The Secret of Zorro
Blessed Mother
Chapters Eight and Nine
by Ella Christian @1999-2001
Contact author at EllaChristian@aol.com

Chapter Eight
The Torchlight Parade

Elizabeth's mood lightened during the short journey into the pueblo.  Alejandro had a way of setting her off that she often regretted, particularly when he was right.  Diego had warned her once many months ago, "he is usually right."  She had resisted that wisdom at a cost to her relationship with her father-in-law. She was beginning to realize this was unworthy of either of them.  She could also see the incalculable joy that Esperanza brought to her grandpapa.  Elizabeth felt wrong in doing anything to compromise it.  So, as she rode beside Bernardo and tried to keep Esperanza from drooling on her pretty and perfectly-repaired green dress, she made progress in her heart with making peace with Diego's father.  She vowed to herself to be less contentious with him, however hard that might prove. She also vowed, with effort, to be kinder to Consuelo. The poor girl was, after all, to be pitied.

By the time they arrived in the pueblo, she was excited about the parade and confident that somehow Diego would thwart the pending hangings.  This was the first major opportunity to show off Esperanza in public.  The baby was in a good mood, having slept deeply for most of the afternoon. If the next feeding were well-timed, she would be peaceful and smiling as she rode on the float in her mother's arms.  

***************

Clementia, supervising the roasting of an enormous pig over a deep spit next to the Tavern, spied the carriage bearing Elizabeth, Esperanza and Bernardo as soon as it rounded the corner into the plaza.  She waved at them to come over to where she stood.

"How is the bazaar?" Elizabeth asked, approaching.  Bernardo remained with the carriage and horses to deal with their dispatch to the pueblo stableyard.

"Give me this little angel," Clementia replied, reaching for Esperanza.  "Come see your auntie, Esperanza, I have gone two days without holding you."

Elizabeth handed the baby over.  Clementia had a fearless touch with her, though she thus far remained unsuccessful at persuading Sergeant Garcia to hold or carry her about.  Amused, Elizabeth watched as Esperanza smiled up at "auntie."

"Oh, you are getting so big," Clementia said playfully.

"She is getting heavier all the time, I do not know what we will do in a few months," Elizabeth agreed. She laughed.  "Perhaps Diego will get her a horse."

Clementia glanced around, eyed Elizabeth for a moment, and then returned her attentions to Esperanza.  "I see you have your green dress back in your wardrobe," she said.  "Where is Diego? He did agree to ride in the parade.  It will ruin the finale if he does not show up."

"I am not sure where he is," Elizabeth answered, smoothing the dress skirt carefully.  Elena had done a splendid repair job.  It looked brand new.  Elizabeth was quite proud of having gotten into it barely four months after giving birth.  She did have to hold her breath some and it wasn't extremely comfortable, but it was on.  "I thought perhaps I would find him here."

"Oh, no, he left two hours ago, after he persuaded the commandante to delay the executions."

"Two hours?" Elizabeth repeated.

"Si, he talked to Capitan Vilaro, and then joined us in the Tavern for a little while, and then said he needed to see the blacksmith about something and he left.  Consuelo saw him ride out of town a little after that."  She shook her head at Esperanza.  "Where did that smile go?  Oooooo, there it is!  Look at her dimple!"

"Blacksmith," Elizabeth murmured.  "His horse is lame."  She had a feeling his visit didn't stop with Apache's shoes.  "What is the story on the hangings?"    

"After the parade."

"But still tonight?  That is terrible!"

"Si, the gallows is finished and standing in the cuartel yard. Demetrio is beside himself but there is nothing he can do.  At least we can leave, we do not have to stay here and watch those gypsies die." She held the baby up in the air.  "Are you ready to be the blessed baby in our parade, Esperanza?" she asked.  The baby giggled and waved her hands.  Clementia brought her back down and held her against her shoulder.  "Let's go over and see how the float is coming along."  She led the way to the stableyard.  Elizabeth, glancing towards the cuartel, followed.

************

Bernardo, having worked his way around to the Tavern porch by way of the alleys behind the stable, waited until Elizabeth and Clementia were out of sight.  Then he sauntered across the plaza nonchalantly, stopping at the open cuartel gates.  Gazing in, he saw the gallows before him.  He looked to the right and left.  He looked ahead and behind.  Everywhere he looked, townspeople and lancers alike were busy with something.  He took a few steps to the gallows and stood under it in the shadows, looking around again.  Still no one noticed him.  Shaking his leg slightly, he let a small file drop to the ground from his outer pantsleg.  He kicked some dirt over it surreptitiously.  He looked around again.  No one was even glancing in his direction.  He smiled to himself and moved away, to step back into the golden sunshine.  Looking around once more, he strolled back out of the cuartel yard and into the plaza to check out the progress of the roasting pig.

************

"All right, Bernardo has his instructions," El Zorro said, pulling his gloves on.  "In fact I suspect he has already completed the first part of his task!"  He looked at Alejandro, standing beside him in the secret room, holding the lantern.  "You know where to put my clothes and my horse?"

"Si, si," Alejandro said.  "And what else I must do. I think this is a very complicated scheme, Diego! Much could go wrong!"

"Ahhh, we can do it!  El Zorro will be forever in your debt."

