The Curse of Iron Eyes Read Free

that one of the Calhoon boys got away by the
looks of it.’ Iron Eyes snatched the posters from the deputy’s hand
and methodically compared each dead outlaw face with the crude
images on the paper. ‘Harve Calhoon!’
    ‘ What about
him?’ Barker piped up before spitting out another dark lump of
spittle.
    ‘ He’s the one
that’s missing.’ Iron Eyes rammed the posters back into the hands
of the nervous Clem and drew both his Navy Colts again. He cocked
their hammers, then turned and marched back into the large
building.
    Barker
trailed the bounty hunter into the gunsmoke-filled saloon. There
was blood and chunks of flesh covering everything. The aroma of
death hung on-the air. The marshal trailed the long-legged man up
the flight of stairs to the landing. He maintained a respectable
distance between himself and the snorting Iron Eyes.
    Marshal Barker paused
at the top of the stairs and watched the bounty hunter kicking open
every door. The screams of the terrified women inside the rooms
echoed all around the building while Iron Eyes continued his
frenzied search.
    When he could not find
any sign that the outlaw had ever been in this place with his
brother and rest of his gang, the tall brooding man stopped and
rested his back against the wall which was still wet from the blood
of his victims.
    Barker
walked slowly toward Iron Eyes and nodded at each of the females
huddled in the rooms as he passed them. The keen eyes of the lawman
then spied the sobbing girl with the smoldering hair crumpled in a
doorway.
    He paused and knelt
down beside her. She was burned down one side of her face and
across her shoulder. The injuries were already festering in the
humid air.
    ‘ Katie?’ Barker
whispered.
    She
looked up into his fatherly eyes and then glanced across at the
silent Iron Eyes who was deep in thought at the end of the
corridor.
    ‘ I ought to get
you over to Doc Harper, Katie,’ the marshal said lowering his
scattergun on to the floor and removing his jacket and placing it
carefully around her shoulders.
    She winced as the
lawman lifted her to her feet.
    ‘ Who is that?’
Katie asked quietly.
    ‘ No need to be
afraid of him. He’s just a bounty hunter.’
    ‘ I’m not afraid
of him, Marshal,’ she said as Barker scooped his scattergun up off
the bloodstained carpet. ‘He smothered the flames when the oil-lamp
spewed burning oil all over me.’
    Barker glanced at Iron
Eyes.
    ‘ He
did?’
    ‘ He must have
been burned himself doing it,’ Katie added. ‘He risked his life to
help me in the middle of the gunfight, Marshal Barker.’
    Iron Eyes pushed
himself away from the wall and marched past the two talking
figures. They watched as he ran down the flight of stairs and out
into the street.
    By the time Barker had
led the injured girl out into the dimly illuminated street, the
bounty hunter was fifty yards away checking the horses that were
tied to the hitching rails.
    ‘ Take Katie over
to Doc Harper, Clem,’ Barker told the deputy as he waved his hand
at the rest of his men. ‘Drag them bodies over to my office, boys.
I want to match them to them Wanted posters before paying out any
bounty.’
    Iron
Eyes ran his hand along the neck of the last of the horses and then
squared up to the lawman as he walked up to him. ‘I figure that
Harve Calhoon was never here with the rest of his gang, Marshal,’
Iron Eyes said, pushing the pistols back into his belt. ‘But why
not?’
    Barker stared at the
pearl-handled gun-grips that poked out from the almost flat stomach
of the bounty hunter. He then noticed the burned shirt and the
visible scars across the chest of Iron Eyes. He found it hard to
comprehend that this strange creature would have helped Katie in
the middle of a blazing gun battle. But he had.
    ‘ What the hell
are you, Iron Eyes?’
    Iron
Eyes ran his long bony fingers through his limp hair and pushed it
off his face. The sight was enough to make the marshal’s throat go
dry. It was a face that