He took Sands to the village. Sands already knew to find him there, so he was revealing no secrets, and was perhaps more protecting them. There were others who would like to make use of the information Sands held.
Everyone else who knew was probably dead.
It was that 'probably' that had been eating at him. The fight at the market with Cucuy's and Barillo's men and all that came after had left him no opportunity to count; there had been a lot of bodies. But if any of Cucuy's people had survived that, they would come here for him. Lorenzo and Fideo were spreading some rumours as they travelled, but rumours would be no help if someone still knew the truth.
He had decided when he went hunting for Sands that, whatever came of it, talk was all he would ask his friends to do this time. Lorenzo was still young, still had the chance to avoid setting his life permanently on the path that El walked. They deserved better, and the money gave them their way out, if they would take it.
Fideo would most likely drink his away, but it would take him a long time.
They arrived in town in the late afternoon, the sun slanting between his eyelashes. People stared as he drove through the streets, openly curious about the strange gringo with the Mariachi.
Sands no longer looked ridiculous. When he'd heard El's intention, he had demanded they stop at the last large town, and disappeared into the restroom of a bar. The bandages were gone when he came out, replaced by the pair of wide, black sunglasses, and he tossed the hat into the trunk of the car.
El had watched him, but didn't speak until they were back in the car and pulling away. "Are you sure that's wise?"
Sands shrugged. He could almost do that without wincing now. "I really have no idea, El, I don't have any prior experience with missing eyeballs." He reached into his pocket for a cigarette. "If I'd known, I could have asked Belini before I killed him. But hell, if I'd known, I'd have made arrangements to be somewhere a long way from Culiacán, and then the whole discussion would have been pleasantly theoretical."
El wondered with only passing interest who Belini had been. If he'd been involved with Sands, he was most likely not a good man. But when Sands turned his head and pushed his hair back behind his ear away from the lighter flame, he caught a glimpse of thick white padding beneath the sunglasses. Sands was still protecting his injuries, if not so obviously.
He drew the car to a halt outside his home, the memories sinking back into him, inevitable. It had been barely two weeks since he left, and it felt like far more.
Sands followed him inside, the too-familiar unease crawling all through him even in those few steps. He described the basic layout of the rooms, and left Sands to explore while he walked the short distance back across the centre of town.
The evening was quiet, with the cooler tint of oncoming winter. The kind of evening he would have liked, once, the relief from the constant heat of summer for himself and for his music. Guitars suffered in the heat and the staring sun, as a living thing did.
It was the only time he'd left Sands unsupervised for longer than it took to use the bathroom since the day of his visit to the house in Playa Azul, when Sands had believed him to be an idiot who would do as he was told.
Sickness heaved and curled in his gut now at the thought of what the man might be doing.
Logically, he knew Sands wouldn't be doing anything, only finding his way round the house. There was no-one he could think of Sands might contact, no-one he could make a deal with in betraying El who wouldn't kill Sands too. He had no reason to hurt the people here, who were all strangers to him, and more reason not to since the others would instantly turn on him for it. But his brand of logic wasn't adequate to the mindset of someone like Sands, and he was twisted tight with the fear that he could have missed something.
The door opened as he knocked on it, and he realised he was expected. He smiled a little ruefully, and shook his head – here was someone else who read him too easily. "Hello, Father."
The priest invited him in, smiling, made them coffee in the familiar chipped mugs while he filled him in on the various happenings in town since he'd left. In two weeks, that was a couple of new romances and the passing of one elderly man, long expected.
It all felt so very normal, something he missed when it wasn't there. A good companion and a shared drink and a little casual conversation.
It couldn't last.
"So, who's your friend?" Father Ríos asked finally.
He'd been waiting for this. It was why he was really here. "He's not my friend," he said. "He can't be trusted. He will do whatever is good for himself, and only that." He paused, looking the priest direct in the eyes. "Do not believe for a moment that because he is blind and injured he isn't dangerous. I want you to make sure everyone knows that."
Father Ríos watched him for a second, his eyes wandering to the yellowing bruise along his jaw, then nodded. "So why is he here?" he asked.
He shrugged. "He has information. When he is healed, he will help me."
The priest stared on, waiting, an unblinking patience. That was no justification for bringing a man like Sands to these people, and he'd been searching for a better reason himself the last two days as he drove.
He no longer went to confession, or even to church so much. But he still told things to the priest that he told no-one else, and sometimes found the peace in it.
"He has been treated badly," he said, "and some of that was me." He looked down into the swirling coffee trapped between his fingers. "Carolina wanted me to be a better man than I am."
