The Commandante’s  Prisoner

Inside the sentry boxes on either side of the cuartel gates, two soldiers stood quietly, trying not to doze off in the soft flicker of the torchlight from the plaza.  Above them, a caped figure appeared silently on the rooftop, a black silhouette against a clear dark sky, which, with the new moon, was lit only by a glittering spray of stars.  Everything was perfectly still.  But even though Sergeant Garcia and his men were still out searching the hills, two more lancers remained on guard inside the cuartel, one sitting casually on a keg near one end of the cell block, the other at the other end, leaning against the wall of a storage room by the stables, where Zorro assumed they had put their most dangerous prisoner.

Silently, he slipped under the eaves of the veranda, then dropped into the shadows of the portico near the barracks. Hearing a noise, one man went to investigate.  Soon, puzzled, the other got up to see where the first had gone.  A few moments later, Zorro dragged their limp bodies one by one into the back of an empty stall.  Then, as he hung the keys on a hook near the cell doors, he looked around, knowing this had been far too easy.  Climbing back up onto the roof above the cells, he was glad he had taken a few extra precautions. Silently, he slipped back over the roof the way he had come. Then, dropping into the shadows below, where Tornado stood waiting, he fished through a saddlebag, extracting its contents.  Then he waited.

After a while, a priest in hooded robes appeared at the outer gates of the cuartel.  In his hands he carried a woolen blanket.  As the sentry who let him in returned to his box, the padre blessed him, then crossed the courtyard, took the keys from the hook, opened the storage room door and went inside.  A while later, another hooded padre appeared at the outer gates and motioned in the direction of the first.  Once again the sentry opened the gates and let him in.  This time, as he returned to his box, the soldier said, "When you want out, just let us know."

"It shouldn’t take long," the second padre replied.  And as he slipped into the storage room, sweeping the cowl from his face, adjusting his mask and the paliacate that covered his hair, Zorro could tell just from the look on Padre Felipe’s face that they probably didn’t have much time to lose.  The prisoner lay on the hard packed dirt floor with the priest’s blanket around him now, but he wasn’t moving.

In the flickering torchlight, Zorro tried to figure out what was wrong with him as the padre got up and went outside.  A neatly trimmed beard and mustache hid most of the prisoner’s face, but neither his eyes nor his mouth seemed bruised.  Then Padre Felipe returned with a pail of fresh water, and, as Zorro tried to lift the man’s head, he realized that, under the blanket, the prisoner’s shirt and jacket were drenched with blood.  And when he lifted his hands to cup the gourd full of water, Zorro realized where the blood had come from.

Padre Felipe looked away, almost as if he didn’t want to see the look in Zorro’s eyes any more than he had wanted to see the man’s injuries.  The last two fingers on his left hand looked as if they had simply been crushed.  On his right hand, a few nails were missing.  With so much blood it was hard to tell how many.

"Señor," said Zorro, gently cupping the side of his face.  "Who did this to you?"  The man’s eyes seemed to focus at the sight of the black mask.

"Señor Zorro," he whispered. "I knew you would come."

"Who are you, Señor? Do I know you?"

The pain in his hands as he held the gourd seemed to bring him around.  He winced hard, clearly still in agony, then said, "Your good deeds are widely known, Señor.  Word of them has spread at least as far as San Francisco.  I knew you would come.  That’s what I told them."

"Who?"

"The men.  The men who took my son, the ones who did this to me.  I told them sooner or later el Zorro would find them."

"Your son?"

"Sí, sí.  Please, permit me to introduce myself.  I am Guillermo Jesus Colazo del Valle.  I own—oh, forgive me, I should say I once owned—a small rancho that lies to the north of the Mission Dolores de Asis.  My boy Alonzo, I am certain he is dead by now.  They took him and held him for ransom, and at first I thought that if I gave in to them, they would bring him back.  Little by little, I gave them more and more.  I depleted my herds, even slaughtered as much game as I could.  But then came the day I knew they planned to kill me, too, once they took everything."

"So—it was your servant, not you, who was killed?"

"Sí, Juan Manuel, mi pobresito.  We traded clothing; he gave me time to gather what things I could and get away.  I thought if I came to Los Angeles, I could find you, Señor."

Zorro shook his head, looked down and drew a shaky breath. "So this is why they did this to you—just because of your . . . faith in me?"

