The Trail of Vengeance 

Bernardo was nearly halfway into town by the time Zorro caught up with him.  The outlaw didn’t want to be seen following the wagon, but he did want his friend to know he was nearby, so he kept Tornado above the road, moving in and out of the trees, until he was sure Bernardo had noticed him.  Then he gave the horse some rein and moved out a little way ahead of the wagon, being careful not to stay too long against the horizon, but staying high enough to be able to spot anyone approaching from a distance.  He was rather surprised when, by the time they reached the second rendezvous point they had agreed on, a secluded spot just outside of town, they had not seen so much as a coyote.

Leaving Tornado to graze, Diego quickly changed his clothes again and rode into town with Bernardo, realizing how easily this little cat and mouse game could drag on and on.  Surely, Marigál’s trap would have to be sprung within the next few weeks, since that was when Urbino had said he meant to return.  But it would not have to be today, or even tomorrow.  In fact, if Marigál were concerned that Don Guillermo had somehow warned his victims, he would probably try very hard to defy their expectations.  Diego didn’t like having to second guess himself this way, and he thought he probably would have liked it even less except that, as long as he had Don Guillermo as a witness to Marigál’s crimes, he didn’t have to wait for Marigál to act.

He consoled himself with that thought as he sat in the tavern with Capitan Parra, arranging to have the horses loaded on shipboard that very night.  As he and Bernardo finished loading the empty wine kegs onto the wagon, he told himself that if he and Guillermo couldn’t just vanish with those horses, there would be other ways.  And as he paused to change clothes with Bernardo at the end of their journey, still having encountered no one, he even found himself smiling to think that, by the time Marigál figured out where they had all gone, he would be in custody.

By the time Bernardo went off to the cave to unsaddle Tornado and to make sure the stallion hadn’t picked up any stones in his hooves coming over the rocky hillside, Diego found himself wondering how far Garcia and Reyes had actually escorted Urbino’s coach.  Would their fear of Zorro have overcome their aversion to a long ride home, or would they have turned back after only a half hour or so?

He told himself he would have to remember to ask Oreana.  Not once did it occur to him that the two lancers might have failed to meet the coach at all—not until he tried to take the wagon load of wine kegs around to the side of the house and in through the gates of the stables, only to find the huge Berline sitting right there, the de la Vega stable hands busily unhitching the dapple grey geldings.

Without waiting to give any orders about the wagon, he jumped down from the seat and strode into the house from the outside kitchen area where the cook was already tending the huge outdoor oven and directing the preparation of the midday meal.  Her kitchen maids scattered in all directions as he pushed through the doors into the pantry, past the cellar door and out, finally, into the sala, where he found Oreana talking contritely with his father.

"Oh, Don Alejandro," she said, "you are far too kind."

"Nonsense, my dear Señorita," said his father.  "You will always be welcome here."

"Nonetheless, if Urbino does not return by tomorrow, I will go into town and take a room at the inn," she said, looking up as she saw Diego.

"You will do no such thing." Alejandro took her by the hands, then slipped an arm around her and led her to a chair.  "Our home is your home.  Now you really must sit down and try not to worry about this.  Marbella, go tell the cook to fix a pot of tea."

The servant hurried off and Oreana sat down, but then she stood up again as Silvio came in.  "Don Urbino was unexpectedly called away," she explained to Diego.  "One of the lancers—a corporal, I think he was—he caught up to us just shortly after we turned onto the highway.  He told us he had a message from one of Don Urbino’s associates who needed to meet with him right away on an urgent matter.  He even brought an extra saddle horse.  So Urbino left with him and told us to return here until he contacted us.  I think he was reluctant to send just the two of us on to San Diego alone, with only our driver for protection.  But I am so sorry to have to impose on you this way again."

Diego saw quite clearly that there was an urgent message between the lines, but he needed to figure out how to get her alone—fast.  Then Alejandro solved one problem.  "Silvio," he said, "why do you not go out and get one of the stable boys to help you take the señorita’s things back upstairs.  I will tell Marbella to unpack them."  Silvio looked uneasy, but he nodded and disappeared.  Diego tried to think quickly.

