A Fistful of Dynamite Read online

  Take a fortune in gold and two men with an impossible plan to steal it. Give them enough arms and ammunition to hold off an army—then bring on the army!

  John Mallory was dynamite … a fugitive Irish revolutionary who knew all there was to know about explosives—and carried enough TNT on his back to level a city.

  Juan Mirandez Ibanez was a lighted match … a cut-throat Mexican bandit with comtempt for a corrupt government, a taste for tequila, an eye for other men’s wives—and a weakness for over-stuffed bank vaults.

  They went through the lawless, rebellious Mexican countryside like a lighted powder train, and the explosion spared no one.

  Rafran Films presents

  Rod Steiger • James Coburn • Romolo Valli

  in “A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE”

  Screenplay by Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Donati and Sergio Leone

  Original Music Composed and Conducted by Ennio Morricone

  Directed by Sergio Leone

  Produced by Fulvio Morsella

  TANDEM

  A Fistful of Dynamite

  Juan Mirandez Ibanez never met a man he wouldn’t kill … until the day he met John Mallory. There was something about the Irishman’s style that fascinated Juan. Maybe it was the way Mallory ignored Juan’s gun and coolly asked for a light.

  Then John Mallory opened his jacket and Juan knew for sure why he wouldn’t kill him. Strapped to Mallory were sticks of dynamite, detonators and fuses—enough to take Mexico, and Juan Mirandez Ibanez, off the map for ever!

  Suddenly, Mallory took the cigarette Juan had lit and flung it towards the stage coach.

  “Duck, you sucker,” said the Irishman calmly—just before the explosion …

  Originally published in the United States

  by Universal Publishing & Distributing Corporation, 1971 as Duck, You Sucker!

  Published in Great Britain by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co. Ltd, 1972

  Copyright © MCMLXXI by Rafran Cinematografica S.p.a.

  All rights reserved.

  Made and printed in Great Britain by

  Hunt Barnard Printing Ltd., Aylesbury, Bucks.

  PART ONE

  JUAN

  Chapter One

  Mexico, 1913

  He had been there for more than an hour. Overhead, a blood red sun burned its way slowly toward the mountains, and the scorched dusty plain spread out endlessly around him. Squatting on the dry ground, he could feel the heat singe his feet through his boots.

  Juan Miranda Ibanez raised his sombrero and squinted into the shimmering distance. Nothing. Only low scrub and an occasional nopal cactus. He pushed the soft hat down over his eyes. It could not be much longer now.

  A sudden ache in his bladder made him rise and amble toward the only tree in sight. Half of Mexico to pee in, he laughed, and like a dog I head for a tree. He pushed aside a dirty shirttail and unbuttoned his pants. To the side a line of flying ants marched stolidly across the dry terrain. He turned slightly and aimed at them.

  There was a low dust cloud on the horizon when he finished. Heaving a satisfied sigh, he straightened his pants and moved out toward the roadway. He watched as the cloud grew until it framed a team of horses and, behind them, the dark, reddish silhouette of a massive coach. A smile flicked across his face. Soon!

  Across the road was a rotting, half-burned shack. Before it stood a pole topped by a weathervane and a sun-bleached rag hanging limply in the heat. Juan crossed to the pole and waited.

  The stage was coming on rapidly now, surging out of the desert with the sound of leather slapping and the low drumbeat of hooves. It was an enormous carriage, bigger than any he had ever seen, and it moved with sure, swift grace over the hard ground.

  He stepped forward and waved his arm. His yellowed teeth flashed his most ingratiating, most humble smile. Wreathed in sunlight, the horses and coach hurtled down at him.

  And swept right past.

  Juan spat out fine grit and wiped a film of white dust from his sweaty face. Cursing silently he bent to pick up his sombrero, even grimier now. A twinge of anxiety tightened his stomach. What would happen now that he had missed the stage?

  But he hadn’t. Braces groaning and squealing, the stage rumbled to a halt fifty yards down the road. Instantly, the coachman clambered down and pulled the horses toward a crude watering trough made of stone. A thin man carrying a rifle got down with him.

