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

Chapter Eight
The Santa Susanna Pass


For the first time in over four months, Zorro rode again.  He emerged from the hills where the Indian village nestled, guiding his fine black horse down the rocky path to the bottom of the mountain. Then he headed north and east on a little-used road, towards the rocky mountains that led to the Mojave desert.  It would take at least half a day to reach the Santa Susanna Pass, he knew.   No clouds darkened the western sky, so he was taking the gamble that good weather would hold.

******

Elizabeth awoke in the morning feeling worn out and wanting to stay in bed to sleep all morning.  When Esperanza was brought in and placed on the bed, she made herself get up, dress in her most comfortable and loose-fitting grey skirt with a simple white blouse, and no belt.  

"I just cannot face being all bound up today," she told her daughter, whom Maria had dressed in a soft little ochre gown.  "We are going to be loose women today!"

Esperanza giggled and reached for her mother.  "Mah, mah," she said.

"Oh, Ranza, are you saying my name?  Are you asking for Mommie?" Elizabeth asked, picking the baby up.  She felt especially heavy, and in lifting her Elizabeth felt an ache in her back.  "Sweetheart you are getting so big!" she whispered, kissing her daughter's curly head.  Esperanza immediately picked at her mother's necklace.  "No, you cannot have Mommie's pretty gold medallion," Elizabeth said, trying to pull her hand away.  "Daddy gave that to me the night before we were married!  He promised he would always watch over me."  She looked into her daughter's bright, inquisitive hazel eyes.  "I imagine your Daddy looked around just as you are doing once, with those big beautiful eyes...." she murmured.  She carried the baby over to the portrait of Matilde de la Vega and the little Diego on the wall.  "Do you see that?  Daddy was a little older here than you are, but there he is with his Mama holding him, just like I am holding you.  Isn't she beautiful?  You are named after her, sweetheart, you are Esperanza Matilde.  Daddy loved you so much when you were born that he gave you his Mama's name.  You look like her.  Isn't she pretty?"  Esperanza reached for the oil painting and managed to run her finger across it, causing Elizabeth to pull her away.  "I don't think Daddy would like to see your fingernail marks on that!" Elizabeth said.  "Here, let me put you on the floor, ow..." she said, putting the child on the floor where she could crawl around.  Elizabeth felt at her lower back.  She watched as Esperanza crawled straight for the open wardrobe and pulled herself to a standing position, reaching for shoes.

"Shoe!" she shouted, pulling one of Elizabeth's shoes out and throwing it on the floor.

Elizabeth laughed, sorely wishing Diego were present to witness what was surely a direct connection between the shoe and the word to identify it.  

"Shoe!" Esperanza shouted again, grabbing and throwing another shoe to the floor.  She plopped down onto the floor and began pushing the shoes around with her little hands.

"Yes, you may play with them, for a little while," Elizabeth told her, finishing buttoning her blouse.  Then she realized she had not nursed the baby. Esperanza had already eaten when Maria brought her in and had shown no interest in what her mother had to offer. Elizabeth looked up, realizing there could be another explanation for how tired and achy she suddenly felt. 

"I suppose it is time to let you go," Elizabeth murmured, sitting down on her chair while keeping an eye on the child.  "I may only have a little while before we will have a new one to hold and cuddle and feed..." Then she remembered the trunk that she and Bernardo had found in the old hayloft the previous afternoon.  "Esperanza," she said, "would you like to go to the barn with Mommie this morning?  I found something special there yesterday, but we cannot open it.  Let's go see if we can find your Grandpapa, perhaps he will have a key." She got up and bent over to pick up the baby, but it hurt her back enough that she let Esperanza back down again, and went to the door to call Maria.  

The servant, who always had such a fine ear for her mistress's voice, appeared quickly.

"Can you bring Esperanza for me, I want to find Don Alejandro," Elizabeth said.  

