on him
already?

Was he asleep?

Somehow the outlaw doubted that men like the
infamous bounty hunter ever slept like other people.

Diamond Back wondered if some of the tall
tales about Iron Eyes could actually be true. Was he a ghost who
had been cursed to roam the plains until the end of time? Could he
make himself invisible to the eyes of mere men?

There were still hours of the night left
before the sun would eventually rise again. Yet, unlike the rest of
his tribe, he was not willing to waste the entire night through
fear of bringing the wrath of the gods upon them.

His time with the white men had made him
impatient.

If Iron Eyes was still up there, he wanted
to face him now and not wait until sunrise. If it meant dying, his
Apache blood did not mind.

For the Apache, like so many
other tribes dotted across the vast continent, had a saying: it
is
a good
day to fight, and a good day to die.

He would face his demons rather than cower
from them like the rest of his people.

The outlaw leaned against
the
rock
face and kept the barrel of his gun trained on the cave mouth, a
mere six feet away from him.

He silently inhaled and gritted his
teeth.

Diamond Back Jones leapt into
the gaping hole in the
rock face and rolled head over heels. As his boots
landed on the sand, his left hand drew his other gun from its
holster.

The cave floor was covered in blood.

Iron Eyes
’ blood.

But there was no sign of the bounty
hunter.

Diamond Back Jones turned and looked down on
his people.

‘
He
has gone! Vanished!’

The Apache warriors mumbled amongst
themselves as they watched the outlaw making his way back down the
ridge towards them once again.

Perhaps Iron Eyes was a demon after all!

If so, how could they defeat him?

Tom Quaid pulled the black
gelding up and stared into the moonlit panorama of high rocks which
faced him. The ridge appeared to go on
forever in either direction. The
sight that greeted his eyes chilled him to the bone.

He had never imagined in his wildest dreams
that he would see so many Apache Indians in one place at the same
time. Luckily for him, they had not noticed the mounted law officer
on the prairie behind them. He thanked the Lord that the soft sand
had muffled the hoofs of his long-legged black mount.

It had been a long ride to this
remote place. Yet the trail had been an easy one for the marshal to
follow. It had been littered with the bodies of Indians and ponies.
The lawman had wondered how much of those bodies would be left once
the sun rose and brought the vultures off the high
peaks that
surrounded the prairie.

He wrapped the reins around his saddle horn
and quickly dismounted. His gloved hand grabbed the bridle and led
the horse behind a broad Joshua tree. Sweat trickled down from the
hatband of his Stetson over his weathered features as he unwrapped
the reins again and looped them around the spiky trunk of the
Joshua tree. His gloved hands knotted the leather firmly before he
drew both his Remingtons and knelt down.

‘
I
must be plumb loco!’ Quaid scolded himself. ‘I ain’t no damn Indian
fighter. What the hell am I doin’ here?’

The Indians were looking up at something on
the ridge but Quaid was too far away to tell what it was. He had no
idea that Conchowata and his braves had been watching Diamond Back
Jones returning along the steep ledge from the cave.

Tom Quaid began to speculate: could Iron
Eyes have survived so many Apache braves and be cornered?

If the bounty hunter had survived, it must
be some sort of miracle, the marshal thought. Quaid edged his way
further around the thorn-covered bushes and squinted hard. Was
Diamond Back Jones amongst those Apache braves?

He had to be! The marshal
thought back to the trail he had so diligently followed to this
spot. The hoof-tracks of Jones
’s horse had been easy to follow until the unshod
mounts of the Indians had churned up the prairie sand. Then it was
impossible to tell one set of tracks from another.

Quaid shook his head in frustration.

Diamond Back Jones must be out there with
those Indians, he thought.

But what if he
wasn
’t?

How close to those painted warriors was he
willing to get to find his man? He exhaled heavily and bit his dry
lower lip. Even if the cold-blooded killer was with the rest of his
people, how could he pluck Diamond Back Jones out of there without
committing suicide in the process?

He rose slowly to his full height.

Now what did he do?

The question filled his tired
mind. He had come so far following the outlaw who had killed his
daughters. Quaid knew that he couldn
’t quit now.

Every
fiber of what made him the man he was
told him to mount up and hightail it out of here before the Apache
spotted him and turned their rifles and bows on him. Yet he was
haunted by the images of his children when he had discovered their
bodies. Could he betray them?

Quaid knew the answer to that one. He could
never quit until he had captured the outlaw who had ruined what was
left of his life.

Was it vengeance that drove him on?

To Quaid it was more like retribution! He
had to finish the job that he had started back in Waco. Whatever
the cost, he had to see it through until the end.

He swallowed hard and studied
the painted men. Quaid had never even met an Apache before let
alone tried to fight a whole bunch of them. All he knew of the
notorious tribe was what he had read in dime novels. How much of
that was real and how much just the
colorful scribblings of an army of Eastern
writers?