"As if he is not already!"

He clapped Alejandro's back, laughing.  "It will be fun!"

Alejandro shook his head.  "Be careful, Diego," he said.  "I will keep my part of this up, but you must not take unnecessary risks.  Think of...."

"Esperanza, I know, I know," Zorro nodded.  "This will be the first time she will see Zorro, what do you think, will she like him?"

Alejandro shook his head again.  "I hope she sleeps through the entire evening."

Zorro grinned again, and tipped his fingers off his hat.  "Adios, Father.  I will see you in the pueblo!"  With that he whirled around and disappeared down the stairs to Tornado's cave.  Alejandro took a deep breath.  Then, picking up the bag on the table before him, he went through the secret door to take up his role in the night's drama.

************

Corporal Reyes had taken it on himself to guard the jail all day long.  He was rewarded, as he had so hoped he would be, with a bowl of goulash from Mama Ishtar.  She had stirred it up from her jail cell with ingredients purloined from various shelves from the cuartel and Tavern kitchens, using a pot and a small fire just beyond the cell bars that she was allowed to access when under strict supervision.  Now, she sat there on her stool. The other gypsies watched from behind bars. 

"You are really going to let them hang us, Corporal?" she asked him as she stirred, the steam rising from the pot as the sun began to set.

"I don't see how to avoid it," the Corporal replied.  He looked over at the commandante's office to see the door closed, and took a spoonful of the delicious stew.  Tears came into his eyes.  Was it the paprika, or the thought that soon these gypsies would be swinging one by one from the noose on the gallows?  He noticed Don Diego's deaf-mute servant standing under the gallows, scraping something on the ground with his foot.  He frowned.  

"What is the matter, Corporal, you almost look as if you have a thought," said the gypsy king Ishtar from his cell.  

Reyes looked at the gypsy.  "Oh, no, that would never happen," he assured the prisoner.  Reyes had even developed a liking for Ishtar, despite his meanness.  He was at times very funny. His months of incarceration had mellowed him some, in Reyes's humble view.

"Then what were you looking at?"

"Oh, I...." Reyes looked back at the gallows, to see that Bernardo had departed.  He shrugged and looked back at Ishtar.  "Nothing."

Ishtar looked at the gallows.  "So much for justice!" he exclaimed, spitting in the direction of the death stand.  "All we wanted was that horse!"

"But then you wanted Don Alejandro's and Don Diego's silver," Reyes pointed out.

Ishtar spit again.  "The biggest mistake I ever made was going into that hacienda!" he snarled.  "Who would have known that a bunch of women and that fat sergeant would stop us!"

"Zorro helped them," Reyes pointed out.

"Zorro!" Ishtar exclaimed.  He looked at Carmen, who sat in her usual sullen state in the back of the cell.  "Where is he now?  Or does he only rescue the wives of the rich and the girlfriends of the military? Ha!"

"He is not here much anymore," Reyes said.  "Although he did come to the Tavern last night."

"Oh?" Ishtar said.  This news had not reached him. 

"Si, he warned the commandante not to do this," Reyes nodded at the gallows.  "Not until you have had a trial."

"Really?" Ishtar said, mockery in his voice.  "El Zorro warned the capitan about us?"

"Take what you can get," Carmen said to him bitterly.

"Si, but the commandante didn't listen to him even though he kicked him down the stairs.  He did listen to Don Diego this afternoon, though, and he delayed your hanging by...." he squinted at the setting sun, "a few hours."  Reyes took another spoon of goulash.  "I think maybe Don Diego wanted to get his baby and his seņora home before...." he gulped, nodding at the gallows again.

Ishtar folded his arms, eyeing Reyes.  "So they will hang us in the dark after the celebration?"

"Si, that is the plan." He looked at the pot of stew, and then at Mama Ishtar.  "I will miss you and your stew very much," he said.

The woman smiled at him, showing a gold tooth.  "Something good will happen tonight, Seņor Corporal," she said.

Reyes frowned.  "How do you know that?"

She tapped her head knowingly, and pointed at the sky.  "I can read the stars."  She looked at him.  "And tonight is a full moon.  That will bring us good luck."

Reyes looked up and then covered his eyes from the sun.

************

"This is not a...a float!" Elizabeth exclaimed upon being led to the large, flat wagon full of hay in the stable yard.  Granted, a number of flowers and bougainvillea were carefully tacked and sewn around the sides and a large, high-backed chair covered in purple and gold brocade was placed at the head of the wagon.  But it looked nothing like anything she had ever seen in a parade in Boston.

"It is a spectacular float!" Clementia exclaimed, handing Elizabeth the baby and climbing onto a chair and up onto the wagon.  "It is the centerpiece of the parade!  Come up here and you will see!  Give me Esperanza."

Elizabeth eyed her friend doubtfully for a moment and then passed the baby up into her hands.  Then she stepped up onto the upside-down bucket on the ground and got onto the wagon.  The hay was deep and soft.  She made her way to the chair.

"Sit in it," Clementia instructed.  

Elizabeth sat down.  It had a nice cushion and was quite comfortable.  The arms were wide, and also cushioned.  "The chair is all right," she said.  She looked around.  "It is like being up in a stage coach, I suppose," she said.  