"Si, Seņora," Maria answered, a little surprised that Elizabeth was calling on her to carry the baby. Usually once she was up, she kept Esperanza in her arms or otherwise nearby until time for her morning nap. "He is down on the patio, having his coffee."  She picked up Esperanza, who grabbed one of the shoes and held on.

"Good," Elizabeth said.  They proceeded downstairs.  The sun was shining.

As soon as he saw his granddaughter, Alejandro reached for her and took her.  "Good morning, Esperanza!" he exclaimed. "My goodness, what have you here?  One of your mommie's shoes?"

"Shoe!" the baby laughed, flapping it at her grandfather.

"That can be a dangerous weapon!" Alejandro laughed, taking it away from her.  She immediately started to fuss, having her treasure removed.

It took a few minutes to get her calmed down and on the ground, where she resumed playing with the shoe.

"I suppose we have gotten no word from Diego," Elizabeth said, sitting across from him.

He shook his head.  "With the weather lifting, I imagine they are just beginning the search today.  I do not think they will find him, though.  I have thought about it more.  Monastario will not allow himself to be stalked."

"Why do you say that?" Elizabeth asked.

"He always knew what he wanted.  He never made himself an easy target.  It would be more like him to do the hunting than be the hunted."

Elizabeth shuddered.

"I am sorry, that sounds more alarming than I meant it to," Alejandro said.  "I believe he came here to purchase the land, Elizabeth.  Your father has persuaded me that we really do not need to fear him.  At least not now.  It is hard to say what his larger goals might be."

"Diego does not trust him and neither do I," she said. "It is true, he is handsome and charming.  In a different life I might have liked him when I met him.  But under the circumstances..."

Alejandro took a sip of his coffee.  He looked around to be sure no servants were nearby.  Then he said, "When he accused Diego of being Zorro, it was even before I knew who my son really was.  And at the time I felt, as everyone in the pueblo did, that he was mad for making such an accusation.  I wanted it to be true, but the Diego who came back from Spain was so unrecognizable to me that I simply could not imagine that this bookish, fumbling young man with his fussy, gold-embroidered jackets could possibly be Zorro!  You have no idea how well he fooled us all!"

Elizabeth smiled softly.  "He fooled me, too. For a long time, all things considered."

Alejandro patted the soft, silky head of the dark-haired baby, now at his feet and playing with his shoes.  "He did not want to."

Elizabeth looked at her father-in-law.  "What do you mean?" she asked.

Alejandro looked back at her.  "It was I.  I insisted that he not tell you."

Elizabeth stared at him, dumbfounded.  

"Si," Alejandro said.  "He still has not told you that?  Lord, I have a loyal son."

Elizabeth was so astonished she could not speak for a moment.  "He told me something about a promise he made to you, but...I was so caught up in finding out who he was that I did not really pay attention to what he was saying...he never blamed you...he always took responsibility for it himself."

"I forbade him from telling you, when the marriage was arranged," Alejandro confessed.  "It seems foolish now, but I did not believe you could keep the secret."

"I remember you were quite upset, the morning he told you I knew."

"He wanted to tell you, desperately, long before he did.  We argued about it more than once, during the engagement. I was afraid he would jeopardize everything if he told you, that he would reveal himself to everyone, or give it up, or let you convince him that he should not do it anymore."

"But I loved him, as Zorro," Elizabeth said.

"Si, he knew that.  He wanted you to love him as Diego.  I told him that he had to win you as Diego, if he was to win you truly."

Elizabeth was overcome with emotion.  "He told me that...but somehow I did not realize...it went back to you."

Alejandro leaned down and picked up Esperanza, who immediately began fingering his beard.  "He would have told you before the wedding, if it had not been for me," he said.  

Elizabeth took a deep breath.  It did not matter now, nearly two years later, and yet she felt as if she had been struck.  She watched as Alejandro played with the baby.  His affection for her ran deeper than anything else in his life, with the possible exception of his love for his son.

"It is long past righting, Elizabeth," he said, "but I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for it.  I was trying to protect everything Diego had worked for all those years...and although I now see that it was misguided, I thought I was trying to protect you."

