The Secret of Zorro
An Old Enemy
Chapter Three
by Ella Christian @1999-2001
Contact author at EllaChristian@aol.com

Chapter Three
Does The Leopard Change Its Spots?

By early in the evening, the pueblo was alive with rumors about Monastario's mysterious return and equally unexplained departure.  After getting all he could from Juan Bottega, Alejandro made his way to the cuartel.  There he found Sergeant Garcia already at his desk.  Garcia confirmed that, at least based on the glimpse he had gained, it appeared to have been Monastario at the Tavern the night before.  While Alejandro was talking with the Sergeant, Padre Felipe arrived to report the strange encounter with a familiar-looking man on a great white stallion on the San Pedro road.  They discussed the use of the name "Mordante" and speculated together on why the former commandante would be travelling through the pueblo under an assumed name.

"Perhaps he did not want to come here or be recognized at all," Padre Felipe speculated.  "Perhaps he came through Los Angeles only because of the rain."

"But where is he going?  Why is he back in California?" Alejandro asked.

"He likes it here?" Garcia asked helpfully.  "He liked it here before, after all."

"He was grabbing for money and power before!" Alejandro reminded the Sergeant.  "Do you believe a leopard changes its spots?"

"No, Don Alejandro," Garcia sighed.

"Do we know for certain that he left California, after the viceroy banished him?"  Father Felipe asked.

Alejandro shrugged.  "Diego has always said that he was put on a boat and shipped back to Spain.  I assume he heard that from the Viceroy, or from the other soldiers."

"That is what we were told," Garcia reported.  "But I did not see him step onto a ship."  He frowned.  "Perhaps he went to Mexico.  Perhaps that is how he could still have his white horse after all these years."

"We do not know it is the same horse," Alejandro said.

"It certainly looked like the same horse," the priest said.

"Let us check at the stable," Alejandro suggested.

The three of them made their way through the rain to the stable.  The stable manager, Vincente Santiago, was sitting on a hay bale drinking his morning coffee.  He was covered in muck and mud.  He smiled widely, seeing the three men, and revealing two missing front teeth.

"Buenos dias, Vincente!" Sergeant Garcia greeted him.  

"You have already been busy this morning, Vincente," observed Padre Felipe. 

"Si, Father," the man nodded.  "Good morning, Sergeant, good morning, Don Alejandro."

"Vincente, you have another missing tooth!" Alejandro observed.

"Oh, si, I got kicked in the face by that foul bay mare from Santa Barbara," he answered, spitting.  "She was not interested in being shoed when I took her to the blacksmith last week and she rewarded me when I got her back to the stable."

Alejandro shook his head.  Then he asked, "Vincente, were you here last night?"

"Si, Don Alejandro, I am here every night."

"So, you were here when the white stallion was brought in, shortly before midnight?"

"Si, I was here.  The boy from the Tavern brought the horse over.  I was very surprised to see that horse."

"Have you seen the horse before?"

"Si, Don Alejandro, that was Capitan Monastario's stallion."

Alejandro sighed, looking at his companions.

"Are you sure?" Sergeant Garcia asked.  "A white stallion can be a white stallion."

"Si, it was a white stallion.  Capitan Monastario's white stallion."

"I do not even remember what he called that horse," Alejandro muttered.

Garcia frowned, thinking back.  "The horse was called..."

"Caesar," came a man's voice from behind them.  They all looked around to see Corporal Reyes standing in the doorway.  "I sometimes took care of him," he added, walking in.  "Sergeant," he said, "do you want me to do the drill in the rain this morning?"

"You are late!" Garcia exclaimed.

"No, Sergeant, I was on time, but you were not in your office," the Corporal corrected him dryly.  
Garcia opened his mouth to argue, but then stopped himself, took a breath, and returned his attention to the conversation.  "So, you believe it was Caesar?" he asked Vincente.

"Si, I said si, Sergeant.  It was his horse.  I remember that horse well.  The saddle was not the same saddle the commandante rode, but the horse was the horse."

