A Fistful of Dynamite

by James Lewis

  Mallory clambered up the hill toward him carrying the suitcase and the machine gun. His expression told Juan nothing. He was walking slowly, gazing straight ahead. At most, he seemed pensive.

  He reached the top, paused, then walked stiffly past Juan without looking at him.

  “Don’t kill them,” he said as he passed.

  “It never crossed my mind,” Juan replied.

  Chapter Four

  The celebration was over. A few men sat warming themselves at the fires, but most slept drunkenly under their serapes. Empty bottles and leftover food littered the cave floor.

  A record player was droning out a sleepy Mexican love song. In a corner, a small, wiry peon slumped against a rock, picking languorously on a guitar in tune to the music. The notes echoed crisply in the cavernous chamber.

  Mallory sat on a blanket far back in the cave, only dimly aware of the music. His hands held a book of speeches by Herzen, but he wasn’t reading. A snapshot of Juan sleeping across the way with a smile on his face, of Sebastian digging salt out of a box for his tequilla, and of old Nino lighting a cigar with trembling fingers hung before him like images on a transparent silkscreen. He was casually aware of the images, but he was looking beyond them. Beyond them he saw only colored lights.

  The music stopped and a figure moved toward the record player. A hush settled over the cave. There was the sound of a record scratching, and a slow, mournful Irish tune filled the chamber.

  Mallory turned toward the Gramophone. The machine’s image hovered on the silkscreen but beyond it now the colored lights were beginning to take form. Trees and fences and low rolling hills of deep green appeared in a strange, filtered light. The Irish countryside.

  On the silkscreen Juan stirred, sat up, listened to the music a moment, then rose and approached Mallory. Silently, he held out a bottle of whisky. Mallory reached out automatically and drank. He stared blankly past Juan, as the green countryside came sharply to life.

  The spinning wheels of an automobile on a white dust road rolled into view. The polished machine was framed against high grass. In the front seat a girl in a lemon dress with flowing dark hair sat between two young men.

  Mallory saw the girl’s lovely, fresh face and the boyish, exultant look of Nolan, his friend, and he saw faintly his own lean young face, exuberant and carefree. Nolan was driving. They passed a bottle back and forth between them and took turns kissing the girl. They were all laughing and happy.

  A terrible, burning pain rushed through him. He drained the bottle and flung it hard toward the Gramophone. It shattered against the turntable. A screech pierced the cavern as the needle cut across the record.

  Mallory got up and went over to the Gramophone. The record lay broken in a dozen fragments. He looked dully up at Juan and Villega, who had emerged from the shadows at the front of the cave.

  “It slipped,” he said.

  “What a shame. I had such a hard time finding it,” Villega said lightly. He bent and picked up a piece. He shrugged. “Well, I understand. It’s been a hard day. You started off with sore feet and—” Villega smiled at Juan. “And if they stay sore, we could arrive in Mexico City before Pancho Villa.”

  “Is that where we’re supposed to be going?” Mallory asked moodily.

  “Well, that’s where Villa’s going.”

  “What about us?”

  “I’m not certain yet what our role will be.”

  “Yeah, when will you know?” Mallory’s mouth tasted sour.

  “In a day or so. When I come back I hope I can bring good news about the advance of the revolutionary army. And our orders. We should be moving out of here very soon.”

  Juan shifted uneasily. Mallory ignored him.

  “Who’s winning this fucking war anyway?” he said.

  “We are, of course,” Villega grunted.

  “Okay, then tell whoever it is you tell that they should get their asses moving and get it over with.”

  Villega started to answer, checked himself, nodded and left. Mallory found himself thinking he had sounded like a fool. He hadn’t done much to bring his own revolution home to victory; he shouldn’t be so arrogant and impatient with the Mexicans. Huerta was smart and tough. No army of peasants would defeat him easily. Still, they certainly wouldn’t beat him if they kept hidden in marshes and caves. They had to fight. The bridge was proof enough of that.

