The Imposter

Tornado snorted softly and shook his head as Bernardo reined him in.  Then both of them slipped quietly into the shade of the few trees that flanked a small moonlit rise just above the road that intersected the King’s highway.  Bernardo had gradually maneuvered himself ahead of the coach, and soon, he figured, once it turned south toward the hills, he would climb just high enough above the road to let himself be seen against the eastern horizon.  Anyone who was paying attention and who knew where to look would be sure to spot him, if only briefly.  But then something unexpected happened.  The coach turned north.

For a moment he wondered if his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.  Then he slowly eased the stallion down onto the road again.  Maybe Diego was going to the mission after all, to seek out Padre Felipe.  He had said the girl refused to marry him.  Maybe she had changed her mind and now he didn’t want to give her time to change it back.

But that really didn’t sound like Diego at all.  Though he could easily be that bold, he would never be foolish enough to rush her into something neither of them could ever undo.  No, something else was going on here.

Up ahead, Bernardo knew, would be a bend in the road.  If he cut over the hill to his right, he would be able to get in front of the coach again, and perhaps Diego would spot him this time and signal, at least.  He drew the stallion off the roadway and up through the rocks and chaparral.  But when he eased down the other side of the hill, the coach had vanished.  Not knowing what else to do, he assumed it had stopped before it rounded the bend and, hugging the shadows along the edge of the road, he slowly headed back toward town.  Then, there it was, sitting right in the middle of the highway.

Both its headlamps had gone out and the driver had disappeared, but one door stood open and beside it a man squatted down to examine the rear wheel.  Even though the coach sat partially in the deep shade of a nearby tree, Bernardo could still see the bright moonlight glinting off the delicate gold embroidery on the lapels and shoulder of the dark blue jacket, the soft white silk ruffles at the cuff, the matching pattern of embroidery down the outside seam of the trousers.

But something was wrong.  Maybe it was just the way the jacket hung, or that Tornado hadn’t yet pricked his ears forward and snorted in recognition.  Or maybe it just seemed odd that the man would be trying to examine the wheel in the dark, rather than first trying to relight the carriage lights.  But all at once Bernardo knew two things: first, that this man wasn’t Diego—and second, that this man, whoever he was, intended to kill him.  Unwittingly, he had walked right into an ambush.

Quickly he leaned forward, digging his heels hard into Tornado’s flanks, holding onto his hat and whatever else he could reach as he gave the stallion his head.  The first shot flashed past them, but the second one, which seemed to come from a spot near the base of the tree, found its mark.  Bernardo felt its impact, and then he heard the big horse scream in pain.  Tornado stumbled, and for a moment Bernardo thought he might go down, but then he gathered his powerful legs beneath him and bolted straight up the highway, right past the coach and the two men, one of whom fumbled to reload his pistol.

Bernardo then heard a third shot whiz past him in the dark, and clearly Tornado heard it, too, for, by the time they noticed the squad of soldiers that was coming straight up the highway, the horse was almost moving too fast to be turned aside.  It was only a little short of miraculous, Bernardo thought, that he was able to pull the powerful stallion a little off to the right and straight up over a steep bank.  But by then he could only hope that Tornado still had something left to give, for the sergeant had recognized the horse, if not the rider.

"Lancers!" he screamed, "It is Zorro!  After him!"

As the troops all whirled their horses and headed up around either side of the bank, Corporal Reyes paused to ask Garcia if someone should go and investigate the gun shots, to see if anyone had been injured.  Garcia thought it over, then shook his head.  "If they have pistols, they can take care of themselves," he said.  "But if we do not capture Señor Zorro tonight, the commandante has said he will begin docking our pay tomorrow."

"What pay?"  Reyes shrugged, then shook his head and rode off after Garcia.

"Tonight we will capture him," the sergeant added, "if we must ride until dawn!"  Then putting the spurs to his horse, he charged to the head of the column of lancers, and they all tore off over the open countryside after the fleeting black shape that still kicked up little puffs of dust as it wove through the scrub oak and manzanita.

Endicott leaned casually against the side of the coach and listened to the fading rumble of hoof beats that echoed through an otherwise quiet night.  "Too bad, Señor Zorro," he said, shaking his head.  "I will always wonder how our rematch would have gone, but— "  He ended with a shrug, then added, "Hurry up, will you," as he watched Silvio trying to relight the coach lights with a small steel and a flint.  "I don’t want to be out here all alone without a properly loaded pistol."

