The two men that rode into Rio Drago were the sort of people every law-respecting person dreads to see arriving. Their horses showed the signs of hard riding as they plodded heavy-footed down the wide, sun-baked street. People scattered at the sight of the two riders.
They surveyed the scene with an amusement born out of years of killing and bank robberies.
They had arrived on time as instructed.
Both men knew that this was a place that no smart person would ever visit and that made it perfect. They had been told to meet their brother here. They were low on cash and when his wire had arrived back in Laramie, they took the opportunity to skip out and ride. This had been a place where they always came to meet up with Dan.
Tom and Whit Hardy were younger than their sibling by many years, and knew little about anything apart from doing as he instructed. They were just the hired help of a very clever man, even if they were kin.
Tom Hardy had always been the second man behind Dan. He could not shoot as well as his elder brother, but knew how to scare folks into listening to the older man. He was back-up for the older, wiser, more skilled robber. Tom knew his place. His place was right behind Dan Hardy.
Whit Hardy was young underneath all his whiskers. Young, and very drunk. Drunkenness was his natural state and had been for over five years. When he was drunk he could not remember to be scared, and he was always scared. His was the lowest rung on the Hardy ladder, and all he wanted from life was money women and liquor. Not necessarily in that order.
Whenever they went into action he drank more and more until he reached a state that folks seldom ever reached without falling down. Whit had become a shadow of his former self; and the yellowing of his teeth was matched by the pupils of his eyes. No man could drink as much as he consumed without shooting holes in their liver. Whit was a young man on the brink of death, and quite happy to continue heading in that downward spiral.
Drinking one’s self to death was a darn sight better way to go than the alternative. Whit was the man who stood in the street outside the banks that his elder brothers were robbing. His job was to hold the horses and shoot up the town, making sure that people ran away before his brothers came out with the loot.
Not the most demanding of jobs, but when you are of a nervous nature, and pickled in alcohol, it takes every ounce of energy to do that simple task. Whit Hardy knew his place.
The two riders drew their mounts up outside the cantina and dismounted. They tied the horses up firmly to the dried wooden poles that fronted the trough, before entering the place that rang out with the sounds of Mexican music.
They were caked in the dust and grime that only days on such fiery terrain as that which led to Rio Drago could bake on to visitors.
‘I’m as dry as hell, Tom,’ Whit gasped as he stepped up on to the creaking boardwalk.
‘And you needs a drink,’ the elder man said.
‘That’s about it, I guess,’ Whit coughed, as they pushed their way in through the beaded curtain.
It was dark inside this place. Dark and cool. A welcome relief from the exterior that seemed to burn under the blazing noon sun.
As they walked to the bartender they watched as the few regulars seemed to cast their eyes away from them. It was obvious that something was wrong. Very wrong indeed.
‘Got any whiskey?’ Tom asked as they leaned on the filthy bar.
‘We only got tequila,’ the bartender said, in a very quiet tone.
‘Two bottles of that then,’ Whit gushed as he fumbled for a few coins in his pocket.
Tom Hardy said nothing as he watched the man behind the bar get two of the bottles off the makeshift shelf behind him. The elder of the brothers turned to study the people who were sitting behind them, when his eyes caught sight of the blood-stained walls in the far corner. Tapping Whit’s arm he strolled across the cantina, past the guitarist who was trying to earn a few cents, up to the dark corner.
Tom Hardy’s eyes travelled over the scene of the bullets and blood that confronted him.
It was no normal sight, even for his tired eyes.
‘That weren’t there last time we was here, Tom,’ Whit drawled as he touched the holes in the wall. ‘Looks fresh to me.’
Tom turned and retraced his steps back to the bar He was still silent as he poured himself a tall glass of the clear liquor and downed it in one. Then he repeated the action, before looking up at the timid man behind the bar.
‘Who did that?’
A man. An evil man. Gringo like you,’ the stammering bartender replied.
‘Name?’ Tom snapped.
‘He called Iron Eyes, I think.’
Whit grabbed his brother’s sleeve. ‘The bounty-hunter.’
‘Yep. The stinking gut-slime bounty-hunter.’
Tom swallowed another drink.
‘Who did he kill?’ Whit swigged from his bottle.
The man behind the bar went suddenly very pale as he trembled before them. ‘I am afraid it was your brother Dan, amigo.’
‘Dan?’ Tom went weak at his knees as he spoke his brother’s name.
‘Not Dan,’ Whit dribbled in disbelief ‘Nobody was as fast as Dan. Nobody at all.’
‘This varmint called Iron Eyes was very fast.’ The barman shook his head in sorrow at the loss of such a good patron.