  Juan admired the waxed paneling of the coach and the burnished lanterns atop it as he approached. The stage was not only immense, nearly as large in fact as the tiny shack in which he had been born, but it was elegantly and elaborately finished as well. Drawn white curtains concealed the interior from his view.

  Two rifle-bearing guards seated on the roof peered down suspiciously at him. Juan removed his sombrero, beamed at them, and shuffled toward the coachman.

  “Señor …” he called.

  The man ignored him. His practiced hands roved deftly over harnesses and buckles, making adjustments, tightening leather.

  Juan tried again. “Señor,” he said meekly. “I must go to San Felipe …”

  The coachman glanced up. His face was sunburned and leathered. He stared dully at the beefy Mexican with oily hair and dirty farmer’s clothes standing in the roadway, hat in hand, then looked past him.

  “Straight ahead!” He pointed at the horizon. “About eighty miles.”

  “Really, señor … I was thinking …” Juan nodded timidly toward the stage.

  The coachman’s brows darted up in amusement. “Thinking what?”

  “I have the money, señor.” Juan groped in his pocket and dug out a handful of grimy banknotes and coins.

  The coachman exchanged a surprised look with the guards. Doubt registered in his face when he turned back. Clearly, he found it perplexing that this unshaven, greasy peon had come by so much money. Juan shifted his feet. For some reason, an image of the ants floundering in his water swam to mind. These gringos were as predictable as ants.

  The coachman’s face softened suddenly into a grin. “Hey, boys. This one wants a ride.” He laughed. “And he’s even got the dinero.”

  His eyes raked Juan. “Betcha got a few lice and fleas too, huh?” He seemed to like the idea.

  Juan grimaced noncommitally. The coachman was delighted.

  “I think maybe we oughta let our friend and his bugs here join our passengers. They could use some of that kind of company.”

  The others chortled. “I’d like to see their faces when they see him,” a pockmarked guard said. He looked about as intelligent as a suitcase.

  Saying nothing, Juan moved toward the stagecoach door, remembering to throw his weight heavily from hip to hip and to keep his arms limp at his sides, like a plodding peon. It wasn’t enough.

  The coachman’s hand shot out and stopped him. “Just a minute!”

  The hand gripped a leather cord around Juan’s neck and pulled.

  A flat amulet painted with crude symbols emerged from Juan’s shirt The coachman studied it quizzically.

  “It is for ringworm,” Juan breathed. A timid grin was back on his face. The man’s hand was heavy on his chest and the cord was biting into his neck.

  The coachman pulled the cord a little higher. He was smirking now. A small pouch surfaced.

  “For measles …” Juan explained.

  The hand began tugging even faster. A chain of scapulars, amulets, pouches, and charms surfaced from beneath the shirt.

  “For mumps …” Juan offered.

  “The pox …

  “Scabies …

  “Syphilis …”

  They were all laughing.

  Juan smiled sheepishly. The air was still and the hot sun beat down on him.

  Su
ddenly, the coachman’s hand stopped. His strong fingers groped through the coarse material at something resting on Juan’s stomach. The laughter ceased.

  “And this knife?” His breath reeked of sour tobacco. “What’s that for? Constipation?”

  Juan slowly and carefully unbuttoned his shirt. He sucked in his bulging stomach and hauled a long object from under his belt. One of the guards leveled a gun at his head as he did.

  He held the object aloft. A thin knife made of soft tin and embedded in a flaming tin heart glinted in the sun. “This is for everything,” he said. His eyes rolled heavenward. “The Sacred Heart of Jesus …”

  He held his breath and waited.

  The coachman relaxed. “Okay muchacho,” he said. “Close your shirt and go on up.”

  Juan opened the door and swung his bulk upward, noting with pleasure the surprise that flickered across the coachman’s eyes as they caught the grace and ease of his movements. It was a pleasure he had known before.

