The Legend of Zorro

by Scott Ciencin

  Her mouth fuming, her lips tasting of bitter ash, Elena threw an arm around Armand and crushed him to her with a deep, sensual kiss. His body tensed, then relaxed, his tongue reaching toward hers, his hands greedily groping her back while small animal sounds rose from deep in his throat. Elena’s eyes were open—her gaze thrown high to the rafters where Alejandro hung above them, peering down with a maddened jealous stare.

  Take the hint and get out of here, blast you! thought Elena as she tossed the pipe over her shoulder, only to hear it land beneath the balcony. A horse’s snigger sounded from below: Tornado.

  Unable to stand Armand’s pawing any longer, Elena wrenched herself free of the count. Shuddering, they both exhaled the puff of smoke she had just consumed.

  Her chest heaving, Elena studied the man, wondering how such ugliness could reside within someone so handsome. Don’t be fooled. The devil wears a pleasing form. Evil is charming and considerate…insidious in all its ways.

  With eyes half-lidded with lust, Armand asked as if in a dream, “Is that a yes?”

  Elena’s eyes sparkled with promise. “It’s a definite maybe.”

  Ardently, he caressed her hair. “I know it’s sudden given what you’ve just been through, but I want to give you everything your ex-husband couldn’t.”

  Elena risked a glance up at Alejandro. He was shaking with rage. She whirled from Armand to keep his attention fully focused on her, cocking her head invitingly to one side, sweeping her hair away to expose a lovely expanse of her neck.

  Armand breezed in behind her, looping the necklace around her tender flesh, relishing the chance to press himself close once more. “I don’t expect you to answer now. Whatever you decide, the necklace is yours.”

  She struggled to remain composed as the clasp snapped closed with a petite click that sounded to Elena like a prison door slamming shut. She shuddered as his hands went to the bare flesh of her neck, then inspiration struck. Slipping away, she left him lurching awkwardly after her as she pretended to glance at her watch.

  “Oh my goodness,” Elena said breathlessly, “I lose track of time being with you. I should put Joaquin to bed.”

  Armand plastered a smile into place as he ran one trembling hand through his hair. His face was flushed. “Of course, children require”—a hint of bitterness crept into his voice—“attention.”

  Elena led Armand back inside, her arm shooting out behind the count, signaling Alejandro to go!

  Deftly as a fox, he dropped onto the balcony behind them, his eyes burning with rage. He wanted to draw his sword, to challenge this man here and now—but a quick backward glance from Elena stilled the frenzy rising in his heart. Anger simmered in her eyes—tempered by concern. Whether that worry was for her precious count or for Alejandro himself, the masked man could not tell, but it was enough to calm him. Turning his back on the couple, he leaped from the balcony, landing squarely in Tornado’s saddle.

  A nasty trail of smoke threaded its way back to Alejandro and he started at the sight of the pipe dangling from Tornado’s fluttery lips, its red embers ablaze. He snatched it away and resisted the urge to give the stallion’s thick skull a good thumping. “How many times have I told you? Smoking will make you hoarse.”

  The stallion chuffed and blustered, but Alejandro tossed the pipe away and spurred his heels into Tornado’s flanks.

  The stallion galloped off, Alejandro staring at the moon and the stars, wondering—wondering—if that look of Elena’s just might have been meant for him.

  Despite his pain at seeing her with another man, his heart leaped at the thought.

  Chapter 10

  The clock in the Town Square struck twelve times, its echoes ringing along the moonlit cobblestones of Stockton Street in San Francisco, where Elena cautiously prowled. This was the only stretch in which the Chinese had been allowed to rent rooms in the city when their migration began. She passed a Chinese couple who eyed her suspiciously, and saw the golden gleam of lanterns dim in windows as she hurried by. She knew that to many of those living here, she was fan kwai—a foreign devil—and might be seen as an agent of the hated police who brutalized and oppressed them in their homeland, simply because she was not Chinese. The street emptied into Portsmouth Square, where Elena crossed purposefully, colorful and exotic architecture springing into view. Large red pagoda-style arches and bronze lion statues breezed past as she hurried on. These building façades had been shipped section-by-section from the residents’ homeland transforming this area into what many called “Little China” or simply “Chinatown.”