"You and Esperanza will have the best view in the entire parade!" Clementia said.  "That green dress looks very nice against the purple fabric on the chair."  She looked across the stableyard to see her servant Carolina.  "Carolina!" she cried.  "Where is the second wagon?"

"It is coming, Seņorita," came the reply.  They heard a rattle around the corner, suggesting that indeed the second wagon was approaching.

"It has been coming since before noon!" Clementia replied.  

"There is another float?" Elizabeth asked.

"Si, of course!  The children from the mission school will be on it.  They are singing the moon-and-stars song that Diego wrote for them as soon as we get into the cuartel."

"Into the cuartel?" Elizabeth said.  "The parade is going in to the cuartel?"

"Yes, that is where it ends!" Clementia replied.  "Captian Vilaro wishes us to end there in order to have a little festivity."

Elizabeth sighed.  "A little hanging is more like it," she observed.  She looked around the stableyard.  "Who is going to drive this wagon?" she asked.

"Why, I thought you were having Bernardo do it!"

"Me? Bernardo....I didn't know I was in charge of finding a driver.  I don't even know where he went!"

"Is there any reason he can't do it?"

"Not that I know of...." Elizabeth looked around a little helplessly.  Bernardo had gone off on his own the moment they had arrived.  Esperanza began to fuss.  "Give her to me," Elizabeth said, reaching for the baby.  "I have to feed her before everything starts."

"Oh!" Clementia cried.  "Then I suppose you need somewhere private...."

"Just let me sit in one of the stalls, we won't be bothered."

She stepped down and then took the baby and made her way to a fenced stall, where she sat down on a hay bale and lowered the shoulders of her dress until she freed a breast.  Covering herself and the baby with a small blanket, she then simply sat quietly while her daughter nursed.  Clementia observed all of this and then said, "I have to find out where all those children are.  I shall be back shortly."

Elizabeth nodded, and soon found herself alone in the quiet with her baby.  The sun was getting quite low, the shadows lengthening. She adjusted Esperanza slightly.  Then, to her surprise, she heard a pair of voices in the courtyard. 

"Everrrrrrrrrything is rrrrrrready?" a man said.  That has to be Vilaro, she thought.  

"Si, the lancers are at their posts and ready for anything El Zorro might try to do," came the reply.  It was a voice Elizabeth did not recognize, probably the Capitan's aide.  She looked down at Esperanza, thankful that the baby was nursing quietly.  

"Made cerrrrrrrtain that they do not leave their posts during this parrrrrrrade," Vilaro said.  "It is exactly the time when he might strike, to release those gypsies!"

"Si, Capitan!" 

"And Lieutenant, made cerrrrrrtain that the gypsies are ready for the gallows the minute the parrrrrrrade is over!  I cannot make a lesson of them for this pueblo if everyone is disperrrrrrsed by the time the hangings begin!"

"I will have them on the gallows the minute that the last rider passes through the cuartel gates, Capitan."

"Good.....let them say their prayers and begin the hanging!"  He rubbed his hands together.  "And with any luck, I will be hanging El Zorrrrrrrro at the same time!"

Elizabeth winced.  Esperanza snuffled, having emptied out the breast first offered her.  Hastily Elizabeth switched her to the other, whispering "shhhhhhhh," as she did so.  She listened as the men's footsteps faded, and then breathed a sigh of relief.  She looked down at Esperanza, still partly hidden under the blanket, and smiled.  "I would tell you that we need to find Daddy and warn him, but he already knows," she whispered very softly to the baby.  

A flutter of straw fell before her.  Then there was a light thud, and El Zorro stood before her in the shrouded stall.  "Seņora de la Vega," he said, bowing slightly.  

Elizabeth gasped.  "How did you get here?" she asked.

He grinned.  "Why, on my horse of course!"  He leaned over and pulled the blanket away from Elizabeth's shoulder so he could fully see the baby and what she was doing.  "You have a beautiful daughter, Seņora," he said.

"Thank you, Seņor Zorro," she answered, smiling up at him. "She favors her father."

"I can see her mother in her face, too," he responded, smiling back. Gently, he drew the blanket back up over Esperanza. "I have a favor to ask of you."

"Anything."

He considered that, but let it pass. "I would like to know if you will allow me to hide in your float while the parade is going on.  It seems the only route into the cuartel that is not likely to be scrutinized by soldiers."

Elizabeth gave him a startled look. 

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"It is just that....my husband is supposed to ride at the end of the parade...."

"But I have it on good authority that he has been delayed by a lame horse, and he will be arriving a little later than expected," El Zorro said.

    				*****************

It was half an hour later when Elizabeth finally emerged from the stall, the very full and dozing Esperanza held against her shoulder.  Clementia, by this time, was herding a dozen children into the stableyard to climb onto the second wagon. Consuelo had joined her.  "Climb up and then sit yourselves in the hay," Clementia instructed them.  Bernardo had also been recruited to help in this chore.  "Elizabeth, I still have not seen Diego, are you sure he is coming?"

Elizabeth glanced at Bernardo.  "I am sure he will be here, Clementia, but I cannot say when," she answered.  "His horse is still lame, you see."

