The Curse of Iron Eyes by Rory Black

leaned against the
large rock. He wanted to kill this man more than he had ever wanted
to kill anyone.
    Even
if there was no price on his pursuer’s head, he wanted to kill
him.
    There was still no
noise in the pass.
    All Iron Eyes could
hear was the sound of the pony behind him breathing heavily as it
tried desperately to recover from the long hard ride its new master
had inflicted upon it.
    Iron
Eyes wanted to hear the sound of his pursuer’s horse galloping
towards him. He craved it like a mountain lion craves the taste of
fresh meat.
    The pony snorted. He
turned to look at it and noticed its ears prick forward. It had
heard something his ears could not make out.
    Iron Eyes turned back
and looked down the pass to where the dust that his pony had kicked
up as they had galloped to this spot still hung on the hot air.
    He dropped on to the
ground, pulled his long black hair away from the side of his head,
and then pressed his ear to the sand.
    It sounded like a heart
beating.
    Iron
Eyes could hear the approaching horse’s hoofs but they seemed
slower than he expected.
    The
rider with the buffalo gun had slowed his mount to a mere canter as
he trailed the bounty hunter in Devil’s Pass.
    Slowly he raised his
head off the sand. Iron Eyes got back to his feet and knew that he
might have a much longer wait than he had at first considered.
    His pursuer was smart
and cautious.
    This was not going to
be as easy as he had planned.
    He
knew that the man who chased him might spot the boulder before he
was in range of Iron Eyes’ Navy Colts.
    The bounty hunter
picked his still-damp coat up off the ground and then searched its
pockets for a cigar amongst the scores of bullets.
    His thin fingers found
a twisted half-smoked cigar. He rammed it between his teeth. He
then located his matches and dragged one along the boulder.
    He cupped the flame in
the palms of his hands and sucked in the acrid smoke.
    For a brief few seconds
as he held the smoke in his lungs, he could no longer feel the pain
that racked his body.
    Then
as he exhaled he heard the sound of the rider’s horse growing
louder. Suddenly he realized that he had to do something that this
man would never expect him to do, if he were going to
survive.
    ‘ Keep on
coming, amigo,” Iron Eyes mumbled as he pulled his Bowie knife from his
mule-ear boot and stared at its bloodstained blade. Iron Eyes ain’t
finished yet.’

CHAPTER
TWELVE
    Devil’s Pass was virtually silent as the man reined in his
lathered-up mount. It had taken the cautious rider with the buffalo
gun perched on his hip nearly twenty minutes to reach the spot
where he could see the huge boulder jutting out of the soft
sand.
    Something was seriously
wrong and the horseman was alert enough to sense it.
    But what?
    Every
sinew in his aching body told him that this was not going to be as
simple as he had first thought when he had trailed Iron Eyes into
Devil’s Pass. He ran the back of his hand across his dry
mouth.
    The brilliant sun was
no longer directly over the pass and shadows bathed one side of the
high canyon walls as the horseman steadied his restless mount. For
the first time since he had started following the tall bounty
hunter, he was nervous.
    His mind raced.
    Was this a trap?
    Had Iron Eyes lured him
to this place to bushwhack him? The rider sat silently in his
saddle as his suspicious eyes weighed up the situation before
him.
    To the naive observer,
it would have seemed that there was nothing wrong. But this rider
was far from naive. He could feel the danger that lurked a couple
of hundred yards ahead of him in the shimmering heat and taunting
shadows.
    Iron Eyes was not a man
who would be easily killed, and the horseman was well aware of that
chilling fact.
    His
finger continually stroked the large trigger of the buffalo gun as
his eyes sought out the bounty hunter. The rider’s attention kept
returning to the huge boulder and he wondered whether his prey was
behind its granite bulk. He tapped