[b]Lake Arareco, Chihuahua[/b]
[i]June 1955[/i]

	“Are you ready? This is it.”

	“Eh, as ready as I’ll ever be [i]jefe[/i].”

	The poncho-clad man twisted the corner of his mustache and looked at the young boy in front of him. He held his lever-action rifle gingerly, looking around the hitch where they had parked their exhausted horses. Both of them were matted with dust and grime. Way up in the mountains near Lake Arareco, they had finally found the hideout of the man they were looking for. It had been a long journey over miles of rugged terrain, and both of them were exhausted. Yet the man in the poncho, who was known only as Javier, felt his heart soften as he gazed at the boy’s face. He knew what he had to do.

	“Sit here, Eduardo, guard our flank,” Javier said after a moment of hesitation. He unslung his own bolt-action rifle from his torso and handed it out to the boy.

	“But sir!” protested Eduardo, turning to plead with Javier. “I want to fight!”

	Javier shook his head and reached underneath his poncho to pull a cigarillo from a stained shirt pocket. Eduardo immediately took out a book of matches and struck one, handing it to his boss. With Eduardo’s help, Javier puffed on the cigarillo until he could see the smoke rising. “Eduardo, this is something that I have to do. Maritza is in there, it’s my job to save her.” 

	The boy nodded, suddenly understanding. He wiped his face with a red handkerchief that hung around his neck. “What if this is it, [i]jefe[/i]? What do I do if… you don’t make it?”

	Javier stared off into the distance, gazing over the brilliant blue water and mountains surrounding the lake below. Despite the ruggedness, there was true beauty in these hills. “I’ll make it. I have to. Just stay here.”

	He hesitated for a moment, puffing on his cigarillo while his hand reached down to touch the wood-handled grip of his revolver that lay nestled in the low-slung leather holster on his belt. Without another word, he turned to face the door of the hideout. It was a squat, clay-brick building built into the side of a hill, with an arched entrance bearing saloon double doors. Javier began his walk towards them, scowling at the entrance as he walked. With every step, the rattle of his gear and belt could be heard. He reached the double doors of the entrance and pushed them open, taking a deliberate step to the inside of the darkened building. He looked around, examining every corner of the structure.

	Gold, treasure, and money lined the walls of the hideout. Priceless pieces of art, coins and doubloons, and anything else imaginable were stacked in lazy piles along the painted clay walls. Javier took a few steps forward, his hand continuing to clutch his revolver, until he noticed movement out of the shadows directly in front of him. He froze, staring down the figure that had just emerged from the shadows.

	“[i]El Negro[/i],” he scowled, dramatically taking a draw off of his cigarillo. “I knew I had found your lair.”

	[i]El Negro[/i] laughed, a hearty chuckle that reverberated throughout the room. Yet it was not genuine, it reeked of evil. The villain was a Black man: tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a ragged Union Army uniform jacket with a leather pistol belt and bandoliers that crisscrossed his body. He took a step towards Javier and stared the [i]vaquero[/i] down.

	“I was expecting you to find me eventually,” [i]El Negro[/i] said, one eye glaring at Javier. The other was covered by a menacing eyepatch, a scar crossing his mean face. “But now I have drawn you straight into my trap! Who will find you here now when I kill you? The [i]Federales[/i]? Don’t make me laugh.”

	Javier stared down the villain, locking eyes with the bandit. His hand twitched towards his pistol, but [i]El Negro[/i] shot his own hand to the revolver on his own hip. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he warned. His eye darted to the corner of the room and he quickly pulled a figure out of the shadows.

	It was Maritza. The beautiful young maiden, still dressed in her vibrantly white [i]adelita[/i] with barely a stain or coat of dust, had her wrists bound in front of her. [i]El Negro[/i] grabbed her by the collar and dragged her in front of him, pulling his revolver and putting it to her head. Maritza wailed, flipping her black hair as she shouted: “Javier! Please help!”

	Javier’s eyes narrowed as he looked for an opportunity. Time was ticking, and he had made his decision within seconds. [i]El Negro[/i]’s head and shoulder protruded from behind Maritza: the [i]vaquero[/i] yanked his own revolver from his holster in a lightning-fast motion and fired off a single bullet before [i]El Nego[/i] could even react. A puff of smoke erupted from the barrel of his gun and [i]El Negro[/i] yelped before falling to the ground. Maritza, screaming, ran forwards towards Javier where he quickly caught her in an embrace. In a deft motion, he cut withdrew a bowie knife from a leather sheath on his belt and quickly cut through the ropes binding her wrists together.

	Javier gently pushed her aside, focused entirely on [i]El Negro[/i] who lay on the ground. Blood trickled from the wound on his chest, while the villain pressed a handkerchief in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. “It didn’t have to be this way,” he said, towering over the dying man. “You could have just surrendered in San Juanito.”

	[i]El Negro[/i] scowled again, staring back up at Javier. He spoke slowly, shakily: “You’ll never get it. I could have been rich. You’d do the same if you were me.”

	“Nobody gets away, not in my town.”