"Was he here this morning, before he left?"

Vincente shook his head.  "A boy came from the Tavern at around 6:30 and told me to prepare the horse, he gave me some money so I put the saddle back on the horse and sent him on his way.  I never saw the rider.  Who is it?  Who owns Monastario's horse now?"

The men looked at each other.  Then Alejandro said, "Vincente, we believe that it was Monastario himself who was riding the horse."

"Monastario!" Corporal Reyes repeated, displaying a rare moment of true feeling.  He looked at Sergeant Garcia.  "He was a skunk."

"Si, Corporal, we have said that many times," Sergeant Garcia agreed.  

Reyes looked at Alejandro.  "He thought Don Diego was Zorro," he said.

"Si, that is right," Vincente agreed.  "That is why he was finally dismissed, he accused Don Diego of being Zorro!  Remember how much Don Diego looked like Zorro, when Monastario made him put on the costume?"

Reyes shook his head.  "Zorro is much taller than Don Diego.  I know.  I have looked up at Zorro many times.  He is very tall.  Don Diego is tall, also. I look up at him too, but not that far up."

Alejandro sighed over yet another confirmation of Monastario's return.  "Did you see what direction he rode in, Vincente?"

"No, Don Alejandro.  But you might want to know about the saddle he was using."

"Oh?  What about it?"

"It was made in Mexico City.  I know the saddlemaker there.  The saddle had his initials carved into the underside, he always does that as a trademark."

"So, he has probably been in Mexico, even if he did go back to Spain," Father Felipe said.

"Si, unless he got the saddle somewhere else," Alejandro agreed.

"Very unlikely," Vincente said.  "Those saddles are custom made."

******

The rain let up slightly as the day progressed.  Alejandro returned to Rancho de la Vega where he reported what he had learned to Diego. "Where are Elizabeth and Esperanza?" he asked, as the two of them sat in the sala.

"Esperanza is having her morning nap up in our room, I believe Elizabeth is with her, reading," Diego answered.

"Are they all right?"  

Diego shrugged.  "Esperanza is fine.  Elizabeth...." he shook his head.  "She is pretending to be fine but I do not think she is at all."

"Then go to her, Diego, spend time with her.  Take her outside somewhere.  I will go sit with Esperanza."

Diego looked at his father, and then nodded.  Although she was not prickly, Elizabeth had been unusually quiet all morning.   He waited as his father led in climbing the stairs to the second floor.  At the bedroom door, Alejandro stopped, indicating for Diego to go in first.  

Diego entered, to see Elizabeth sitting in her chair with a book in her lap. She was staring into the flames of the fireplace.

"Sweetheart," he said gently.

She started, looking up at him.  Then she looked quickly back at the bed, to see Esperanza fast asleep.  Diego took her hand.  "Get up, and come with me," he said.

"But we cannot leave the baby..."

Diego shook his head.  "My father is right here, he will sit with her.  Come and let me tell you what he found out, and take a little walk with me."

Elizabeth got up and saw, though the doorway, her father-in-law standing there.  He smiled at her.

"I am always ready to go on duty, you know," he said.

"Did you find anything out, about Monastario?  Did you talk with him?" Elizabeth asked.

"Diego will tell you what I learned," Alejandro said, stepping in.  He squeezed Elizabeth's arm and then went over to the bed to lean over his sleeping granddaughter.  "Oh, hello my precious little sweetheart," he said softly.  

Elizabeth looked up at her husband and then tried to follow him out the door, but he shook his head.  Then he took her hand and led her through their bedroom and opened the secret door to Zorro's dressing room.  Alejandro watched as the two of them walked through the door and it snapped shut behind them.

******

"It sounds as if he really were just passing through and did not want to be recognized," Elizabeth said thoughtfully, after hearing what Alejandro had - and had not - discovered.  She looked at Diego.  "Isn't that possible?"

They were sitting across from each other on hay bales at the entrance to Tornado's cave.  Tornado nickered softly, and then snorted in the direction of the cave opening.  

