A Fistful of Dynamite by James Lewis

Author:James Lewis [Lewis, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0426157478
Publisher: Tandem Books
Published: 1972-01-11T08:00:00+00:00

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.

“Where are you going,” the lieutenant asked.

“To visit some sick people.”

“Their names?”

“Fermin Hernandez, at Chizco. Adelita Aguilar, at Parral …” The officer was writing as Villega spoke.

“Isn’t there a doctor at Parral?” he asked. His face was hard.

Villega glared at him. “There was,” he said, annoyed. “He’s been shot.”

The officer studied him silently. Villega held his breath. “All right, you may proceed.”

An hour later Villega’s carriage was tied in a dense wood atop a mountain plateau. The entire valley stretched out lush and green below. Just beneath, a wooden bridge thrust thinly across a narrow river.

Villega stood with Mallory and Juan looking out across the valley. His thin face was lined and there were dark rings under his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Farther back in the trees a dozen peons stood by loaded burros. Juan’s own people milled about listlessly.

“Gutierrez is less than twenty miles from here, on the road to the San Jorge Bridge,” Villega said wearily, pointing to the bridge. “They’ll comb the area bush by bush. That’s why the order is to split up and try to save yourselves individually.”

A thin breeze stirred the leaves overhead. “What a brilliant order,” Mallory said bitterly. “We’re up to our asses in mud back in the marshes and the rest of you are in a warm basement.”

Villega looked wounded. “Not everybody can fight,” he said, frowning. “There are those who must organize, coordinate—”

“Yes, sure. Don’t pay any attention to me, it’s personal.”

Mallory walked away. He headed for two rebels busy unloading a dismantled machine gun from a burro. Saying nothing, he waved the men aside and swung his arm around the gun’s barrel. With his free hand he caught the tripod.

He carried the gun back to Juan and Villega. “Sorry about the orders,” he said, “but I’m staying.”

The two Mexicans gaped at him. Mallory squatted and began assembling the gun. A fly spun past his head and he swatted it away.

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