Zorro Perfects a New Skill
 

For an instant the whole room went silent.  But by the time Sergeant Garcia asked Don Alejandro if he was sure it really was a pirate ship and not just some merchant vessel, Corporal Reyes had already bolted out the door yelling, "Lancers, to arms!  To arms!"  And everyone else in the tavern had started to follow him, some pausing to gulp a drink, others simply grabbing their hats and coats.

Finally, taking their panic as an answer to his question, the sergeant shrugged, shook his head, and lumbered for the door himself, nearly crushing another customer who tried to squeeze through ahead of him.  Clearly there was no point in taking chances.

"Come on, my son," said Alejandro, taking Diego’s arm.  "We must get back to the hacienda.  Crescencia can pack up the records and ledgers—and maybe some of the valuables.  We’ll send the servants and the children to the mission.  But we will have to ask the vaqueros to stay with the herds, even though I fear we don’t have much of an arsenal.  If the cattle should stampede— "

"Father, are you serious?"  Diego frowned.  "Do you really think it could be pirates?"

Bernardo had already scurried to the door and now stood holding it open for the two of them, clearly hanging on Alejandro’s every word.  "Oh, yes," said the old man, waving his son ahead of him.  "Very serious.  You remember that summer you came home from Spain for a visit?  Right before you enrolled in the university?  You had just finished your training at the academy."

"Yes, I remember."  Diego grabbed the reins of his palomino and swung up into the saddle, turning the animal sharply to follow his father down the street and onto the road out of town.

"Well," said Alejandro, "the year after that, in mid-October, two pirate ships sailed into Monterey harbor and demanded that the governor surrender.  Hadn’t you heard this story before?"

"No, I don’t think so."  By now, Diego was having to raise his voice almost to the point of yelling, but he still had to ask, "What happened?"

"Oh, the governor refused to give in, of course," Alejandro replied.  "So the pirates came ashore, hundreds of them, armed with swords and pistols, even some of the ship’s artillery.  Naturally the soldiers were outgunned, with only eight cannons and one company of men.  In the end, the governor and most of the people had to flee.  The town was looted and burned.  They even destroyed people’s gardens and orchards." (1)

"Well, I knew that California’s military strength was limited, but— "

"And that was only the half of it."  Alejandro gave his horse its head as they turned onto the main road home, and the heavy clatter of hoof beats made further conversation impossible until a little over twenty minutes later, when they rode up to the main gates of the de la Vega hacienda.  But Diego could have quit breathing sooner than he could have let this conversation drop.

"What do you mean, that was only the half of it?" he said as they pulled up their horses.

Handing his horse to a servant, Alejandro strode into the patio.  "Once they had done with Monterey, they sailed down the coast," he said.  They raided the Capistrano winery.  Before it was over, they even kidnaped some young native women—God knows what became of them, poor souls.  Then they sailed south.  They looted a hacienda, and— "

"And what about Los Angeles?"

"Well, they didn’t come quite that far inland," said the old man absently as he burst into the sala, looking around for Crescencia.  When she wasn’t there, he headed for the kitchen.  Diego glanced at Bernardo, who made a discreet little Z in the air and offered a helpless shrug.  But before Diego could reply, his father returned, Crescencia trailing after.  She looked as frightened as he had ever seen her.  As she headed out the door into the patio, his father added, discreetly, "Do you not think you ought to saddle the black horse?"

Bernardo and Diego exchanged another glance.  "Well–uh—Father," said Diego, raising his hands as if to gather the explanation.  "I’m not sure what el Zorro could do against hundreds of armed men with cannons.  Maybe we ought to wait, see how many there are this time, or if they even mean to come ashore.  You know, they may have it in mind to rob, not just the towns, but the foreign cargo ships.  If so, then maybe those ships will help us; they’re often fairly well armed.  And we could assemble the rancheros, too, to help Sergeant Garcia—and send to Santa Barbara.  I’m certain that the soldiers stationed there could reach San Pedro in a day or so."  By this time Diego had noticed that his father was looking at him, once again, almost as if he were a stranger.

"You are wise, my son," he said, letting his gaze fall back upon itself.  "We should assemble the dons.  I will send out riders at once, call a meeting.  It will do no good to panic."

