The Legend of Zorro

by Scott Ciencin

  “Any further objections?” Armand asked calmly. When he was certain there would be no further foolishness, he gestured for all of his fellows to come with him. “Good, now if you’d be kind enough to follow me…”

  Armand glided to a cobblestone containing the serpent’s eye and tapped it three times. He stepped away just as the great circular crest rotated, the cobbles clearly a clever cover for a large metal iris that spun and sank back, to reveal a spiraling staircase leading underground.

  Alejandro and Elena exchanged wide startled glances, then scrambled from the couch to the door, flinging themselves into the courtyard. They followed the strange knights down into the darkness just as the iris whipped closed and clanked shut behind them.

  Thunder crashed against the door to Mission Santa Lucia’s chapel, the sound echoing through the rafters and summoning the annoyed Fray Felipe. His forehead creased with his vexation as he saw the locked door buckle beneath the rain of angry blows delivered from the other side. Unless Felipe had missed his guess, the groundlessly proud Fiorentino Duval was in his cups once again and at his doorstep. Yes, Duval had probably come to complain about Felipe counseling his wife to take a good job that had been offered to her so that someone in their family would be earning enough money to feed their children.

  Felipe gruffly reached for the door when suddenly it flew open, the lock snapping apart, bits of wood and steel biting into the brother’s quickly upraised hands.

  Jacob McGivens strolled into the chapel, smiling his awful, wooden-toothed grin. His posse burst in behind him, immediately fanning out and surveying the place to see if the padre was alone.

  Felipe’s eyes were hooded and dark as he gazed at the gunman. “Unless you’ve come to confess, you have no business here, McGivens.”

  McGivens snorted then fixed Felipe with a twisted smile. “Funny you should mention confession, Padre…since you’re obliged to keep the secrets of your flock, that is.”

  Joaquin appeared at the study door and two of McGivens’s men eased toward him.

  Felipe tensed at the sight of the boy. For once, Joaquin, why couldn’t you have stayed put? His features set to brook no argument, Felipe commanded, “Go back inside, niño.”

  The boy stood rock still, his angry stare boring into the back of McGivens’s skull. He didn’t seem to care about the men slowly closing on him—or about Felipe’s demand.

  McGivens ignored the lad. He drew closer, his foul breath preceding him. “Padre… who…is…Zorro?”

  Fray Felipe raised his chin and smiled roguishly. “You know Zorro…he could be anyone at all.”

  McGivens motioned to his men, and they spread out through the chapel, poking around and knocking over candlesticks, shoving at the altar and posing comically with the statue of the sainted mother, their rough laughter echoing to the rafters. The scarred man sauntered near, his hand reaching out and settling on the crucifix necklace dangling beneath Felipe’s throat. Felipe tensed, prepared for the gunman to yank it from him. Then a strange light came into McGivens’s cruel dark eyes. The gunman reached into his own coat—and withdrew a similar crucifix necklace.

  “See now, Padre?” said McGivens, his expression softening as he glanced down reverently at the crucifixes, though the fanatical gleam remained. “We’re both men of God. You can tell me…”

  Felipe was speechless. McGivens meant what he said. The lunatic honestly believed himself to be a man of the lord.

  A tall man with the crimson scarf cleared his raspy throat. “Hey, boss!”

  McGivens turned to see one of his men holding up the bar of soap stolen by Zorro. He looked back to Felipe, chuckling sorrowfully. “The Lord hates a liar.”

  Felipe thought of the bar of soap and the open book sitting upon his desk. When these men find the annals detailing the enemies of the church, with the serpent-globe brand in plain sight, the time for games would be over.

  “Alright,” Felipe said with a sigh of defeat. “I’ll tell you.”

  McGivens grinned and nodded, glancing back at his men as if to say, See? Now that’s the way to handle this here kind a situation—

  His hand quick as lightning, Felipe upended a candelabra and smashed it against McGivens’s head. McGivens staggered back, clutching at his ringing skull, as Felipe frantically motioned to Joaquin.

  “Run!” shouted Felipe.

