Disclaimer: We all know that Robert Rodriguez is the genius behind El and Sands.

Dos Pistoleros

The name of the bar was El Tarantula Azul, and on this quiet afternoon, there were only two customers. Nico, the bartender, had pulled the first fellow a warm beer. Another hombre entered ten minutes later, walked to the opposite end of the bar from the first patron, and asked for tequila with lime. Nico didn't have any limes. The man shrugged, and accepted the drink anyway.

The beer-drinker carried a guitar case with him. A long time ago, that would've made Nico uneasy---he still remembered the stories of El Mariachi, the legendary gunfighter---but that had been what, fifteen years ago? No, more than that. This man might have chains on his fancy pants and carry a guitar, but he was far too young to be THE mariachi.

Tequila-with-lime had an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, removing it occasionally to sip his drink. He caught the bartender looking at him and stared back expressionlessly. "What are you looking at?" he growled. He had a baby face, and hardly looked old enough for his vices.

"Just checking to see if you needed a fresh drink," Nico said to cover his lapse.

"I'll let you know," the young man said curtly.

The bartender wandered to the other end of the bar, away from his testy customer. "How's it going? Everything alright here?"

"Sure," said the man with the guitar case. He looked as if he was a few years older than Tequila, but only a few.

"You're a musician?"

A smile formed on the mariachi's lips. "I like to think so."

Nico tensed slightly as his customer reached over and unsnapped the latches on the guitar case. Inside was a beautifully crafted instrument, which its owner removed tenderly from its nest. There was nothing else in the case; no guns, no cartridges. The bartender chided himself for being an old woman. Many years ago, El Mariachi might have wanted to pay him a visit, but this boy--in his mid-sixties, anyone under thirty was a boy to him--was only a simple musician.

"Tell me, Grandfather," the young man said as he strummed, not with a disrespectful tone--no, he was perfectly polite-- "Are you the owner of this charming establishment?"

"Yes, for many years," Nico answered. Ah, no doubt the lad was seeking a job! It was a pity to have to disappoint him; while a "live" musician would add atmosphere to the cantina, paying for such a thing would cut into his humble profits. There was a perfectly good jukebox in the corner, and from that he recieved a modest percentage of its income.

"Prosperous years, I'm sure," the musician smiled.

"Some years more than others, you know how it is--" A shrill whistle cut through his answer. The man at the other end of the bar was holding up his empty glass significantly. "Excuse me."

He caught up the tequila bottle on his way to the other customer. As he was pouring, the second man asked, "What time do you think Coelho is going to be in?"

Nico froze. "Who is that, senor?" he asked cautiously.

"You heard me."

The bartender found himself eye-to-eye with two big, black pistol barrels. "I don't know. Soon. He comes a little after four every day. Don't kill me. Please, don't kill me, I'm an old man."

Rippling notes came closer to their rigid tableau as the mariachi strolled over. "Are you going to shoot him?" the guitar player asked, mild inquiry in his voice. He stopped strumming, and set the instrument carefully on the bar.

"Damn right I am," said Tequila, not looking away from Nico's terrified eyes. "And as soon as that cartel mook Coelho walks in that door, I'm going to shoot him, too. I suggest you take your guitar and your jingle bell pants and get the hell out of here, unless you're another cartel asshole bucking for a bullet."

"I'd like to go, but I can't. You see, I'm here to kill him." He shrugged, and by the end of the motion, guns had appeared in his hands. "You can have Coelho, whoever he is. This one's mine."

Nico found himself still covered by two guns. The other two, he might have otherwise been amused to see, the young men were aiming at each other. Possibly, if he stayed quiet enough, they would shoot each other and leave him out of it.

"Yours?" Tequila sounded scornful. "What do you want him for? He's nobody."

"My father died in prison because of him."

"That's a pretty good reason," Tequila allowed. Smoothly, he shifted the aim of one gun from the bartender toward the door. "Go ahead, pop him."

"And then what?"

