Free Iron Eyes, no. 1 by Rory Black Page B

imprinted upon the mind of the ruthless
bounty-hunter as he steered the impressive horse through the
chaparral toward the mountain range.
    He had been
riding for several hours and had noted the sun was now at its
highest point. The trail that the Valdez family had carved out from
the desert floor was just slightly wider than the average
stagecoach. This, he had been advised by the elegant Dwan José, was
the route that his coach was on that fateful day. Iron Eyes rode at
an incredible pace upon the fine stallion that was so black that
the cactus that verged the trail were almost reflected in its coat.
Then he started to slow up as he saw what he had been searching
for.
    The coach was
upon its side. It was twisted out of shape, and there were signs
that a fire had been started beneath it. The black scorch-marks
ended about a third of the way along the side of the once
expensively decorated vehicle.
    Iron Eyes had
trouble controlling his mount as they approached the scene. The
acrid stench of rotting horse-flesh filled the air with millions of
huge flies.
    Even the
hard-gutted bounty-hunter found the smell more than he could take,
and turned his head away in an attempt to get some clean air into
his lungs. It was a smell that would not go away, and Iron Eyes
tried three times to turn his horse toward the coach and its
decomposing team before he managed to get the huge creature to trot
past the scene.
    The thin man,
who resembled a skeleton himself, kept digging his spurs into the
sides of the black horse until they had passed the destroyed
coach.
    With every
stride his mount took, Iron Eyes studied the ground with an
intensity equalled only by an eagle on the wing seeking out
prey.
    Then he saw the
remnants of tracks in the deep, sandy soil. To anyone with ordinary
vision, the few remaining marks would have been dismissed as just
weathering. To Iron Eyes though, these marks told a familiar
story.
    As quickly as a
flash he had dismounted and was on his knees, touching the soil
with the long bony fingers of his left hand, as he gripped his
reins tightly with his right.
    The stallion
was still spooked by the smell of the slaughtered beasts around the
wrecked coach as well as the swarming flies that made a deafening
noise above them.
    Iron Eyes was
silent as he stood and gazed through the broken undergrowth. He
knew that this was the way that the bandits had left the scene with
their prized captive.
    He had followed
men across much less hospitable terrain than this in order to claim
the bounty upon their heads. Iron Eyes grabbed on to the
saddle-horn and swung himself back up on to the high horse.
    For another
hour as he headed relentlessly through the dark blue sage and
tumbleweed of the desert floor in the direction of the far-off
mountain range, Iron Eyes sensed his quarry was close at hand. The
soft sand drifted under the stallion’s hooves as the heavy creature
continued on.
    The burning sun
was now getting lower in the midday sky, and the rider was casting
a giant shadow that stretched for hundreds of yards as he
encouraged his horse forward, toward the golden range of mountains
ahead.
    Then suddenly
his keen vision spotted something ahead, catching the bright
sunlight. Iron Eyes stood in his stirrups until the stallion
finally trotted to a stop. Dismounting, the tall, lean man led the
horse toward the glinting object that was protruding from the
sand.
    It was amazing
that he had spotted it, but his was no ordinary eyesight. Studying
the ground he knew that many horses had recently passed along this
trail.
    Stooping down,
his thin hand plucked up the tiny silver trinket, and looked at it
hard and long.
    Iron Eyes
considered the object for several moments. It was a simple locket
that had become separated from its chain. His long nails prized it
open and then he knew that he was on the right trail. Two tiny
trimmed photographs looked up at his narrow grey eyes. One was of a
beautiful lady and the other of a young man. It was