As the flame caught, he pushed a small button on the underside of the pistol, letting its barrel fall down at right angles to the stock.  Then he slid a stiff paper cartridge fitted with a copper percussion cap into the back of the weapon, locked the barrel back in place and handed it to Silvio.  Finally, taking his own pistol from the sash beneath his jacket, he reloaded it too.  "Now get going," he added as Silvio unhitched one of the carriage horses and slipped lightly onto its back.  "Tell the padre it’s safe to start transporting the prisoners.  El Zorro is as good as dead."

"Sí, Señor," Silvio nodded.  "But are you sure Señor Zorro will stay dead?  Our shots did not touch him, even at close range.  He has the protection of la bruja."

"Will you quit worrying about her," said Endicott, rolling his eyes.  "Right now, she’s chained up and probably still out cold.  Besides, you hit the horse; I saw that.  He won’t get far on that animal.  And even if the soldiers bring him in alive, he won’t live much past sunrise once our good Capitan Acevedo finds out what he’s been up to this evening."

"Sí, Señor."  Silvio nodded, then dutifully headed his horse back down the road toward the pueblo.  Meanwhile, Endicott reached into the carriage and picked up his saber.  Then, drawing it from its scabbard, he used it to carve a neat letter Z into the carriage door.

"Señor Endicott?"  The voice that came from inside the carriage was soft and a little shaky.  "Señor, will we be returning to the pueblo now?"

"Oh come now, my dear Amalita."  Endicott flashed a charming grin.  "Can it be that you are so easily dissuaded from love’s path by no more than a few gun shots?  He sheathed the saber and offered her his hand.  I’m afraid I shall be inconsolable if you’ve changed your mind."

Amalia took his hand and stepped down from the coach, looking from him to the door and wondering about some of the things she had heard him say to Silvio.  "Oh no, Señor," she said.  "But the coach.  If the wheel is loose, well, by the time your servant returns— "

"Silvio won’t be coming back."

"But the mission is a long way from here.  And we would not be safe on foot.  We can still go tomorrow morning, if you like, first thing."

"Couldn’t you manage to call me Matthew?  I know it’s hard to pronounce, but— "

"Sí, Señor . . . Mateo."

"There, see, now, that’s not so hard, is it?"  He gently brushed her cheek, then lifted her face up toward his own playful grin, which she couldn’t help returning.  "Besides, we still have one horse to ride."

"Oh, but this beautiful dress."  The girl gestured from the richly embroidered bodice to the full skirt that was just a little too long for her.  "It will be ruined," she said.  "Even after the short ride back into town, it will have to be carefully cleaned, and surely you would not want— "

"Yes, I see what you mean."  He cupped his chin and scrutinized her from head to foot, then said, "Very well, then.  Take it off."

Amalia’s eyes widened, then narrowed.  "Mande?"

"Just take it off.  You can leave it in the coach."

"But . . . I have nothing else to wear."

Endicott chuckled softly.  "Oh, well, I wouldn’t worry about that."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," he shrugged, "actually I just mean that we really don’t need to go any farther than right here to do what we set out to do."  Then he pursed his lips and frowned. "Tell me, Amalia, have you been to confession lately?"

"Why do you ask me this?"  The girl squinted hard, trying to conceal her uneasiness with a puzzled frown.

"Why do you think?"  Trembling just a little, Endicott shrugged and tried not to smile as he continued to study her.  "I mean, surely your mother—or somebody—must have warned you about accepting invitations like this from strange men you met only a few weeks ago.  You can’t tell me you didn’t know what you might be getting into, coming out here like this.  And I certainly don’t want your soul on my conscience."

By now the girl had started to back away from him.  He could almost feel the pounding of her heart as it flooded her eyes with fear, and he couldn’t help but grin as she gathered up the hem of the dress and turned to run up the middle of the road toward the mission.

"Now you know you’re not going to get very far like that," he called after her as he casually unhitched the carriage horse.  "Besides, as you yourself pointed out, it’s not safe to be out here all alone."  As he unfastened the driving reins and jumped lightly onto the animal’s back, he added, "I’ve heard one can often see bears, or even wild bulls out here at night.  Or big cats.  Is that true?"