  Joaquin bolted for the door. A trio of men darted for him, but the bulky forms of the attackers now rushing for Felipe blocked the padre’s view. McGivens’s thugs were unmindful of the weapon clutched tightly in the padre’s hands, oblivious to the expert fighting stance the man of God had slipped into instinctively, knees slightly bent, weight expertly distributed, his focus on the shoulders of the charging pair. By observing the tilt of the shoulders, he could gage what direction his opponents would move in and get an idea of what specific attack they might use.

  The men were younger than Felipe, hard and grizzled and full of bluster and the belief in their own immortality. Wild straggly brown hair flowed past the shoulders of the first, a chunky mountain man. The other was taller, thinner, more refined, his moustache neatly trimmed, his face unshaven: a dandy in disgrace. The men didn’t draw their guns. Nor did they produce knives, brass knuckles, or any forms of weaponry. They thought they could subdue the padre without breaking a sweat.

  Half-crouching, one hand raised before him in what might have seemed a plea for the thugs to keep their distance—were it not for the steely glare the holy man sported—Felipe anchored the candlestick behind him, then whirled in a wide arc. Completing a full circle that doubled his momentum, he whipped the candlestick out, allowing it to strike like a hungry viper.

  Whack! It smashed against the chin of the closest man—the dandy in his tired gray suit and scuffed shoes. The blow buckled him back, sending him staggering on his heels, lifting him partly from his feet, before landing in a heap on the ground.

  The mountain man was a blur of colors as he charged, his heavy wool coat sporting a crazy quilt of green, red and yellow stitching. Despite the look of surprise in the burly man’s eyes, the padre knew he could not arrest his awkward bearlike lunge. With another half-circle, Felipe darted past him, his elbow cocked and ready, catching the grizzled man hard on the base of his skull. Grunting, expelling air as he tumbled, the mountain man struck his head on the edge of a pew and fell.

  Trembling with rage, the dandy reached into his pocket for a single-shot gun—abandoning his plan as the candlestick whipped in his direction once more. He put his arm up just in time to block the blow, exactly as Felipe thought he would. Abruptly shifting his center of gravity, Felipe spun in the opposite direction, bringing his knee up into the dandy’s stomach, folding him over with a startled cry. Shoving the half-fallen man away Felipe surged ahead, desperate to help Joaquin.

  Thunder exploded within the chapel.

  Felipe froze, eyes wide, rocking unsteadily on his heels as he stared at the barrel of McGivens’s smoking gun. He’d felt something punch into his chest, but there had been no pain, just a thud of impact. Peering down slowly, he gazed into a flaming hole in the center of his frock.

  “Oh,” he said, surprised at his own matter-of-fact tone. Then, in the short time left to him, he shifted his gaze upward. “God…”

  Felipe sank to his knees—then sprawled on the floor, his eyes wide and staring.

  Near the door, Joaquin stood frozen, the blood draining from his face. As a pair of men tried to snatch him up he shook off his paralysis, evading them easily as he scrambled toward McGivens.

  “Felipe-you-killed-Felipe!” screamed Joaquin in a mad frenzy. Not one of the padre’s lessons about love and forgiveness meant a damned thing to Joaquin now. His heart had hardened—and he’d found the desire to do bloody murder.

  The gunman laughed at the sight of the raging child. He looked…cute. McGivens calmly holstered his smoking weapon with the contempt that came with having all the time in the world to deal with a threat that wasn’t really
much of a threat at all. Joaquin barreled at him, a flailing mass of clawlike hands and animal snarls. Cackling, McGivens reached out to grab the boy. With a savage scream, Joaquin bit the scarred man’s hand, sinking his strong teeth deep enough into the gunman’s hand to draw blood. Howling, McGivens recoiled in pain and shook the feral child loose.

  In the red haze clouding his mind, Joaquin vaguely hoped that McGivens would never be able to fire a gun again with that hand. Then he heard angry curses, shouts, and saw other grasping grubby hands flying his way as McGivens’s pack of mercenaries closed on him.