  He heard Villega’s carriage pulling away. In a day or so, the doctor had said. In Ireland, they would bet their lone pair of wool socks against it. No, Villega would go to Mesa Verde and talk to his people again and consult with Villa’s emissaries, then come back and report that the time was not yet right. They were not strong enough. They would have to wait for more propitious circumstances or until the Mesa Verde garrison was diverted to Mexico City or until …

  Mallory thought about going after Villega, inviting himself to the strategy session in Mesa Verde. He shrugged off the notion and went over and lay down on a straw mat in the corner. To interfere would only breed resentment, he told himself. Grappling with his own uneasiness, he slipped off to a fitful sleep.

  He was awakened several hours later by alarmed cries from a young boy.

  An hour out of Mesa Verde, Villega pulled off the road onto a narrow path and followed it through high grass for a mile. Ahead of him loomed the shadowy form of a farmhouse, lit only by the stars. The man who owned it was a sympathizer. His house was used as a way station for messages between Mesa Verde and the rebels in the Sierras. It was never wise to enter the city without first checking for warning messages.

  Villega tied his horse and walked toward the blackened house. Pablo and his young brother would be sleeping. No matter, they would not mind being wakened.

  He lifted the door latch and went in. He felt on his right for the candle. It was in its usual place. Villega lighted it. “Pablo,” he called.

  He took a step into the room. “Oh, my God,” he said.

  Pablo lay on his bed, staring sightlessly into the air. What remained of his face was covered with blood. The sheets twisted over his body were dark and wet.

  “We were expecting you, Doctor,” a voice behind him announced.

  Villega whirled. Gutierrez, his lieutenant, and four soldiers stepped out of the shadows. The colonel’s empty eye socket watered obscenely in the flickering candle light.

  In a moment they were on him. Strong hands gripped him and pulled him out the door. The soldiers tied his arms behind him, punching him as they did. Then they threw him into the back of the carriage and drove off. He passed out a few minutes later.

  He didn’t come to until they were back in Mesa Verde, within the walls of the garrison. The soldier dragged him into a dank stone building and down a stone staircase into a bare cellar. An iron door clanked shut at the top of the steps.

  A kerosene lantern hung by a long chain from the ceiling, swaying slightly, casting a bleak, cold light. On the walls the soldiers’ shadows loomed monstrously large and foreboding.

  “What do you want with me?” Villega said in a complaining tone. It was difficult keeping his voice from shaking.

  A smile edged Gutierrez’s taut face. “You’ll see in a while,” he said.

  The soldiers stripped off his shirt and tied him to one of the two chairs in the room. His blood raced madly and he suppressed the insane desire to cry out for help. He knew what was about to happen. He feared only the consequences.

  He sat in silence in the cool, gloomy cellar while the soldiers went away briefly. They returned with their jackets off, carrying short, heavy clubs.

  “Oh, no!!!”

  They beat him first on the neck and back, then worked at his chest and stomach. Each blow to his frail body brought a gasp. They beat him methodically, saying nothing, two of them hitting him at a time. After the first four blows, he didn’t believe he could endure any more pain. After the first ten, he was screaming silently for them to stop. Every blow after that lost its distinctiveness; it no longer felt as
if he was being hit by clubs; rather his whole body was being slammed between two huge steel plates.

  “That’s enough!”

  Through half-closed eyes he could see Gutierrez’ impassive face hove into view. “That was just to prepare you,” he said coldly. “Now I want you to tell me the name of every revolutionary in Mesa Verde and the location of your mountain hideout. You will tell me now.”

  Villega said nothing.

  Gutierrez reached out and jerked his head upward by the hair. “You know you will be beaten until you tell me, don’t you?”

  Villega nodded.

  “Well?”

  With what strength he could muster, Villega tore his hair from Gutierrez’s grasp.

  “Beat him!” the colonel snapped.

  The soldiers used the blunt end of their clubs this time, driving them into his belly and groin. He writhed in pain. Tears welled in his eyes. He moaned and cried out. They hit him again and again. The pain consumed him, and he began to whimper. He wanted so badly to die.