  He nearly staggered back in surprise. The interior of the coach was more spacious and sumptuous even than the burnished exterior had hinted. Plush red velvet seats, downy curtains, and brocaded wall coverings created the air of a luxurious and elegant salon. Gold-plated handles, grips and hat hooks, ornately finished, studded the walls. The flooring was of soft, thick wool.

  A portable table had been set up in the middle of the coach and five people were bent over it, eating hungrily. They were sucking food into already overstuffed mouths and washing it down with wine poured from sleek bottles. On the table and seats lay several leather satchels, their flaps open to reveal still more food and bottles.

  A fat cleric had just pulled a greasy chicken from his satchel and was offering it around when the slam of the door made them all look up. They recoiled almost in unison.

  Juan noted from the shape of the cleric’s dark hat and the splendid sheen of his frock that the man was a monsignor. Jewels glittered on his pudgy fingers, and the flesh of his face was soft and very white for a Mexican.

  He looked at him in disgust. A priest for the aristocracia, he thought. One of those pampered prelates who had forgotten that their magnificent God had been a tough peon.

  There were three Americans. One of them raised a hard, arrogant face. His hair was expertly trimmed and combed and he wore a rich serge suit, closely buttoned. His whole bearing radiated a peculiar luxury and ease, an air of accepted wealth, like that of the absentee landlords Juan had known.

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned!” the man bellowed. His upper lips curled momentarily in disdain, then he settled back and stared.

  A slim, strikingly pretty girl in a gold dress molded tightly around her shoulders and breasts leaned toward the man and whispered in his ear. Dark, sensuous eyes bored into Juan as her lips moved. He noted with pleasure that she was much younger than the American.

  “Never mind, dear,” the man said, patting her hand reassuringly.

  With a start, the coach lurched forward, throwing them all off balance. Juan straightened himself and removed his hat, holding it respectfully before him. He scanned the others.

  The third American had a soft, mottled face and dark lines under his eyes. His wide-brimmed hat was shabby and his tan wastecoat bulged carelessly over a burly frame. There was a restrained, almost tightly leashed, nervousness in his expression, and a suggestion of stealth in his bloodless lips. Juan guessed that he was a salesman, one of those bastardo peddlers from the American South with their cheap gadgets and phony simpatia for Mexican peasants. He felt a momentary flare of irritation, then dismissed it, and the American, as trivial.

  There was no question about the last passenger, the one seated in the far corner licking tortilla crumbs from his manicured fingers. The lace on his shirt and the elegant trim of his moustache marked him as assuredly as his smooth Castillian features. Pure castelano! No Indian blood whatever. Only one thing marred his patrician bearing: his skin. It was strangely sallow, almost yellow. Jaundice!

  Juan regarded him with detachment. Except for the brief flaring of his nostrils at the sight of Juan, the man betrayed nothing. He looked away and reached for some wine. His aloofness was as predictable as nightfall. The mejicano noble to perfection. Underneath, he would be a pig.

  It was becoming difficult to stand in the swaying coach. Juan glanced at the nearest empty seat and moved shyly toward it.

  A large white hat plopped down in front of him.

  The rich-looking American had reached casually above his head, plucked the hat from its hook and tossed it on the seat. His lips were edged into a thin, challenging smile. No one spoke.

  Juan nodded humbly and turned toward another seat With an air of indifference, the American stretched his legs and planted them across the seat. His boots were of rich, tooled leather.

  “Where you going?” he said.

  Juan stiffened. It wasn’t a question. It was an assertion of dominance. He could either knock it down or submit.

  He shrugged abjectly.

  The American glared at him and shook his head. Beside him, the pretty wife stirred uneasily. The man pointed to the farthest corner of the coach.

  “Over there!”

  Obediently, Juan shuffled toward an apparently smooth wall. Gold cloth set in polished wood faced him. Halfway down, concealed in the woodwork, was a gold handle.

  “Pull it!” the man ordered.

  He reached out and tugged, stumbling backwards as he did. A door glided open with surprising ease.

