A Fistful of Dynamite

by James Lewis

  His momentum carried him stumbling several feet forward. His hands groped at empty space. More cool air slapped against his face and a blaring light burned away the smoke from his eyes. He stopped suddenly. Something was very wrong.

  The last of the smoke cleared away. A high, keening sound escaped him. Something had indeed gone wrong. Very wrong. He wasn’t in a safe at all.

  He was out in the street.

  He realized he was standing in an alley. God, he had made a terrible mistake. He whipped around, expecting to dive back through the smoke into the bank. The safe must still be elsewhere.

  A swarm of men rushing through the blasted door stopped him. They were screaming wildly and waving their arms. For the first time, Juan caught the exultant victory, the sense of mad, unleashed conquest in their voices. It was a terrifying sound. He stared at them in fright. What did they want? What would they do now? They seemed mindless, capable of anything. Could they be after him?

  He broke from the alley and ran out into a back street. The sun burned overhead. He raced up the street, a steep incline that left him panting at the top. Ahead of him he saw the square where the rebels had been executed by the firing squad. It was empty now. Where should he run?

  A group of men turned a corner, spotted him and shouted. They surged toward him, screaming and waving. He turned, seeking escape. More men were approaching from another street.

  In terror, he bolted for the only available escape route: a narrow alley to the left. He charged into it, pursued by indistinguishable cries and the pounding of feet. He burst out the other end, only to be jolted to a halt by a rigid, powerful arm.

  It was Mallory.

  “Where you going?” the Irishman said calmly.

  Juan looked frantically behind him. His pursuers were not yet in sight. “The bank, Firecracker,” he blurted. “The money.” He gasped for breath.

  “The bank and the money were transferred to Mexico City over a month ago.”

  What? What was Mallory saying?

  “Since then they’ve turned the bank into a political prison.”

  Juan hauled in his breath. A low, guttural moan escaped him. Oh, Christ, he should have realized it. So stupid he was. So blinded by greed. “So that’s who …” he mumbled tonelessly. Even to himself he sounded defeated.

  “Right. They’re the one hundred fifty patriots you liberated through ‘sheer courage in the face of danger.’ ” Mallory’s tone was mocking him.

  The prisoners were coming down the alley, no longer running. They were smiling at him, smiling gratefully he realized now. The sight appalled him.

  He grabbed Mallory’s collar and twisted. The Irishman’s head bent awkwardly to the side. “You knew it,” he breathed. “You knew it and you didn’t stop me.”

  Mallory wrenched his head free. “All I asked you was if you wanted to get inside the bank. I never said anything about money.”

  Juan raised his pistol. “I’m gonna—”

  “You aren’t going to do anything. Look!’

  The prisoners were almost on him. Behind them more men ran shouting down the alley toward him. He turned. Still more men were converging from three other directions.

  With a roar, they were on him. He heard Mallory say dryly, “You’re a hero of the revolution now!”

  Eager hands grabbed him. He felt himself drowning in the hands and in the swollen noise, the screams of lunatics, he thought. He went rigid with terror, felt the hands tighten all over his body, felt the hot breaths of the madmen. He expected to go down, to be crushed into a coffin of hands there on the hard street. His legs gave out and he started to drop. Then suddenly he burst upward into crystal light. The hands dropped away and he saw the world swirling below.

  He was on their shoulders, up there under the burning sun in the clean air, being borne like a hero toward the square. Villega was up next to him, waving and calling to the whooping throng below.

  Juan looked desperately back toward Mallory, who laughingly shouted at him,

  “You’re not a bandit any more! You’re a revolutionary!”

  PART TWO

  JOHN

  Chapter One

  “What do you see?”

  The woods were hushed and smelled sweetly, almost as if they were touched by the breath of the sea. Mallory thought of dark, cool forests back home. He looked up at Juan and repeated his question.

  “Do you see anything?”