"Well, perhaps el Zorro could do something," Diego offered in conciliation.  "Maybe just show himself?  Let the people know he is still alive?  You know," he added with a chuckle, "Sergeant Garcia may know all the latest gossip, but there could be a few campesinos who haven’t heard from him yet."

Alejandro nodded.  "Yes," he said, "That, too, would be a good idea."

"All right, then.  With your permission."

Bernardo had already headed out the door, and Diego followed him up the stairs, thinking how odd it was to be taken seriously—and not to have to feign apathy or illness in order to sneak out.  But it was equally strange not to have the old man fussing over him or scolding him or trying to protect him, almost as if Alejandro didn’t realize or care anymore how much trouble his son could get into.

Diego felt almost a little angry as he found himself once again fastening the buttons of the black silk shirt, slipping his scabbard into the leathers that held it to his side, tying on the mask, shrugging into the cloak, then hurrying down the old stone stairs and through the secret passageway.  But he said nothing until finally, as he swung up onto his horse, he told a worried looking Bernardo not to wait up for him.

"It might be a long night," he said.

When he and Tornado emerged from the little box canyon that sheltered the opening of the cave, Zorro could see by the lengthening shadows that he had only an hour or so of daylight left, and he knew he would need at least that long to ride to San Pedro, even though he would be traveling at a pretty good clip.  But he had already made up his mind to go, for he knew that tonight would be a moonless night, and if pirates did intend to launch a surprise attack, they couldn’t have picked a better time than now, under cover of darkness.

He didn’t think this insight would have occurred to Sergeant Garcia, who, as a rule, spent as little time as possible observing the night sky.  And actually, he hoped it hadn’t.  Now wasn’t the time for any large-scale armed confrontation that might go either way and result in heavy casualties.  Now was the time for stealth and trickery.

He let Tornado find his own sustainable pace across open land, heading southwest.  Once they crossed the river, they would be able to follow the road from Los Angeles, at least for awhile, and that would help.  But the sheer size of the San Pedro harbor, with all its channels and inlets, would pose something of a problem, especially in the dark.  He planned to start at the eastern end, then work his way around to the west.

Luckily, by the time he reached a small bluff that overlooked the water’s edge, he still had enough daylight to size up the situation.  Only one ship, a four-masted cargo galleon, had dropped anchor in the eastern channel—a rich prize, her hull trimmed with ornate gilded carvings.  Still she looked able enough, armed with two decks of cannons.  Small wonder that the pirate vessel was keeping her distance.

Sometime during the night, he figured, the pirate ship would probably try to sail around the western tip of the bay—if she did anything at all.  Then a small boatload of men could easily sail up through the western channel.  That made the most sense.  One boatload of men could do a lot of damage.  At the very least, they could take hostages, demand ransom.

As the twilight gathered, Zorro slowly made his way around the outskirts of town, noticing as he went that, while torches had begun to twinkle on board the cargo ship, the streets remained relatively dark.  Many people had probably already left their homes, but that, too, was just as well.  As the last rays of the sun faded from the horizon, he took up a position just north of the western channel, along the road that led from the Bastinado rancho into town.  Then, dismounting, he settled in to wait near the east wall of a nearby livery stable.

By now, the two brightest objects in the sky were the planet Mars and the bright star Regulus, both hanging side by side off the southern horizon.  But he barely had time to consider either their beauty or their significance before he heard the voices of men echoing over the water.

He couldn’t tell exactly what language they were speaking, though he thought some of it might be badly garbled French flavored with a trace of Portugese, a hint of English and even a few syllables of Spanish.  As they quietly beached their rowboat, he slipped behind the trunk of a large palm tree to see if he could count them, coming up with an estimate, finally, of about thirty men, armed with knives and cutlasses.  A few of them even carried pistols tucked into their ragged cinturónes.

But the term "ragged" was itself a barely adequate description—of them or their attire.  As he trailed along behind the last of them, he realized that many of them were barefoot, dressed only in threadbare rags that covered little more than modesty required.  On top of everything else, they looked closer to starvation than even the scrawniest dogs he had ever seen licking the paving stones on a street outside some butcher shop in Sinaloa—which meant that, whatever they killed, they might well be inclined to eat.  And they didn’t much care what it would be.