  A rickshaw passed Elena, but it was not the one that had taken her this far. She always thought it best to be dropped off several blocks away from her true destination as a precaution; she had been followed before, after all. A ceremonial wreath adorned the door of a newly opened restaurant, a gift meant to wish the owners good fortune and prosperity. Attempting to steady her frayed nerves, Elena made a note to frequent the place in better times.

  She stopped before a curio shop, tapping lightly at the door. A wizened Chinese man with a single wisp of curling ghost-white hair greeted her, his black silk robe rustling like a dove’s wings—even though it bore the pattern of a fearsome jade dragon. His bare feet curled in the cool night air.

  “We’re closed,” hissed the merchant.

  “I was hoping to buy a gift for my ailing grandmother,” Elena announced, her skin growing clammy as her heart fluttered in her chest. She had to do this now, while her passions were high. But the merchant only stared at her impassively.

  She held firm a moment longer. Then his expression softened and he opened the door for her to enter. Good. They were here.

  The merchant—who did not give his name—led her through the darkened reaches of his shop. The ethereal tang of jasmine rose in the air and flickering candles cast yellow-white light upon shelves overflowing with exotic curios. The light caressed the fat belly of a white porcelain laughing Buddha and leaped up the sides of a green and yellow enameled Hu shaped vase before settling comfortably upon its lion mask handles. The eyes of an Arita dragon peered at her from a center dish in a nearby display, while crowded between oil jars and ivory candle lamps, snuff and Cizhou bottles, wineglasses, vases, and silver spoons, stood the imperious form of Zhenwu, the Daoist God of the North. He was protector of the Ming Dynasty’s household, a god known as the Perfected Warrior who sported the attributes of both the turtle and the snake.

  Elena regarded the tiny statue with a sharp quick nod of respect, a gesture that was not lost on the elderly shopkeeper. He whispered an ancient prayer for her safety as he lifted a curtain to reveal the shop’s back room.

  Harrigan and Pike glanced up from their game of Mahjong and beamed broad false smiles at her as the old shopkeeper withdrew.

  “I’d offer you my chair, but I assume you’d find it patronizing,” Harrigan said in his reedy, ratlike voice. Harrigan chimed in with a nasty laugh and a condescending snort. She could smell the brute’s breath from halfway across the room. He was liquored up some, but nowhere near falling down drunk.

  Determined to remain businesslike, Elena strode to the table briskly, pulled out the handkerchief she carried, and deposited it on the table. “Armand received this tonight.”

  Slowly rubbing his hand over his meaty face, Pike stared down at the offering for a moment, as if contemplating how to best draw out the anticipation. Then he snatched it up, shook it out, and surveyed the etching. The muscles on one side of his face twitched and he handed it to his partner with a grave expression.

  Pike read it, his gaze narrowing as he looked back to Elena. “Who sent it?”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Elena admitted, “I have no idea, but I think the colonel’s involved as well.”

  Harrigan nodded absently then waved one of his huge paws at her. “You’ll find a way to infiltrate the meeting tomorrow. At all costs.”

  Elena reeled with astonishment and gaped at her blackmailers. She’d hoped to buy
her way out of her deal with these wretched men, not find herself in even deeper. She angrily waved her hand before Pike’s ugly face. “And how exactly am I supposed to do that—serve them tea?”

  With a raspy chuckle, Pike leaned back in his chair and rocked a bit, regaling Elena with a toothy grin. “You’re a resourceful woman, you’ll think of something.”

  Elena’s face blanched and her body went rigid as she realized that Pike was serious. “You have to let me tell Alejandro the truth.”

  Pike’s round face flushed with amusement. “Why on earth would we do that?”

  Harrigan blinked with incredulity. “He’s uncontrollable.”

  “He can help,” pleaded Elena. “I need his help. This is what he does.”

  Harrigan and Pike exchanged guarded looks, then shrugged and went back to their game, no longer interested in the woman standing before them.

  When Elena did not leave, Harrigan chided, “Oh, are you now defending the very virtues that were destroying your marriage?”

