See No Evil

                                        By Linda Bindner

        Lucia Donado gazed in exasperated amusement at the blue covered book lying on the floor between the two overstuffed chairs in the library.  She should be irritated at the negligence of the mess, but she couldn’t dredge up the proper emotion.  Don Diego must have left the room in a rush not to have noticed the book he’d been reading slide off the chair and onto the floor.  Don Alejandro, she knew, had gone to town in the light wagon for another bottle of wine, so he hadn’t just been reading in the library.  But young Master Diego was in the courtyard now, fencing with his former University professor, Sir Edmond Kendall, and as he had previously been in the library, he was the obvious culprit.  Not that she minded.  Her lips curled up in a fond smile.

Ever since she had come to the de la Vega hacienda as the head housekeeper two months ago, she had endeavored to keep her thoughts to herself.  But if anyone asked her, she would gladly tell them that in her opinion, the young patrón was akin to a walking saint.  He was always particularly kind to her, not once mocking her behind her back because her family had no wealth, never denigrating their humble background the way other young Caballeros she’d worked for had done.

And what about the reputation the young de la Vega had of being an indolent man, lethargic and anemic in the extreme, of being a peace loving waste of time?  She didn’t believe a word of it, especially now that she knew him personally.  His attitude of gentleness and respect surely baffled most citizens in the pueblo, and even angered some, but not her.  When he had smiled and thanked her for some small task on her second day in the hacienda, he had gained her loyalty for life.  No matter what unflattering thing that others said about him, Lucia knew better.

Hence, she would bend over backwards in defense of him, even to Don Alejandro if the situation required it.  Lucia certainly didn’t mind the occasionally messy library floor.  Cleaning up the odd mess from Don Diego was the least she could do for the one man who treated her with unending respect rather than more typical negligence of the wealthy of Los Angeles.

In fact, it was often her opinion that Don Diego worked too hard.  Most would tell her she was crazy, including his father, but she had seen the look of concentration glazing Don Diego’s eyes once too often to think he was as indolent and lazy as others claimed.  He was often too busy inventing things in that laboratory he secretly used to be as lethargic as others claimed.

Given all the evidence, one open book lying on the floor was nothing.  She gamely stooped to retrieve it, placing it reverently on a side table.  She flicked one last speck of dust off the cover with the rag in her hand, then righted the book so it would be easy for Don Diego to find later.   She straightened, glanced once around the room to make sure nothing else was amiss when a shout suddenly disturbed the quiet of midmorning.

That was odd.  The shout had come through the window in the corridor that led to the side garden.  As far as she knew, no one was using the garden at this warmer time of day.  After all, it was almost noon and Maria was in the kitchen right now, serving lunch.  Lucia had come to the front of the house merely to call Don Diego and his friend inside for the light noon meal.  Curious at the noise that had interrupted her mission, she crossed to the window and pushed aside the curtain.

There was the unlikely sight of Don Diego, sword in hand, facing his foreign friend, standing in what looked like the perfect stance for a duel.  But as she and everybody else in the pueblo of Los Angeles knew, Don Diego was a peace loving man, certainly not one to grab a weapon in order to enjoy a spontaneous bout of fencing.  He didn’t even know how to fence.

But he definitely looked like he was enjoying himself now.  He and the Englishman were facing off, swords at the ready, beaming.  Then still smiling, the Englishman attacked.

Lucia automatically winced.  She was sure Don Diego would miss the man’s excellent lunge and be left sporting a nasty bruise for his pains.

But that wasn’t what happened.  Even when the Englishman changed his lunge at the last second to a sideswipe, Don Diego expertly parried it as if he dealt with such blows on a daily basis.  In the next second, the two were dancing across the garden, shouts of excitement mixing with the clang of swords.  They fought first one way, then the other, both men swiping their swords with expert precision, both attempting to disarm their opponent, but neither inadvertently hurting the other.  The amount of control exerted in this unexpected sparring match was exceptional.  But not even such a high level of concentration could interrupt the cries of pure enjoyment.

Sir Edmond suddenly snapped a tree limb in Don Diego’s face, distracting him long enough to pull a knife from his waistband.  Lucia was about to call a warning to her patrón, not wanting him hurt, but she needn’t have worried.  Don Diego grabbed the rake that Juan the gardener had left leaning against the adobe wall surrounding the hacienda the instant the Englishman attacked with the knife, pushing it aside to slough off the attack in the fastest move she had witnessed in a sword fight, though Don Diego made it look easy.  Sir Edmond said something to Don Diego, making the younger man laugh aloud and say something glib back to him.

Lucia had never expected to see a move like that, so unexpected, so imaginative, especially performed by such a man as Don Diego.  It had been so elegantly simple, as if Don Diego was a true artist.  But that was ridiculous.  Only Zorro ever did creative things like that.