  Juan was propped high in a tree, his backside against the trunk and his legs braced on a heavy branch. He was peering intently through a spyglass. Mallory had been surprised at the agility with which the beefy Mexican had scaled the tree.

  “Well …?” He edged his horse closer.

  “Jesus Christ! They look like giant locusts!” Juan called down, awed. “Even the horses got hoods.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The soldiers. They’re wearing some kind of goggles. Black goggles. And their horses got black hoods.” Juan paused. “Yeah, there’s lenses in the hoods.”

  “That’s to keep out the dust.” Mallory yelled, remembering now that he had seen them before. The British had them too.

  “How many soldiers?”

  “A full detachment. All cavalry.”

  “Trucks?”

  “Three. No, four. The first one, it’s got no windows. It looks like a box on wheels. It’s got a machine gun.”

  “That’s the armored car,” Mallory said. “Gutierrez should be in it.”

  Around him, Juan’s sons and a half dozen peons, all on horseback, began to murmur about the armored car. Their horses chewed indifferently on leaves from low bushes. Mallory waved them silent.

  Juan shifted his position. “There’s a man with goggles riding in the turret of the truck,” he called. “That’s Gutierrez?”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Ugly.”

  “That could be anybody.”

  “Yeah. This one’s ugly only on one side. He’s got a big scar down his face. Makes his mouth look like he’s sneering.”

  “Is he missing an eye?”

  Juan didn’t answer. He leaned out from the tree. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Same side as the scar.”

  “That’s our man. That’s the colonel.” Mallory said. A light wind rustled the leaves overhead. He felt cool and elated.

  “Yeah, well he’s pointing in this direction. Now he’s bending down and talking to someone inside.”

  “Put the glass away! He must have seen its reflection.”

  Juan didn’t move. “Hey,” he called, “the machine gun’s turning this way.”

  Mallory heard, almost simultaneously, the crisp clatter of the gun and the sound of branches cracking and bending. A shower of leaves rained down from the tree. For a second there was a strange stillness, then another branch snapped and a heavy object thudded to the ground.

  Juan picked himself up. He stared mutely at the broken glass in his hand, tossed it aside and reached for his horse. He swung lightly into the saddle.

  “Let’s go!”

  Mallory turned his horse, kicked it, and led the others in a fast gallop deeper into the woods.

  They rode for a half hour, exhausting the trail and pushing the horses through tangled underbrush and across twisting streams. The woods closed on them like a door sighing shut on a high dim chamber.

  Dusk had already tinged everything gray when they arrived at the camp. Several fires burned low and the smell of cooking hung in the air. Peons in worn clothes were everywhere.

  Villega hurried over to them. His eyes flashed excitement but his voice was calm. “Did you find them?” he asked.

  Mallory watched Villega intently. He hadn’t decided yet about the man. He was passionate, fervid even, in his commitment, and he tempered the passion with careful, thoughtful decisions—a fine leader in that sense. But there was something about him, a hint of softness that Mallory mistrusted. He preferred his leaders totally ruthless; you could always depend on su
ch men.

  Juan dismounted. “We found them,” he said. “But I think they saw us.”

  “They saw us.” Nino corrected. “They shot at us.”

  Villega’s eyes narrowed. He looked worried. “Were you followed?”

  “I don’t think so,” Juan scratched at his beard. “You got some food for us?”

  “Yes, come eat!”

  They decided to stay the night where they were. Villega sent out guards to patrol in each direction.

  “We’ll move in the morning,” he said. “If Gutierrez finds us before we’re ready, it’ll be a slaughter.”

  Mallory ate slowly, accustoming himself to the flat taste of the maize gruel that the Mexicans called atole. He thought of mutton and potatoes and salt fish washed down with whisky. When he finished, he got out his flask and downed a third of it. He would have to settle for gin.