Tom Hardy poured himself another drink in an attempt to try and calm himself down. He swallowed the drink and rubbed his wet mouth with his dirty sleeve before managing to speak once again.
‘Where is this Iron Eyes?’
‘I think he left town,’ the bartender replied.
‘With my brother’s body?’
‘No. He went alone.’
Tom led the way out of the cantina, with his brother close behind, and headed for the small white building with the word ‘SHERIFF’ painted upon its frontage.
‘What we doing?’ Whit asked as he walked, holding on to his bottle tightly.
‘Going to see the sheriff,’ Tom replied.
‘What for?’
Tom Hardy did not answer as he strode angrily across the wide open space between the cantina and the small home of the law. His feet were suddenly filled with a strength that only anger can muster.
The door of the sheriff’s office flew open as the elder Hardy brother marched in and scared the life out of the small man with the star pinned to his chest.
Before the shaking man could rise from his chair behind the brittle desk, the hands of Tom Hardy had dragged him up into the air.
‘Where is the body of my brother Dan?’ he screamed at the man he was holding.
‘Over in the undertaker’s. Across the street,’ came the reply that vibrated with every shake forced into it.
Tom Hardy released his grip and watched as the man fell to his knees.
‘And Iron Eyes?’ he shouted.
The smaller man clambered up on to his legs and shook with terror before answering. ‘He had to go to El Paso to collect his reward money.’
‘Reward money? Blood money you mean,’ Tom snapped as he stood breathing hard.
‘Si, amigo. Blood money,’ the man agreed. ‘I could not stop him. He was evil. Possessed.’
Whit Hardy grabbed at his brother’s sleeve.
‘What the hell do you want, boy?’ Tom shouted.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Where?’
Any place,’ Whit swigged at his bottle, ‘away from here.’
‘You scared?’ Tom looked at his brother’s face hard and long, watching the sweat pouring down from under his Stetson.
‘You bet I’m scared,’ Whit nodded.
‘I ain’t. I’m angry. Angrier than hell.’ Tom Hardy looked at the lawman again. ‘When did this Iron Eyes lit out?’
‘Some days ago, amigo.’
Tom strode out of the small building and across the street, with his brother at his heels once more.
‘What’re you thinking, Tom?’
Tom opened the door and walked into the dark, shadowy place, coming to a sudden halt at the sight before him. Whit bumped into his back as they were confronted by the true horror of the situation.
Lying naked to the waist on a slab of stone lay what was left of Dan Hardy It was a vision of what their profession held for them both in the near future. The bullet holes had been washed clean, but the sight was still more than either man had expected when they had walked into this gloomy place.
Tom was the first to leave the building, and he found the edge of a water-trough comfort for his backside. He sat there for many minutes as his younger sibling threw up the contents of his guts into the sand at the side of the white-washed building.
Vengeance is mine, the Lord said in the good book.
Tom Hardy forced himself upright once more with those words and thoughts filling his mind.
He would not wait for God to catch up with Iron Eyes, he had to do this himself
Whit finally quit being sick and staggered to the side of his brother, who had the strangest look in his eyes.
‘What’re you thinking, Tom?’
‘We are gonna do some hunting, boy,’ Tom growled.
‘What?’
‘We are gonna hunt that Iron Eyes varmint down and kill him for what he done to Dan.’ Tom Hardy started to walk again.
‘Don’t start going crazy, Tom,’ Whit pleaded as he tried to keep pace.
‘Crazy?’ Tom grunted. ‘It ain’t crazy to avenge a wrong, is it?’
Whit followed his brother into the cool cantina once again, and knew that he had more good reasons to get himself well oiled. If they were going to start tracking the man who was known throughout the West as the living ghost, he had better be real drunk in case they caught up with the critter.
Iron Eyes took no prisoners.
‘Dead or alive’ meant dead to the bounty-hunter.
Even through the haze of liquor that permanently blurred his thoughts, Whit knew they were heading into the lion’s mouth head-first by going after him.
Even Whit knew that.
So how come Tom was so darned eager to chase this killer of men and collector of rewards?
Could he want to die so badly that he would risk everything by pursuing the man in the long coat?
As they prepared to eat another bowl of chilli and biscuits as hard as stones, Whit knew that he had to stick with his brother and hope the fire would leave him before it was too late. Dan was gone, and so were their futures. Without Dan they would find it hard to rob old ladies, let alone banks.
Times were changing for the Hardys.
Whit and Tom Hardy were like two grizzly bears as they saddled up their reliable mounts.
They had sore heads and sore butts. The silence was overwhelming as the two remaining Hardy brothers gathered up their few belongings into the faded leather saddle-bags.
