The Fury of Iron Eyes (An Iron Eyes Western #4) Read Free Page A

in the white
nightgown slid the bolt across on the door, Iron Eyes felt his legs
buckle again.
    This time, as the door was
opened, he was unable to prevent himself from falling at the man’s
naked feet.

Chapter Three
    Iron Eyes had stubbornly
refused to lie down on the leather couch within the back room of
the doctor’s office. Even when only half-conscious, he had refused
to submit to the demands of either the sheriff or the doctor. The
bounty hunter had sat bolt upright on a hardback chair since a
half-dressed sheriff had helped him from the boardwalk outside his
front door, along to the dimly illuminated building.
    There was a silence about
Iron Eyes which kept both the lawman and the physician on their
toes as his scalp was carefully stitched back together. Neither man
had heard him say anything during the long operation.
    It was an unnerving sight to
see anyone covered in so much of their own blood, but on Iron Eyes,
it seemed an even worse apparition. Both the doctor and the sheriff
might have thought he was dead if it had not been for the cold,
staring grey eyes which continually watched them.
    Iron Eyes stared
occasionally at the floor during the procedure, and kept looking at
the pools of blood which covered it. It was his blood. He also
wondered why he could not feel the long needle as it was forced
through the skin on his scalp, dragging it back
together.
    For two hours the sweating
physician had toiled over the head of Iron Eyes until he finally
satisfied himself that he had stemmed the flow of blood.
    The doctor stepped
backwards and studied his handiwork before picking up a pair of
long-bladed scissors and trimming the ends of the
catgut.
    ‘ This stitching will have
to be removed in about a week or so, otherwise it will go septic,
stranger,’ the doctor informed his silent patient.
    Iron Eyes glanced up at the
elderly doctor.
    ‘ How do I get this fishing
line out of my head, doc?’
    The doctor shrugged as he
dropped the scissors into the blood-soaked kidney dish which
matched his once-white nightgown.
    ‘ It will have to be removed
by a doctor, my boy.’
    ‘ In my line of work, I
don’t run into your sort very often.’ Iron Eyes touched the wound
again. ‘I wanna know how I can remove it myself.’
    The doctor cleared his
throat as the sheriff walked around the seated man.
    ‘ Cut the stitches at both
ends and then carefully slide it out,’ the medical man replied. ‘If
you do it wrong, it’ll hurt really bad. I advise you try and get a
doctor to do it.’
    Iron Eyes nodded. ‘I’ll try
and find a doctor to do it.’
    ‘ What’s eating at you,
son?’ The doctor could see the face of the seated man seemed
troubled by something. Whatever it was, it had to be important, he
thought.
    ‘ I can’t feel nothing,
doc,’ Iron Eyes said bluntly to the two men before him as he tapped
the wound with his fingers. ‘The whole top of my head is dead. It
has been since Dan Creedy parted my scalp with his last
shot.’
    The sheriff rubbed his chin
and watched the concerned doctor stepping closer to the seated
stranger. The elderly physician stepped to the back of his patient
and then picked up the scissors again.
    ‘ I’m going to touch your
scalp, son. Tell me when I do so.’
    Iron Eyes grunted.
‘Okay, doc.
See if you can figure it out.’
    The doctor lifted the
scissors and touched the neat stitches carefully with its closed
blades. There was no reaction from Iron Eyes as he moved the blade
along the entire length of the grotesque wound.
    ‘ When you gonna start, old
man?’ Iron Eyes asked.
    ‘ I already
started and finished, son,’ the doctor said as he dropped the
metal scissors into the dish once again, and moved around to look
straight at the face hiding behind the limp, bloodstained mane of
hair.
    ‘ Well? What does it mean?’
Iron Eyes rose to his feet and felt his legs buckle again before he
managed to regain his balance.
    ‘ It could be that the
bullet ripped the nerves in your