  He saw Juan eating across the clearing, joking all the while with two of his sons. Something akin to affection—perhaps it was just admiration—welled in him. He didn’t particularly like the Mexican; he didn’t particularly like anyone. But he liked his type. Bloody singleminded, the British would call him. He realized, without fear, that if it ever suited his purpose, the Mexican would kill him with no more scruple than he would feel crushing a bug. And yet he respected the man, crude and scheming though he was. If he weren’t so greedy, so damnably determined to enrich Juan and Juan’s own and nobody else, he could truly be a hero of the revolution. If he took his enforced role as a revolutionary leader seriously, he’d be a superb guerrilla commander, as cunning as Zapata and as hard and amoral as Villa. And ruthless! He remembered with a grin his enforced march across the desert.

  Mallory put away his flask and stretched a blanket under the shelter of a large tree at the edge of the clearing. He wrapped himself in another serape and went off to sleep.

  He slept lightly. His ears picked up the twitter of night birds and the crackling of the fire. He awoke at what must have been 1 or 2 A.M. and stared up at a silver sliver, the moon. His mouth was dry.

  He heard faint footsteps and turned his head. A large dark shadow glided across the clearing. Juan, unmistakably! The Mexican headed for a cluster of bodies and silently shook them awake. Together they headed off in the direction of the horses.

  Mallory rose. The night air was crisp and pleasant. In the distance he could hear the low murmur of a brook. He set out noiselessly after Juan.

  The horses were unguarded. Standing in the shadow of a tree, Mallory watched Juan and his gang untie ten of the animals and lead them away from the camp. Their feet crunched dully over the soft ground.

  They walked for a half mile. Mallory let them go, wanting to be far out of earshot of the camp before he confronted them. He could not see them in the dark, but he tracked them the way he had learned in Ireland: by their sound, with his head low to the ground.

  It was that way that he picked up the intruding noise. He paused. Somewhere nearby a night rodent scratched softly against the ground. Ahead, bushes rustled where Juan and his people walked. A hoof clicked against stone. Beyond that, very faintly, green wood snapped in a fire and the breeze spun in a hollow whisper around a clearing.

  Mallory pushed on quickly, circling to Juan’s left. The ground swept upward to a knoll. He scrambled to its crest and stopped.

  Ahead and slightly to his right he could see the frozen shadows of Juan and his men. They were crouched in the bushes, peering down into the clearing below. The figures of soldiers moving around campfires were clearly visible. A few tents had been set up in the clearing. One of them bore the insignia of a colonel over the door flap, painted large enough to be seen in the dim flickering light of the campfires. Gutierrez?

  Mallory heard footsteps crunching along a path and his breath caught. His hand slid silently under his coat. The footsteps came closer. He heard an owl call somewhere far away, and a squad of eight soldiers rushed past. A patrol. The soldiers were muttering something he could not make out. From their haste and the urgency in their voices, he guessed they had found something important. It could be only one thing.

  He waited until they were past, then turned and began running back to the rebel campsite. As he turned, he saw Juan and his men crouch lower in the bushes. They too must have heard the oncoming patrol.

  Mallory ran as quickly as he could, heedless of stumbling on the rocks underfoot or of crashing into some black tree trunk. Luck and intuition more than the faint moonlight guided him through the dark woods. Thin branches stung his face as he went, and his hands scraped against bark and thorns. He ran loosely, feeling neither excited nor anxious but strangely liberated by the need for haste; a cool pleasure in his own commitment. He wasn’t even breathing hard when he got back to the camp.

  He found Villega quickly and woke him. Silently, they woke the others. Within minutes they were packed and moving out.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Villega called.

  “In a bit,” Mallory said. “Just leave one horse for me.”

  He found a large, flat rock on the side of the clearing, sat down and waited. He didn’t have to wait too long.

  Juan and his gang came stumbling into the campsite a few minutes later. Mallory saw Juan’s shadowy form stop abruptly and look about in confusion.

  “Hey, Papa,” Chulo called. “Where’d everybody go?” Juan didn’t answer.

  A hissing, sizzling light, bright as day, suddenly bathed the clearing. The light arced toward them, growing brighter as it came. For a moment, Juan and his tribe were caught in an eerie tableau, frozen figures staring mutely and incredulously up into the sky.