"He has many horses!" Clementia huffed.  "The light is fading, we must be ready for the parade to begin at dusk." 

"It is nearly dusk now," Elizabeth said, giving Bernardo the baby while she stepped up onto the wagon bed.  She then reached down, took her daughter, and very carefully made her way through the hay to her purple-shrouded seat.  Bernardo climbed up to help her, causing Elizabeth to frown and shake her head, glancing down into the hay.  Bernardo frowned, not understanding. Then his eyes widened.  Elizabeth's eyes widened back and she nodded slightly, towards the hay in front of and just to the right of her chair.  Following the path she had taken, he helped her get seated and then climbed around the tall chair to the driver's bench and seated himself.

"I think we are ready on the Blessed Mother float," Elizabeth called out.

"Consuelo, get up there and sit with those children," Clementia told her cousin.  "They need someone to supervise them or that one," she pointed at Rufino, a particularly mischievous little boy with a perpetual smile of devilment, "will cause more trouble than we can imagine."

Consuelo, so recently converted to the idea that children might be a blessing rather than an inconvenience, climbed up into the wagon and found her way into the jumble of children in the hay.  Elizabeth watched this with some amusement, for Clementia's cousin was clearly inexperienced with people under four feet tall.

"Ow!" Consuelo yelped, grabbing at her behind.

The children burst into giggling, Rufino having given her a whack.

"Behave yourselves!" Clementia cried at the children.  She reached into the wagon and grabbed Rufino's ear.  "You especially!  Do you know what I shall do with you if you don't behave?  I shall....I shall make you wash dishes in my kitchen for three days in a row!"

The boy made a face.  Then he looked up at Consuelo and smiled angelically.

Elizabeth laughed.  "I think Consuelo and Clementia may have met their match," she said softly to Bernardo.  Then she gasped, for a black-gloved hand suddenly wrapped around her ankle and squeezed.  

Bernardo looked around at her alarmed, hearing her sound. 

"It is all right," she assured him, shaking the hand off and dropping some more hay onto it.  "I think there is a mouse in this hay somewhere." Then more softly she said, "Or perhaps it is a fox."  

The hand pinched her Achilles heel, and then disappeared back into the hay.

**********

Capitan Vilaro took his place with his back to the gallows, sitting on his horse facing out the cuartel gates to greet the parade as it arrived.  His first officer and Sergeant Garcia sat on their horses on either side of him. Every lancer in the garrison stood at attention lined up beside them, excepting Corporal Reyes.  The loyal Corporal remained behind the rest of the military party, standing vigil beside the jail cell filled with silent, dour gypsies.  He stared at the backs of his colleagues with sadness, knowing that when the formation broke, it would be time to unlock the cell and prepare to bring Ishtar, Mama Ishtar, Carmen and the others out and line them up to take their turns at meeting their maker.  

In the distance they could hear the drumming begin as the parade started.  Corporal Reyes sighed.  He looked down.  Then he looked up again.  The moon was rising beautifully over the cuartel wall.  He blinked, seeing a shadow near the gallows.  Then the shadow moved.  He blinked again.  Inside the jail cell, Ishtar was on his feet, seeing it too.  He reached between the bars and grabbed Reyes as he began to step forward, plunging his hand over the lancer's mouth.  Reyes did little to resist.  As the gypsy and the soldier watched, a dark figure felt around on the ground beneath the gallows, found something, and slowly began working his way around the gallows with a tool, doing what appeared to be loosening the screws and nails that held the structure together.  Reyes managed to look around at Ishtar despite the grip the gypsy had on him, his eyes wide.  The figure continued his systematic work, unscrewing and loosening the nails and screws in strategically-placed locations.  The whole process took around five minutes, proceeding as the drums of the parade came closer. Then the figure dropped the tool he was using and slipped away into the darkness as quietly as he had come.  

Ishtar held Reyes's head against the iron bars.  "Will you alert the lancers?" he whispered fiercely.  Reyes shook his head "no."

"If you do, I will kill you," Ishtar said.

Reyes nodded.

Ishtar hit his head as hard as he could.  Reyes crumpled to the ground in front of him, roundly knocked out.  

"Do you think that was Zorro?" Carmen asked.

"It may have been the man who dresses as Zorro," Ishtar said, spitting.  "In any case, we shall see what he is trying to do soon enough."  He looked around at his family. "We will owe our masked enemy a debt, if he is truly getting us out of here."

Mama Ishtar smiled, nodding.  She pointed at the full moon.  Then she made a "Z" in the air.

************

"How pretty you look, sweetheart," came a voice from Elizabeth's right.  

She turned to see her father on his prancing horse. "Buenos noches, Daddy," she smiled.  She held up Esperanza.  "Say hello to your Grandpapa, Ranza."

Carlos Matteo waved at the baby, making a face.  "Buenos noches Ranzita!" he said.  "I don't suppose you would let me carry her for you in this parade," he said to his daughter.

"Now, how could I be the Blessed Mother with no sweet baby in my lap?" Elizabeth asked.

"Borrow one of them," he nodded at the other wagon.  "Rufino would give you some good company!"

"Ouch!" Consuelo yelled, another pinch coming her way.

"I think I shall keep the child I have," Elizabeth said, tucking Esperanza back into the crook of her arm.  "Are you getting sleepy, muchacha?" she asked.