"That is what he emphasized, when he finally told me.  That it was dangerous for me to know," Elizabeth said.  "Did you keep secrets from your own wife?" she asked him.

He looked at her, startled.  "Why...." he thought back.  "I tried to, on occasion."

"You did not succeed, did you?"

He shook his head with a rueful smile.  "No, I did not."  He looked at her.  "And it was wrong of me to suggest that Diego should do so, from his."

"Every marriage has its own rules," Elizabeth said. "And every marriage must be allowed to make its own rules."

"I am sorry, Elizabeth," he said.  "That is all I can say.  He was right, when he said I did not know you."

"He said that?"

"Si, when we argued.  He said I did not know you, and that I did not know him, either.  I do not think it was so much a matter of knowing, as it was a matter of...allowing both of you to find your own way in your relationship.  At least I learned my lesson!  I have not ever been tempted to interfere since."  

She sat there for a while, watching him handle the inquisitive little girl.  "No," she agreed, "you have not."  She paused, then added, "And I forgive you."  

They sat there for a while, enjoying Esperanza's giggles as she played with her grandfather.  

"Oh," Elizabeth said, "I found something in the back barn yesterday that might interest you, but I cannot get into it."

"What is that?"

"It is an old trunk, it was in the same place where the old cross and the altar were."

He looked at her strangely.  "A trunk?"

"Si, it is small, it looks very old.  It has an 'M' engraved on the top.  I thought perhaps it was Matilde's."

Alejandro was quiet for a moment as he adjusted the baby in his lap.  

"Alejandro?"

"Si...it was my wife's.  She had taken it to Santa Barbara with her, on the trip when she died.  I stored it when we took the altar down...I could not bring myself to open it.  Then Diego left for Spain.  And I forgot about it.  I suppose I made myself forget about it.  I added a second barn to the hacienda property instead."

"You mean it has not been opened in all those years?  You do not know what is in it?"

He shook his head.  "I am sure it is just clothes.  The padres at the Santa Barbara mission packed it for me after she died. I have not thought about that trunk in a very long time.  Diego begged me to open it after I returned to Los Angeles without her, but at the time, I could not."

Elizabeth stood up.  "We must open it.  But it has a lock on it.  Do you have the key?"

He looked up at her.  "It is probably in the same drawer in my bedroom where all of her jewelry is." He smiled.  "Diego raids that drawer every once in a while."

Elizabeth grinned.  "Not often enough!  He has never let me peak into it.  But I am sure that is where this came from."  She held up her ring finger, flashing the large, sparkling diamond set in rubies that Diego had given them upon their engagement.

"I think he is saving some of it for her," Alejandro said, indicating the squirming Esperanza.

"She cannot appreciate it the way I can!" Elizabeth laughed.  Then she suddenly had to sit down again.

"Are you all right?" Alejandro asked her.

"Si, just a little lightheadedness," she said, tossing her head and trying to make little of it.  "I have not had breakfast."

Hearing that, Alejandro called to Conchita to bring Doņa Elizabeth some food.

******

Into the early evening, El Zorro continued his solitary ride into the hills.  His guess that he would pass no one had been right.  It was as he approached the mouth of the Santa Susanna Pass that he spied, in the distance, two figures on horseback.  He was on a ridge leading down to the road and luck that allowed him to see them before they could see him.  He yanked Tornado to a stop and watched.  The sun was beginning to set behind him to the west.  

It was two men, one on a white horse, the other on a reddish one.  A sorrel.  Zorro squinted, wishing he had a spyglass with him.  It had to be Monastario and Bocca.  The horses fit the description Long Lash had given.  He patted Tornado's neck.  "We have gotten lucky, Tornado," he said softly. He checked his pistols and the rifle attached to his saddle.  Now that the confrontation was finally upon him, he was not sure what he would do.  He could not justify an ambush that might kill someone before there was reason for violence.  What if he has indeed reformed? he asked himself.  He watched as they made their way towards a crossing.  They were closer now, perhaps quarter of a mile away.  Most of the year the place they were trying to cross was a dry creek bed, but with all the rain it was a swollen, rushing stream of deep, white water.  This should be interesting, Zorro thought.  