Urging the animal into a gentle canter, he easily caught up with the girl just as she tried to veer off the roadway and tripped over a rock.  In one easy motion he reined in the horse and leaped from its back to lift her to her feet.  She swung at him, then twisted, trying to free herself as he easily caught both her arms.

"Please let me go, Señor."  Her voice was thick and trembling now.  "Please."

"Oh now don’t be like that," he said, knotting his fingers in the hair at the nape of her neck.  "I’m not going to hurt you.  I mean, I think I can assure you that there are much worse ways to die.  I promise it’ll all be over before you know it."

As they galloped flat out across the open countryside, Bernardo tried to feel in the horse’s stride some indication of where the wound was and how bad it was.  But the terrain was so uneven, he couldn’t tell if the animal was stumbling or just compensating for the ruts and furrows.  His speed hadn’t slackened.  In fact, he had even drawn a little farther ahead of the soldiers.  Still, if he were badly hurt, he might not make it much farther.  Wherever they were going, they would have to get there soon.

Tornado plunged right through the riverbed in a few heaving strides, then charged straight out of the undergrowth and toward an open field before Bernardo finally came up with a plan of sorts.  Looking behind him, he could see that the soldiers had not yet emerged from the tree line, which meant they had probably lost sight of him.  Leaning back in the saddle and gathering up the reins as firmly as he could, he managed to circle the animal back toward the trees a just little farther downstream from where they had crossed.  Then he plunged back into the river itself.

By now Tornado was ready to let himself be slowed to a walk in the cool stiff current.  He snorted as he picked his way through the slippery rocks of the riverbed, heading downstream, the clatter of his hooves muffled by the sound of the running water.  Soon, heading due south, they came to a bridge that crossed the river on the road that, had they gone that way, would have led southeast to the de la Vega hacienda.  But instead, Bernardo dismounted.  The river was shallow, and the bridge was low.  Still, a riderless horse might just be able to slip underneath it.

Tornado seemed to understand what was expected of him.  As Bernardo pulled him, he lowered his head and stepped into the deep shadows.  Then they waited.

Bernardo could still hear the voices of the soldiers upstream looking for them, Garcia ordering them to spread out and search every blade of grass along the riverbank.  But then, from a distance, he also heard the sound he had been hoping he would hear: the sound of horses pulling a coach.  As quickly as he could in the pitch blackness beneath the bridge, he fumbled through the saddlebags and withdrew a long strip of black silk cloth.  Then he bent to fish for a few small round pebbles in the riverbed.  Two or three about the size of quails’ eggs ought to do it.

As the coach drew nearer, he realized that his luck was even better than he might have hoped, since this particular coach was accompanied by a lone rider, probably a servant.  Bernardo hadn’t wanted to risk causing a serious accident, knowing that passengers in a coach would be more apt to be hurt if it overturned.  But now, he just needed to worry about how well he could aim in the dark.

As the coach rumbled across the bridge, he tucked a stone carefully into a fold of the cloth.  Then, when he heard the hoof beats of the saddle horse hit the soft dirt on the other side of the bridge, he stepped out, took a step up the bank, leaned back a little as he began to spin his makeshift sling, and let fly, striking the animal squarely on the rump.  It whinnied, jumped and bolted, just as he had hoped it would.

Nor did its rider take long to regain control.  But the sound had been just loud enough to attract the soldiers’ attention.  Led by Garcia, they all came charging across the river just a little ways upstream, making such a racket that they frightened, not only the rider of the saddle horse, who assumed he was being ambushed by a platoon, at least, of armed bandidos, but the driver of the coach as well, who, seeing the horseman put the spurs to his mount, also rose up from his seat and cracked his whip sharply over the rumps of the carriage horses.

Before long, the whole entourage was charging down the dark country road as if they had realized they were going to be late for mass and that it wasn’t an army bugle, but Gabriel’s trumpet, that had just sounded.

Had he been able, Bernardo would have laughed out loud at how well his plan had worked.  As soon as the last of the soldiers disappeared around the bend, he pulled Tornado out from under the bridge and up the bank onto the road.  This time, he could tell the horse was limping, favoring his left hind leg.  But they still didn’t dare stay where they were, so, reluctantly, he swung up into the saddle again and headed off slowly in what he figured would be the last direction in the world the soldiers would expect him to take, back toward town.