"Stop that!" Consuelo cried at Rufino.  

Carlos urged Sirocco over to the other wagon.  "He is a handful, isn't he?" he said to Consuelo.  

"He is a monster!" Consuelo exclaimed.

"I have been trying to teach him his English lessons and am getting tar wads and slingshots," Carlos said, eyeing the eight year-old. "You don't have that slingshot with you tonight, do you?"

Rufino smiled, shaking his head.  The twinkle in his eye suggested otherwise.

"Don't you dare," Clementia said, waving a finger at him.

Moneta, the little girl beside him, giggled.

Alejandro de la Vega cantered in on his horse, looking rushed.  "Clementia," he said, coming up to where the two wagons stood side-by-side, "I am sorry to tell you this, but Diego has been delayed.  He asked me to let you know he will be here as soon as he can."

"Why is he delayed?"  "What's wrong?" Clementia and Elizabeth said at the same time.

"It is his horse," Alejandro replied.  He leaned over to get a look at his granddaughter, who was fast approaching sleep.  Then he looked at Elizabeth.  "He wanted to come on Apache but he is still lame, and Padre was in the pasture so he had to go try to catch him."

"You have a herd of horses at Rancho de la Vega and he can't get here?" Clementia cried.

Alejandro shrugged.  "I cannot tell him what horse to ride, seņorita."

Carlos snorted.

"What was that for?" Alejandro asked.

"You can tell him who to marry but not what horse to ride?" Matteo asked.

Clementia giggled in spite of herself.  Consuelo, taking in the exchange between the two men, noticed how handsome Alejandro was, even for a man of close to sixty.  

Alejandro glared briefly at his friend. He looked again to Clementia, who rapidly composed herself.  "I imagine he will be here at any moment, but if you wish to begin you should proceed.  I will take his place at the end of the parade if he has not arrived by the time the last wagon has left the stableyard."

Consuelo looked at Elizabeth, wondering why she showed no upset at Diego's unexpected absence.  Instead, she was simply taking it all in, looking quite beautiful and relaxed on her purple chair with the sweet, dark-haired baby in her arms.  It was almost as if she did not care about her husband's whereabouts one way or the other.

"I think we should go ahead with the parade," Elizabeth said to Clementia.  "Everyone is out there waiting."

"Yes, including those gypsies!" Rufino shouted.

"Hush!" Clementia told him.  "Do you want to sing your song or not?! I shall make all of you get out of the wagon and go home if you do not behave!"

All the children became quiet, for they had been practicing faithfully and had looked forward to their performance for days.    

"You should have thought of that threat sooner," Elizabeth observed wryly.  To Rufino she said, "Do not speak ill of the gypsies, Rufino, for they are about to meet their maker."

"Unless Zorro saves them!" Moneta piped up. 

Consuelo looked over at the girl. "Zorro?" she said.  "Is Zorro coming tonight, to save the gypsies?"

"He is going to save the gypsy girl Carmen and carry her away on his black horse," Moneta explained.

"But not the other gypsies?" Elizabeth asked.

The child shook her head.  "He doesn't like the other ones, especially Ishtar," she explained. "He tried to cut off El Zorro's head the day the seņora," she nodded in Elizabeth's direction, "had her baby."

"The day Sergeant Garcia shot the gypsy!" Rufino added. "El Zorro is going to cut Ishtar's head off and rescue Carmen!"

"Well, we shall have to tell Capitan Vilaro who to talk to in order to find out what Zorro's plans are!" Carlos noted.

"Why is he going to carry Carmen away?" Clementia asked, amused.

"He likes to kiss her," Moneta solemnly replied.

Consuelo glanced over at Elizabeth to see her eyes narrow slightly.

"Yeeeeeuuuuuwwwww," said Rufino.

"Yeeuuuwwwww," the other children began to repeat, giggling.

"All right, all right," Clementia said, waving at them.  "You are all to be quiet now and you must stay quiet until your wagon has come to a stop in front of Capitan Vilaro and all of the lancers.  Then Consuelo will give you the signal and you are to sing your song, and then the wagon will carry you back here.  You must stay still in the wagon, do you all understand?"

Many dark little heads nodded.  Consuelo gulped and nodded as well.  Rufino looked at her sideways, mischief in his eyes.  

"Good!"  Clementia waved at her vaquero Miguel, who was on the driving bench of the wagon carrying Consuelo and the children.  She looked over at Elizabeth. "Are you ready?" she asked.

Elizabeth nodded.

"Very well!" Clementia said.  "Then I shall go give the signal to begin, and I will see you at the cuartel.  Carlos, you know when you are to enter....Alejandro, send Diego on or bring up the rear yourself, if he does not arrive.  Let the parade begin!"

As the wagon pulled into position, Consuelo looked behind her to see Alejandro sitting alone on his horse some feet behind Elizabeth's "float."  He was looking at Elizabeth, pensive.  He must know that she does not care about Diego, Consuelo thought to herself. My, what a handsome man Alejandro is.    

