The Wrath of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western #5) by Rory Black Read Free Book Online Page A

of the stove.
    Clayton Nash sipped at the coffee and then
sat down next to the cluttered desk.
    ‘ I’m not sure I should even
be here, Sheriff.’
    Hardin placed his ample rear on to his chair
and sighed.
    ‘ Must be important,
Clayton. You ain’t the sort to come calling on this old lawman.
Tell me what’s troubling you.’
    Nash held the hot cup in the palms of his
hands and looked into the black liquid.
    ‘Mr. Smith had a note put under
the door just after closing time. I don’t know what was in it but it
must have been very upsetting. When I left the bank, he was crying
in his office.’
    Hardin lowered his cup and looked at the
man.
    ‘ Crying?’
    ‘ Yes, sir. Like a
baby.’
    ‘ Tell me more.’ Hardin
rested his coffee-cup on his desk and looked hard at the man. He
had known Jed Smith for years and could not imagine anything
capable of upsetting the banker.
    Nash took a deep breath and gazed up at the
smoke-stained ceiling.
    ‘ He asked me to put a lamp
in the bank window.’
    Sheriff Hardin rubbed his whiskers. ‘Have
you ever been asked to put a lamp in the window before,
Clayton?’
    ‘ No, sir.
Never.’
    Hardin opened the top drawer of his desk and
produced a bottle of whiskey. He waved the bottle at Nash.
    ‘ You want some of this to
take away the taste of the coffee?’
    Nash nodded and held his cup out.
    The sheriff poured a shot of the spirit into
Nash’s cup and repeated the action with his own.
    ‘ He was OK until some
critter slipped the note under the bank door, you say?’
    ‘ Perfectly OK,
Sheriff.’
    ‘ Then we can assume that
there was something in that note that shook old Jed up real bad.’
Hardin swallowed his primed coffee in one shot. ‘But
what?’
    ‘ I have a bad feeling about
this, Sheriff,’ Clayton said. He downed his own coffee in one
swallow.
    ‘ Have there been any
strangers in the bank?’
    Nash shook his head. ‘None that I can
remember. Just the regulars.’
    Tom Hardin rose from his chair and adjusted
his gun belt.
    ‘ You did the right thing
coming over and telling me about this, Clayton. Go home now and
I’ll try and find out what the hell’s going on.’
    Nash stood up and placed his
empty cup on
the desk. ‘Please do not tell Mr. Smith that it was I who spoke
with you.’
    Hardin nodded. ‘Don’t fret none. I’ll not
tell him that we talked.’
    Nash hurried out of the office and made his
way along the boardwalk in the direction of his lodgings. The
sheriff lifted his Stetson off a hat rack and placed it on his
head. He closed the door behind him and stared at the bank down the
street.
    Something was going on in Cripple Creek and
he wanted to know what it was.
    ‘ Looks like I’m gonna pay
Jed Smith a visit,’ Hardin told himself.

Chapter
Thirteen
    Hardin seated himself in the plush leather
chair and looked over the magnificent desk at the
uncharacteristically upset banker. He had hammered at the side door
for more than five minutes with a fist that was now feeling
bruised, before Jed Smith allowed his old friend in.
    ‘ Why are you here, Tom?’
Smith asked, resting his elbows on the green-leather desk
top.
    Sheriff Hardin rubbed the side of his
hand.
    ‘ I just thought that it was
a while since you offered me any of that fine French brandy you
hide in that bureau.’
    Smith lowered his head until his brow rested
on the knuckles of his hands. He remained seated.
    ‘ Help yourself, Tom. You
know where it is.’
    The lawman quietly got up from the chair,
walked to the mahogany bureau and opened the large lower-left door.
He bent down and lifted the silver-plated tray and carried the
crystal-cut decanter with four matching glasses across to Smith’s
desk.
    Tom Hardin said nothing as he removed the
stopper from the neck of the decanter and poured two large measures
of the aromatic brandy into the crystal-cut glasses.
    Smith accepted his drink with a hand that
could not stop trembling. Somehow he managed to put the glass to
his dry lips and