"Perhaps that is why," said Don Guillermo. "But who can truly fathom the motives of one such as Señor Marigál? Greed, envy perhaps.  These are all obvious reasons."

Marigál.  Zorro tried to picture the man he had seen this afternoon, but somehow the face seemed far too ordinary, too human, to belong to anyone capable of committing such atrocities.

"He knows he must kill me before someone starts to believe my story," Don Guillermo added, wincing in pain.  "But who knows why he felt he must do it so slowly?  He knows I do not know who you are beneath that mask.  If I did, I would surely have tried to contact you privately before now.  Yet he convinced the capitan that he could catch you.  I am certain he himself would like to see you caught."

"Why?"

"Because he fears you might expose his treachery.  I do not think my son and I were his first victims, nor do I think we will be the last.  Even now I have heard them mentioning the name of Alejandro de la Vega and his son.  You must warn them."

Zorro nodded.  "Rest assured, Señor," he said, "but first we must get you out of here.  My warnings are not always heeded in certain circles.  I will need you to tell your story to others."

Guillermo shrugged painfully.  "You see before you the results of such an attempt."

"Yes, I know.  But perhaps we can find others who are not so blinded by the temptations of wealth as is Capitan Acevedo. Can you rise?  They would not let us take your body out of here in the middle of the night, even if you were dead.  But if you can walk, even a little way—"

"That may be difficult," said the don.

"Madre de Dios," said Padre Felipe softly.  They hadn’t even noticed the blisters on his feet.

"How in the name of God—"

Padre Felipe shook his head.  "I have seen such things done in the name of God," he said.  "Once in Ciudad Mexico, long ago, when I was still studying for the priesthood, the Church executed a group of heretics.  Some of them had been examined by fire to make them confess their sins.  I do not know how Señor Marigál acquired either the knowledge or the will to use such methods, but he must not be allowed to continue."

Don Guillermo nodded.  "I will try to walk," he said.

As the two hooded padres crossed the courtyard, the sentry who had let them in, and who had been more or less watching for them, emerged to lift the heavy latch that fastened the cuartel gates.  But before he reached it, he noticed that one padre had stumbled, so he came and offered to help.  But to his surprise, the taller of the two padres seemed to be wearing a heavy gauntlet.  And a black mask.

El Zorro rolled his eyes in frustration.  Then, quicker than the strike of a snake, he punched the man hard in the jaw, sending him sprawling, but he knew it was no use.  Having heard the noise, the other sentry poked his head out the door.  Then, sizing up the situation, he began to yell for help, and suddenly the barracks doors flew open and soldiers came pouring out—mostly frightened boys, but with muskets.  About nine of them, Zorro figured, as they moved to surround him.

Stepping out of the clerical robes and leaving Don Guillermo slumped beside some empty crates and a mule cart near the gate, he walked deliberately toward the one in the center, who, though pointing a musket, backed away.  The others closed in from behind.  Turning in a circle to inspect these troops, Zorro raised his hands, palms up, and smiled as if in surrender.  But when one man came forward to grab his forearm, he simply stepped past the lowered gun barrel and spun around, tossing the soldier into the middle of the ring.  Muskets discharged.

When the smoke cleared, two men were down, but Zorro was on the other side of the courtyard, near the doors to the barracks.  Some of the men who hadn’t fired yet took aim, but their shots went wide, exploding in the door frame behind him.  At last, several soldiers drew their sabers, and two charged him wildly, but he stepped aside to let one of them crash into a post beneath the portico and fall unconscious.  The other tripped over the first, and Zorro slammed his head into the wall.  Then slowly, deliberately, he drew his own sword, its razor sharp steel ringing like a finely tuned instrument as it scraped against the scabbard.  Curling his gloved fingers lightly beneath its guard, he saluted his five remaining opponents, flashing a polite grin, then settled into a relaxed on-guard stance as they all came at him.

Several men lunged awkwardly, getting in each other’s way, making it easier for Zorro to parry each attack.  Then in a series of alarmingly swift counter attacks, he backed them all into the center of the courtyard again.  Clearly, no one was eager to get too close to him.  As they began to spread out around him, he easily used their positions against them, sidestepping one lunge, ducking under another, until one of the soldiers inadvertently sliced into the shoulder of another.  As the wounded man dropped his sword, Zorro picked it up in his left hand to parry the thrust of another attacker.  Then in a quick remise, he slipped its blade neatly under the curve of the saber guard to slice that man’s gloved wrist and make him drop the weapon as if it were on fire.

