Iron Eyes Must Die Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t know
that!’
    Payne laughed again.
    ‘ They
led you here, ya dumb fool! That was the plan! We set you up so we
could get ya either shot dead or strung up legal like! Either way,
me and my boys would make a lot of money.’
    Iron Eyes stared across the
room into the darkest corner.
    ‘ You
tryin’ to tell me that I’ve got a bounty on my head?’
    ‘ Damn
right!’
    ‘ That
don’t make no sense at all!’ Iron Eyes was confused by the
knowledge that he too had a bounty on his own head. Not one
arranged by the law, but one created by outlaws who wanted him
dead.
    ‘ It
does!’ the sheriff argued. ‘But you ain’t smart enough to figure it
out! Outlaws don’t want you huntin’ them down no more. They’ll pay
big bucks to have you stopped! Now do ya get it, Iron
Eyes?’
    Iron Eyes maneuvered himself up and then
raced across the room. A hail of bullets tore out of the black
shadows. One caught him high in his shoulder. The bounty hunter
felt himself being knocked off balance. He hit a wall and then
crashed into the ground. He blasted three shots back.
    There was a sound which he had heard many
times in his life as a hunter.
    It was the sound only made when a bullet hits
the belly. Iron Eyes knew that whether it was a deer or a man, the
sound was always the same.
    Iron Eyes dragged himself back up and then
saw the sheriff coming at him with his gun held in his hand.
    The lawman stopped and gritted his teeth.
    Blood poured from the hole in his middle.
Sheriff Payne staggered and then fired again. The bullet missed its
target by only a whisker.
    The bounty hunter dragged his
hammer back and went to return fire when he saw the blank
expression come over the lawman ’s features.
    Payne fell like a tree.
    The sound of his face breaking filled the
room.
    ‘ Damn
it all, Sheriff 1 .’ Iron Eyes snarled. ‘Now you made me a
wanted man! Now I’m hunted by the law and the vermin!’
    Suddenly the sound of fists
hammering on the front door echoed all around the sheriff’s office. Iron Eyes
turned his head and glared in horror at the shaking
door.
    ‘ Sheriff?’ one of the deputies yelled out.
    ‘ You
OK, Brook?’ another shouted.
    ‘ Who’s
doing all the shooting in there?’
    Iron Eyes rushed to the side door and slid
its bolt across. He pushed it open and stared into the alley which
ran the full length of the building. With blood pouring from his
shoulder, he staggered out into the morning light. He had no idea
where he was going. All the bounty hunter knew for sure was that he
had to get away from this place as fast as he could.
    As Iron Eyes staggered between the buildings
towards the back alleys, he wondered where his Indian pony might
be. It had to be somewhere in this sun-bleached excuse for a town,
he thought. But where?
    With every step he took he
stared down at the ground and watched the droplets of blood which marked his
trail. He slipped the Navy Colt into his trail coat pocket and
pressed his hand over the wound in his shoulder. He tried vainly to
stop the blood from flowing out of his body.
    He was leaving a trail that a blind man could
follow, and he knew it. His only hope was that none of the people
in this cursed settlement knew how to track.
    Iron Eyes threw himself over a low sod wall
and cut across to another alley. He pushed a gate open and
cautiously edged his way towards a corner. His eyes burned with
lack of sleep and the bright morning sun which was still low.
    ‘ Where
am I?’ he growled to himself. ‘And where did they take my
pony?’
    There were a few people off in the distance
but they did not look in his direction. They were absorbed in their
own daily rituals. He ran across from one back alley to another.
Then he saw the corral and the high-sided livery stable.
    It was fifty feet away.
    Somehow he managed to find the strength to
cover the distance without drawing the attention of anyone.
    Iron Eyes climbed through the
corral ’s
bottom and middle poles and ran through the