The two men stopped and looked over the place, trying to identify a reasonable ford.  The one on the white horse urged his steed into the water, but the horse resisted after a few steps.  Zorro dismounted and led Tornado closer, trying to get within hearing distance of the two men.  He could see that they seemed to be debating about how to proceed.  One was waving back towards the pass, seeming to favor returning and going around another way.  The one on the white horse seemed determined to make the crossing and continue.  Zorro moved closer, still above the two men.  He told Tornado to wait, and, taking his shotgun, he climbed a rock and squeezed around a narrow ledge so that he was above and much closer to them.  He could see them quite clearly now. Indeed, Benicio Bocca was on the sorrel horse, and Enrique Monastario was the man on the white stallion.

All right, thought El Zorro.  We have no more doubts now, Monastario.

"This is the kind of water that will sweep us to our deaths," Benicio said.  

"What is the matter, Bocca, are you afraid to die?"  Monastario asked.

"This is not how I want to go," Benicio smiled his slow, curling smile. 

"Ah!" Monastario laughed.  "You would prefer to die in a barroom over a beautiful barmaid, perhaps?"

Bocca shrugged. "At least I would have a sweet memory to take to my grave!"

Monastario backed his horse away from the water and looked around.  His eyes swept forward, then behind and up.  He looked up for a long time, staring into the rocks above.

Bocca looked at him curiously, and then looked up into the rocks above them as well.  "Are you seeing a ghost?" he asked.

"In a way," said Monastario softly.  

Zorro kept himself completely still.  The ledge where he stood was dark. It seemed impossible that Monastario could see him in the growing shadows.  

"Go back, if you wish," Monastario said to his companion.  "We do not need to travel together."

Bocca looked back at the water.  "It is too deep to cross here," he stated. "I will go downstream to see if it looks more possible there."  He then nudged his sorrel past Monastario, staying well away from the water's edge.  His path took him around a rock outcropping and out of Zorro's sight.

Monastario waited for a while, then looked up into the dark space in the rocks again.  He squinted.  Then he turned his horse around once in a full circle, his hand on his sword.  He scanned every inch of rock, tree and ground around him.  Everything was quiet except the sound of the rushing water a few feet away.

"Benicio!" he shouted.

No answer came back.  He sat forward slightly on the horse, looking around again.  He turned once more to look upstream when he heard a pounding sound and by the time he had turned in its direction the black horse and rider were already on top of him, crashing up against him. It nearly unseated him but he managed to stay on his stallion, though it bucked momentarily and trumpeted furiously.  Whirling the horse around he heard the snap of a whip, and felt a sharp sting as the pistol in his belt flew out and away from him.  He whirled the horse around again and ten feet away, suddenly as still as a waiting cat, sat El Zorro on his black stallion.

"You!" Monastario said.  "I saw you in the rocks."

Zorro tipped his hand from his hat.  He had already put the whip back onto the pommel of his saddle.

"You are faster now than I remember, Seņor Zorro," Monastario said, with a gentlemanly nod. His hand went to his sword hilt, but he did not draw it from its sheath.

Zorro's horse backed up a few steps.  "Why are you here, Monastario?"  the masked man asked.  "Why have you come back to Los Angeles?"

"I have as much right as anyone to enjoy the beauties of Alta California," Monastario replied.

"You have purchased land in these mountains."

"You have good spies, Seņor....Zorro," Monastario observed.  "A member of your family, perhaps?"

"Los Angeles is still a small community," Zorro told him.  "That is why I am inquiring as to your intentions." He looked nodded downstream.  "Seņor Bocca has made himself a nuisance on frequent occasion, which has caused me to discourage him from being on hand very frequently.  I am newly disappointed in the company he keeps."

