The Spirit of Iron Eyes by Rory Black Read Free Book Online Page A

the
canteen ’s
contents into the upturned hat. He then sipped at the water, never
once taking his eyes off the distant rocky ridges which were now
illuminated by the bright moon.
    Quaid knew that the shooting had come from
somewhere directly ahead of him. He had aimed his mount straight at
the sound of the shooting until it had ceased more than an hour
earlier. He glanced down at the ground and could still see the two
sets of hoof tracks less than a few feet away from his mount. Even
in the moonlight, the trail was clear.
    His eyes drifted back up to the distant
ridge. It was deathly silent out there now but Quaid knew that
meant nothing.
    Every instinct told him that he was now
venturing into unknown territory. He had never had any dealings
with Indians during his long career as a law officer but he knew
that there was no alternative for him.
    He had to keep following the trail.
    He wanted Jones.
    Jones was an Apache.
    To get him, he had to continue onwards.
    The water tasted bitter to the dry-mouthed
marshal but he carried on drinking until his thirst was quenched.
He returned the stopper to the neck of the canteen and secured it
before hanging it back on the saddle horn.
    The sound of many rifles had rung out across
the arid land earlier. So many rifles that Quaid began to wonder
exactly how many Apaches there were out there. Twenty? Fifty? A
hundred or more?
    Even a half-dozen of them would be more than
most men could cope with. A cold shiver traced down his spine.
    A million thoughts crept through his mind.
Who were the Apache firing at? Was Iron Eyes their target? If so,
how was it that the shooting had carried on for so long?
    It seemed strange to the lawman that any one
man could maintain a battle with so many Indians for such a long
time.
    Who was this Iron Eyes character anyway?
    Whoever he was, he seemed to have a knack of
surviving against all odds.
    Quaid removed his bandanna from his neck and
wiped the mixture of sweat and dust from his face. He was troubled
by the way things were going.
    Vengeance had driven him for so
long that he had become almost impervious to anything else
except the
man he wanted to capture and kill. Quaid knew that he had allowed
the green-eyed demon of hatred to drive him into a situation that
he was ill-equipped to handle.
    Now it was no longer the hunter and the
hunted.
    Now the Apache nation was in the
stewpot.
    Diamond Back Jones had managed
to stay ahead of his pursuers long enough to return to his people.
Tom Quaid knew that his marshal ’s star meant even less to Indians than it
had to the people back in Dry Gulch.
    This was not going to be easy.
    He had faced gangs of killers before but
never a whole tribe of angry Indians. And Apaches were more
ruthless than most of their brothers further north.
    How did you fight the Apache?
    It had sounded as if the bounty hunter was
doing a good job of it before sunset. Maybe the darkness held the
key, Quaid thought.
    The marshal lifted his hat off the ground
and shook it before carefully returning to his white-haired head.
He inhaled, grabbed hold of the saddle horn and mounted.
    To have any chance of getting Jones away
from his fellow Apaches, the marshal wondered if he ought to try
and reach them before dawn.
    If there was a single chance of
capturing the man who had murdered his daughters, it was during
the hours of
darkness. Yet the brilliant moon was almost as bright as the
noonday sun.
    Quaid felt another shiver trace his
spine.
    He had heard tales that the Apache would not
fight during the night. The shooting had certainly stopped as soon
as the sun had set, but perhaps there had been another reason for
that.
    Quaid rubbed his jawline.
    Perhaps the reason for the end of the
shooting was that the Apache had finally managed to kill the bounty
hunter known as Iron Eyes.
    Could that be it?
    Had the Apache only stopped fighting because
they had already destroyed their enemy? Would they turn their
rifles upon him once he turned up?
    He