Man with No Name- Train Car Vest

Ramón levelled his rifle, got the moving target in his sight. He had never been known to miss. He squeezed the trigger. The stranger had reached the other side of the street, did a slow about turn and started on the next crossing movement of his zig-zagged path.

“You losing your touch?” he called. “Ramón are you afraid?”

Anger and amazement carved an odd expression on Ramón’s face and for a second he was paralysed by the shock of the miss. But it was short-lived. He took careful aim again and squeezed the trigger. The stranger was closing in on the Rojo brothers and their men and Ramón gave a satisfied leer as he saw the man in his sights do a complete turn around. He was sure the heavy calibre bullet had spun the stranger and that he would crumple to the ground.

But the leer became a frozen stare as Ramón saw the stranger had again started to move in his casual, twisted advance. “When you shoot to kill, you better hit the heart, Ramón,” he called. “Those are your own words.”

A snarl ripping from his throat, Ramón fired twice in rapid succession, hand deftly pumping the action of the Winchester. His forehead was beaded with sweat and he could hear the gasps of Esteban, Miguel and the others. The stranger had reached the corner of a house, stopped abruptly and seemed about to pitch forward. Ramón shot three more times at the stationary target, began to reload the Winchester with incredible speed. The stranger went back against the wall, striking it forcibly. He just stood there, unmoving, as Ramón completed pushing shells into the rifle.

The leader of the Rojo gang had a gleam of triumph in his eyes as he raised his fully loaded Winchester and started to fire with the heart of the American squarely in his sights. He blazed away like a madman, not lowering the weapon until the hammer clicked drily against the empty chamber. The stranger stepped away from the wall, now no more than fifty feet from the front of the café.

But he did not fall. His eyes glinted like narrow strips of silver in the shadow of his sombrero brim and his teeth were nakedly white between curled-back lips.

Ramón’s face was a portrait of bewilderment. The men behind him stepped back a pace. Esteban, without the others seeing him, sidled away from the group, fled behind the corner of a house in terror. The Man With No Name put his hands up to his back beneath the poncho, began to move them in fast, untying movements. He took a step backwards and something clanged to the ground in front of him.

It was the side panel of the truck from the mine, beaten into a curved shape that had fitted snugly around the man’s torso, held in place at the back by lengths of rope. A crude heart shape had been etched a few inches from the top edge, to mark the position of the man’s vital organ.

Twelve dents, caused by Ramón’s bullets, were all within the marked area.

- A Fistful of Dollars novel, chapter 22