  “Duck, you sucker!” Mallory screamed.

  Ten bodies dove to the ground. A shell burst loudly overhead and shrapnel showered down, pelting the campsite. The ten bodies wriggled toward the trees. Mallory got up from his rock and calmly walked over to them. He reached into his coat and brought out a bottle as he did.

  Juan heard him and looked up, startled.

  “That’s called shrapnel,” Mallory said, uncorking the bottle. “You better get used to it.” He tilted the bottle and drank.

  Juan started to rise and Mallory tossed the bottle at him. The Mexican caught it, drained the last few drops and flung it into the bushes.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  It rained early the next morning, beginning just before dawn. They had gone about ten miles, and, with the rain falling in great gray sheets, decided to push on a few more miles to a marshy area in the hopes the Gutierrez’ trucks would bog down.

  Mallory sat under a large canvas stretched between two poles. They had camped in the driest area available, almost a small island in the marsh, but even here the ground was mud. Mallory sat in the mud, reading. He was wearing his black overcoat.

  He heard feet sloshing through the muck and looked up at Juan ambling through the dense rain as if he had been born in it. His clothes were totally saturated; his sombrero made its own waterfall.

  Juan came under the canvas, gazed curiously at Mallory, then looked toward his half-open suitcase. He went over to the case and pulled out a rolled parchment.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  Mallory kept reading. “A map,” he said.

  “Of what?”

  “Your country.”

  “My country is me. ME!! And my sons! And my men!”

  Mallory glanced up from the book. “Your country is also Huerta. And the governor. And the landowners. And Gutierrez with his locusts.”

  Juan shrugged indifferently.

  “You don’t have anything against them, is that it?” Mallory said. He knew the answer.

  “Why should I? They do what they have to. I do what I have to. Everybody’s got his place. That’s the way life is. The cat chases the mouse. You ever see a mouse chase a cat?”

  “If enough mice got together, the cat might come to an inglorious end. Ever think about that?”

  Juan smiled wanly. “Firecracker, you think I’m stu
pid and don’t even know what a revolution is. It’s a sea of shit. On one side a few people got everything and on the other most people got nothing. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “So the most people make a revolution and kill the others and as soon as they finish, a few sons of bitches take everything and it starts all over again. Right?”

  “No,” Mallory said slowly. “Actually—”

  “Whaddya mean, no? You read books. You tell me if once, just once in this shitty world, if things ain’t gone the way I said.”

  He didn’t answer. The rain lightened for a moment and he stared out at a faint rainbow painted just above the treeline far, far off on the horizon. He thought of Ireland, his mind tracking bleakly over the seven years since Arthur Griffith had founded the Sinn Fein. Pain seared through him. What could he say to Juan?

  “Go back to your book.” The Mexican said.

  Mallory slammed it shut. “I already know it by heart.” Gutierrez’ face flashed before him. He wondered how long it would be before the Mexicans would have to fight him.

  Chapter Two

  The armored car and the truck were blocking the road. Villega saw them from the top of the low hill but drove on anyway. The small carriage moved lightly ahead, the wheels singing softly. High grass grew along the winding road.

  Several soldiers were standing in the road, watching him as he came on. They held their rifles loosely. Villega slowed his horse to a walk and approached the soldiers, looking concerned.

  He stopped the carriage thirty feet from the armored car. A soldier with a sodden, stupid face came forward.

  “Nobody’s allowed through,” he said. “The area’s being searched.”

  Villega looked up at the armored car. The machine gun was pointed at him. A hot sun burned overhead. He reached into his pocket and pulled out some papers.

  “I have a pass,” he said calmly. “I’m a doctor.”

  The soldier took the papers and examined them skeptically. Ahead, on the roadside, a lieutenant seated on the grass in the shade of a tent eating got up and walked briskly toward them. Another man remained in the tent’s shade. Gutierrez. Even from the distance his one eye bored into Villega.