The Spirit of Iron Eyes (13 page)

‘
I
’m gonna kill ya, Jones!’ Iron Eyes mumbled through his
bloodstained teeth in a low growl. ‘When this is over, I’m gonna
kill ya good!’

The smile fell from the face of the outlaw
as he stared into the cold eyes of the man before him.

‘
You
kill me? When this is over, it’ll be you who ends up dead, Iron
Eyes. Not me.’

‘
Yep!
I’m still gonna kill ya! Even if I have to do it after I’m dead,’
Iron Eyes repeated slowly. ‘I’ll kill ya. That’s a
promise.’

Diamond Back Jones pulled one of his guns
from its holster and aimed the barrel straight at the head of the
dazed bounty hunter. He cocked its hammer.

‘
You
ain’t gonna kill nobody. Not if I blow ya damn head off, you
ain’t!’

Conchowata took a step and grabbed the
outstretched sleeve of the outlaw.

‘
This
is not the way, my brother!’

Diamond Back Jones swiftly
turned his head
and stared into the face of the chief. He could see the
hooded eyes narrowing as they focused upon him.

‘
What?’

‘
You
cannot kill him like this, my brother!’ Conchowata said firmly.
‘Not this way. That would be too quick. Iron Eyes must suffer for
all the pain that he has inflicted upon our people. This is what we
agreed. Do you not recall?’

Jones slowly released the hammer of his gun
and lowered his arm. The gun slid into its holster silently.

‘
But
we have him! We can kill him! Then it will be all over, great
chief.’

Conchowata shook his head.

‘
Iron
Eyes must die slowly, my brother. He will beg us to end his
worthless life before we are finished torturing him. This day the
Apache shall have their revenge on the living ghost.’

Iron Eyes had no way of knowing what the two
men were talking about but knew that the outlaw was unhappy.

‘
Listen to ya chief, Jones! He’s a lot smarter than you’ll
ever be.’

Diamond Back Jones clenched his
fist and then violently punched the bounty hunter square on the
jaw. The man
’s head rocked and then dropped until his chin hung over
the sand. More blood flowed from the crimson-stained
mouth.

Conchowata gestured to his braves.

‘
Bring
the evil one to the fire. He must suffer a million deaths before we
end his life.’

The muscular Indians dragged the helpless
Iron Eyes across the sand to where their chief was pointing. The
braves threw him down on to the sand.

‘
What
ya intending to do to me, Chief?’ the bounty hunter asked as he
felt a dozen knife blades pressed at his throat and body. ‘Ya boys
here could have finished me off a score of times already. Ya
planning some thin’ special for old Iron Eyes?’

Conchowata stared grimly at their defiant
prisoner. He was surprised by the sheer spirit and courage of their
prisoner. He walked closer and then spoke in English.

‘
We
shall skin you alive, Iron Eyes. Then we will cut your belly open
and drag your worthless entrails out for the vultures to feast
upon. Then after you have suffered the points of a hundred blades,
we shall kill you.’

The bleeding figure of Iron Eyes nodded as
the words sank into his fevered mind.

‘
Too
much information, Chief!’ he drawled. ‘But I’m grateful for ya
honesty.’

The sight which met the eyes of the weary
lawman out on the prairie filled him with a mixture of horror and
revulsion. For nearly an hour he had been wondering whether he
ought to give up the idea of going anywhere near the scores of
Indians, in the vain hope of finding, capturing or even killing
Diamond Back Jones.

Now the sight that his
weathered eyes focused upon in total disbelief gave him the spur
that he needed to act. The Apaches had made up Marshal Tom
Quaid
’s mind
for him.

He swallowed hard and vainly
tried not to watch the ungodly scene that
unraveled before him.

Open mouthed, he watched the pitiful Iron
Eyes being hoisted up on a crude wooden frame before the raging
flames that licked at the moonlit sky.

Tom Quaid felt as if he were witnessing a
latter-day crucifixion.

It chilled him to think that any man could
be subjected to such barbaric torture. Yet he had seen many similar
events in his long life and could not judge the Indians. They were
simply doing what so many other people had done over the centuries.
They were administering their own brand of justice.

There were no doubts left in the mind of the
lawman. Now Quaid had no option but to help another helpless
victim, as he had done so many times before. Forty years of
upholding the law and protecting the innocent would not allow him
to ride away from this. Even if he paid the ultimate penalty, he
would have to try and save the man who was being tortured.

The marshal could not tell exactly how the
Apaches had managed to attach their prisoner to the wooden frame,
but that did not matter to the man who grabbed hold of his saddle
horn and stepped into the well-used stirrup. As he sat across the
wide back of his black gelding, Tom Quaid knew that he had at last
found the reason he had been searching for.

The marshal tapped his spurs gently and
allowed the tall horse to walk away from the Joshua tree and out
into the brilliant moonlight.

He gritted his store-bought
teeth and narrowed his determined glare at the distant scene
beneath the
wall of sand-rock. Giant shadows loomed across the face of
the wall of rock as the dancing braves circled the well-fed fire
and their half-dead captive.

The marshal noticed the mist drifting across
the wide moonlit prairie. Yet the jubilant Apaches seemed oblivious
to everything except the task in hand. Quaid glanced up at the sky
above him and inhaled deeply. Black clouds were now tracing across
the heavens from the east.

He wondered if they might give him the cover
he required to get closer to the chanting warriors. Black shadows
swept over the flat prairie as the clouds passed before the face of
the bright moon.

Was this a sign for him to drive his spurs
into the flesh of his faithful mount and charge at the countless
Apaches? The thought lingered in his mind.

For several minutes the lawman sat astride
his mount watching the Indians as they secured the twisted wooden
frame into the soft ground. Yet still none of them noticed the
elegantly dressed marshal who observed them.