"Do you want to go out into all that rain, boy?" Diego asked, reaching over to pat his horse's muzzle. "Or are you just reacting to hearing that Monastario is back?  Or perhaps you want to chase the white stallion again?"

Tornado shook his head and snorted once more.

"I think Tornado believes we are making too much of this," Elizabeth said. "You have a very wise horse, Diego.  Perhaps we should listen to him."

Diego folded his arms over his chest, staring out into the pouring rain.  "It is beautiful, when you forget that it has done nothing but rain for weeks," he mused.  He was quiet for a while and then looked at his wife.  "It is possible, that he was passing through and nothing more.  Father said that is what Padre Felipe believes."  He shook his head.  "Mordante.  I cannot think why he would use another name."

"Diego, are we really certain it was even him?"

"It was him."

Elizabeth sat there, also looking out.  The box canyon was a vast mud puddle now, with mounds of wet dirt sticking up here and there.  The walls of the surrounding rocks were alive with green brush growing out of crevices and cracks, and tufts of grass were appearing in odd corners of dirt.  "All the green reminds me of America," she said.  "In the springtime it is so lush, so verdant, you walk on a carpet of grass and under a great canopy of leaves....and so many things are in flower."

Diego looked at her.  "Are you homesick?" he asked.  

She looked a little startled; for it was a question he had never asked her before.  She thought about it.  "Si, I suppose I feel that, sometimes.  It is winter there now, very cold and snowy."  She gestured outside.  "It makes this look quite pleasant.  You cannot go out in the snow for long, people freeze to death every winter.  But it is beautiful.  And....I miss my aunts sometimes."

Diego half-smiled, a look of mystery crossing his face.  Elizabeth caught it.  "What?" she asked.

He just shook his head.  "I would like to meet your aunts some day," he said.  "I suppose it is as close as I will ever get to meeting your mother."

Now Elizabeth smiled.  "They were three very different sisters," she said.  "But you see each of them in the other, in small ways.  Aunt Lydia is the stern, proper one, and Aunt Bridget is the merry one.  My mother was full of mischief, but not in a broad way." She sighed.  "How I miss her.  But...going back to Boston would not give me my mother."

"Going back to Boston?" Diego said.  

"Oh," Elizabeth caught herself.  "I did not mean going back to Boston, I was just thinking about what would be there and what would not, if I ever return."

He relaxed a little.  "Would you like to, someday?"

"Si, if you were with me.  I would like to show you America.  I would like to show you Boston and Philadelphia and New York.  They are turning into great cities, Diego, they will be like Europe some day."

Diego chuckled.  "Sweetheart, I think you have a big dream for your old country."  He gave a shudder.  "Listening to English all day long, spoken by everyone!  I had enough of that in London."

"You would get used to it, and it would improve your English!" Elizabeth laughed.

"My English is perfectly good!" Diego said in English.

"Your English is about as good as my Spanish was when I came here, which is to say, thin," Elizabeth corrected him sweetly in Spanish.  "There will be real cities in America some day.  But it is not my dream, and it is not really my country anymore, either," she said, sliding off her bale and walking over to stand beside him where he sat on his.  "California is my home now."  She laughed.  "Even if I do not know if I am a Spaniard or a Mexican!"

He put his hands on the top of her shoulders. "Well, at least you know you are a de la Vega now," he said.

"Si," she nodded, resting her head against his arm.

He slid off his hay bale putting his arms around her.  Then he held her gently in the cave entranceway; the rain spattering in puddles a foot away.  

"It is very peaceful down here," Elizabeth murmured. 

Diego waited, enjoying just holding her.  Then he asked, "Are we all right now, darling?"

"About last night?"

"Si," he whispered, feeling another surge of misery over what he had done in the pueblo stable.

She nodded into his shoulder, finally offering the forgiveness he so desperately wanted. "Things have been difficult lately," she said, her voice muffled.

"Si," he agreed, hugging her and then keeping her in his arms. "But we have gotten through worse."