**************

The first annual Torchlight Parade of Los Angeles began with military drummers, on loan from the garrison thanks to the many pleas of Sergeant Garcia to his commanding officer.  The drummers were followed by Carlos Matteo riding his beautiful black gelding Sirocco down the parade route. A considerable crowd of townspeople, Indians and off-duty soldiers had gathered in the plaza, for nothing like this had ever happened in their pueblo before.  The parade was lit by the flickering torches posted along the route under Clementia's supervision.  Thanks to her special relationship with the military, the torches went from the plaza straight into the cuartel.  After first forbidding it, Capitan Vilaro thought better of his banning of the torches in the garrison when he realized that the same light shed upon the parade would do nicely for the hanging that was to follow.

Elizabeth was delighted with her role, waving at people from the moment the wagon pulled beyond the stable yard.  Ahead of her she could see the wagon full of children, and her father beyond them.  The flaming torches made everything glow softly.  She laughed and waved more.  

Then she noticed a ruckus begin in the wagon ahead.  Consuelo was suddenly on her feet swatting at Rufino.  The children started squealing.  Something dark flew out of the wagon and just behind it came Consuelo, climbing out and jumping to the ground, barely managing not to fall on her face.  She ran back to Elizabeth's wagon.

"What's the matter?!" Elizabeth asked.

"He had a mouse!" Consuelo cried, trying to climb into Elizabeth's wagon.

"No, no, you can't be in here!" Elizabeth cried, holding Esperanza against her shoulder.

"I can't go back there!" Consuelo said, her foot on the hay.

"Go back, you can't leave those children by themselves!" Elizabeth said, trying to wave Consuelo out of the wagon.  The parade continued its slow progress despite the excitement. 

"I'm staying here!" she plunked down in the hay, dangerously close to the area Elizabeth had so carefully avoided when taking her seat.  "I don't care if you hate me, I am not going back there with those children!"

"Then you can walk the rest of the way!" Elizabeth hissed.

"You go ride with them!"  Consuelo retorted.

"I can hardly get out and climb into their wagon with a baby!"

"Give her to me!" Consuelo blurted out.

Both women froze, staring at each other in astonishment at Consuelo's suggestion.

"I....I...." Consuelo said.

Elizabeth opened her mouth with an extremely rash comment on her tongue.  Before she could utter it entirely she felt the gloved hand on her ankle again.  "You bi...." she stopped herself.  

They stared at each other in silence as the wagon continued to lumber along. "I just want to hold her," Consuelo said meekly. 

"You are ruining the parade!" Elizabeth said tightly, trying to resume waving and smiling at people in the plaza.  "You have to give the children the signal to sing!"

"I don't want to," Consuelo said, trying not to cry.

Elizabeth took a very deep breath, trying to figure out what to do.  Then she felt a tap at the back of her ankle.  She frowned.  Another tap, almost a push.  She paused, and then said, "Consuelo, you come over here and sit on the throne with this baby, we have to have someone here if I am to go take care of those children."  The hand from the hay squeezed her ankle reassuringly.  She got up carefully and waved Consuelo up onto the throne, then handed Esperanza over.  The baby wriggled slightly but did not wake up.  "There," Elizabeth said.  "I think you will manage all right. Just don't get up suddenly or you will wake her up and she will fuss."

"I won't," Consuelo said softly, looking down at the baby.

Elizabeth looked at the wagon ahead, which was now rocking with the antics of the children in the hay.  "All right, you little wildcats," she said, stepping to the edge of the wagon and climbing out.  She trotted ahead, much to Bernardo's surprise, and jumped onto the running board of the children's wagon.  "Rufino, sit down!" she exclaimed.

"Seņora!" he exclaimed.  He had his slingshot out.  

The other children, seeing Elizabeth, sat down immediately in the knowledge that this grown-up might be even fiercer than Seņorita Clementia if riled.  

"Put that away!" Elizabeth told Rufino, climbing all the way in and taking Consuelo's place.  She looked back to see Consuelo sitting on her purple throne, holding her baby.  It was an unsettling sight.  But then, she smiled to herself, Consuelo was in for a surprise.

*******************

Try as he might, Ishtar could not reach the unconscious Corporal's waist to relieve him of the jail cell keys.  Somehow, in getting knocked out, he had fallen in the direction away from the bars.  Ishtar could tell that the parade was approaching rapidly because the drummers were now in the garrison yard.  

"Carmen!" he hissed.  "See if you can reach them!" 

Carmen tried but the keys were simply too far away, attached as they were to Reyes's belt. "We are going to die," she moaned.

Sergeant Garcia chose this moment to look around, to see if Reyes had followed his instructions to prepare the prisoners when the drummers arrived.  Seeing no movement at all outside the jail cell, he frowned and squinted.  

"What's the matter?" Vilaro asked, turning around.

"Nothing, nothing!" Garcia said, returning to face front.

"Are the prisoners rrrrrready?"

"Uh, I would say the prisoners are," Garcia said carefully.

"Good, ah, here comes Seņorrrrrrita Bocca," observed the officer, seeing Clementia making her way towards them.

Garcia smiled, seeing his sweetheart.  She smiled back.  

"You must be very proud, your day has gone very well!" Vilaro said to her.

"I could not have done it without the Sergeant's help," she said.

"Oh, but you could," Garcia said, beaming down at her.

"No, I could not," Clementia said sweetly.