  At last they stopped. Mercifully, his mind had begun to detach itself from his body, drifting off to a nightmarish swill where nausea and agony were the perpetual terms of existence, to be endured dully and in silence.

  Water splashed his face. He shook his head and looked glassily at Gutierrez, seated before him now.

  “Kill me!” he gasped. “Kill me! I won’t tell you anything. Kill me!”

  “Are you certain, Doctor?”

  He nodded faintly.

  Gutierrez smiled. “You’ll talk, Villega. You’ll talk. Do you know why? Because you are too intelligent not to. You have imagination, and imagination is the enemy of courage.”

  He motioned to a soldier. “Look over there, Doctor,” he said.

  The soldier was coming toward him slowly. Held before him was a pair of pliers. “Noooo—” Villega cried.

  “Tell me!”

  “I can’t,” he whined pathetically. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  Gutierrez’ chair scraped on the floor and he disappeared from view. Villega saw the soldier bend behind him with the pliers. He gritted his teeth as the pliers clamped around his nipple.

  And then he screamed inhumanly.

  Chapter Five

  The corpse was stiff and already had the grayish-blue color of death. Mallory pulled a blanket over the pulpy face and turned to the boy, who had refused to come closer.

  “How much time has gone by?” he asked.

  “The time for me to get to you and bring you here.”

  They had left immediately after the boy woke them. He and Juan had pushed their horses hard, and the boy had proven to be a competent rider. “More than six hours,” Mallory muttered, mostly to himself.

  He looked at Juan. “I’m going to Mesa Verde. Maybe there’s still time to help the doctor.”

  Juan sighed. “Okay … let’s go,” he said resignedly.

  “I said I’m going.”

  He moved toward the door. Behind him Juan called, “Wait. When will you be back?”

  “When you see me.”

  Juan followed him out. “And if I don’t see you?”

  “If you don’t see me, stick a chili pepper up your ass and run like you’ve never run before. And don’t look over your shoulder, there’ll be soldiers behind you.”

  The road was clear all the way to Mesa Verde. It surprised him. Several times he pulled his horse to a standstill, just to listen. But there was nothing. Not even a patrol. Perhaps something important was happening in the city. Could Villega have talked? Would he have told them where the hideout was?

  It was 3 A.M. when he reached the city, and it was raining. He knew instantly something was wrong. There were lights in one or two outlying houses when there shouldn’t have been, not at that hour. And as he neared the main section of the city, he could hear the distant whine of truck engines. There could be only one reason for that many trucks, to move troops.

  He left his horse tied in an alleyway and made on foot for the spot where the trucks seemed to be, keeping to the shadows. If he were spotted he would have to run; there would be no way to explain his presence in the streets at that time of morning.

  He wasn’t spotted. A patrol passed by at one point, but he crouched behind a rain barrel at the side of a house until it was gone. It felt strange. How many times had he done the same thing in Dublin?

  The trucks seemed to be in or near the square. The best vantage point would be from the north; that section offered the most concealment. He circled several blocks out of his way, cutting round the square at a safe distance, until he was able to approach it through a back alleyway and slip behind a column to a small government building.

  The trucks were indeed there. They were lined up one hundred feet from a wall painted with white stripes, their acetylene headlights hissing softly in the rain. The lights made the wall bright as day.

  The square was filled with troops. Some stood grimly around the trucks while the others came and went in small groups, marching determinedly. Four men stood shivering in front of the striped wall, a squad of soldiers guarding them. The men kept darting fearful looks from the soldiers to a small cluster of women who stood huddled at the other side of the square, surrounded by troops as well. The heads of the women were uncovered despite the rain. Mallory could hear them sobbing. One of the women cried out, and a guard moved in front of her, blocking Mallory’s view. The woman fell silent. Whatever the guard had said had been effective.