She nodded into his shoulder.  "Si."  She raised her head and looked into his eyes.  "Sometimes I think it is harder to handle the day to day things than it is to go through a crisis.  We have been arguing for two months..."

"When we weren't making love," he interrupted.

"When you were deciding to be with me!" she shot back. 

Both of them stopped.  Each of them took a deep breath.

"I do not like fighting with you," Elizabeth said.

"You are very good at it, for something you do not like to do!" he teased her.

She buried her head back into his shoulder, smelling his shirt and shutting her eyes.  "Promise me you won't let go of me, even when we are fighting with each other."

"I promise," he said.  He lifted her chin with his finger.  Her eyes were green and pale grey in the dim light of the cave, and as he looked into them he felt as if he were falling in love all over again.  "Often I think we fight because we love each other, not because we do not," he said gently.  "When I say I want you to stop nursing it is not because I am angry with you for staying so close to our baby, it is because I want more of your attention for me..." he leaned down and bit at her ear playfully, "and I want your chest to myself again.  When I want you to learn the fencing, or shooting the pistols or the rifle, it is because I want you to be able to protect yourself.  From the likes of Monastario!"

"I want to learn to shoot, and the fencing now," she told him.  "And I want Blanca to be so well-trained that she can outrun Tornado."

Diego laughed aloud.  "Outrun Tornado!" he exclaimed.  "That is a tall order!"

She smiled, leaning back and grabbing hold of his lapels.  "In the spring time we will race and see who has the faster horse."

"Ohhh, I do not think you want to race Tornado!" he teased her, kissing her nose lightly.

"Si," she said with determination.  "I do.  But I will not fence with El Zorro, I draw the line there."

Diego laughed again, and lifted her off the ground to swing her around in a circle.  Tornado snorted again and stepped back in order to miss a swish of whirling skirt across his front knees.  "Now you sound like my seņora," Diego said, letting her slowly to the floor.  He looked down into her face.  "Tomorrow morning I will have you down here just after dawn, for fencing," he said.

She opened her mouth to protest and he stopped her.  

"We will bring Esperanza with us and let her sleep or crawl around, Bernardo can come too, to make sure she does not get into Tornado's pen," he said. "No arguing!  We will do it!"

"So you do not feel you need to follow Monastario?" Elizabeth asked.

Diego considered that.  "All we know is that he rode east.  There are many roads to the east....perhaps he will ride long enough that he will end up in Boston and we will never hear of him again."

Elizabeth laughed.  "I hope he speaks English or he will be in trouble!"

Diego laughed, too.  "Then I hope he does not!"

******

The rain let up.  The Tavern was full that night.  Diego and Alejandro both decided to go into town, taking Elizabeth and Esperanza with them.  They had sent Bernardo into town earlier that day, to learn that nothing more had been seen or heard of the mysterious Seņor Mordante since he had ridden out of town at 7:00 a.m.  

The talk in the Tavern was of nothing but Monastario that night.   They told old stories, describing the handsome and famously blue-eyed Capitan's prowess with his sword and whip, his bullying of the entire pueblo, and of the remarkable change that had occurred when El Zorro first appeared.  

"Ha ha, Monastario's rule of terror was foiled when Zorro faced up to him!" laughed the blacksmith, Seņor Castillo.  "Do you remember those duels?  What a time it was for our little pueblo!"
 
"We have changed a great deal since Monastario's days," said Miguel Cahuenga. 

"Si, more people have come," noted Juan Bottega approvingly.

"And more have been born!" Alejandro de la Vega added with a smile.

This caused everyone to smile, for Elizabeth had more or less snuck Esperanza into the Tavern, a place where babies and children were unheard of, and had taken a seat near the door with Clementia.

"Ha ha ha, and to think that Monastario ever thought you were the Fox, Don Diego!" Sergeant Garcia laughed, holding his glass up to Diego.

Diego smiled sheepishly and returned the gesture with a shrug as everyone else laughed heartily at Monastario's foolishness.