"Oh, but you could," Garcia insisted.

Clementia gave him a fierce look.  

"But I am glad if I helped a little bit!" he added helplessly. He peered around again, wondering if Reyes had started to bring the gypsies towards the gallows.  Carlos Matteo had entered the cuartel yard and the wagon full of children was approaching.

"Uh, Commandante, will you excuse me for a moment?" Garcia asked.  "I think perhaps I shall help Corporal Reyes."

"Si, si," Vilaro said, not turning around.

Garcia glanced at Clementia and then turned around to head for the jail cell.   

***********

The children of the pueblo, now under the fearless eye of the pretty Doņa Elizabeth, stood up in their wagon once it stopped in front of the Capitan and the lancers.  Behind them the second wagon, bearing Seņorita Consuelo and the little baby, pulled to a halt in shadows just inside the garrison yard.  Vilaro looked all of this over with great amusement, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.  First a song, then a hanging.  People crowded into the garrison yard to hear the children sing.

"Are you ready?" Elizabeth whispered loudly.  

Everyone nodded.

Elizabeth hummed to give them a note on which to begin.  Then they commenced to sing together.

Now our lovely sun has set off California's shores
And here we sing of moon and stars 
beneath the carpet
of our darkened skies, our darkened skies

Moonlight is upon our shoulders streaming silver light
And here we sing this summer night
our lovely river  
bubbling nearby, bubbling nearby

If we close our eyes tight shut and try to touch the stars
The gentle night will give us rest...

Consuelo was quite enjoying the children's lullabye, in part because of warm little Esperanza nestled in her arms and in part because she now had a good fifteen yards between herself and that rascal Rufino.  She rocked back and forth with the baby, smiling to herself.  She looked behind her, wondering if Diego had appeared.  Instead she saw Don Alejandro, sitting on his horse in the cuartel gateway.  He was studying the gallows intently.

Across the garrison yard, Sergeant Garcia stumbled over Corporal Reyes's unconscious form a few feet from the jail cell door.  Gasping, he reached down to try to revive the other soldier, looking around to make sure no one could see what was going on.  

Consuelo felt the wagon shift as Bernardo stood up in his seat.  "Where are you going?" she whispered, grabbing at his arm.

He looked around at her, puzzled.

"Oh, how can you answer me?" she asked, remembering that he was deaf and dumb.

He pointed at the children and Elizabeth, then at himself, to indicate that he wanted to go to their float now.

Consuelo sighed.  The singing continued.  Sergeant Garcia yanked the keys off of Reyes's belt and unlocked the jail cell door, waving at Ishtar and Carmen to come with him and pointing at Mama Ishtar and the other man in the cell to follow.  He re-locked the cell and poked at Ishtar to proceed towards the gallows.  A moan rose behind them as Corporal Reyes began to wake up.   Garcia paused, thinking to go back and get the man, but then thought better of it and poked Ishtar to keep going.

The children were starting the last verse of their song when Consuelo felt something strange at her feet.  She looked down to see the hay moving. Suddenly before she could say a word, hay was flying in the air and a gloved hand clapped over her mouth.  "Do not move," a man's voice said.  She saw from the corner of her eye that El Zorro was beside her.  They were both hidden in the shadows the wagon was parked in.  Her eyes met his.  

"You will forgive me, Seņorita, but I had to get in without being seen somehow!" he whispered, not releasing her.  He glanced down at the baby.  "What a pretty baby you have.  Or... isn't that Seņora de la Vega's little girl?"

Consuelo blinked.

"Ah," said Zorro.  "Guard her well, or you will have the Seņora to answer to!"  With that he released Consuelo, leaped off the wagon and disappeared into the shadows.

Consuelo was so shocked at having been handled by El Zorro that she could not get her breath for a moment.  

"The gallows...." Corporal Reyes moaned after the Sergeant.

Garcia frowned, having heard something but not quite making out what it was.  Again he paused, only to have Ishtar bump into him.  "Keep walking or I will give you a good kick!" Garcia whispered at him.  They reached the wooden stairway at the foot of the gallows and Garcia stopped them.  "When the song is finished, you will go up the steps," he instructed.

A lancer stepped forward to guard the other two gypsies.  

Ishtar looked up the stairway and then glanced at Carmen and shrugged.

The children's song ended and the spectators broke into enthusiastic applause.  Garcia poked Ishtar and Carmen.  Capitan Vilaro looked over at the gallows, and was rewarded with the sight of the first two gypsies mounting the stairs slowly.  Even cautiously.  Vilaro frowned.  

"Sergeant," Corporal Reyes moaned a little more loudly.  "The gallows...it is..."

All eyes in the cuartel turned to the gallows as the gypsies arrived on the platform.  Vilaro squinted, trying to understand what was amiss.  He looked around but could see nothing unusual, aside from the caution with which the gypsies had climbed the stairs.  

Then Sergeant Garcia began climbing the stairs.

"Sergeant, no!" Corporal Reyes cried, struggling to his feet.

The entire gallows structure shuddered.

Sergeant Garcia paused, most of the way up the stairs, and looked around.  Then he looked down at the boards on which he stood.  Something creaked.  He took another step, and then shouted "whoaaaaaa!" as the structure began to deconstruct under his feet with terrible splintering sounds.