	[i]El Negro[/i] coughed, pressing the handkerchief into his wound harder. His body jolted with a death spasm and he made a faint grunt. With the last of his strength he tried to reach out for Javier, eyes filled with pure hatred. But he stiffened out and his arm dropped to his side. [i]El Negro[/i]’s eyes locked forward, unmoving. He was finally dead. Javier turned to Maritza, who had been watching in the corner. He nodded, and carefully placed his revolver back in its holster.

	“Cut! Good work, everyone!”

	The dramatic dim lighting suddenly changed as a series of lightbulbs turned on inside the cabin. The man on the floor grunted as he sat up, while the [i]vaquero[/i] extended his hand to help him to his feet. “How’d you think that went, Jefferson?” Javier asked as the actor dusted himself off.

	“Heh, a little corny, but I suppose it will fly,” Jefferson West answered. He removed his eyepatch and wiped the sweat away from his forehead. “This costume is hot, though.”

	Javier Cortez turned around to the actress in the corner who was rubbing her sore wrists. “I think they tied it rather tight, luckily you didn’t nick me with that big knife of yours,” she said. Maritza was played by a reasonably mid-level actress in Mexican cinema by the name of Emily Carrillo. She had been in a rut playing damsels in distress for Western films for over a year now. Much like Jefferson West, she had been typecasted after her performances in many similar films. It was all starting to feel like a day job to them, just showing up to work and collecting their pay.

	The director opened the double doors of the hideout and stepped through. Manuel Gutiérrez had a similarly unimpressive resumé of almost mass-produced Westerns, even if he acted like a cocky executive in the glitzy Mexico City studios. He wore dust-covered jeans and cowboy boots completed by jangling spurs, with aviator sunglasses perched atop his wild head of curly hair. “I liked it, that’s what the audience wants!” he exclaimed. “Drama!”

	Javier and Jefferson both looked at each other: Jefferson rolled his eyes subtly. [i]El Gran Atraco de San Juanito[/i] was just the same as Gutiérrez’s other works.

	“You know, I think we can finish this today. We still got some daylight left,” the director said, checking his watch. “It’s just about the right time too. How about we get you guys a break for a few minutes and then we’ll have you ride off into the sunset, Javier. We can wrap up shooting and head back to Chihuahua.”

	“Thank god,” Javier muttered. Despite his portrayal of a rugged frontiersman, the real Javier Cortez enjoyed air conditioning and good food as much as anyone else. “Can’t wait to get out of this heat.”

	The actors walked to the outside to where José Menendez, Eduardo’s actor and a man barely into his twenties getting his feet wet in cinema, had been grilling corn on a campfire near where the camera crew had set up a tent for shade. He waved them over, offering the tinfoil-wrapped ears of corn to Javier, Emily, and Jefferson. All of them took a seat on whatever they could find, mostly tree stumps and a log that someone had dragged over earlier that day. In a pot, José mixed the sauce for and used a camping spoon to drop a dollop on everyone’s snack. “I guess Manuel wants to film us… riding off into the sunset again,” José sighed. “It’ll be a late night then. I figured I’d make something.”

	“This shit’s tough, I get hungry,” Jefferson agreed. “All this walking around up these mountains, I feel like I’m back in the army.”

	“Probably better hours,” Emily mused as she took a bite into the corn, careful to not let the sauce drip onto her white dress.

	“Not really… we’re filming from dawn to dusk out here, even the military works a nine-to-five like everyone else.”

	Javier chuckled. “I just can’t wait to get back to the hotel.”

	“Why, so you can go trawl the bars and bring back a lady to your room?” Emily teased. She cocked her head sideways and raised her eyebrows at him with a smirk. “’I’m a big movie star, I’m a [i]cowboy[/i]! I’ll show you how to ride,’” she mocked him in a fake-gruff voice.

	“That’s not very ladylike,” Jefferson replied, half teasing her in return.

	“Yep, but I gotta be for my paycheck! Maybe eventually I won’t have to be tied to the goddamn train tracks for the fifth time. ‘Help me, cowboy! Help me!’”

	The group all shared a laugh as they kept digging into the corn that had been made. José checked his watch that he had stashed in his pocket: it wasn’t allowed on his costume, seeing as it was a timepiece made in 1950. “I think he wants to go right when the break ends. Not much of a break, huh?”

	Almost as if on cue, perhaps deliberately, Gutiérrez stepped out from behind a prop of a broken-down wagon cart and clapped his hands together. “You guys all fed up?” he asked. Even if he did think he was a better director than he really was, at least he cared about his actors. “Let’s get this all wrapped up so we can head home.”

	They had finished up their corn and tossed the tinfoil into a wastebin that had been brought out by one of the film crew. The corn itself was just tossed into the surrounding trees. The cast of the film got up from their improvised campsite and quickly got themselves back together. A cameraman had gotten back to his station on the film camera that he had been using to track the exterior shots and Gutiérrez rushed them back to their places. Another intern arrived with the clapperboard and waited until Javier and Emily had taken up spots beside the door to the hideout. He let the stick fall onto the wooden slate, producing its characteristic sound.

	“[i]El Gran Atraco de San Juanito[/i], ending scene! Take one! Action!”