"You do not know me at all now," Monastario said, glancing downstream as well. Benicio was nowhere to be seen.  "In fact," he shrugged, "I do not know why you are attacking me on this lovely evening.  I have done nothing to warrant being ambushed and whipped. I made a land purchase on fully legal terms from an esteemed leader of the Los Angeles community, and this evening I am on my way to the road that will take me back to Mexico and my own family....I am the one who should be questioning you, for this intrusion."

Zorro sat up a little straighter, physically reacting to Monastario's bold claim of innocence. 

"Ah, you feel a little guilty, perhaps?" Monastario asked.

"No, seņor, I feel you are trying to take me for a fool," Zorro answered.

"Just as you took me for a fool once?" Monastario asked. "Eh, de la Vega?" 

They stared at each other for a moment.  Then in a bold, swift move, Monastario dismounted his horse and drew his sword.  "Let us finish this," he said.  "I shall be quite happy to send you home to your pretty family, a dead man in the back of a wagon."

Zorro jumped off Tornado.  He started to draw his own sword, but then stopped, staring at Monastario.  The other man waited, his sword making tiny circles in the air.  

Zorro pulled off his hat, mask and cape and tied them to the pommel on Tornado's saddle, standing before his old enemy.  
"Ah, de la Vega," Monastario repeated, as Diego drew his sword.  "How manly of you to reveal yourself at last. I do feel vindicated, after all these years!"

Diego said nothing for a moment, and then made a rapid swipe towards his opponent's torso, testing Monastario's speed and reaction time.  It was dazzling.  He was faster now than he had been years ago.  
But so am I, Diego thought.

******

Elizabeth led Alejandro up the little ladder and into the hayloft of the rear barn.  It had taken him half an hour to rummage through drawers in his room to collect loose keys, but he finally found three that he could not attach to any particular lock.  "It is probably one of these," he said.

"I wonder what the other two are?" was Elizabeth's reply.

As they climbed the ladder, Alejandro looked around.  "This is the original barn my father built for this rancho," he told Elizabeth.  "We only use it for storage now.  I have wondered if I should just have it taken down, but Diego is sentimental about it.  It was the barn he grew up with."

Elizabeth smiled, pulling herself up into the hay.  "He does not talk about growing up much with me," she said.  "But once in a while he will tell me a story that makes me feel as if I were here on the rancho with your family twenty years ago.  Or on the Camino Real, with him and Matilde."

They approached the objects Elizabeth had uncovered the day before.  Alejandro took his breath in, seeing the old cross and the altar.  "Oh, my," he murmured, running his hand down the edge of the cross.  "This was a gift from the priests in San Gabriel.  One of them carved it by hand.  They were always giving her things, in thanks for the horses she would bring.  I think she treasured this the most."

"Look at this!" Elizabeth said, pointing at the little saddle she had found.

"Oh," Alejandro said, seeing it.  He ran his hand over it.  "How Diego loved this.  He was five when we gave it to him, and he outgrew it within a couple of years.  But I do not think he was ever more excited about anything in his life..." he grinned at Elizabeth, "except perhaps for the day I told him he was going to marry you!" He paused and then added, "and the day that Esperanza was born."

Elizabeth laughed softly.  She plunked herself down in the hay and patted the little trunk.  Alejandro stood there looking at it for what seemed like a long time.  Then he wiped his eyes off and sat down beside his daughter-in-law, fumbling as he pulled the keys out of his pocket.

"It is very strange, how things come back to you," he said huskily. "She has been gone so long, and yet seeing this again, I feel as if we just packed it last night, to send with her on a trip. She often put Diego's clothes in this one, because it was small.  Perhaps that is what we will find when we open it."  He tried the first key, but it did not work.  The second did not fit into the lock properly.  The third was so wrongly sized that it would not enter the mouth of the lock at all.

"Well," Alejandro said, disappointed. 

"Let me try," Elizabeth said, offering her palm.

