A/N: I'm back from vacation.
Die Now or Later
El covered the distance to the fort at a trot. As he passed through the dusty square, the guitar makers waved to him - waves of urgency, not greeting, he thought, but he didn't have time to find out what they needed. He waved back - a wave of "I'll get back to you."
He passed his parked jeep and entered the main door of the old convent, drawing breath to yell for Sands. Then he realized what the villagers had meant to tell him. He was surrounded by a forest of guns, aimed at his vital parts.
His continued good health seemed best served by freezing, so he skidded to a stop on the tiled floor. Six men regarded him from behind eight guns. Two of the men were on the stairwell; four awaited him just inside the door. Now two of those approached him. "Hands on your head!" one of them ordered.
El obliged. Careful to keep him covered, despite the many other guns performing that function, the two men searched El and removed his weapons, even finding the two pistols up his sleeves. Then they twisted his arms behind him and held him fast.
A seventh man, not holding a gun, and younger than any of the others, appeared from the other side of the stairs. He walked forward, giving El an appraising look.
"So this is the great El Mariachi," he said. He looked barely out of his teens, a handsome boy with long dark hair pulled back at his neck.
El sighed. "That's what they always say," he said.
The young man stood just in front of El. "My name is Miguel Julio Delgado Enriquez. You killed my father."
"Prepare to die?" El finished for him.
The young man's eyes narrowed. "Not until you return my uncle's fortune. Then you will die for many reasons. My father, my uncles, cousin, everything."
Everything. El and Sands had destroyed so much of the Delgado empire, it was hard to imagine what base this new generation was working from. In fact . . . El studied the men with Enriquez more closely. They didn't look right. Elaborate tattoos, piercings, men whose clothing marked them as rural thugs from places far from central Mexico. At least one Indian. Ruffians more than professionals. Enriquez had had to recruit budget help.
"It is a great fortune," El said. "Will you share it with these men?"
One of the men holding him clubbed him with his gun. El saw stars.
Enriquez twisted his handsome face into a semblance of a snarl. "Where are the jewels? If you'd fenced them already, you wouldn't be living here."
"No, I have them," El replied conversationally. "Many of them are at least four carats, they tell me. One such diamond would make a man very rich. I'm surprised you are so trusting of your men, here. Are you sure you pay them well enough?"
"Shut up," Enriquez spat. He produced a Glock and leveled it at El's head, pointing right between El's eyes. It was a good choice. El would die instantly. "Tell me where they are or you die now."
El's heartbeat pounded in his ears. He was more than ready to die - had been for some time - but he did not wish for it. A lifetime of regrets flooded him, from regrets immense and unbearable to regrets as simple as he did not eat a comfortable dinner with the Perez girls.
"I die now, or I die later. There's not much difference to me. I think the diamonds stay where they are," he said. He waited for death to at least relieve him of the pain of anxiety in his chest.
Angry, Enriquez's voice shook. "I will tear you apart for them. Then I will tear this place down and I will tear down your house and the houses of your neighbors. If I still haven't found them, I will destroy everyone in this sorry crap-house of a village until I find them."
El wasn't worried about the threat to the people of the village. The villagers were armed, fairly well trained, and they were aware of the danger. In fact, it occurred to him to wonder if they might be mounting a rescue expedition. He sincerely hoped not. El was bound to die by the gun someday; he only hoped to involve as few innocents in his fate as possible. The villagers had sheltered him - at some risk to themselves - rescuing him from his fate had never been part of the deal.
But now, El realized to his dismay, no village could be left in peace after it had offended a cartel. All these men would have to die.
Something clicked in his head, and he had a plan.
"All right, all right," he said, allowing his voice to quaver. "I'll take you to the diamonds."
He led them through the halls of the fort, to the small renovated quarters where he had lived with his family before their house was finished. His daughter, tiny inquisitive hands, and a toddler's penchant for getting into everything, had found the perfect hiding place. While the exterior walls of the fort had been built with a meter and a half of now crumbling adobe, many of the interior walls had been reinforced with sun-baked clay bricks. These bricks had been excavated when modern plumbing was put in, and a leaky pipe had further eroded the backs of three large bricks at almost floor-level in one room. The brick fronts yielded to prying hands revealing a hidden niche large enough for a tiny mischievous child. There El had placed the small black bag of diamonds, but they had been an afterthought. Primarily he used the niche as a gun closet, keeping his collection of weapons away from Sands. He had guns in there now. Loaded guns.
He wondered for a moment where Sands was and winced at the thought that the man might have already done himself harm and be lying dead in a chamber somewhere. Alternately, now would be an excellent time for a rescue from someone not an innocent. El's plan did not include a way to save his own life. He would likely be cut down in the process, so he hoped to stay alive long enough to keep squeezing the trigger and take out all seven men. Help would be very welcome.