Chapter 12

        They practiced the spelling signs until Diego could spell anything he wanted to spell.  By then, supper had come and gone, the sun was setting a fiery orange in a bowl of blue sky, and Victoria was still breathing comfortably.

        The door to the Alcalde’s office suddenly opened and Felipe scurried through, shadowed by Mendoza.

        “The Alcalde’s having dinner at the tavern,” the Sergeant imparted with a hasty glance over his shoulder.  “I can give you five minutes.”  He flashed five fingers at Felipe, then jerked his thumb back towards the plaza.

Felipe nodded to show he understood.  Then the Sergeant disappeared, leaving them alone.

Felipe immediately turned to Diego.

“Felipe, thank goodness you’re here!”  Diego gripped the bars separating him from the young man.  “Is my father all right?”

Felipe nodded.

“The servants?  The vaqueros?  The ranch?”

Felipe nodded once more, then asked what had happened with a gesture to Diego, the cell, the jail.

“Ignacio wouldn’t let me see Victoria, so I punched him,” Diego said matter-of-factly, then gave a disparaging roll of his eyes.  “Now, he let’s me see Victoria all I want.”

Wide eyed, Felipe shook the bars dividing him from Diego.

“I don’t know,” Diego said.  “Technically, I attacked a government official.  He can keep me here as long as he wants.  I’ll certainly have to spend the night.”
        “So will I,” Victoria said.  “Zorro hasn’t turned himself in yet, and since I’m the bait for Zorro…”  Her shrug indicated she might be incarcerated for the immediate future.  “Tell Don Alejandro that we’ll be back as soon as we can, por favor.”

“And not to worry,” Diego added before he noted the look of shock on Felipe’s face as he goggled at Victoria.  “What?”

Still wide eyed, Felipe flapped his fingers together to denote speaking, pointing at Victoria.

“Yes!” Diego said, and smiled.  “Isn’t it amazing?  We were just discussing what Victoria did today that might lead us to whatever caused this.”

Felipe turned questioning eyes on Diego.

“We’re not sure what caused this,” Diego told him, then vowed, “We’ll try everything again if we have to until we figure this out.”

Sergeant Mendoza abruptly appeared at the door.  “Five minutes.  Time to go.”

“Tell Father we’re fine in here,” Diego said to Felipe before the young man could follow Mendoza out of the jail.

“And not to worry!” Victoria said as he passed her cell with the Sergeant.  The door shut behind them, and they were alone again.

Several moments went by.  At last, Victoria sighed into the quiet of the jail, sucking in air again as if she was tasting the mana of the gods.  “I guess we’ll have to wait till morning to see if this lasts,” she said just as the door to the jail opened and de Soto sauntered through.

        “What you’ll have to wait for is that outlaw to show himself,” the Alcalde said, surveying Victoria’s cell as if he was looking for Zorro himself hiding in the shadows.

        “Is your plan not quite going to plan?” Victoria asked in fake sympathy.

        Her slightly derisive tone snapped de Soto out of his search.  “Of course it is,” he confidently said.  “It’s just taking longer for word to get around to him than I thought it would.  He usually knows what’s going on in the pueblo long before this, especially when the señorita’s involved.”

        “Señora,” Diego quickly corrected, aggravated.

        “Whatever,” de Soto said with a negligent wave of his hand.  “I bet you don’t have long to wait now.”

        “I hope not,” Victoria said, yawning a huge yawn.  “I want to go home to bed.”

        De Soto’s lips curled up and he chuckled, half sneer, half rude snort.  “No hacienda feather beds for you.  Since Zorro hasn’t shown himself yet, you’re here for the night.”  He gazed sadly at Victoria, his own expression holding a much less subtle form of mockery.  “Perhaps he doesn’t want you now that you’re sick, as you claim.  Or now that you’re…married.”  He raked Diego with his cold gaze as if he couldn’t quite believe that someone like Victoria could ever be truly married to such a phlegmatic man as Diego.  “I’d get comfortable if I were you.”  He gestured to the cots in each cell with another laugh and disappeared through the open door to his office.

Diego understood de Soto’s unspoken insult well enough, and spelled something in the direction of the closed office door.

Victoria laughed into her hand.

Diego grinned.  “What?”

“I’ll never tell the Alcalde what you just called him.”
        “Good thing.”  Diego’s grin didn’t diminish.  “I’d probably be jailed for that alone.”
        “Probably,” she agreed, trying to fluff a perennially flat pillow.  The blanket on the cot was musty and full of dirt.  Victoria shook it out, then wrapped herself in it anyway.  “Since I can breathe now, even a musty old blanket won’t keep me from the best night’s sleep I’ve had in many months.”  With a contented smile, she lay on her back and closed her eyes.

                                                Z Z Z

Despite sleeping as well as can be expected on a lumpy, rotten mattress, Victoria’s breathing was once again raspy and shallow by the next morning.