  A bald man yanked on Joaquin’s coat then snarled in surprise as the boy shrugged it off. Joaquin dove between the pews and heard a high brittle crack as another two men raced for him from either direction, smacked heads, then fell in an angry tussle. Bounding to his feet, Joaquin reached the wide aisle near the padre’s office and ran as if the devil were chasing him. But McGivens’s men shepherded him further from the door, closing on him.

  Think, lunkhead! Joaquin chided himself. What would Zorro do?

  Joaquin guessed that his hero might make some funny remark to disarm his opponents, but all Joaquin could think of was the body of his friend lying near the angry gunman. Surprising even himself, Joaquin held his ground as the man with the scarlet scarf rushed at him—and Joaquin kicked him squarely in the knee. The big man howled in pain and rage as another thug, this one tall with flowing golden hair, made a grab for Joaquin. Whirling, Joaquin ducked and slid low between the wide, heavily planted legs of the Viking, bursting free beyond him. Using the pews for cover, Joaquin targeted the door and rolled between the rows of seats, the cool evening breezes growing stronger with his flight. He spun from the farthest pew and glimpsed the beckoning starlight beyond the open door. Only a few yards now stood between him and freedom.

  Suddenly, a dark shape dropped down on him, and rough hands plucked him off the floor. Kicking and screaming, Joaquin peered into McGivens’s blazing eyes.

  “Now you really pissed me off,” snarled McGivens. He hurled Joaquin out the open door and stormed into the night after the sprawled lad, his men following. No one paid any attention to the holy man lying motionless behind them.

  Flickering torchlight stole ahead of Armand as he led the knights to the bottom of the spiraling staircase. The count patiently waited until every man had descended to the ground floor, including Archduke Wilhelm and Colonel Beauregard. Armand heard grunts of frustration and confusion from some of the men as a thick layer of steam settled over them, lightly charring their lungs while obscuring their view of the magnificence that lay ahead.

  Guiding them through the roiling, billowing fog of water vapor, Armand reached the spot he had selected earlier in the day. Clouds of steam wreathing his gleeful form, he spread his arms in triumph. “My fellow knights, I give you…the future.”

  Stepping aside, Armand gestured to the billowing gusts of gray white smoke. The superheated steam dissipated as if on command to reveal the monstrous iron rises of a munitions factory. Technicians dressed in long, white coats oversaw Bunsen burners by the thousands heating bars of soap. Armed guards surrounded the entire factory floor, ensuring the constant speed and diligence of the workers.

  Gasps rose from his knights and Armand chuckled inwardly. Nothing wrong with a little showmanship, is there? He had timed his presentation to the second, precisely aware of when the venting mechanisms would be engaged.

  “Very impressive, Armand,” coughed Archduke Wilhelm, struggling to catch his breath. “But what does all this do?”

  Grinning, Armand delivered a gracious bow before summoning the head technician to explain the procedure. A little man with squinting eyes, a steam-burned face, and no eyebrows scurried over in response to the count’s summons, his long gray hair as unkempt as his clothes—which appeared to have been slept in more than once.

  “Gentlemen,” sniffled the head technician in a reedy voice, “what we have here is the process of ‘saponification,’ at its simplest, where by the glycerin from the soap is extracted and diluted into an aqueous layer of liquid. This liquid is then mixed with other chemicals to create raw nitroglycerin…”

  Armand’s back stiffened as a yawn escaped Colonel Beauregard.

  Enough, thought Armand icily, I didn’t summon this pitiful little weasel to put my men to sleep. He dropped a powerful hand onto the technician’s shoulder and the man started, the breath seizing in his throat, as if death itself had arrived with a private message.

  “That’s enough, Henri, return to your duties,” commanded Armand as he steered the scientist back toward the banks of Bunsen burners. “What Henri meant to say is that we are producing mass quantities of explosive of amazing power, and we have a transportation system in place to safely move our product to wherever it is needed in this country.”

  Crouching behind a row of empty wine crates, Zorro and Elena exchanged grave looks. Then, cocking his head to one side, Zorro grinned and said, “Hard to believe this is the same man you’ve been kissing all this time, eh?”