He didn’t know who had been wearing Diego’s clothes, but he was sure that whoever it was could not have taken them off Diego without a fight.  Diego was probably out cold somewhere, tied up, on his way to el Descanso—if Marigál hadn’t somehow managed to deceive them on that score too.  But the trail, wherever it led, had to begin at the alcalde’s house.  So Bernardo decided to return there rather than trying to make it back to the cave, though he knew all too well that the knowledge of Diego’s current whereabouts might easily cost them Tornado’s life.

Once he reached the center of town, he skirted the plaza, then took a side street that led down toward the alcalde’s stables.  The gates were open, since another carriage was getting ready to leave, so he decided to bring Tornado inside, thinking he wouldn’t be noticed among the other saddle horses.  Then, they both slipped into the nearby shadows of the heavy wagon that stood near the de la Vega coach.

Only a few coaches and buggies remained, but otherwise everything looked just the same as it had.  The same hay cart stood near the same small crates.  In the same empty stall, a much smaller group of men still sat playing cards.

Shaking his head, Bernardo realized that Diego and the girl could easily have been taken off in almost any of the other coaches that had left the dance before now—and, as Oreana had said, they could have gone in nearly any direction.  Bernardo didn’t know what to do next.  The longer he stayed to hunt for clues, the more his potential search area broadened.  For a moment, he almost wished that he, rather than Tornado, had taken the slug.  Then, from inside the house, he saw two men approaching the de la Vega coach.  One of them was Don Alejandro.

"Oh, sí, I am quite certain they left together," the other one was saying.  "The stable hands say they saw them leave just a little over an hour ago."  Bernardo squinted, trying to see the man’s features in the dark, though he surmised that it must be Señor Marigál.

Alejandro shook his head.  "I simply cannot believe my son would go off without saying a word," he said.  "This is not like Diego."

"Love can do strange things to a man," Marigál assured him.  "Surely one will soon get word as to his whereabouts.  He may not have wanted to reveal his destination too soon, lest you be put in the awkward position of having to answer too many of Don Urbino’s questions."

"Sí. . . ."  Alejandro nodded thoughtfully, then stepped into the carriage as the driver opened its door for him.  Then he aimed a quiet "Buenos noches" back at Marigál, adding, "Gracias."

"De nada."  Marigál bowed politely.  "Meanwhile, if there is anything one can do— "

"That is not likely," said Alejandro, "though the offer is appreciated."  Then he signaled for the driver to drive on.  Bernardo waited to see what Marigál would do after the coach disappeared, but all he did was go back inside without a word to anyone.

Now Bernardo faced another choice.  He didn’t want to leave until he knew Diego wasn’t still somewhere nearby.  But he also wanted to know what Marigál had told Don Alejandro, thinking it might provide a clue to the kidnapers’ plans, and he wanted to see to Tornado.  He figured if they trailed the de la Vega carriage—at a discreet distance—they probably wouldn’t have to worry about the soldiers anymore, either, for by now Garcia had probably found out how much trouble one could get into by charging blindly after a servant riding behind a coach in the middle of the night—and had vowed never to make that mistake again.  So reluctantly, Bernardo took Tornado’s reins, slipped out through the crack in the gates and headed home.

When they reached the cave, he quickly lit a small lantern, stabled the stallion and brought a bucket of water.  Then he began examining the horse to see where he had been hit.  The spot wasn’t hard to find.  The animal’s left hind leg was wet with blood that seemed to flow from under the saddlebags all the way down to his hock.

Bernardo grabbed a sponge.  Then he carefully lifted the bags.  But when he did, a strange thing happened.  A piece of black fabric seemed to be stuck to the horse’s rump.  Tornado flinched restlessly, stamping his foot as Bernardo realized what had happened.  The slug had penetrated the leather bags, all right, and Tornado’s hide as well.  But it had not entirely penetrated all of the layers of tough, flexible black silk that had been folded inside the bags.  Tornado flinched again and heaved a soft, throaty squeal as the fabric pulled free of the wound, bringing with it the slug, still wrapped inside.

As he washed the wound, Bernardo realized that it wasn’t really even that deep.  Once the bleeding stopped, it would probably heal quickly.  But he figured it was reason enough not to take Tornado on the hunt for Diego.  Bernardo would take another horse, and he already knew which one.  As he headed up through the secret passage, he only hoped he could figure out how to explain things to Tornado, who, he was certain, would not appreciate being left behind.