“It’s not as bad as it was… before,” she told Diego, experimentally breathing in the stale and dusty air inside the jail.  “But it’s not as good… as it was last night… though it’s not as hard… to think.”

Diego hummed thoughtfully.  “Then it must have been something you did or ate yesterday morning after I left for the Indian camp.  Did Maria add anything new to the enchiladas you had for lunch?”

Victoria shook her head.  “They were nothing special… just enchiladas.”

Diego tried hard to remember what foods they’d already considered.  “It can’t be tomatoes or the beans.”

“The sauce?”

Diego again shook his head.  “Unless she added something neither of us knows about, I doubt it was the enchilada sauce.”  He shook the bars in frustration.  “If only we could talk to her instead of being stuck in here.”  He paused for a moment, then called as loud as he could, “Sergeant Mendoza!”

Mendoza appeared minutes later, fussing with the buttons on his military tunic.  “Si, Don Diego,” he said in a distracted voice.

Diego ignored the sergeant’s state of early morning disarray to ask, “I wonder if you can ride out to the hacienda to bring back Maria, our cook.  I need to speak to her.”

Mendoza gazed at Diego, then took in his surrounding cell.  “Is there something you want her to cook for you?”  Then he smiled.  “I hear they’re serving carne asada at the tavern.  If you like, I can–”
        “No, it’s not that,” Diego explained.  “I want to ask her if she did something special to the food yesterday.  Victoria’s sick again, and there might be some connection.”

Mendoza’s brows rose in question.  “The Señorita’s sick?”

“Señora,” Diego corrected, too tired now to be aggravated.

Mendoza looked perplexed.  “What?”

Diego shook his head.  “Never mind.  Can you get her, por favor?”

Sergeant Mendoza’s face fell in a swoop.  “I don’t know, Don Diego.  Zorro might show up at any moment, and–”
        “Has he still not shown up?” Victoria asked.

Diego was sure he heard more sarcastic sympathy in her voice, but he was also sure that Mendoza missed the entire thing.

“The Alcalde’s confident he will come today,” Mendoza said.

As if on cue, they all heard a distinct thump coming from the front office.

“Maybe that’s him now,” Victoria said.

Diego added, “Or else a lancer is practicing throwing a knife at the wall.”

“MENDOZA!”

Sergeant Mendoza scurried into the Alcalde’s office, forgetting to shut the door behind him.  “Si, Alcalde.”

“Look at this,” Diego and Victoria heard de Soto say.

The sound of rustling paper filled the jail.  “It’s a knife, mi Alcalde.  And a note.”

De Soto huffed through his nose.  “I know that, dolt!”

“It’s from Zorro,” Mendoza reported.

“He threw it at the office door, then rode out of town so fast, we had no hope of catching him.”

“He threw it… and it stuck?”  Mendoza’s voice definitely held admiration now.

“We can add destruction of public property to his list of crimes,” the Alcalde said in satisfaction.  “Read it!”

Mendoza read, “I work alone, Alcalde.  Let the Señora go, or next time I’ll leave more than a note.  And it’s signed by Zorro.”

Felipe, was the thought that immediately ran through Diego’s mind.  His knife throwing skills are definitely improving.

        “But what’s this number 1 next to Zorro’s signature mean?” Mendoza enquired.  “Is there a Zorro number 2?”

“Possibly,” de Soto replied, followed quickly by, “No!” followed by an irritated huff.  “Of course there’s only one Zorro.  The number 1 must mean the note, not the man!”  The sound of a drawer opening and shutting filtered into the jail.  “Gather the men.”

        “But Don Diego just–”

        “Now, Sergeant!”

        “Si, Alcalde.”

        A second Zorro was possibly coming?

Diego cleared the wrinkles of befuddled confusion from his forehead just as Mendoza scuttled into the jail.  The Sergeant unfortunately remembered to shut the door this time, ending the impromptu eavesdropping.  “I’m sorry, Don Diego.  Maybe I’ll have time to ride out to your hacienda later.”

        “Perfectly all right, Sergeant,” Diego absolved, so happy that he’d had a spying session without even trying that he was willing to be magnanimous.  “Perhaps you can run to the tavern to send Ramon over here instead?”  He smiled.  “Breakfast is on me.”

        Mendoza’s eyes lit up.  “Oh, thank you, Don Diego!  I’ll send Ramon right over.”

        The minute he disappeared, Victoria raised her eyebrows.  “Isn’t that like buying… him off?”

        “I pay for my conveniences,” Diego said with a smile of satisfaction.

        The earsplitting scream of a horse echoed through the pueblo in the next second.  Lancers shouted and ran back and forth outside the jail, throwing the cuartel’s double doors open wide.  Red-coated soldiers spilled into the plaza, de Soto among them.

“Shoot him!” de Soto yelled.  The lancers scrambled to bring their rifles to bear, sleep still making their actions sluggish and slow.