"Father," he said, "I didn’t know where you wanted me to put those wine kegs, and the coach was in the way, so I left them in the wagon beside the stables.  Would you like me to—"

To his surprise, Alejandro replied, "Oh, I will see to those.  Why don’t you take the lady out into the courtyard, Diego."  Then turning back to her, he added, "You must not let a thing like this upset you so, my dear; everything will be fine."  Then he left to follow Silvio.  The moment he disappeared, Oreana took Diego’s arm and shoved him out the door ahead of her.

"You have to go now," she whispered. "Now."

Before he could say anything, up on the veranda he noticed Bernardo, who had just come in through the secret passage.  The servant took less than a second to size up the situation and to read the instructions in his eyes.  Then he spun around and headed back the way he had come.

"I do not think the man who came for Urbino was really a soldier," said Oreana.

Diego only nodded as a thick sense of dread settled in his stomach.  He already thought he knew who the messenger had been, and he cursed himself for not having foreseen this.  How could he have failed to realize that a man whose son had been kidnaped, maybe even murdered, might not wish to seek revenge?

Moreover, if he had been dressed as a corporal, and if he had brought an extra horse, well, there weren’t that many corporals in the whole Los Angeles area—and only one who would have been anywhere near Urbino’s coach this morning.  Thanks to Zorro.

"Tell my father I felt ill," said Diego, which wasn’t exactly a lie. Then he bounded up the stairs and ducked into his room to follow Bernardo.

The tracks of the coach had not been hard to find, even lodged as they were in the ruts of the dusty highway.  It had gone about as far as he might have expected Reyes and Garcia to take it before turning around.  But from that point, things had gotten confused.  The two single riders had headed back toward the mission ahead of the coach, so its tracks, and those of its horses, had obscured the ones he needed to find.  Usually Garcia’s horse was easy to track since it left a much deeper print than most.  But without the Sergeant aboard—and he shuddered to think what might have happened to the Sergeant—his horse left a track indistinguishable from any other.

Zorro hugged the edge of the road, trying not to let Tornado’s hoof prints contribute even more to the confusion.  He looked for any signs at all of his quarry having left the highway and gone up a trail somewhere into the hills, all the while feeling time slip away as the sun crept farther down the clear afternoon sky.

At the spot where the road to the de la Vega hacienda intersected el Camino Real, the coach’s tracks turned.  But by then, the tracks of the two single riders had simply vanished.  The sharp, piercing cry of a red-tailed hawk caught his ear and led his eyes up toward the mountains to the northeast of the mission.  Then he listened more carefully to what sounded like the hoarse trill of ravens and the raspy squawk of magpies.  A condor circled in an updraft.  Something told him to start climbing.

As he angled away from the highway, he quit looking for prints and began searching, instead, for likely looking places where he might conceivably take a prisoner, since Don Urbino would surely have become a prisoner the moment he discovered that he and the messenger were not going either to the pueblo or to the mission.  But how in the world had his captor gotten his hands on a pistol—or had he managed the whole thing with only an army saber?

As the hills rose up, soft fingers of vegetation clung to the moist canyons until a few small fir trees began to appear, casting long shadows against the slopes.  Finally, behind a rocky outcropping, Zorro found the two horses grazing peacefully.  Then he found the two men, and his worst fears were realized.

Don Guillermo lay dead, Corporal Reyes’ jacket leaching blood from a well centered bullet hole in his chest.  A few of the ravens had already started to work on him, but they retreated at Zorro’s approach.  Don Urbino, while still alive, looked certain to meet exactly the fate Oreana had foreseen.  The corporal’s saber protruded from his chest with only a hand’s breadth of space between the point of entry and its hilt.  It had obviously missed his heart, if only by a little, but it had left his breath shallow and frothed with red.

"Ah, you must be Señor Zorro," he said as the masked man squatted down beside him to see if there was any point in trying to move him.  He sat sprawled against a boulder, still clutching the pistol that had obviously killed Don Guillermo.  "I suppose it is only fitting that an outlaw should be my confessor."