  He saw a small platoon come up from the south, dragging a man who was wearing only pants. Even his feet were bare. The soldiers pulled the man across the square and stopped in front of one of the trucks, the headlight shining full on his face. Mallory recognized him. He had seen him that day in the tavern basement.

  A slim, erect figure came out from between two trucks and stepped in front of the light. It was Gutierrez. The colonel walked over to the man and harshly lifted his face up toward the cab, as if to show it to someone sitting inside the truck. Mallory squinted in the rain and tried to see inside. The windows reflected only the light from the other trucks.

  Gutierrez nodded, and the troops dragged the man toward the wall. “Oh, no,” he whimpered. “Don’t do it.” But they ignored him.

  More squads were arriving now, each with a prisoner in tow. They all followed the same pattern, stopping for a moment before the headlights while Gutierrez looked up at whoever was inside and then passed judgment. Out of two dozen men, Mallory counted only three who were freed. Several of those who weren’t he knew from the tavern.

  Gutierrez barked an order and a line of soldiers quickly formed in front of the wall. The prisoners cowered together, the bluish acetylene light making their expressions look overwhelmingly pathetic. They were shoved roughly apart and forced back against the wall. The women began wailing, and not even the angry growls of the soldiers silenced them now. The prisoners looked pitifully over at the women. Though their tears were invisible in the rain, Mallory could tell that a few of the men had begun to cry.

  “Attention!” Gutierrez barked, and the firing squad straightened. “Ready!” The soldiers brought their guns up. Gutierrez’ expression was the same as ever, the scar forcing his mouth into an ugly sneer. “Aim!” The soldiers sighted down the barrel. The keening of the women grew sharper. Mallory looked toward the truck windows. The only thing he could see was the relentless metronome of the windshield wipers.

  The silkscreen suddenly snapped down in front of his eyes again. On the surface, frozen in tableau, were the soldiers with their rifles poised and the swishing wipers and the men against the wall. Behind it all, Mallory was seeing something else.

  He was in a pub. Dublin it was. The place was crowded and noisy, filled with young, animated people. The yellow light from gas lanterns softened their features and made them all look a little drunk. Whisky and dark beer were being swilled in great quantities, amid laughter, argument, and good cheer.

  Mallory was si
tting at the bar, drinking beer and peering through the smoke at nothing in particular. Before him on the bar lay a rolled-up newspaper. An Irish melody tinkled from a piano in the background.

  There was a crash. The music stopped and the crowd fell silent. Mallory turned slowly and looked toward the door. British troops were rushing in, pushing people aside with their rifles. Their uniforms marked them as members of the Black and Tan Corps. The drinkers froze and stared in hostility at the troops. Three soldiers placed themselves to cover the room. Mallory turned away.

  An English officer with a gaunt, pockmarked face came in behind the soldiers, pushing ahead of him a civilian in torn clothes. The man kept his head down, concealing his face. The officer stopped and looked icily at the customers, then prodded the civilian, who hesitantly lifted an arm and pointed to a man seated at the bar. Immediately several soldiers fell on him and hustled him out. No one said a word.

  The officer guided his charge down through the pub. Mallory watched in the foggy mirror behind the bar as the civilian pointed out one man after another for the soldiers to drag away.

  They stopped a few feet from Mallory. In the mirror he could see the officer stare stonily at his back and prod the civilian again, even harder. Reluctantly, the man raised his head. Through the smoke Mallory saw the cut and bruised face of Nolan, the boy who had been in the car with him. Nolan, his best friend.

  Their eyes met in the mirror in grim recognition and held for a moment. Nolan’s were dull with shame. He looked away in dismay.

  The officer caught it all. He pointed to Mallory’s back and snapped an order. On either side of Mallory, customers moved rapidly away.

  He waited until the soldiers were almost upon him. Then he grabbed up the rolled newspaper and spun quickly around. He killed the officer first and then the soldiers. Nolan he shot last.

  “Fire!” Gutierrez barked, and the crack of the rifles echoed sharply through the square.

  The men against the wall fell in a heap. Their bodies lay on the wet ground while the rain washed silently over them.