Exhaustion had overwhelmed the gaunt and wounded bounty hunter as he wearily looked out from the narrow gap in the livery-stable loft door down into the street at the growing excitement. In less than ten minutes the streets beyond the corral had gone from being empty to being filled with dozens of heavily armed men. Iron Eyes raised the whiskey bottle and poured some of the liquid over the bullet hole. Even though the pain was more than most men could have handled, he did not even blink.
His eyes continued to stare down from his high vantage point at the men who now had a real reason to string him up from the nearest tree. The deputies seemed to have had no problem in finding others to join their search for the man who had killed the sheriff.
Iron Eyes watched them as they scurried around like headless chickens. They had lost their leader and now were all trying to work out what they ought to do next. Only one thing was certain: it was obvious that they would kill him on sight.
He knew that killing lawmen was always a bad move.
Iron Eyes poured another mouthful of whiskey over his wound before he covered his bleeding body with hay and buried himself in the corner of the high hay-loft.
Every few moments he fell asleep and then awoke with a nervous jolt. His eyes stared out from the hay where he rested. He knew that he needed sleep badly if he were ever to regain enough strength to flee this town.
But with every beat of his pounding heart, he could hear the deputies and others below him. Their voices were raised as their anger grew like a cancer inside them. Vengeance was a dangerous sin to toy with. Iron Eyes had given too many well-armed men a belly fall of it to chew on.
His life was not worth a plug nickel, and he knew it. Yet the bounty hunter was too weak even to care. He had ridden with death as his constant companion for far too long to have any fear of it. Death was the only certainty in a life as hard and brutal as his, but he did not wish death to claim him before he was truly ready.
He rolled on to his face and looked down between the wooden boards at the stables below.
The deputies knew that his Indian pony was still tethered in the stable. That meant Iron Eyes would either have to come to collect it or he would have to steal another mount in the town.
Iron Eyes continued to stare between the boards. He could see two of the deputies near the large open doorway, bathed in sunlight. They were talking, but he could not hear a word above the sound of the restless horses. The two lawmen nodded to each other., then one walked back towards the street whilst the other remained in the stables.
They were going to try and set a crude trap, Iron Eyes thought. He watched as the deputy drew out his gun and then walked into an empty stall veiled in shadow. The man managed to make himself comfortable in the blackness.
Iron Eyes knew that the rest of the armed men were leaving a deputy inside the livery stables to wait for him to come back for his Indian pony. He raised his head a few inches and again glanced through the narrow gap in the loft doors.
He watched as the men split up into three groups and headed off in different directions. Iron Eyes sighed with relief and rested his head on his outstretched arm.
At least there was not a tracker amongst them, he thought. He had left a trail of blood halfway across Rio Concho that led right to where he was lying. If any one of those armed men in the street had ever ventured out from their safe community into the deadly landscapes which he had explored over the years, they’d have known how to hunt their prey.
He had hunted all his life. He had learned how to track and trap game for the pot almost before he had learned to speak. He had become the most deadly of souls over the years. Not because he had wanted to kill, but because that was the only way someone brought up in the wilderness survived.
It was always kill or be killed.
He had learned very quickly after he had first encountered white men that it was more profitable to kill wanted men than animals. It had been a natural progression for a creature such as himself.
He sighed again.
Not one of those men knew the first thing about hunting another living creature. For that, he was grateful!
Pain ripped through him again. He touched the bullet hole and then stared at the red fingertips. He was losing far too much blood but had no way of stopping the bleeding without drawing attention to himself. He knew that if he were to burn the wound it would stop pumping his life’s blood out of his painfully thin body. There was no fire up here in the hay loft for him to use.
His mind drifted back to the face of the sheriff as he had staggered towards him a few seconds before the lawman had realized he was dead. Iron Eyes wondered if the words he had spoken before being shot were true.
Was there really a bounty on his head?
Had the outlaws finally turned the tables on him?
Iron Eyes tried to think of a way he might escape this town alive. The more he thought, the fewer options came to him. He was still somehow alive, but still trapped just as he had been in the jail.
At least there were no iron bars here to taunt his injured spirit, he silently told himself.
He still had a small chance of survival. The hanging judge would not be able to pass judgment on him here and have him dragged helplessly to the nearest tree with a high broad branch.
If they caught up with him here, he would fight!
Only death would drag his bleeding body from this fragile sanctuary, he concluded. They would taste the fury of his Navy Colts as so many others had done over the years.
He would not die alone!
If he was headed to Hell, he’d be taking company. A whole lot of company.
Iron Eyes dropped his head back on to his coat sleeve and licked his dry cracked lips. There was only one way to get out of this town and that was on horseback, he told himself.
There was no other way of escaping Rio Concho!
Iron Eyes finished the whiskey and then closed his eyes. This time he would sleep.