He shrugged and handed them over.  She looked at the keys carefully and then at the lock.  Choosing one, she slid it in and then began to work it, with a few jiggles.  She turned it several times, very gently.  Suddenly there was a click, and the lock fell open.  They smiled at one another.

Elizabeth pulled the lock away.  They both looked at it, and then at one another.  "You do it," she said.

He put his hands on the top of the trunk and very slowly opened it.  What greeted their eyes first, carefully folded in half, was a small leather vest.

"Ah, this was Diego's, when he was eleven," Alejandro said, lifting it out.  "He loved to wear this, he always wore it when they went up the Camino Real.  He said it made him feel like one of the vaqueros." He frowned.  "I wonder why she took this with her to Santa Barbara?  Diego did not go on that trip."

Elizabeth ran her hand over the little vest gently, imagining her beloved as a young boy wearing it very proudly.  "Perhaps it was a way of taking him with her," she murmured. "One day perhaps we will have a son who will wear this," she added quietly.  She paused and then turned her attention to the trunk again.  "And here are a few scarves, and some fabric..." she lifted the clothing out.  "Oh," she said.  She reached into the trunk and in her hand was a faded white envelope.  They both looked at it.  It said, in beautifully written black script, "Diego." It was sealed, with an "M" gracefully written across the seal.   Elizabeth looked at her father-in-law, who stared at the envelope as if he had seen a ghost.  She put the envelope aside and looked back down into the trunk.  She pushed aside a few more things - a black shawl, a pair of pants that might have been new for Diego, a pair of white gloves that surely had been Matilde's.  Then she lifted another light shawl away and there at the bottom of the trunk was another aged envelope.  She picked it up and turned it over.  It said "Alejandro" on it in the same script.  She stared at it for a moment and then handed it to him.

He accepted it, looking down at it wordlessly.  Finally he said, "Oh, my."

"You have not seen this before?" Elizabeth asked.

He shook his head.  

She waited for a moment.  Then she took the letter with Diego's name on it and handed it to him.  "I believe Diego should receive this from you, when he comes home."

Alejandro accepted it, nodding.  He was still staring at the envelope with his name on it.

Elizabeth got up.  "I am going back to the hacienda," she said.  "I believe I will change clothes and lunge Blanca for a little while.  Perhaps I shall go see Clementia later on."  She touched his shoulder lightly.

Alejandro glanced at her, still overcome. She left him there in the hayloft with the long lost letter from his wife.

******

The swords clashed furiously, metal glinting in the deep yellow sunlight.  The two men were still playing with one another, testing one another.  Though there was no audience, no one who might have watched would have seen every move, the speed of thrust and parry was so furious and clipped. The little plain beside the rushing creek was wide enough to allow them to advance and retreat back and forth like lightning.  Their stallions, the black and the white, alternately stared one another down with bared teeth and paced nervously as the duel lengthened and slowly sank into what both men knew would be a fight to the death. 

Monastario proved to be faster and more aggressive with his sword, but Diego was the more agile man. Over and over he dodged well-aimed thrusts by fractions of an inch, his black shirt gradually shredding in places where the blade sliced through.   Twice they came so close they were in one another's faces, smelling one another's breath and sweat, as each tried to overcome the other with locked swords. Both times Diego outmaneuvered his opponent, but without the slice to the neck or heart he aimed for.

For ten minutes they clashed, with increasing fury and icy concentration.  Then Diego shouted and attacked in a short leap, catching Monastario enough off guard that he managed to nick his enemy's right forearm.  Monastario yelped, but did not lose his focus.  They stepped back for a moment, breathless, their eyes locked.  A strange sound rose from upstream.  It sounded at first like a faint rumble which gradually gained volume.  Diego's eyes widened.  Instantly, so did Monastario's.  They both raced for their horses and leaped into the saddles, gouging the animals sides and heading for higher ground.  Galloping up the rocky ridge, Tornado in the lead, they clattered up the path as the sound grew louder.  Diego wheeled Tornado around at the top of the ridge to see water rising ominously in the creek below.  Monastario and Caesar nearly crashed into Diego and his steed, but Diego yanked Tornado around and kicked his sides as hard as he could, going back down the other side of the ridge.  Monastario watched, frowning.  He looked further down the path and then realized what Diego was doing.  He kicked his horse and raced after, unwilling to lose his opportunity for revenge.