  “Or have you forgotten how unhappy you were?” Pike put in dryly. “Remember, we watched you for months before we recruited you.”

  Trembling with fury, Elena whipped her hand, sweeping the Mahjong pieces off the table, smashing them against the nearby wall.

  Harrigan snickered. “Now, now Elena, are we cross?”

  “He’s my husband!” she screamed. “You tore my family apart!”

  Exchanging bemused glances, the pair scooped up the scattered tiles and began replacing them on the board.

  “Well now, that’s a very sad story, señora,” Pike commiserated.

  Elena whirled and flung herself at the door. “Go to hell!”

  Clearing his throat, Harrigan added, “Here’s another: once there was a man who wore a black mask…”

  Elena froze, the breath catching in her throat.

  “He had many enemies,” continued Harrigan. “And one day, two handsome fellows…” He nodded at his partner. “Why, one of them looked like you.”

  “And the other like you,” Pike added with an appreciative wink.

  “They…’’—Harrigan drew quotations in the air with his thin fingers, revealing his hairy palms—“ ‘accidentally’ let it slip to the enemies of the masked man, that his real name was de la Vega.”

  “And that he had a son,” Pike put in helpfully.

  Elena’s face grew hot. She dug her nails into her palms and felt the veins in her neck pulse and swell dangerously. She begged God’s forgiveness for her overwhelming desire to slit the throats of these squealing pigs.

  “Of course, the story doesn’t have to end that way,” Harrigan offered off-handedly.

  “Report to us after the meeting, Elena,” ordered Pike, his attention drifting back to the game. “All our futures depend on it.”

  Elena’s tormentors did not look at her again. With a heavy heart, she left the back room, nodding once more at the temple idol and the sad merchant as she left the shop.

  A California flag whipped high above the barren desert in the warm breeze, the blistering sun beating down upon its rusting flagpole and the bright silver train tracks beside it. The gleaming tracks reached out boastfully, stretching far and wide until they vanished into the wavering horizon. Five heavy wagons creaked to a stop near the flag, Father Quintero disembarking from the first to lead an exodus of cranky, hot and tired students from their stifling reaches. The group gathered around the base of the flag, Joaquin nudging the pudgy arm of his pal Ricardo as he nodded toward the shady cover of a well. Once they were seated in the shadows, Joaquin quickly withdrew parchment and pencil. Using his books as a makeshift desk, the boy began a sketch of their know-it-all teacher waving his stick around, the man’s nose almost as long as the twisted cane.

  “Welcome to Bear Point, children,” said Father Quintero, flashing a superior grin. “It was on this desolate spot that our state flag was raised for the first time. Two days from now, our governor will be hosting a celebration here to honor California’s statehood—”

  Father Quintero broke off suddenly. Joaquin didn’t have to look up to know that his teacher had fixed on him. The older man’s gaze was a hot heavy weight that had suddenly been laid upon his shoulders, adding to the afternoon swelter.

  “Joaquin de la Vega,” snapped Father Quintero, “are you paying attention?”

  Tensing, Joaquin flashed his teacher a winning smile. “Bear Point,” Joaquin said quickly, scratching away with his pencil as he pretended to take notes. “Celebration. Got it.”

  Father Quintero spun on his heels, no easy task in the desert sand. Joaquin rolled his eyes to Ricardo as if to comment on their teacher’s meaningless bluster. The Bear Flag Revolt was a very minor skirmish in which the Californios killed two Americans. It was rumored that John C. Fremont, the noted adventurer, may have been on a secret mission for President Polk, who some believe wanted to provoke a war with Mexico to get and win California for the United States, like what had been done with Texas. Joaquin had learned more about history from reading the latest issue of Boys’ and Girls’ Magazine and Fireside Companion than he thought he ever would from listening to his teacher’s boring lectures. This field trip was a complete waste of time…

  Or was it?

  Joaquin’s brow suddenly furrowed as he stared deeply into the desert. Rolling clouds of sand blossomed in the distance, heralding the arrival of yet another horse-drawn wagon. Instinct, or perhaps simply boredom, drove Joaquin to study the wagon as it approached, his hand absently applying crosshatching to his sketch to keep up the illusion of note taking. There was nothing remarkable to note about the wagon—at first. But when it came close enough to cross the tracks and head toward the well, Joaquin bristled with sudden fury, snapping his pencil in two as he recognized the driver.