Someone else lunged at him, but the outlaw simply crouched down to tackle him and flip him head over heels with the power of his own momentum.  He landed hard and lay still.  Of the two remaining men, one of them actually did have some ability.  Though his attacks were less than inventive, they were competent and quick enough that Zorro, fighting now with a sword in each hand, had some trouble getting either man off balance or out of position.  If he gave ground, they advanced, but not too quickly.  If he focused his attention on beating back the more skillful of the two, the other one would stay within striking distance, but just far enough away so as not to make himself an easy target.

Zorro didn’t really want to hurt either of them, but he also didn’t think he could let this go on much longer.  He knew they were going to try to deploy themselves so each could attack from a different angle without getting in the other’s way.  So when he saw the stronger man start to drift to the left, rather than giving ground, he launched a sudden attack on the weaker man, easily exploiting his every flaw—the slightly misaligned blade, the clumsy grip—piercing his defenses three or four times without quite piercing his jacket.  Not surprisingly, the man began to panic, instinctively trying to bat aside the attacking blade rather than simply blocking it, jumping back way too far to riposte effectively.

But if he thought his hasty retreat had left him out of range, the outlaw knew better.  In another instant, he had slipped his own blade over a clumsy lateral parry and aimed its tip squarely at the man’s chest.  Then, instead of lunging forward on his right leg, which would have left him just shy of his target, he leaped forward to land on his left foot, a maneuver that would have brought him close enough to look into the man’s eyes as the life ran out of him—had Zorro not cocked his elbow so that the tip of his blade only dented the lancer’s white shoulder belt.

Seeing how easily he might still be skewered, the man dropped his sword.  And catching Zorro’s warning glance, the other soldier, who had been closing in from behind, froze mid stride.  Zorro stuck the saber in his left hand between the slats of a nearby crate and snapped it in two.  Then, dropping its hilt and, kicking the other sword aside, he backed the defeated man into the nearest jail cell.

The soldier must have thought he was staring death itself in the eyes, judging by the look on his face, especially when his cohort refused to surrender.  But rather than driving home his point, Zorro simply shifted his blade to his left hand, aiming it at the last man while he locked the cell door.  In a confidential tone, he added, "You made the right choice, my friend.  You might have gotten hurt out here." Then, aiming a contrite smile at his only remaining adversary, he shrugged and settled once more into an on-guard stance.

The last man looked a bit shaken, but clearly he was determined that, whether he survived this encounter or not, no one was going to call him a coward.  He took his stance defiantly.  As he lunged, Zorro easily parried and launched a simple riposte.  Then with a sigh, he began to analyze this opponent.  Nor did it take him long to spot the man’s all too predictable preference for using circular parries, or his refusal, now—probably just out of spite—to step back when forming them, unconsciously withdrawing his sword arm just a little instead.  But such habits would only get him killed.  To get him out of the way, Zorro would have to play a different game.

Maintaining his distance, he took a more defensive tack, keeping his movements simple, letting the man come to him—and gradually allowing himself to be backed in between the crates and the front of the mule cart.  Carefully and deliberately, he stepped over its traces.  But then, as the man glanced down to see what might be in the way of his own footing, Zorro suddenly leaped to one side, grabbed the edge of the cart and swung its traces around, sweeping the legs out from under him.  As he fell, the outlaw wrapped his fingers a little tighter around the handle of his saber and cuffed the man smartly with the pommel.  That was that.

With a smile and a graceful bow to the few soldiers who were still conscious, he turned to retrieve Don Guillermo—only to find Matthew Endicott standing over him with a pistol pointed squarely at his head.

"Well, Captain," said Endicott to Acevedo, who was now standing just under the eaves on the other side of the courtyard near the barracks.  "I can sure see why you sent most of your men into the hills.  No sense getting them all killed—right?"  Then in a tone of almost boyish eagerness, he asked Zorro, "Where did you learn to fight like that?  Madrid, probably.  But which school, I wonder?  Narvaez?  Rada?  Or one of the newer ones?  Probably Narvaez.  Wow.  I’m sure you don’t get much chance to practice around here, though, do you?  Not with this kind of competition, anyway," he added, nodding in the direction of the fallen soldiers.  "Oh—uh, put it down.  The sword, I mean.  Drop it.  Or the don here is going to need a real padre."