The sound was growing louder as Diego got to the bottom of the ridge on the back side of the hill, where he jumped off Tornado and, pulling his knife, ran straight into the rocky outcropping several feet above the rising creek. Sitting on the outcropping was Benicio Bocca, gagged and tied, where Zorro had left him twenty minutes before.  Bocca's eyes were wide, for he too could hear what was coming.  

Diego slashed his knife into the rope binding Benicio's hands and yanked off his gag.  "Run!" he shouted.  "Go to the high ground!"  He turned to Tornado, shouting, "Go, Tornado! Go!" The horse pivoted on his hind legs and raced back up the ridge, colliding with Monastario and Caesar near where Diego had dismounted.  The horses screamed and bit at one another before Tornado finally shook himself from the collision and continued up the path.  Diego followed Benicio, climbing the rocks as fast as he could, unable to watch what was happening below between the horses and rider for the sake of reaching the higher ground.  The noise upstream now sounded like a crashing landslide.  He reached the top of the ridge just after Benicio. They looked upstream to see the flash flood waters descend like a wall, hauling boulders and trees along as if they were weightless.  Looking back down, Diego saw Monastario and Caesar scrambling back up the path Tornado had taken, but because the black horse had briefly cut off their escape with the collision, the wall of water caught them.  Astonished, Diego watched as they were swept into the current and hauled downstream, bobbing above and under the water until they disappeared from sight.  

The two men stood there breathing hard, in part from the strenuous climb they had made and in part from the shock of what they had just witnessed.   Once the wall of water passed, everything subsided.  Suddenly the sound disappeared, and they could hear only the slow rushing of the swollen creek again.  Everything became very still.  

Diego, ignoring Bocca for the moment, looked around and saw his agitated horse in the shadow of a rock at the top of the ridge.  He ran to him and stopped cold.  "Oh, no," he said, his voice nearly breaking.   He thought he was going to be sick. "Oh, no."  A terrible gouge was in Tornado's great chest. Blood was pouring out.  Diego saw in an instant that this was not something the other horse had done, it was the gash of a sword shoved deep into his steed, aimed at his heart.  "Oh, no," Diego said again, trying to hold Tornado still.  "Please, be still Tornado, be still..." he said softly, trying to calm the animal.  He yanked off what was left of his black shirt and held it against the wound.  

"We might still be able to find them," Benicio said, walking up behind Diego without seeing what was happening.  Then Benicio stepped forward and saw the horse's injury as Diego unbuckled the girth and yanked the saddle, still burdened by the rifle and pistols, off the horse, throwing it aside as hard as he could.  Tornado wobbled, and then collapsed onto the ground with a great heave.

"They can rot in hell!" Diego exclaimed, falling to his knees beside his horse.  He stroked Tornado's neck gently.  "Hold on, boy," he said.  "Hold on."  He felt into the wound, to see how deep it had really gone.  Tornado's legs shuddered.

"How bad is it?" Benicio asked.

Diego was silent, still probing.  The horse was breathing heavily, but not foaming blood.  "It is bad," Diego said.

Benicio got to his knees beside Diego.  "Do you mind?" he asked.  "I have tended a few horses, too."

Diego stared at Bocca for a moment, but then leaned aside.  Benicio's hands moved gently over Tornado's chest and around the wound.  "Easy, easy," he said softly.  Tornado lay there huffing, his breathing gradually slowing down.  "It is deep," Benicio said, getting up.  "But it did not puncture his heart, or his lungs.  The bleeding is lessening, now that he is off his feet.  He may survive. But he cannot get up. Not for a while."