The priest leaned back in his seat, old wood creaking beneath him. "Well, in my profession, that's the kind of reasoning I'm supposed to encourage," he said, the lines around his mouth cut deeper as he smiled.
"He won't be here for long," he told him.
Father Ríos raised his eyebrows slightly and said nothing.
"He won't," he said again.
There was no time limit on their agreement, but Sands wouldn't stay in a place like this. He would despise everything it stood for - a quiet, simple life that caused no harm to anyone, and the people who wanted that.
The old priest just nodded then, and they spoke no more about Sands. But El was unable to recapture that initial enjoyment which had almost eased him, his coffee that bit too bitter, and all their conversation feeling more like avoidance.
He made his escape not long afterwards, easy enough to do with a wounded blind man in his house.
He stood for a moment after the door closed behind him, taking in the peace of a dark evening in the village. There was little sound, different from much of the year, no windows open to let voices carry with the falling night temperatures of mid November. The breeze played with the trees, rustling them, carrying the soft scent of them instead of the stink of a city's fumes.
It was his home; it was simple and clean and familiar, and he couldn't feel it.
He walked away from the priest's door, taking the path to the outskirts of the town.
He resisted the prickling urge to go back to the house first and check. Sands was here now, and he would either do something that El would kill him for, or he wouldn't. It would change nothing to doubt every decision, question every fact in his head; he couldn't spend his time here in constant fear of things Sands would most likely not do.
The road darkened as he left the orbit of the houses, moonlight more than enough for a path so well known.
It was a small cemetery for a small town. He followed the low wall around the edge to where their graves lay, a simple cross for each of them and a single name that didn't connect them to him. Father Ríos had married them, but he and Carolina had no certificate, no record of it outside the memories of the people here.
He always came back here. He hadn't left often since they died, and never for long, but when he returned, this was where he came.
He still felt the guilt that he hadn't been here for the Day of the Dead. It hadn't been his choice to leave then, but it was his choice to stay in Culiacán and kill.
Realistically, he knew he wouldn't have been allowed to return here peacefully if he had refused Sands' offer. But realistically, there had never been a chance that he would.
He sat on the earth alongside their graves, reaching out to touch Carolina's cross, damp beneath his fingers in the cooling air. "I want to protect this place," he said.
He could have left Sands and let the cartel come. He understood the cartel men, at least, their motivations simple, their tactics even more so. All the things he'd learned, his knowledge of why people acted as they did, was barely helping him to hold onto Sands' reasoning after the fact.
"I hope it's the right thing," he said. "I think it's what you would want."
Carolina had come to loathe evil men almost as strongly as he himself did. But she was also compassionate, hating to see pain and fear in others where it could be fixed.
Sands' pain would die back as his injuries healed, but his fear, at some level, would stay. Only a stupid man or one who didn't care about dying would not be afraid, and if Sands hadn't wanted to live, he wouldn't have survived the Day of the Dead.
Sands wanted to live, and he wanted revenge. And that combination could make a man do many things.
He was risking the lives of everyone here that it would make Sands hold his violence in check until it was time to unleash it. Sands killed by design, not by impulse, and his designs now were much altered.
The cross was cold to his fingers, moisture dragging the heat from his skin.
Moonlight leeched the colour from everything, even the cemetery. No hint of the vibrant blues that decorated some of the graves here, the flowers sapped down to all shades of grey through black. The wind shifted through the trees, dark leaves rippling sound around him. He couldn't feel it, low to the ground, sheltered.
He came here seeking the peace it brought him. It was a sad, sometimes almost painful kind of peace, but peace all the same.
He couldn't find it now.
He gave up on defying the restlessness, and let his feet take him back through the town, the dirt roads deadening his boots, sound refusing to carry through the quiet.
The house was in darkness. That gave another pluck to the lurching fear inside him in the moment before he thought about it, and realised that of course Sands wouldn't turn on the lights.
He flicked the switch as he closed the door behind him, blinking against the sudden yellow glare. He listened, but heard nothing obvious.
He'd never noticed before how dull the illumination from the bulbs was, how it left his house a maze of shadows and dark corners.
Once he would have found it romantic.
He walked through to his living room, following the stink of burned tobacco, his feet tapping with each step, the singing of metal sharp in the silence.
Sands sat in an armchair, smoking one of his cigarettes, flicking embers onto a plate that rested on the chair arm. "Sorry, El," he drawled, without turning. "You forgot to say where you keep the ashtrays."
He felt it collapse inside him, the stretching apprehension that had been with him since he left the house, his body finally able to loosen and his mind to stop.
He was so tired.
"Don't smoke in the house," he said, and went to his room to sleep.