Chapter 1

El Hears a Rumor

Disclaimer: I don't own El Mariachi, much to my bewilderment. It feels like he should be mine. Why isn't he mine?

Rating: PG-13 (don't expect this to last)

Summary: The CIA has come hunting for Agent Sands and El Mariachi. Now they must work together to stay alive. Along the way, old debts are repaid, friendships are formed, and truths are discovered.

Author's Note: Well, I'm back. :-) I just couldn't get these characters out of my head. So when I found myself with another story idea, I jumped at the chance to write it down.

This is a sequel to my story After the Dust Has Cleared. I would recommend reading that one first, but you don't really need to. All you need to know is that El Mariachi and Sands worked together to destroy Barillo's old cartel, which was under new leadership. While doing so, they began a tentative friendship. The story ends with the cartel in ruins, El and Sands both wounded, and eventually making a trip to Puerto Vallarta, where Sands has always wanted to go.

This story picks up a year later...

****

Time passed. El Mariachi settled down in the town of Villa de Cos, in the state of Zacatecas, about an hour away from the capital city. He played the guitar and taught children how to play, and he lived alone.

The bloody affair with the Escalante cartel had happened exactly one year ago.

He did not think about that. To El, the months following his rescue of El Presidente were off limits. He simply did not think about them. These days his life was quiet. He had finally gotten his wish. He was free. He had found peace. There was no need to remember things that were not peaceful, things that were not simple.

Life, with all its inherent problems and wounds and troubles, went on, as it always did, but he paid it little mind. He would never be happy again, as he had been in the days when he had known the love of a woman and the laughter of a child, but he had his music, and no one bothered him, and so he was as content as he could be.

The old men and their talk didn't touch him. He just sat in his corners, satisfied just to be there, outside of them, not one of them. He never participated in their talk; he just let their words wash over him, so much meaningless noise.

At night he dreamed of Carolina, and in the morning his skin would be wet with tears.

One day he found a piece of scrap metal in the front yard of the local church, and took it home with him. For a day and a night he sat with his guitar in his lap, sliding the metal up and down the strings on the neck of the guitar, reveling in the shivery sound of the notes.

The next day he threw the metal away. He did not play the guitar that way again.

On a warm day late in February, nearly one year to the day when he had destroyed the cartel, the talk he had been trying so hard to avoid finally caught up to El Mariachi.

They knew who he was, of course, the people of the town. Most of them did not bother him, however, and he was grateful for their silence. Today he was sitting in the bar down the street from his house, at the same table he always sat at. Behind him two old men were eagerly sharing the latest gossip. El heard them, but he was not really listening.

And then one of the men said something that brought his attention sharply into focus.

". . .the American and his partner."

"My cousin said they were in his town last month, asking questions."

"What did he tell them?"

"He told them nothing! What could he say? He knows nothing."

"But he has visited you. He has been here! He has seen him."

El gripped his glass tightly and told himself he was not going to turn around, he was not.

"He wouldn't say anything. Not to them." The speaker snorted. "Those Americans with their rich suits and their guns. They thought he was a dirty Mexican, just like all the others. They couldn't wait to leave."

He realized the old men wanted him to turn around. They knew he always sat here. They had taken their places behind him deliberately. They had wanted him to hear their conversation.

El drained his glass in one long swallow, slammed it onto the table, and stalked out of the bar.

He managed to forget about what he had heard for a whole two days. On the third day, he dreamed of a drawling voice asking if he was still standing, and when he woke up his hands were trembling. But that morning there were no tears, and that was something to be thankful for.

He spent the day pacing his small house, cursing himself and the weakness that drove him. Call it curiosity, call it a romantic streak, call it a need to know the truth, call it whatever you wanted. Whatever it was, it compelled him to take action.

He hated that aspect of himself. But he could not deny that part of his heart was quietly exultant. And with every passing hour, that part of him grew louder, content to be quiet no more.

As the sun went down, he finally surrendered. As soon as it was dark, he packed his few belongings into a bag, put the bag and his guitar case in the trunk of his car, and drove away from Villa de Cos.

He went north. He did not tell anyone he had left.

****

The village in Culiacan was unchanged, still noisy and dusty and full of laughing, happy people. They seemed not to remember the bloody attempted coup that had torn their world apart, only a year ago. El looked at the adaptability of the villagers and nodded in satisfaction. These people, men and women who had fought for El Presidente and Mexico itself, were proof that men like Marquez, men like Barillo, men like Escalante, would not win in the end. Not so long as people like the ones in this village still lived.

Everything was the same. Even the house in the mountains was the same as he remembered it. El walked up to the front door and knocked before he could lose his courage.

The man who answered the door had changed, however, finally giving El concrete proof that a year had indeed passed since he had been in this place. Ramirez had aged badly since El had seen him last. His hair was almost completely gray, and he had lost a large amount of weight. Only his dark eyes were the same. He stared at El without even a trace of a welcoming smile. "I knew you would show up here."

El stood on the stoop and waited to be invited in. "How did you know that?"

Ramirez shrugged. "Call it a lucky guess." He stood aside and opened the door wider.

El walked inside, glancing at the white-and-tan chihuahua that looked up at Ramirez hopefully. The retired FBI agent walked right past the dog, though, and its ears drooped a little.

"I need your help," El said, and then he waited. He hoped Ramirez knew how rare it was for him to admit such a thing.

But at least I admit it, he thought, and winced inwardly. He was doing it again. Arguing with phantoms, defending his words and actions to a man who wasn't even there. For months after the cartel, it had been like this, but since November, and this year's Day of the Dead festival, he had been successful in silencing that drawling voice in his head. He had hoped he would never hear it again. Yet now, just two steps into Ramirez's house, the old need to explain himself to that voice had come bounding right back.

The former FBI agent nodded. He had not seen El's hesitation, and momentary expression of self-directed anger. He looked tired, and El wondered suddenly if his health was failing. That would explain the weight loss, the shadow on the man's face.

"Everyone needs my help," Ramirez sighed. He began walking toward the back of the house.

"You were FBI," El said. "You must still have friends in Washington. I need you to contact them."

"I was a field agent in San Antonio," Ramirez said as they passed the swinging doorway to the kitchen. "I spent very little time in Washington."

"But you know people," El pressed.

"What do you want?" Ramirez asked. He shook his head. "You come here out of nowhere, and expect something from me. So tell me now what it is that you want, and I will tell you if I can do it for you."

This was fair enough. El nodded. "All right." He took a deep breath. "I have heard things, and I need to know if they are true. I was hoping you would know people who could tell me that."

Ramirez paused in front of the screened door leading to his back porch, one hand on the mesh screen, ready to push the door open. "Tell you what?"

"If the CIA is looking for me."

"You have heard this?"

El said nothing. He thought the answer to that question was fairly obvious.

Ramirez nodded, as if to himself. He pushed open the door and stepped out onto the porch.

El did not follow him. "Will you help me?"

Ramirez just stood there, waiting for him, holding open the screen door.

He sighed. He had come here because there was nowhere else for him to go. It was either come here or head southwest, to Puerto Vallarta, and he had flatly refused to even entertain that idea. But apparently it had been a mistake to see Ramirez. The older man wanted nothing to do with him.

He stepped out onto the porch. He would make his apologies and leave, never to return.

He had just started to speak when he became abruptly aware that he and Ramirez were not alone. A third man was sitting in a cane chair halfway down the length of the porch.

This man stood up. He was grinning. "Well, damn, El. It's good to see you again!"

*****

Author's Note: Just so everyone doesn't go insane with wondering, yes, the man on the porch is who you think it is. :-)