"May he continue riding to the east for many weeks," Diego joked.

As the men continued their banter, Clementia and Esperanza enjoyed the lively atmosphere from their quiet corner.  Esperanza was having a particularly good night, she was awake and rather wide-eyed with all the noise, but she was not fussy.  Clementia was holding her while Elizabeth watched.

"Elizabeth, you really should have known Diego back when he first returned from Spain," Clementia was saying.  "He was very different from when he left.  We all thought he would return a dashing caballero and instead he came back full of art and books and music, he stayed so removed from everything that was going on in the pueblo, even with Monastario here.  It changed a little over the years, but he really did not grow into who he is today until you met him."

"Si, you have told me that," Elizabeth nodded, keeping an eye on the baby.  She was trying to stand up in Clementia's lap.  "I do not know what he was like before so I have nothing to compare it to."

Clementia shook her head.  "He was the prince of this community when he left for Spain," she said.  "He was already very tall and he was fencing and winning all of the horse races, riding the most spirited horses in Los Angeles.  The dons all believed he would return to become a leader."

Elizabeth looked at her, startled.  "You do not believe he will become a leader now?"

Clementia shrugged.  "It is possible, perhaps...but he still keeps to riding easy horses and he tends a great deal to her," she lifted Esperanza slightly, causing the baby to giggle, "which is not usual for a man in his class."

"Si," Elizabeth said wearily, "I hear that all the time.  But Alejandro cannot get enough of her either, and he is never criticized for it."

The Tavern door opened and a man walked through.  Everyone paused to see who it was.  An air of tension gripped the room for a moment. The man pulled his coverings off and everyone relaxed and welcomed Carlos Matteo.

"I see I am missing an unofficial town meeting!" he exclaimed, striding over to the bar.  "At least it is not raining tropically out there tonight."  He shook himself off, causing everyone to step back.  "Last night washed out every gully on every acre I own!  I spent all afternoon reviewing the damage..." he spied his daughter and granddaughter in the corner.  "Ah, Elizabeth!" He walked over to them, pulling his coat off.  "And Esperanza!"  He grabbed the baby from Clementia's lap and swung her in the air.  "How are you my little angel?"

The baby laughed gleefully and then frowned, high in the air.  She waved her arms and legs, then giggled again as she gazed down on the face of her grandpapa.

"Not sure you like it up there?" he asked, laughing at her.  He swung her back down and returned her to Clementia, who promptly propped the baby back on her feet and steadied her in her lap with a smile.  Carlos looked at Elizabeth.  "How dare you bring my granddaughter into a Tavern at her tender age!" he scolded affectionately.  He leaned over and gave Elizabeth a kiss on the cheek.  "How are you, sweetheart, I have not seen you in days."

"You know how to find me!" Elizabeth laughed. 

"Si, but it means I have to darken the doors of the hacienda at Rancho de la Vega!" he snorted, loudly enough for Alejandro to hear.  He returned to the bar and ordered his drink from Juan Bottega.  

"Well, Carlos, you have been missing in action for a few days," Diego remarked, holding his glass up to his father-in-law.  

"I have been busy!" came the reply.  Carlos looked at Alejandro.  "I daresay I have been busier than anyone else in this pueblo!"

"How so, Don Carlos?" Sergeant Garcia asked.  "We have all been very busy."

Carlos looked around at all of them, standing and sitting as they were around tables, their drinks in their hands, looking quite satisfied and warm.  "I see that," he said.

"Come, come, tell us what you have been up to," Alejandro said to his friend.  "We know you will tell us whether we ask or not, so we are asking.  It will give us some relief from the sorry subject we were on when you arrived."

"Oh?  What sorry subject was that?"

"Monastario!" Sergeant Garcia laughed.  "He was here, you know!"

"Monastario?" Carlos repeated.

"Si, he was our commandante for over a year, almost six years ago," Diego explained.  "Surely you have heard someone speak of him, he is quite a part of the history of our pueblo."