  Elena grunted—and accidentally stubbed his toe beneath her heel as they scrambled out from cover to follow Armand’s continuing tour.

  “Even harder to believe I could be so clumsy, eh?” she said acidly.

  Limping slightly for the next dozen yards, Zorro kept the rest of his thoughts to himself. Below, Armand swept his hand at what first appeared to be a mass of independently bobbing and swaying bamboo-colored saucer hats. Then hands and sleeves thrust into view and the function of the frantic bursts of activity became clear: workers were siphoning the nitro into a steam-powered assembly line of wine bottles.

  Elena nudged Zorro’s arm and together they spied an approaching worker.

  “I would say he’s wearing this season’s most enticing fashion accessory,” Elena mused, nodding at his wide brimmed hard hat.

  “Well, I wouldn’t want you telling your friends that I never got you anything,” groused Zorro with a matching grin.

  The man reached up for a crate on the top of a stack—and never knew what hit him, though he couldn’t miss identifying where, as Zorro kicked him in a place no man could easily shake off an injury. Wincing in pain, the worker dropped to his knees. Zorro snatched the man’s hat as he fell and quickly donned the strange chapeau.

  “It’s you,” Elena said quickly, delivering a second kick that sent the moaning worker into the waiting arms of unconsciousness.

  Zorro nodded—not sure if he had just been complimented or not.

  Below, Armand led his knights through the area where the bottles of nitro were being carefully loaded into wine crates. The crates were then placed onto a rolling flatbed and set on rails, which pushed them through a large door leading outside.

  “Beyond that door, the crates are loaded onto a six car munitions train on the newly constructed railway line. These tracks will allow for a continuous supply of nitro to the southern battlefront,” said Armand proudly. “Although I’ll be returning to Europe shortly, Ferroq will remain to oversee the operation.”

  A light flurry of applause rose from the onlookers—as none wished to startle these particular workers in the midst of their dangerous operation.

  Armand stopped a passing worker carrying a wine crate and drew a bottle for the others to inspect. “The nitro’s been concealed within these bottles to circumvent any prying northern patrols.”

  “God help them if they want a taste…’’ joked Archduke Wilhelm.

  Nodding, Armand joined in the bemused, but subdued laughter that eased from the knights as he snaked the bottle back into the crate. The worker nodded without meeting his eyes and moved off steadily.

  Armand paid no attention as the man with the crate shadowed him, remaining just close enough to clearly make out every word he said.

  Nor did he see the worker tilt up the brim of his saucer hat to adjust his black silk mask.

  Strident footsteps rang out along the steel struts of a metal walkway. Armand whirled as Ferr
oq furiously came at him, chest heaving.

  “An urgent matter requires your attention at the hacienda, master,” whispered Ferroq into his master’s ear.

  Armand used all his powers of restraint to keep his face steely. “Gentlemen, the colonel will lead you through the rest of the facility. If you’ll excuse me?”

  Beauregard beamed with pride and gestured for the knights to follow him as Armand and Ferroq strolled toward a door in the distance. I so hope our chef hasn’t been at the cooking sherry again; I simply cannot afford that kind of embarrassment today.

  He toyed with the idea of having the man shot, then thought better of it. No one he’d been able to find could make a rum cheesecake anywhere near as delectable as those he’d been served lately.

  Fuming with annoyance, Armand and Ferroq swept past the disguised Zorro and disappeared beyond the archway. The masked man returned to Elena, and urgently whispered, “He’s going back to the hacienda.”

  Elena’s eyes widened with panic. “I have to get back before he does.”

  Zorro gently touched her shoulder. “I’ll keep the train from leaving,” Zorro assured her, “Go!”

  She took his hand in both of hers and held it against her cheek for a moment. He ran his fingers through her silky black hair. Rising with a shudder, she bit her lip and gazed at him—there was so much left unsaid between them.

  He smiled, as if to tell her, There will be time, Mi Amor…all the time in the world.