  Jacob McGivens.

  Cracking the reins, the scarred man drew the wagon up close to the well, his men hooting and hollering as they hopped off to fill their canteens. McGivens joined them, roughly shoving his way past the others to plunge his canteen into the bracing well water.

  Joaquin ignored the rough splashes that spit in his face. He glared at the murderer of Guillermo Cortez—or so everyone around town was saying—an outlaw with a price on his head, taking in the dark marvel of the man’s boldness and contempt.

  Father Quintero droned on. The other students barely showed any interest.

  Did no one else here recognize this man? How many gunslingers with wooden teeth and a cross seared into his skull happened about these parts every day?

  McGivens caught Joaquin’s look and nodded at the boys. “Scorcher of a day, ain’t it, kids?”

  Nodding, Joaquin shot him a disinterested smile. Though they had met before, Joaquin’s slingshot nearly costing the scarred man his chance to escape on Election Day, McGivens did not seem to recognize him.

  What should I do? wondered Joaquin as he battled his desperate desire to challenge the killer. Señor Zorro would never just plunge headfirst into something so serious. He would always have a plan—and then another plan and another in case something went wrong. I don’t have a single one…

  Father Quintero cleared his throat and called to the wagon men’s leader. “Is there something we can help you with, señor?”

  Tipping his hat, McGivens said, “Don’t let me interrupt the lesson, Father. Just on my way to do the Lord’s work.”

  A shudder ripped through Joaquin and his gaze narrowed at the sound of those words. McGivens was up to something. If only there was some way to figure out exactly what that was…

  Father Quintero nodded and continued his lecture, drawing the attention of all his other students while McGivens and his cutthroats laughed and growled nasty little jokes to each other.

  “That there Mexican in his dress is what I call a snorter,” McGivens declared with a throaty chuckle. Great gusts of laughter burst from his companions.

  Joaquin hated himself for agreeing with the gunman, but it was true. Father Quintero was
like an easily agitated or excited horse. The man certainly brayed enough.

  Then it came to him: Now’s my chance. I can find out what these men are doing, where they are going, and give some helpful information to the padre for Señor Zorro…

  Silently, Joaquin crept to the gunman’s wagon and scurried beneath it. Studying the undercarriage, he quickly found hand and footholds. He secured himself to the frame just as the scarred man dunked his canteen in the water for the last time and mounted back up with his men. The wagon dipped lower to the ground with the weight of its passengers, pressing the back of Joaquin’s head against the sand. Adjusting his hold, Joaquin gasped as he heard the reins crack and felt the wagon bustle forward. As his back scraped the desert, he hauled himself higher into the underframe, turning his head to avoid the clouds of dust and stone that kicked up from a nearby wheel.

  He saw Ricardo looking around frantically, his gaze suddenly fixing right on him!

  Hanging by one arm, Joaquin pressed a finger to his lips and signaled his friend to keep quiet. Ricardo sat there frozen, only budging when Father Quintero led the other children away.

  The wagon rolled on, its undercarriage bouncing and creaking. The steady rhythm lulled Joaquin after a time and made him feel sleepy, the scorching heat rising from the desert floor enveloping him like a warm blanket. Joaquin knew that he would tumble to the ground if he relaxed his grip and that McGivens or one of his men would certainly spot him scrambling on the otherwise empty stretch behind the wagon—provided he wasn’t first ground to a pulp beneath one of the heavy churning wooden wheels.

  Struggling to clear his head, Joaquin focused beyond the racket of the wagon wheels and listened for any sounds that might give clues to the route McGivens was taking. In one of the many tales of Zorro the padre had told Joaquin, the masked man was captured and taken to an enemy’s secret stronghold for questioning. The sounds he’d heard while locked in a chest strapped atop a rocking wagon allowed him to deduce exactly where they had gone, so when the opportunity presented itself for the hero to send a message for help, he’d been able to give his exact location.