"What do you mean, and then what? Pop him, then get the hell out of here before Coelho shows up." Tequila sounded irritated. He shot the musician a dirty look. "I'd like to be able to whack him without being distracted."

"Sorry to cramp your style," the mariachi said sarcastically.

He was certainly a lot less concerned by the situation than Nico was. "You've got this all wrong," he pleaded. "I don't even know your father. I've only been here for ten years, before that I lived in Santa Cecelia!"

The guitar player smiled thinly. It wasn't a happy smile. "I grew up in Santa Cecelia," he said. "My father was one of your mules, don't you remember? You gave me a guitar to give to him..."

Nico winced. His bad old days had caught up to him; he'd lost a package to El Mariachi--not this young punk, the real El--and had had to get out of town, fast, but now he remembered Francisco and his kid, the little mariachi wannabe.

"Will you get on with it?" Tequila grumbled. The younger pistolero sounded as jaded as if he was Nico's age. He was clearly Mexican---they both were---but the smooth-faced tequila drinker peppered his speech with odd American slang. "I've been on Coelho's tail all the way from Culiacan, he'd better not get away on your account."

"I had a hell of a time finding you," confided Francisco's son to the bartender. "You bought yourself a nice life here, with other people's souls."

"Okay, okay, you found him. Now shoot him, will you?" Tequila rolled his brown eyes.

"Shut up," said the first man, his tone still conversational, neither pistol wavering in the slightest. "I've been waiting for this day for seventeen years. I want to enjoy it."

Tequila sighed. The cigarette hanging from his mouth twitched. Nico could hear his booted foot tapping impatiently behind the bar. The musician cleared his throat, and all peripheral images faded away. There was only the intense gaze of the young man whose gun was still trained on Nico's forehead, his finger tightening on the trigger.

There was a bang as the front door opened, its handle chipping away more of the dusty plaster on the wall behind it. Two thugs entered, with more men behind them. They just had time to react, when Tequila's gun spat. The first man through the door went down; the second pushed someone behind him back through the door, slamming it and overturning a table for cover as he fired off shots at Tequila.

Nico hit the ground, as the commotion distracted his would-be killer for a vital moment. He was crawling rapidly toward the sawed-off shotgun he kept by the register, when the youth vaulted over the bar and landed atop him.

"I'm not through with you," muttered Mariachi, wresting Nico's hands behind his back and tying them snugly. The young musician shifted and placed his guitar nearby on the floor, out of harm's way. Then the weight left Nico's back, and the sound of Mariachi's guns joined the battle between Tequila and Coelho's man.

As the gunfire died away, Nico squirmed so that he could look up at his captor. Mariachi stood over him, breathing deeply. His guns were extended and he was looking elsewhere. "Now what?" he asked.

"Neither of these fuckmooks is Coelho," snarled Tequila. "He got out, damn it!"

"And so did the rest of his muscle. I've been watching this place, he usually has four guys and his driver with him. What do you want to bet that one of them is covering the front and the other one is heading for the back door?"

"No bet."

"We're going to have to do something soon," said Mariachi, as if the whole conversation concerned trivial matters. "The longer we wait, the more pistoleros he can call in."

"Okay, so we walk out the front door--"

"Which they will be expecting--"

"If we go out through the alley, his driver will hustle Coelho into that bulletproof limo of his and take off!"

Nico tugged at the binding at his wrists. Maybe he could get loose while the two argued?

There was a shot--which didn't come from Mariachi, but it hadn't struck him, either. From the end of the bar near the back door, where Mariachi's guitar case still rested, came the sound of a body falling to the floor.

"Nice shot," Mariachi complimented his adversary. "That should leave the back way clear for us." Bending over, he grabbed Nico with one hand and his guitar with the other. "Let's go."

"We could use that little weasel as a human shield," suggested Tequila, "and go out the front--"

"I already told you, nobody is going to be killing this little weasel but me." Nico cringed as Mariachi smiled and patted his shoulder. The musician pushed him toward the end of the bar. He stowed his instrument safely in its shell, checked the loads in his guns, and nodded to Tequila, who was similarly busying himself.