There was no way of knowing.

All he knew for certain was that they had
been trying to kill the bounty hunter and had lost scores of their
own in the process. It had not seemed to trouble them, though. The
Apaches appeared to be willing to sacrifice their lives in order to
kill just one man.

In that way, they were very much like
himself.

Quaid knew that made them a formidable
enemy!

His eyes squinted into the moonlight and he
hastily did a quick head count.

When he had reached sixty, he stopped
counting.

He felt sick.

This was not the way he had planned it. He
had left Texas on the trail of one man, Diamond Back Jones. Along
the tortuous trail he had learned many things about the wanted
outlaw. The fact that Jones was actually a full-blooded Apache had
not troubled him until this very moment.

He took another deep breath and tried to
think.

It was pointless getting
himself killed before he
brought the outlaw to justice. Going anywhere near
those Indians would prove fatal. Quaid knew he had to try to
separate Jones from the rest of the Apache.

But how?

How was that possible?

If Diamond Back Jones was out there, he was
using his entire tribe as a shield. The outlaw was every bit as
cunning as the lawman thought him to be.

The marshal tried to think, but the mixture
of hunger and weariness made the task seem impossible.

Marshal Quaid gazed around the prairie.
Apart from the sparse brush near the high wall of sand-rock, there
was little to hide behind.

Could one man take on so many? Again his
thoughts drifted to the strange bounty hunter. Iron Eyes seemed to
have survived against all the odds. He turned to his horse and
looked at the Winchester in its leather scabbard, poking out from
beneath the saddle fender. It might be possible to take the Apaches
on if he could keep them at long range with his carbine, he
thought. His mind raced as he vainly continued to try and make out
Diamond Back Jones amongst the scores of painted warriors. Silently
he cursed the light of the big yellow moon over his shoulder.

It played tricks on even the sharpest of
eyes. Was the deadly killer he sought really there? If he was, Tom
Quaid could not see him.

The marshal breathed out through his
nostrils and listened to the sound of coyotes howling out across
the arid prairie. Their howl was unlike that of other wild dogs. It
had a way of chilling the souls of even the most determined of
men.

Quaid straightened up and laid a gloved hand
on the trunk of the Joshua tree. He wondered if he might have made
a mistake out there on the trail as he followed the unshod
hoof-tracks of the Indian ponies.

Maybe Jones had left the main
group of riders long before reaching this place, he thought. Had
his tired eyes actually missed the shod hoof-tracks of the
outlaw
’s
mount when it had ridden away across the sand?

Quaid had always prided himself on his
tracking skills, but he knew that he was trail weary. He might have
missed the telltale signs back there in the eerie light of the
moon. Nothing seemed truly real any longer.

The marshal stared at the Apaches again.

Could he take on such a deadly force and
then discover that the outlaw he sought had not even been with
these lean near-naked figures in the first place?

Suddenly something caught his eye.

A glint of moonlight flashed out on the
prairie as it danced off the long war lances of a group of silent
riders. He turned his head and saw them.

His heart sank.

More Apache
riders heading from the west
towards the Indians gathered at the foot of the ridge.

Quaid holstered both his guns
and moved slowly backward towards his horse. He turned and placed
one hand on the black gelding
’s nose and pushed the animal as far into the
tangled brush as it would go.

For some reason, sixteen more Apache riders
were joining the main group.

Why?

What was going on?

Again Marshal Tom Quaid found
himself consumed by questions that had no answers. He held the nose
of his mount firmly and whispered softly into the skittish
animal
’s
ear. He knew that if the innocent horse made just one sound, it
would echo around the entire prairie and bring every one of those
Apaches down on him faster than he could mount the
gelding.

‘
Easy,
boy!’ he whispered over and over.

The lawman knew that he had ridden into
something that he might live to regret. For the first time since he
had headed out from Texas he began to wish that he had listened to
his friends and allowed others to trail the outlaw.

He still wanted Diamond Back Jones more than
life itself, but vengeance was a bitter pill to swallow when faced
with such daunting odds.

For the first time in his long
distinguished career the veteran lawman doubted his own
judgment.

He rubbed the nose of the tall black gelding
and sighed heavily into its ear.

‘
We’re
in big trouble, boy! And I’m damned if I know how to get us out of
it!’ he admitted.

Iron Eyes was still in trouble.
Big trouble. More dead than alive he still had enough spirit left
to know that for the first time in all his days, he was staring
into the jaws of death. The fever which had relentlessly consumed
him for hours still raged inside his emaciated body. And yet he
still could not work out why he was trapped in this devilish
nightmare. Wisps of rational thought battled with the
rattler
’s
poison for control of what was left of his mind. He had always
known that even the hunter must eventually face the Grim Reaper,
but that did not answer the feverish question which tortured
him.