Mouth gaping, Lucia breathed the dry California air as the two opponents genially strolled behind the garden bench.  Don Diego said something that she couldn’t hear with her heart pounding her amazement through her ears like it was.  Sir Edmond replied, then without warning, Don Diego cried, “Look out!”

They ducked.  A shot zinged off the wall of the house not far from where Lucia stood hidden in the shadows near the window.  She tried to think quickly what she could do for her patrón in this suddenly dangerous situation, but her mind felt frozen, her body sluggish.

She hesitated long enough for two strange men to abruptly appear on horseback, just beyond the wall surrounding the hacienda.  They looked rough, with swords hanging at their waists and rifles strapped diagonally across their backs.  Sir Edmond cried what sounded like names, then sprinted towards the two men, followed instantly by Don Diego.

Again to Lucia’s astonishment, both men swiftly bounded over the hacienda wall.  There was no time to think of grabbing the pistol she knew that Don Alejandro kept locked in the escritoire specifically for shooting injured cattle and horses on the ranch.  In the next instant, Sir Edmond unseated one of the strange men from his horse, and Don Diego bodily yanked the other out of his saddle.  She had no idea where a man with such a reputation for laziness got his strength.  Don Diego allowed his chosen opponent to regain his feet, his sword bouncing with barely suppressed energy, ready when both strangers attacked.

The scene suddenly dissolved into glares of light, bright sword flashes, yells, and the sharp clang of metal.  Lucia saw none of it.  Her heart lodged in her throat, she had only enough time to draw in a strangled breath before one of the strange men lay dead on the ground, sliced by Sir Edmond’s knife, the other man easily disarmed, Don Diego squarely facing him across the dust of the road.

“Diego, kill him, kill him!” Sir Edmond cried.

        Don Dieo glanced at his friend, baffled.  “Why?”

The strange man took advantage of Don Diego’s momentary distraction.  He roughly shouldered the younger don aside, grabbed the reins of his horse, threw himself into the saddle, and galloped away as fast as he possibly could.

        All hesitation gone, Lucia grabbed hold of the window ledge, ready to launch herself into the garden, prepared to help at all costs.  If Don Diego wanted her to assist in a hurried burial of the man who had died, she would be a willing accomplice.  If he wanted her to speak of these events to no one, ever, she would do so.  If he wanted her to keep his secret till her dying day, she would.

For now she knew.  There was no way she could possibly mistake those moves she had seen in the garden and just outside the hacienda wall.  She had been witness to those exact moves a hundred times before in the town plaza.  Those were the moves of Zorro, she was sure of it.

        Zorro, the defender of the people, the hero of the pueblo, the number one enemy of Alcalde Ramon, the masked bandit that the twisted Alcalde was determined to find and hang.  After watching Don Diego bouncing his sword the way he had, of enjoying the duel the way he had, of baiting his opponent with such gleeful abandon, Lucia was certain.  Don Diego was her kind and gentle employer, but he was also the pueblo’s hero.  And like everyone else in the pueblo, there was nothing she wouldn’t do for Zorro.

        But just as she prepared to launch herself into the courtyard leading into the garden, eager to help, another noise abruptly made her pause.

Don Alejadro’s wagon appeared over the horizon, rattling onto the scene.  Don Diego and his friend stood over the man who’d fallen to the dust just as the wagon ground to a halt.

The two men holding swords spoke to her older employer in the wagon, but Lucia didn’t hear a single word, for another thought had suddenly accosted her mind.  What if someone else had seen what she had seen?

Terror gripped her, and she glanced frantically around.  But she was alone, the only person in the front part of the house because she had volunteered to call Don Diego and his friend to lunch.  Nobody else had seen what she had seen.  Every other servant on the ranch was in the kitchen, enjoying the food that Maria had prepared.  They were surely all still there.  Only Señorita Escalante could draw in more men with her cooking than Maria could.  Lucia was never so glad for Maria and her culinary talents than right now!

She vowed to herself that she would die a painful death before she’d divulge a hint of what she’d seen in the garden that day.  If asked, she’d lie.  Zorro’s secret was safe with her.  Best of all, Don Diego was safe.

A thought suddenly occurred to her: should she at least tell Señorita Escalante?  She was in love with Zorro, after all, and that in effect meant she was in love with Don Diego.  She had professed to be in love with Zorro for years.

But in the next second, Lucia’s resolve hardened.  No, she could not even tell Señorita Escalante.  If the señorita inadvertently told someone else, and that someone accidentally informed the Alcalde…  No, she couldn’t risk it.  She could tell no one.

Lucia crept farther into the shadows encasing the hacienda corridor.  When she deemed it was completely safe, she headed back to the kitchens, more than ready to lie through her teeth about what she had been doing, especially about what she had seen.  Nothing and no one would ever induce her to reveal the secret she was now privy to.  As far as she was concerned, the old saying would be her new motto for the rest of her life: ‘See no evil, say no evil.’  Till her dying day.

The End