"Do not try to talk, Señor," said Zorro, gently touching his shoulder.  Then he rose to retrieve the canteen fastened to the saddle of Garcia’s horse.

"Why not?"  Urbino tried to chuckle.  "You think it might injure me?"

"Here."  Zorro held the canteen to Urbino’s lips.  Then he said, "I suppose you are right."  As he examined the blade, he decided there was no point trying to remove it.  Urbino would not have been more comfortable lying down, and he was already bleeding badly enough.  If the blade came out, his life would come with it.

Urbino nodded, then glanced at Guillermo.  "I am certain your friend there has already told you a great deal about me.  God should grant me at least a little more time for my defense, would you not think?"  Then he winced.  "Unfortunately, I do not have one.  I have richly deserved to die at his hands.  You know, I did not even recognize him without the beard."

"You and Marigál, you tortured him, kidnaped his son."

"No, no. Padre Eusepio, he— Urbino gasped.  "I just extort money, I haven’t tortured anyone.  Oh, unless you take their feelings into account, he added bitterly, wincing hard again.  No, this is God’s justice."

"Where are the hostages?"

"They are alive,’ said Urbino, "and you must help them, but, please, Señor Zorro, before you ride off, I must ask your help, not for me, you understand, I don’t deserve it, but the woman I had meant to marry, Oreana Venancio.  Her life is in grave danger now.  If Padre Eusepio learns of my death, he will blame her.  She will be his first target, and he will not hesitate to kill her.  Please, do not leave the pueblo until you make sure she is safe.  Please.  She is at the de la Vega hacienda."

Zorro brought his face level with Urbino’s.  "Tell me where the hostages are," he said again.

"Señor."  Urbino gripped his arm with what little strength he had left.  "I know that you are a young man; this game you play, it is a young man’s game.  And young men never really think they will die.  When a man gets a bit older, he starts to realize how short his life really is, even when he does not have it brought so vividly to his attention."  Urbino nodded at the saber protruding from his chest.  "It is one of fortune’s cruelest jokes," he added, "to find yourself truly in love for the first time and to be my age.  It is a fate I would advise you to avoid, if you can.  Now, I have even less to give her than I thought.  But I must have your word, at least, that her safety will be your first concern.  Above all else."

Zorro placed his hand over Urbino’s.  "Señor Guzman," he said, "I promise that I will do all I can to keep her from harm.  But you and I both know that she herself would not want me to put her safety above all else—not as long as Señor Marigál is holding her brother.  The boy might just as easily be the one punished for your death.  Now, please.  Tell me where the hostages are."

Urbino’s eyes widened a little as he suddenly understood who he must be talking to.  Don Guillermo could not have told Zorro anything about Oreana.  But then, as the hand beneath his own went limp, Zorro knew the discussion was over.  He stood up trembling.  Then he threw the canteen down as hard as he could and clenched his fists, wanting to scream.  With both Urbino and Guillermo dead, he would have no choice but to engage Marigál in this deadly war of nerves.  For a moment, he thought about just riding into town, finding the man and killing him on the spot.  Then he remembered Garcia and Reyes.  At least he would have to find them first—if they were still alive.

He bent to draw Reyes’ sword from Urbino’s chest, wrenching it a little to loosen it from the muscle, sinew and bone it had carved.  Then, wiping its blade on Urbino’s jacket, he retrieved its scabbard from Guillermo’s belt and hung it from Reyes’ saddle.  Examining the breech-loading pistol in Urbino’s hand, he concluded that it must have belonged to Urbino himself.  It was not a flintlock.  Instead, it seemed to make use of a new system he had heard of recently, one that used a new kind of high explosive to detonate the gunpowder.  It went off, apparently, with no more than a good solid blow.  Such a pistol would probably pack a harder punch—and be much easier to load.  No soldier would have had access to anything this exotic, but Marigál’s men could be so well armed.  He must have kept it in the coach, Zorro thought, tossing it back into Urbino’s lap.