"Please do not do it, Señor Zorro," said Guillermo, but Endicott hit him with the end of the pistol almost before the words escaped his lips.  He slumped to the ground.  Then Endicott raised his pistol again but found it was too late.  Zorro had already sidestepped the shot and was bearing down on him.  He rolled sideways to avoid the thrust of Zorro’s blade, then came up easily to his feet and, drawing his own sword, settled into a left-handed stance.

Zorro studied him carefully, a bit surprised at the man’s agility.  But now the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to come together.  No one had ever really counted on this pitiful pack of lancers to keep the prisoner in his cell, or to capture the fox.  They were only foils, no more than a way of letting Endicott get a preview of Zorro’s fencing style.

Unfortunately, Endicott was right.  It was hard even to maintain your skills at a certain level when no one you fought had even half your ability.  Nor had he practiced recently with any left-handed swordsmen.  And this man was obviously fresh out of some European school, though clearly he made mistakes.  One didn’t waste time clubbing half conscious men if one was used to fighting for something more significant than points.  Still, Zorro took little comfort knowing that, in this fight, his keen sense of his own mortality might be his biggest advantage.

Taking a long careful breath, he focused his mind until he felt a kind of vacuum forming around the two of them, taking all his attention.  Then he waited, but not for long. Endicott came at him like big cat, fierce but cagey, as if he were always thinking at least a couple moves ahead.  They went several times around the courtyard before Zorro managed to get enough of the feel of his style to begin to analyze his weaknesses.  Like most left-handers, he was vulnerable at his right flank.  And he wasn’t quite as strong.  His blade could be shoved aside, if he ever held it still long enough, and if he stepped in close, he could be shoved aside as well.

Zorro had been blessed with a preternatural quickness. Nonetheless, he knew Endicott was fighting him to a draw on that score, too.  He recovered quickly from the lunge, and he couldn’t be tricked by a series of uneven advances and retreats into letting an opponent get too close.

Zorro considered the possibility of switching to fight him left-handed.  Often, left-handers had as much trouble fighting each other as right-handers did, just because nobody really got to practice much with them.  But that was rather the point.  Endicott had more practice fighting as a left-hander, regardless of whom he fought against.  So Zorro simply went on looking for any opening he could get, until finally Endicott feigned right, then quickly lunged left.

Zorro saw just where the hit was supposed to land, and he moved quickly to parry it.  But he didn’t quite recover fast enough.  The remise that sliced his right arm just below the curve of the deltoid muscle came so fast that he felt the moisture on his sleeve seconds before he realized it was his own blood.

For a moment he almost couldn’t believe it had happened. In all his years of swordplay, he had only been cut once or twice.  But he could see in Endicott’s eyes that this was the point at which he usually assumed he had won.  Sinking back into the heavy shadows of the portico that fronted the commandante’s office, Zorro let down his guard just a little and raised his left hand to staunch the blood flow.  Then, just as he had anticipated, he saw Endicott start to lunge.  And as the man came at him, he turned sideways and leaned back—hard—to the right, swinging his left foot behind him to keep his balance as he extended his blade back into the line.

The stop hit landed, not quite squarely, but squarely enough to pierce Endicott’s right side just below the rib cage.  Clearly, he too had had little experience with being cut.  He dropped the sword and fell to his knees, clutching his side as if to hold in the gasp that left him oddly crumpled.

It was over.

Or almost over.  Zorro side-stepped his opponent, kicking the saber out of reach.  Then, with a polite bow he sheathed his own sword and said, "I thank you, Señor, for this opportunity to hone my skills.  Perhaps one day we shall meet again."

"That you may count on," said Endicott through clenched teeth, blood staining his gauntlet through the white silk of his shirt and the herringbone twill of his waistcoat.

Don Guillermo was still lying near the outer gate.  Running up to him, Zorro wasn’t even sure he was alive.  But when he heaved the man over his shoulder, he heard him begging to be left behind.  Acevedo’s pistol shot whizzed past them to explode in the heavy latch as Zorro lifted it out of its cradle and shoved the gate open.  A sharp whistle brought Tornado out of the shadows.  Then he heard the capitan screaming at the fallen lancers that they should get up and get after him—now.

"Señor," he said as he lifted the don up on the saddle in front of him, "I did not come here tonight simply to wound a few soldiers, then leave empty handed."  But he also knew he hadn’t come prepared to meet someone like Endicott.  He knew that tonight he was lucky to be leaving this place at all.