Tequila went first, then Nico, with one of Mariachi's pistols grinding into his left kidney. As the back door to the alley swung open, a bullet thwacked into the wood inches from Tequila's face. "So, the back way is clear, is it?" he growled at the other man. Then he dove out of the door, guns barking.

For a moment, Nico thought he might stay safely inside--well, relatively--but Mariachi shoved him forward, into the alleyway, pulling him behind the cover of the backdoor. More shots from the musician's hand-cannon made the bartender's ears ring. Soon, Nico was being driven ahead of Mariachi, following Tequila toward the dusty street. He stepped over the bodies of Coelho's fallen thugs, shuddering that he, too, would shortly be reduced to a bloody pile of meat.

Tequila stopped short at the mouth of the alley. "He's not in the limo today!" he exclaimed with delight. A red convertible, top down, sat in front of the bar. There was a man with a gun standing beside it, and behind the wheel, another man was trying to get the car started. By the sound of it, he'd flooded the engine.

"Stay here," Mariachi said to Nico, holding him by the back of his collar. As if he'd planned to walk out into that confrontation!

Guns reloaded, Tequila sauntered out of the alley. Coelho's man raised his weapon. Tequila peppered him with lead, strolling over to the car with a broad smile on his face. "Coelho, you spineless bastard you! You're not so brave now, eh? What, you only have enough guts to shoot blind men, is that it?"

"What do you want? I have money--"

"Get out of the car."

"Please--!"

"I said, get out of the car. Don't make me repeat myself again."

Trembling, the cartel boss climbed slowly from the convertible. "Look, I don't know what you want--"

"Your life, you worthless fuckmook. I want your life." One shot rang out, and Coelho flew backward, the top third of his head a messy red pulp. "And I'll take your car, too, since this one has more style that that gas-hog you usually drive."

Mariachi pushed Nico forward. "You're going to jack his car?"

"He's not going to be using it," said the baby-faced assassin. "Are you going to shoot him, or what?"

Nico could feel the bindings being loosened. As Mariachi pulled it free, the bartender could feel circulation returning to his fingers. Turning to look at the young man, he realized that he'd been tied with a guitar strap, which was now slung around the musician's neck. There was still a gun trained on him, and his would-be killer was still smiling that eerily serene smile.

"You're an old man," Mariachi said to him. "I can't wait another seventeen years. Maybe I'll kill you a year from now. Or next week. Or maybe tomorrow." He stepped toward the curb, where Tequila stood watching him in disbelief.

"You're letting him go?" Tequila said, astonishment and disgust clear in his tone. "After all that, you're fucking letting him go?"

"Can I get a ride?"

"Where are you going?"

Mariachi shrugged. "Wherever."

"Yeah, that's on my way. Hop in."

Nico stood there, staring after them, hope rising in his heart. He'd get his money out of the safe, grab his shotgun and floor it out of town as fast as his old clunker could rattle. Screw the bar, this was his life at stake! He wasn't about to stick around for the kid to finish the job.

Tequila had the engine started, and Mariachi slung his guitar case into the back seat. He actually waved to Nico, who waved back, still in shock.

"Ah, what the hell, maybe not," said Mariachi, and his gun came back up.

Nico felt a series of blows, like he'd been punched several times in the chest. Looking down, the front of his shirt was bubbling with crimson. He drifted down to the sidewalk, a grey haze clouding his vision. The last thing he heard was Tequila, saying, "Way to go. Hey, have you had lunch yet? There's a place in Nogales--"

--ROLL OPENING CREDITS--

Author's note: Watching "Desperado" for the first time in several years, I found myself thinking, "Oh, look, El has a junior sidekick, too!" That thought simmered for a couple weeks, and an evil, gun-slinging plot bunny came hopping on by. What if those junior sidekicks grew up--and got together?