His death and Guillermo’s would both have to be concealed, at least for a little while, but that would be easier if Guillermo hadn’t killed the soldiers.  If he had, then Zorro would probably be blamed, unless the real killer were found.  And Zorro didn’t need any more soldiers’ deaths to his credit, let alone the deaths of these soldiers.  Bad enough that he might have rescued their murderer.  As he swung up on Tornado, grabbing their horses to lead them down the hill, he told himself he should have made the sergeant chase him.

It was late afternoon by the time he finally found them, not too far from where he had first run into them this morning.  They had both been hit over the head, tightly bound and gagged with torn strips of clothing, and Reyes had been left in his bare feet and underwear.  But both were otherwise unharmed, and nearly as glad to see him as he was to see them.

"Oh, Señor Zorro," said Garcia, wringing his hands to restore the circulation once his bonds had been cut, "thank the saints you found us before dark.  Who knows what kind of wild animals we might have had to fight off if we had stayed out here all night alone.  We could have been attacked by wolves.  Or bears."

"And the commandante.  I don’t think he would like it either," Reyes added as Zorro sliced through the cords that bound his ankles.

"Unfortunately, we did not get the chance to provide an escort for the coach you wanted us to guard," Garcia added nervously.  "I hope nothing happened to it."  Clearly he was also hoping that Zorro would not follow through on his threat to tell Capitan Acevedo of their having let him escape.  But Zorro saw no reason to remove that threat too quickly.

"Well, as a matter of fact," he said, "the man who did this to you attacked that very coach."

"Oh, that is too bad, Señor Zorro. Garcia looked truly concerned.

"Did he get away?" said Reyes, obviously assuming that Zorro had not let anyone get hurt.

"Yes."  Zorro nodded.  Not a lie, exactly.  "But you must have gotten a pretty good look at him, eh?  Do you know who he was?  Could you describe him?"  This was a crucial question, and Zorro wanted to make sure he heard the answer before the commandante did.  If they knew it was Don Guillermo, Marigál would soon figure it out as well.

"Well, he was dressed like a Gabrioleño," said Garcia.  "But we do not think he really was.  He had a big knife, though, like the ones Indians use for skinning."

"He could have been a wild Indian—from the hills, maybe."

"We were hit on the head," Garcia added, rubbing the back of his skull, where a knot had begun to appear.  "Now that I think of it, there could have been more than one of them."

"Well, at least you managed to free yourselves and chase them off," said Zorro with a faintly conspiratorial grin.  "You have even managed to recover your horses, it would seem," he added, casting a backward glance at the animals grazing nearby.  He watched Garcia and Reyes consider this offer—for that was indeed what it was.  They didn’t know what he would get out of the deal, of course, but they saw quite clearly what they would get out of it.

"Sí, that is true," said Garcia, his smile emerging like a spring blossom.  "We have foiled an Indian uprising."

"I am certain the commandante will be pleased."

"Just so long as they are no longer a threat," Garcia said, letting his lips pucker thoughtfully.

"No, I think you’ve probably scared them away for good, Sergeant."

"Oh, thank you," Señor Zorro, Garcia chuckled.  "Come along, now, Corporal," he said, swinging up into his saddle.  "We must go and file a report at once."

"Sí, Sergeant."  Reyes tiptoed carefully through the clumps of grass and rocks to where his own horse stood, then mounted up to follow Garcia.  "But I don’t understand," he said.  "If they were wild Indians, then why did they want my uniform?"

"That is simple, Corporal," Garcia assured him.  "They wanted your uniform so they could attack that coach by posing as soldiers."

"Then why didn’t they take yours, too?"

"Well, how should I know?  Probably because it would not fit them.

"They even took my gloves."

Garcia sighed heavily.  "How am I supposed to know everything that goes on in the mind of a wild Indian?"

Zorro watched them go, feeling even more grateful than ever that nothing worse had happened to them, but he knew his day’s work was still far from done.  He had a lot of riding ahead of him, and he would be lucky to make it home before nightfall.  He only hoped that if Oreana ever had any other premonitions of this sort, he would have the good sense to heed them.