Man with No Name- Coffee Kills

  TUCO put his hat on the ground at the crest of the ridge overlooking the river. He carefully parted the bushes. The Man With No Name sat beside a fire in a small clearing on the riverbank. A smoke-blackened coffee pot squatted on the embers and the hunter idly examined an empty tin cup while he waited patiently for the coffee to boil. His saddled horse stood at the edge of the clearing, cropping grass.

  Tuco wriggled back below the ridge line, put on his hat and scrambled down to where four men waited beside tethered horses. They were a gun-tough quartet, brawlers with hard, brutish faces.

  “The set-up is perfect.” Tuco breathed hard. “He’s hunched over his fire, waiting for his coffee. He’s so sure no enemies are near that he does not even bother to look behind him. Red, you and Scar creep up from that way. Juan and Pedro will close in from the other side. When I call to him he will jump up with his back to you. Hit him then—make sure you come out shooting. Don’t give him a chance to get out his gun. He’s a dead shot.”
...

  The hunter lifted the boiling coffee pot off the coals on the river bank. Still holding the shiny tin cup, he reached into the open saddlebag beside him and took out another cup, this one old and battered from long use. He poured coffee into this one and set it aside to cool.

  Not once had he bothered to glance at the thick underbrush behind him. There was no necessity to swivel his head mound. The shiny bottom of the first cup was a mirror. By moving it slightly he could maintain a constant watch on the underbrush at his back.

  The mirrored surface showed a stir of movement, then a fleeting glimpse of two heads briefly raised. He turned the cup slightly and caught a similar glimpse on the opposite side.

  The voice of Tuco came from in front of him, somewhere beyond the screen of shrubbery.

  “Hey, Whitey, are you so selfish you don’t invite your old friend and partner to share a cup of coffee?” The hunter was on his feet and spinning around as the four broke through the brush. His palm slapped the hammer of his gun.

  The four shots blended.

  Deep in the woods, safely sheltered behind the thick trunk of a tree, Tuco also heard the four rapid shots. They were followed by silence. He blanched, whirled and ran frantically to where he had left his horse.

  The Man With No Name paused in the act of reloading his gun. He cocked his head, listening to the pound of swiftly receding hoofbeats.

  A faint smile stirred his lips.

  “Goodbye, old friend and partner,” he murmured.

  He glanced at the four sprawled belies, shrugged and squatted down to sample his cooling coffee.

- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly novel, chapter 9