Iron Eyes continued his relentless march up the centre of the deserted street. Dust rose around his feet as he aimed his boots at the cantina.
Twenty-three steps later he walked through the hanging beaded curtain and stopped.
The noise of the beads was the only sound within the dark, cool room. A startled bartender was frozen at the sight of the thin killing-machine. Iron Eyes stood like a statue as he absorbed the room. Only his eyes moved as they flashed around the scene before him. One elderly Mexican man sat at a table with a spoon in his hand and a half-eaten bowl of chilli before him.
The old man had stopped eating when he had seen Iron Eyes. Now only the flies moved around the brown food.
It seemed like hours but in reality was only a matter of seconds before Iron Eyes heard the noise to his left. The corner was hidden in shadows but the bounty hunter had heard the sound that he had heard many times before. It was the sound of a pistol being pulled from its leather holster.
Iron Eyes did not hesitate.
With a movement that defied belief; he had drawn both his long-barrelled Navy Colts from his pants belt and somehow fired into the blackness of the corner. A shot was returned but went wide and was obviously not aimed. This was a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun being held by a man who was falling.
The noise of the body hitting the floor vibrated around the cantina as Iron Eyes returned his left pistol into his pants. The old Mexican and the bartender watched silently as the tall, thin figure walked over to the dark corner. To both men’s utter shock Iron Eyes fired another bullet into the stricken body before returning the gun into his belt.
Whether the man who lay on the floor had been only wounded before Iron Eyes finished him off was open to conjecture, all that was certain now was that Dan Hardy was indeed dead.
Grabbing Hardy’s shirt collar in his bony hand, Iron Eyes dragged the corpse out of the cantina and down the long street.
His destination was the small sod-built building that had the word ‘SHERIFF’ painted along its frontage.
The small man with the tin star stood shaking as he watched the figure of Iron Eyes approaching with his trophy. The breeze blew the black, limp hair over the gunman’s face, making it impossible to see his expression.
Iron Eyes dropped the body of Dan Hardy at the law officer’s feet and returned to his full height.
‘You wanna see the wanted poster?’ Iron Eyes growled.
The sheriff nodded carefully with his shaking, out-held hand.
After studying it for a few moments, he gulped. ‘What do you want me to do, sir?’
Iron Eyes looked around the area for telegraph wires. He finally saw them and pointed.
‘Wire for my money,’ he advised.
The sheriff nodded silently as Iron Eyes headed back down the dusty windswept street toward the hotel. Then the small man noticed the blood running freely around his boots from the body with such a surprised expression upon its lifeless face.
The message that greeted Iron Eyes as he read the wire did not sit easily in his guts.
He had to ride to a town named El Paso to get his money. The news angered Iron Eyes greatly as he paced around his hotel room, puffing on his long cigar.
El Paso was across the Rio Grande and in Texas. A long, hard ride, with nothing in-between except Apache.
The cantina fell silent as the gaunt man sat and ate his meal that evening. The music had stopped when he had entered and would not resume until he left. Iron Eyes chewed his chilli thoughtfully as all around him kept their distance.
It was almost midnight when he mounted his grey and rode away from Rio Drago. The moon was still big enough to light his way as he galloped through the barren landscape.
Iron Eyes would continue to ride his mount as fast as the animal could manage. Day after day and night after night. Stopping only to water and feed the beast, Iron Eyes would not rest until he had the money in his saddle-bags.
El Paso was a town that he had been lucky in. Iron Eyes remembered the time when he was walking down one of its long, aimless streets, littered with saloons and whorehouses, when he saw a face in the crowd.
Not just any old face. A face he had seen on a wanted poster. That was all the reason he required to follow the man. It was a long walk before the man stopped to buy himself some comfort from a five-dollar wench, but that was all the time Iron Eyes had required. He called the man’s name, and the guns were drawn and fired blindly
Smoke filled the scene for several minutes before the bounty-hunter found himself standing over the body of a big, fat, pay-day bounty That day he walked out of the First National Bank with a saddle-bag filled with ten-thousand-dollars-worth of gold.
Iron Eyes still had the ability to see what others missed. His was the eyesight of a bird of prey.
As long as there was a bounty on the head, he would do anything to kill that face.
This had been his life for over a decade since he found making a living out of hunting animals less than profitable. Turning his talents into hunting men did not bother Iron Eyes. In fact, he found killing men far easier than killing animals.
Men often deserved to be dead and buried.
Iron Eyes was always willing to oblige.
As the sun rose on the third day, Iron Eyes had to rein his mount to a premature stop.
He stood in his stirrups and stared ahead. Dust was rising on a hill ahead of him. For a few minutes, the cold grey eyes gazed at the dust and watched as it moved across his path.
There was only one sort of person Iron Eyes hated more than white folks.
‘Apache,’ he growled.