The triumphant war cries that echoed out
across the vast prairie told Quaid that the Indians had only one
thought in their collective mind.

And that was to torture their prisoner in
ways that even he could not imagine.

A solitary bead of sweat
trickled down from the hatband of his Stetson and navigated every
one of the tanned wrinkles which covered his ancient face. Finally
it dripped from his solid chin and landed on the back of his left
gloved hand which
rested on the saddle horn.

Those dime novels he had read with such
relish for so many years were nothing compared to the gory reality
that faced him now.

No Eastern writer, however imaginative,
could have conceived of such horror, he thought.

There was something terrifying about the
sound of so many dancing Apaches chanting their songs of victory
which chilled the old horseman.

He edged his horse closer and closer to the
scene ahead of him trying to see if the long-haired man who was
somehow tethered to the crude wooden crucifix was still alive.

The light of the Apache
camp-fire illuminated the man in every detail. As
Quaid
’s
mount got ever closer, it became obvious that their victim was
indeed alive. Even covered in enough blood to give the appearance
that he had been painted, the man on the wooden frame was still
capable of moving his head.

Quaid felt a lump in his throat.

At first the marshal wondered if it was
Diamond Back Jones who had been hoisted into the air. It was the
long dark hair that fooled the curious onlooker. Then Tom Quaid
pulled back on his reins and swallowed hard.

He knew that Jones, like most Apaches, was
only a little more than five feet in height.

The man who was naked apart from the torn
bloodstained trousers and boots, had to be well over six feet in
height.

‘
Iron
Eyes !’ Quaid said under his breath. That poor bastard has to be
Iron Eyes!’

A fury suddenly exploded inside
the innards of the veteran peace officer. He watched as Iron
Eyes
’ head
lifted up and stared beyond the black clouds at the bright moon
over the prairie as if searching for a god that might send some
guardian angel down to help him.

Quaid wondered if
he
might be Iron Eyes’
guardian angel! Had the fates or something else brought him to this
spot simply to bring salvation to the bounty hunter?

Marshal Tom Quaid had not even
waited long enough to hear the preacher
’s words at his own daughters’ joint
funeral service back in Waco. He had lost his faith the day he had
discovered their bodies, had thought that nothing could make him
even consider that there might be something he could pray to ever
again.

Had he been wrong?

Could it have been providence and not
vengeance which had brought him here?

As the marshal watched the long sharp points
of the war lances being poked into the flesh of the helpless bounty
hunter, he realized that there had to be some higher meaning to all
of this.

Quaid pulled the reins up and then looked
back at the brush which surrounded the Joshua tree. It was
kindling-dry. He had an idea.

He hauled the head of the horse
around and then rode back to the place where he had hidden
for so long as his
confused mind tried to work out what he ought to do.

Tom Quaid stopped the gelding and glanced
briefly across at the Indians again. They still had not noticed his
presence.

As mist rolled over the moonlit ground, the
determined marshal wrapped his reins around the saddle horn, then
pulled his frock-coat away from the silk vest. His gloved fingers
found the large silver cigar-case in the pocket over his heart. He
withdrew it.

With one eye on the chanting braves, Quaid
carefully opened the silver lid of the case and removed a cigar. He
placed it between his teeth and then pulled out a long match from a
special compartment inside the case.

He struck the match and inhaled the strong
smoke deeply before cupping the flame and tapping his spurs until
the black gelding moved close to the dry brush.

Tom Quaid knew that to get close enough to
the bounty hunter in order to try and rescue him, he had to cause a
distraction. A fire would be made to order.

It might buy him enough time to circle the
Indians and get in behind them. All he had to do was distract
enough of the Apaches long enough for him to gallop to the aid of
Iron Eyes. He knew that it was probably doomed to failure, but he
had to give it a try.

Just as he was about to throw
the burning match
into the bushes, he saw something riding towards him
through the mist and murky light of the moon.

There were three riders with a
pack-mule.

Marshal Tom Quaid lifted the match to his
mouth and blew its flame out.

He inhaled the smoke again and then removed
the cigar from his lips. As more and more dark clouds raced across
the face of the moon, his eyes darted back and forth between the
raging Apaches to the approaching horsemen.

He rested the palm of his gloved right hand
on the grip of the Remington in its holster and then felt himself
suddenly relax.

‘
What
in tarnation is Matty Hume doing here?’ he asked himself quietly.
‘Not like him to get lost.’

The three Texas Rangers continued to ride
towards the lawman, unseen by the celebrating Apaches.

‘
We’ve
bin lookin’ for ya, Tom,’ Col Wall said. The three riders stopped
their mounts beside the marshal’s horse the Joshua tree.

Quaid nodded as smoke drifted from his
mouth.

‘
I
hate to upset you
boys, but this ain’t Texas.’

Matty Hume stared through the dry brush at
the scene of brutality near the ridge.

‘
What’s goin’ on over yonder, Tom?’

The lawman glanced to where Hume was
pointing before returning his attention to his friend.

‘
Them
Apaches have got themselves a prisoner, Matty! His name’s Iron
Eyes, I think. I was just about to try and rescue the
critter.’

Wall sighed.

‘
Are
ya loco? There must be nearly a hundred Injuns over there. What was
ya gonna do, Tom? Surround the varmints?’

Quaid looked at the pack-mule
thoughtfully.

‘
Have
you boys got any dynamite on that animal?’

Hume nodded, then smiled.

‘
We
happen to have a few sticks. Reckon ya thinking the same way as me,
Tom.’

The marshal tapped the ash from his
cigar.

‘
Do
you want to help me save a critter from being tortured to death,
Matty?’