  The sight startled him. A small but apparently workable bathroom stood before him. The toilet gleamed like a polished stone. Next to it was a basin and, above that, a gilt-edged mirror. In all details the compact room was as luxuriously appointed as the rest of the coach.

  Behind him they were all chuckling.

  The muscles in his shoulders tensed and his stomach went hard. He consciously suppressed the balling of his fists and closed the door softly, comforted in a way by the crassness of the American. He knew what such behavior concealed.

  He turned around and held out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. The American nodded toward the wall. “The other one,” he said.

  There was another handle in the wall, not far from the one to the bathroom door. Cautiously, Juan pulled it.

  The wall gave way and a small seat folded outward. It was intriguing, so clever. Juan sat down.

  “I guess he understands English,” the American said. “He just doesn’t like to talk.”

  The monsignor stopped chewing on a thick beef rib. “Now, now,” he admonished. “Even peasants are—”

  He broke off abruptly and extended the rib toward the woman, who was fishing in one of the leather satchels. “Some mustard please,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “As I was saying …” He was chewing furiously now and his words were thick and garbled. “Even they are people. They too … have rights. After all, they have … just won a … revolution …”

  Across from him the Mexican noble bit into a chicken leg. “Brutos …” he muttered. “Animals!” He belched.

  Juan was watching the woman. Her movements as she buttered a piece of toast were refined, almost dainty. She seemed intent on her meal but her eyes kept stealing glances at him. There was a hint of fascination in them.

  “Yes, animals …” she repeated, automatically. “I wonder if he has crabs?”

  Juan considered scratching. Instead, obligingly, he picked his nose.

  The monsignor was off on another tack. A new thought had struck him. “You should hear them in the confessional; the things they confess …” he said. His hand slid toward a canapé. “Do you know what they—”

  The woman cut him off. “Oh, I can imagine, Father, I can imagine. I mean, they live in such promiscuity. All of them in one room. At night. With the lights out. You never know who’s next: mother, sister, daughter, goat …”

  Juan said nothing. This woman had possibilities.

  The salesman type muttered something abou
t “niggers.” They were all caught up in the game now.

  “Just like animals,” the noble spat. Wine dribbled down his chin and onto his suit.

  “Hey, you!” the rich-looking American barked. “You ever know your father?”

  Juan was sitting immobile in his corner, his face impassive. Now he gave a vague, embarrassed grimace.

  “How many kids you got?”

  He shrugged. Who knows?

  “Sheeeit,” the American said. “And that imbecile Madero, that dumb excuse for a President, wanted to give our land to people like this.”

  So the man was a landlord.

  “Fortunately,” the monsignor said. “Divine providence has rid us of Francisco Madero.” He slurped at a creamy pudding which Juan did not recognize.

  “It wasn’t providence,” the landowner sneered. He tore a hunk of meat from a leg of roasted lamb. “It was General Huerta. Thank God for him. He put these people in their places.”

  They were all busily eating now. Grease smeared their faces and crumbs stuck to their clothes. They kept talking as they chewed, spilling out bits of food and drops of liquid, which splattered about. Juan savored the sight.

  He was still sitting with a mindless grin frozen on his face, his eyes blank, thinking that it would not be long now, when the stage thumped to a halt.

  Chapter Two

  They had been rolling along for more than an hour toward the foothills of the Sierras. Gradually, the terrain began to change. Small patches of green could be seen and, in the near distance, more trees.

  The horses pulled at a steady gait, only beginning to show the first signs of weariness. They had run hard that morning and still had the hills to negotiate, but as the coachman was anxious to escape the desert heat, he lashed them on.

  They came round a corner bordering a pond, the first they had seen all day, and before them the road slanted steeply upward. The horses took the first hundred yards at a run, then began to slow. A moment later the team was moving at a walk, straining against the braces.

  Near the crest their feet began to slip. The whip cracked relentlessly against their flesh, the coachman screaming, “Hyaaah! Hyaaah!” shrilly. The stage inched forward.