The two men had ridden into Rio Drago the previous afternoon, only to find their elder brother laid out upon a slab in the back of the undertaker’s office.
Even after laying the few reasonable town whores and drinking their fill of the locally distilled tequila, they were still angry They had spent almost all their money since their last job and had joined their brother to plan another. Not that they could plan anything themselves. It had always been Dan who had made all the decisions.
Dan knew how to stage a hold-up.
Dan knew from which side to enter each town, and which was the quickest route to safety after they had done their deed. Now Dan was lying upon a slab, and his only use was to allow the numerous varieties of flies to lay their eggs upon his rotting carcass.
The drink had made the pair even more angry than they originally were upon discovering Dan’s death.
Now they had hangovers which matched their moods.
The throbbing of the blood as it tried to penetrate their brains was like drums as it echoed around their skulls.
Pain had driven the two men into making the decision to find and kill Iron Eyes.
Not the pain of grief but the pain of self-infliction.
Revenge brooded in both men’s hearts as they managed to absorb the simple fact that Iron Eyes had blown their brother away for the bounty upon his unwashed head.
Having an instinctive dislike for men who made their living out of blood money, the two Hardys decided to try and catch up with the lone gunman before he reached El Paso.
It might not have been a perfect plan, as Tom and Whit were also wanted for exactly the same reasons as their late sibling, but brains never had been their strong point.
They were going to chase and catch Iron Eyes.
They were also going to shoot and kill the son of a bitch.
Neither man had half a brain between them, and had followed Dan’s lead all their lives. He said draw your guns and they drew their guns.
Dan said shoot up the town and they shot up the town.
Now Dan Hardy was being prepared for burial.
Now his mind was gone and they would have to fend for themselves as well as they could.
The black clouds that drifted over Rio Drago started to unleash rain that made the cactus sing, and the two weathered men finished their task.
The horses were ready.
Heading inside the small cantina that still had the stains of their brother’s blood on its whitewashed walls, the two men purchased their supplies.
Three bottles of tequila and a bag of salt each would have to do until they reached a town that sold rotgut rye. The two bowls of chilli and kiln-baked bread filled their bellies long enough for them to get back to their horses.
‘Where we headed?’ Whit asked, finishing his bread as he pulled himself up into the saddle by the saddle-horn.
Tom Hardy dragged himself up into his own saddle, after forcing the tequila bottles into his saddle-bags. His frustration showed as he gathered up the loose reins and pulled the horse away from the rail.
‘We are after the creep who killed our brother, Whit,’ he snarled, spitting the remnants of animal bone from between his sparse teeth. ‘Remember?’
Whit shrugged and took a long swig from his bottle, shaking his head violently as the strong liquor reached his brain. The journey did not take long.
‘We are after Iron Eyes,’ Whit grinned as he allowed his nag to turn away from the hitching-rail and join his awaiting brother.
‘Right,’ Tom agreed as he twisted his neck in order to relieve the pain that still hammered inside his head. No matter how hard he tried, the combination of cheap liquor and rotten grub took its toll upon his demeanour. He felt like hell and he was angry.
The brainless Whit sat as he dribbled the burning tequila from his dry lips.
‘That’s right. Ain’t it, Tom?’ he gushed. ‘I is right, ain’t I?’
Tom Hardy nodded and then shook his head in frustration at his dim-witted brother, not that he was ever going to be mistaken for a genius himself
The two riders rode out of the small Latin township and faithfully followed the route that the feeble law officer had pointed out.
They had revenge in their hearts but little else.
These were two men who would try and catch up with the man who was heading to El Paso to collect his blood money
What neither man knew was that the man they chased was the most evil and dangerous man they could ever hope to meet. Not that any normal man would wish to catch up with Iron Eyes and his pair of Navy Colts.
The two remaining Hardy brothers were neither normal nor were they too smart. They were the body of the chicken after the axe had removed the head of the bird. They were the two lesser Hardy brothers and their brain had been removed.
Dan Hardy was dead.
Whit and Tom Hardy were heading after his executioner with plenty of liquor in not only their saddle-bags but their guts too.
They would chase their brother’s killer for no better reason than they were going to make him pay
As the dust rose behind their horses’ hooves, the remaining hours of their futile lives were beginning to run out. Like sand through a pail with a hole in its bottom, the end was getting closer with every stride their mounts took.
Smarter men would have reasoned the odds and quit their riding after a known killer like Iron Eyes. The trouble with dumb folks is that they follow the beats of their hearts, rather than the messages from their heads, because the messages in their brains usually are not worth listening to.
They were heading toward hell.
There would be no prisoners taken.
Only death would end this quest for revenge.
Unfortunately, death had ridden on Iron Eyes’ shoulder for many a long while.