Diego and Victoria peered into the plaza through their cell windows, trying to see what was causing so much excitement.

        A moment later, Zorro raced past the cuartel, followed by the pop of several rifles, but the soldiers were too late; Zorro and steed sped under the pueblo sign and down the road leading north.

        “Si, that’s Zorro,” Victoria said, her voice filled with obvious pride.

        “But that’s not Toronado,” Diego said, bewildered.  “Did you see that deep red color?  That horse would look black at night, but… the sun’s shining so bright today.”  If that was Felipe disguised as Zorro, why would he ride a different horse?

        He wouldn’t, he answered himself, unless something has happened to Toronado.

Before this new worry could take hold of Diego’s mind, Sergeant Mendoza led Ramon through the door to the cuartel.  “Don’t make any noise,” Mendoza whispered to them.  “The Alcalde wouldn’t let Señor Ramon in to see you.  But he’s busy in the plaza; he’ll never notice.”  Mendoza hurried to join the men, drawing his sword as he went.

Victoria laughed, shaking her head with fondness even as she rolled her eyes in exasperation.  “As if a sword will make any… difference.”

They watched Mendoza join the Alcalde in staring in the direction Zorro had vanished.  A minute later, Victoria quietly said, “The Alcalde’s busy.  I think… it’s safe now.

Ignoring the commotion in the plaza, Diego explained the situation to Ramon, sure to keep his voice low.

Ramon, thankfully, was quick to believe in Victoria’s invisible illness as soon as he’d heard his sister’s halting speech.  “I’ll be back with your cook as fast as I can.”

“Before you go–”  But Diego’s question was cut off by the sudden appearance of a rider coming from south of the pueblo.

Thump!  Another knife punctured the Alclade’s office door as a man dressed in black astride a huge white horse galloped away.

“It’s Zorro… again!” a lancer hollered as the man disappeared the way he had come.

“Shoot him!” bellowed the Alcalde.

Unfortunately, every lancer in the pueblo was facing the opposite direction.  Zorro was gone before any soldier could swing his rifle around.

“Bah!” the Alcalde swore, striding out of sight towards his office, where sounds indicated he yanked the knife out of the wood and unfurled a note wrapped around the blade.  Seconds later, the office door slammed shut.

“I better go,” Ramon whispered, running out the cuartel door just as de Soto entered through the door to the office.  He strode directly to Victoria’s cell and thrust a scroll at her.  “I bet you know the meaning of this note.”

Victoria took the scroll from him and sank onto her bed to read it.  “Zorro number 2?”  The note fluttered as her hand dropped to her side.  “Honestly Alcalde, I have no… idea.”  She collapsed back to lean on the wall behind her, breathing hard.

De Soto held out his hand.  “I want it back.  Bring it here.”

“Already too tired,” Victoria said in irritation.  “Come get it… yourself.”

“Señorita!” de Soto yelled.

“Señora,” Diego muttered.

De Soto ignored him.  “I’m warning you!”

“Or what?” Victoria asked, showing some spirit even as she wilted.  “You’ve already arrested… me.  What will you do… next - hang me?”

The Alcalde snarled, “Don’t tempt me!”

Diego had only a split second filled with dread to imagine that scenario when Victoria’s choked laughter cut him off.  “How can I be bait… if I’m dead?”

        Before de Soto could react, Diego rattled the bars of his cell, suddenly menacing.  “Harm one hair on her head, and Zorro will be the least of your problems.”

        De Soto didn’t even deign to look at him.  “I’m safe with you in jail, de la Vega.”
        “I may be in jail,” Diego quietly said, “but the 50 other people on the de la Vega ranch are not.”

        “Ha!  House servants and Don Alejandro?  They’re no match for my lancers.”  Bravado filled the Alcalde’s voice.

        “Your lancers will have to shoot them to stop them,” Diego calmly said.  “Then whoever is left will go after you.  Are you prepared to kill 50 innocent people?”

        Before the Alcalde could respond, there was a sound from the office door.

        Thump!

        “Another Zorro!” yelled Sergeant Mendoza.  Diego watched through the cell’s window as he scurried to the office just as someone galloped swiftly away.  “He left a note, mi Alcalde!”

        “What a surprise.”  The bars of Diego’s cell gave a warning rattle, then de Soto crossed to his office, slamming the door.

        Victoria shook her head.  “You shouldn’t antagonize him… Diego.  I’m not… that important.”

        “Of course you are,” Diego quietly argued.  “You’re important to everybody at the ranch, but especially to me.”

        Victoria smiled, affection in her eyes.  “But I’m not worth… you getting killed over.”

        Diego smiled back, though his gesture was a hint more apologetic.  “Don’t worry about me; remember, I’m safe in here… Ignacio said so.”

“And if he lets you escape in the… chaos?”

Diego did give a genuine smile this time.  “I promise to punch him again… though next time, I’ll wear Father’s leather gloves.”