Like a pack, they spread out through the streets, and before long he heard the faint twinkle of glass breaking here and there.  A dog began to bark, but then, with an abrupt yelp, fell silent.  Soon most of the men had regrouped near a warehouse, drawn by the promise of brandy and pickled beef.  He didn’t care how much they ate.  No civilized man would deny them food.  But he dearly hoped they didn’t find anything to drink, because drink would only make them fearless.  And he knew his only hope of stopping them now would be to frighten them out of their wits.

Before he met Oreana, he knew such a crazy scheme would never even have occurred to him.  At least he wouldn’t have tried it alone—not with so many men.  But he had seen her do something like what he had in mind, and her brother, too.  It would work.  All it took was a little concentration, he told himself as he stalked his prey, carefully taking note of which men seemed to be the leaders, which seemed to be looking out for friends.  Those were the ones he would go after first—the ones who would be missed.

Narrowing his eyes until he felt the darkness begin to deepen and glow, he let the energy that still felt so oddly like lust rise up through his body, until even his fingers and the soles of his feet ached with it.  Then he willed himself to melt into the darkness, letting it become a part of him, until it flowed through him like his own breath, or like the faint breath of the ocean breeze that crept along the far wall of the warehouse.  The first man vanished without a trace.

The next one disappeared around the same corner, neither of them having found whatever implement they were looking for, with which to dismantle either the door of the warehouse or the iron padlock that held it shut.  One man proposed to fire a pistol at the lock but was quickly discouraged by his cohorts, who pointed off in the direction of the big cargo galleon whose masts and rigging still dominated the town’s starry southern skyline.  Finally, someone returned with a huge iron strap that might once have formed part of the undercarriage of a wagon, and they all set about using it as a pry bar, wedging one end of it between the door jamb and the hinges—but not before several more of their associates had simply gotten lost in the dark.

Not wanting to hurt them but at the same time not wanting to have to lug them very far, Zorro tried to club each man hard enough to keep him down for a while, but not forever.  Still, it wasn’t an exact science.  By the time he remembered what Oreana had told him about the need to bind a spell so it wouldn’t hurt anyone, he feared he had already cracked the skulls of a couple of these scruffy creatures.  They might not all escape.

But even if they were captured, they would probably be better off in jail than on board a ship whose captain had reduced them to their present state of affairs, he thought.  When at last they broke down the warehouse door, he did nothing but watch as they hauled out barrel after barrel, knowing they still couldn’t see him, though by now he was almost in plain sight, leaning casually against the wooden post of an awning that covered a storefront sidewalk across the street.

Still, it didn’t take them long to notice how few of them were left to do the lifting.  Soon, they began to search.  Then, little by little, they began to panic, especially after yet another man failed to return from a trip to the store across the street. It was almost time, he thought.  Smiling quietly to himself, he gave them a few more minutes.  Then, thinking of ravens, he gathered up all the black horrors their own minds had conjured up and wrapped them around himself like a cloak.  Finally, he stepped out into the middle of the street and stood there.

At last he heard a little yelp as one man noticed him.  He knew that from their perspective, he might as well have appeared out of thin air. Motion would enhance the illusion.  Casually, he slipped an arm out of his cloak and shrugged the cloak over one shoulder to reveal the crescent guard and silver trimmed scabbard of the sword at his side.

Then, with the casual stride of a man who can’t believe his own good fortune at finding himself inadvertently alone with an attractive señorita, he sauntered toward them.  He thought he heard the word "devil" in at least a couple of languages before a few of them broke and ran.  In another stride or two, they had all turned tail, not even bothering to gather up any of the remaining kegs left lying in the street.

With a sigh that was nearly a laugh, Zorro dragged one of their fallen cohorts out of the shadows and propped him up against what was left of the warehouse door.  Then, drawing his sword, he carved a Z into the broken boards, since the poor wretch wasn’t wearing nearly enough clothing to warrant shredding it any further.  Finally, with a sharp whistle, Zorro summoned his horse and swung up into the saddle, heading back out of town the way he had come.