Diego sat there, shirtless, his hands and forearms covered in blood.  He looked at Benicio.  Suddenly Diego lunged at him, hauling him to the ground and putting his fist into Bocca's jaw. Benicio shouted and began to fight back, so the two men scrambled on the ground beside the gravely injured horse clawing at one another.  Finally Diego prevailed, pinning Benicio and giving him another hard sock to the chin.  He then rolled off and went back to the horse, sitting beside him and stroking his neck.  The thought of losing his horse was more than he could bear.  He sat there for some time in silence, leaving his unexpected companion to tend to his own misery.

"For all you know, I was doing you a favor," Benicio said, finally having caught his breath and holding his bruised face. "I got him up here, away from the pueblo. Would you have preferred that he stay down there, shadowing your wife?"

Diego's head jerked around and he was on his feet again in an instant, facing Benicio. 

"Don't hit me again," Benicio said, holding up his hand.  "Even El Zorro cannot be everywhere at once, you know.  Sometimes your allies come from unexpected quarters."

Diego turned back to Tornado and again sat beside the horse.  Benicio stood there behind him, very close to the saddle with the pistols and rifle lying on it.  

"I have never trusted you, Benicio," Diego said. 

"Then why did you save me this afternoon?" Benicio asked, glancing down at the rifle near his feet.

"It is a bad habit," Diego replied, stroking Tornado's face.  He gently pulled the bit out of the horse's mouth and removed the bridle.  "This will help you breath, boy," he said. 

Benicio gave a short laugh.  "Well, better me than Monastario!" he said.  He looked to the south, in the direction the creek ran, and where the old commandante and his white steed had disappeared.  "I can go look for them," he said. 

Diego looked southward as well.  "No," he said flatly.  "You stay here with me.  I will not risk you disappearing and returning with weapons or other help." He looked towards the stream.  "Or fishing out your compadre."

Benicio shrugged.  "I am your only hope of confirming that he is dead.  Though I cannot imagine he survived that white water and all that debris."

"No one could have survived that.  I saw him go under.  We both stay here," Diego said. He half-turned and saw the saddle, rifle, and pistols at Benicio's feet. He looked up at him. In that moment the two men, without a word, knew that their long-running feud was momentarily over, though Diego was not sure why.  At the moment he did not care.  "We stay until Tornado is able to get up and walk again," he said "Then we will walk out together." He looked around.  "What happened to that sorrel you were riding?"

Benicio shrugged.  "He ran off when you jumped me.  He is probably halfway to San Juan Capistrano by now.  Not a very good horse, really, but he knows how to find his way home."

Diego returned to Tornado's side and again got on the ground, checking the horse.  The bleeding was nearly stopped, and his breathing was unlabored.  He stroked Tornado's neck gently.  "Take it easy, boy.  Most of this is up to you.  But I will not leave you here."  Tornado half-snorted, blinking his eyes.

Diego sat back, as he watched Benicio go back to the ledge and stand there staring down at the creek below.  Tornado, he thought.  Oh, please, dear God, do not take my horse.  He fought the tightness in his throat and the tears trying to well up in his eyes as he watched his beloved animal lie there so defeated and in such pain. Please, Tornado, please, he thought.  Had the noble horse not obeyed him in rushing back up the ridge, Monastario might have caught Diego at the top of the ledge and killed him after he saved Benicio.  Once again you saved my life, Tornado, Diego thought. I cannot let you suffer.  If you cannot get up in the morning...he looked at the rifle attached to the saddle on the ground. His heart nearly burst at the thought of what he might have to do.  Aside from killing him or hurting the de la Vega family, Monastario could not have struck a more devastating blow to Diego than this.  I hope you died choking and screaming in utter horror, Diego thought, momentarily overcome with hatred. 

Benicio turned around and his eyes went first to the rifle, then to Diego.

"Don't even think about it," Diego said to him.  Then his eyes went back to his stallion.  "I may have to use that bullet in the morning."