"Si, I have heard of him, of course," Don Carlos said.  "But...he was here?  I thought he went back to Spain."

"Apparently he came back," said Don Francisco Bocca.  "Diego saw him, and Garcia, and Juan Bottega, and even Father Felipe."  

Diego waved his hand towards the door.  "But it is nothing, it seems.  He has quite disappeared again, back into the rain from whence he came."

Carlos shrugged.  "From what I have heard we are better off without that one."

"Si," Corporal Reyes agreed.  "He was a skunk."  Several other heads nodded empathetically.

"So what is your news?" Alejandro asked.  "What has kept you so busy in this weather?"

"I have finished a transaction!" Carlos said.  

Alejandro rolled his eyes.  Nothing set him off faster than learning that Carlos Matteo had made yet another land or cattle purchase somewhere in the environs.

"You will not disapprove of this, Alejandro!" Carlos said, patting his lapel.  "I have in here the papers that will enhance the holdings in our bank considerably!"

"Oh?" Alejandro said.   

Francisco Bocca, another investor in the First Bank of Los Angeles, got up and came over to their table.

"Si, do you know that vast section of desert and forest land in San Bernardino that I bought last year?"

Alejandro sighed.  "Si.  I told you not to make that purchase in the first place, I am sure you lost money but at least you have gotten rid of it." He shook his head.  It was an enormous amount of useless, impenetrable land in the mountains, dropping down into sheer desert.

"I have made a profit on it!"

"Who on earth did you sell it to? Who would want that property?" Alejandro asked.

"Well I shall have to tell you the entire story, it is so fantastic," Carlos said.  He sat down heavily in his chair and waved for everyone to draw around.  "It was like a ghost coming into my life and showering me with unexpected pesos!"

"A ghost?" Sergeant Garcia repeated.  He was very respectful of ghosts, having had experiences with several of them.

Clementia and Elizabeth, though some feet away, could hear the discussion quite clearly.

"Do you know what he is talking about?" Clementia whispered.

Elizabeth shook her head and shrugged.

"I was out all day yesterday while the rain poured," Carlos began, "and I got up early this morning to continue my inspection.  I had Sirocco saddled at 7:00 and was just riding out when I saw ahead of me a dark figure galloping into the rain towards Casa Matteo.  I slowed down and waited, thinking to let him pass me on the road, but he stopped and said, 'Seņor Matteo?' And I said to this total stranger, 'Si?' and he asked me, 'I have been told that you have land on the east side of the mountains to sell?' and I said, 'Si,' and he said to me, as we sat on our fine horses in the rain, 'I would like to talk with you about this land.'"

Diego sat up a little straighter at the mention of fine horses.  He glanced at his father and then said, "Fine horses, you say?  I know Sirocco is a fine horse, but what was this man riding that made it so fine?"

Carlos smiled, shaking his finger.  "Let me tell my story, Diego.  So, I invited him to come back to Casa Matteo so that we could discuss what he had heard.  He came with me and we put our..." he winked at Diego, "fine horses in the stable, and then we went into the house for breakfast."

"Carlos," Diego said, attempting to remain jaunty, "tell us about the horse this man was riding."

"Tell, Daddy," Elizabeth said from her table.

Carlos looked over at her and frowned briefly, annoyed at having the rhythm of his tale interrupted.  He took a breath and decided to work with the interruption.  "Well, it was a fine white stallion, if you must know," he said.  

Everything in the room stopped.

Carlos looked around. "What?" he asked.  "What?"

Diego's eyes met Elizabeth's.  She reached, nearly involuntarily, for Esperanza. Clementia handed her over, puzzled, and watched as Elizabeth held her daughter against her chest protectively.

"Did this man have blue eyes?" Alejandro asked.

"And, did he call himself Mordante?" Diego followed.

Carlos looked very puzzled now, for his story was being told for him.  "Si," he said.  "His name is Enrique Mordante."  He looked at Alejandro.  "And he has very blue eyes."