From the balcony of the barracks, just next to the gallows, a black figure appeared suddenly swinging through the air.  Grabbing the gypsy Carmen, he lifted her off the gallows platform just as it collapsed.  Sergeant Garcia disappeared into the pile of wood, as did Ishtar.  A cheer of "Zorro!" ripped across the crowd as the masked man, his cape fluttering behind him, swung to the ground, letting Carmen go.   

"Run!" he shouted at her.  "Run!" he shouted at the other two where they stood at the edge of the rubble.  

"Zorro!" Capitan Vilaro shouted, drawing his sword.  "Lancers!  Stop him!"  

Zorro drew his sword, looking around to see if his escape route was still available.  Vilaro attacked with his sword.  Zorro fended him off, then turned and ran for the stairs back up to the garrison barracks.  Vilaro followed, shouting "shoot him!"

The crowd, confused but entertained, spilled into the cuartel yard.  Some people, including Clementia, attempted to help Sergeant Garcia.  A number of lancers went for where they thought Ishtar had fallen when the gallows collapsed.  In all the chaos, the three gypsies blended into the crowd and vanished.  

A duel ensued on the barracks balcony, as El Zorro faced Capitan Vilaro.  Elizabeth stood up in the wagon to watch, her eyes never leaving the masked man.  Consuelo, on the other hand, alternately watched the duel and the woman whom, it was said, Zorro loved.  She looked down at the baby who, to her amazement, was still asleep despite all the shouting and noise.  Twice, Vilaro managed to cause Zorro to retreat further towards the garrison wall, but each time he was rebuffed.  A third time, he shoved Zorro back and those paying attention heard the heavy thud as the bandito's back slammed against the stucco wall.  Consuelo winced and looked over at Elizabeth, who now looked genuinely alarmed. Then she saw Elizabeth lean down and say something to Rufino.  She glanced back at Alejandro, who looked equally alarmed.  She looked down at the baby and frowned.

Zorro recovered from the crash into the wall and, lifting himself on a beam, gave Vilaro a kick in the chest and then pulled himself up onto the barracks roof.  Vilaro reached up and grabbed hold of Zorro's foot, yanking as hard as he could.  Zorro slid down, causing everyone watching to gasp.  Then something coming from below whacked the back of Vilaro's head, causing him to yelp and let go of Zorro's foot.  It allowed the bandito to pull himself back up and turn around to look down at the crowd.  Vilaro grabbed the back of his head in pain.  Everyone looked in the direction from where the projectile had come, to see Rufino triumphantly waving his slingshot in the air.  Another cheer rose up in the crowd.  El Zorro saw Rufino and gave him a salute of thanks.  Then with a loud whistle he disappeared over the roofline and the sound of a horse's hooves carried him into the night.

*************

It was around five minutes after El Zorro disappeared that Diego de la Vega came galloping into the garrison yard to encounter the aftermath of the chaos.  Sergeant Garcia was sitting up against the garrison wall, being fussed over by Clementia and several lancers.  Beside him, also dazed, sat Corporal Reyes.  Capitan Vilaro was standing nearby, supervising the effort to remove the wood in order to find the still-missing carcass of Ishtar, the self-proclaimed gypsy king.  He had a bandage wrapped around his head.  Elizabeth was still sitting in the wagon beside Rufino and several of the children, Esperanza on her lap.  Consuelo was standing nearby talking with Don Alejandro.  Bernardo was nowhere to be seen.

Diego rode up to Elizabeth.  "What on earth has happened?" he asked.

"Oh, Diego..." she started.

"I hit the Commandante with a rock and now I believe he will hang me!" Rufino announced.

"All of the gypsies disappeared!" Moneta added.

"El Zorro prevented the hanging," Elizabeth explained.

"And I missed it?" Diego exclaimed.  He looked around.  "It would seem that he left quite a mess behind."

"Si," Elizabeth nodded.

"Si! Si!" the children cried gleefully.

Alejandro, remounting his horse, came over to Diego.  "This was a night Los Angeles will never forget," he told his son.

Diego sighed.  "I tell you, it is not worth it to worry so much over a horse," he said.  He looked down at Esperanza, who smiled on seeing him.  "Well, I see you are no worse for the wear, muchacha!" he laughed.  

"She slept through it," Consuelo volunteered, joining the group.

"She sleeps through the strangest things," Diego said.  Then he looked at Elizabeth.  "Darling, will you let my father take you home?" he asked.  "I think I should at least stay here to take Sergeant Garcia to the Tavern for some refreshment, it appears he could use it!"

Capitan Vilaro strode up to them.  "De la Vega!" he cried.  "Where were you?"

Diego raised his hands helplessly.  "I assure you I was here in spirit!" he explained.  "But...my horse..." he shrugged.  

"You are a man of many excuses," Vilaro snarled.  He turned his back and walked away.

"We will go home with Alejandro, Diego," Elizabeth confirmed.  She looked at Consuelo.  "Consuelo took care of Esperanza for me this evening," she told him. "Perhaps, as a token of thanks, you will see her and Clementia home tonight."

Diego looked at Consuelo, and then back to Elizabeth.  "Perhaps I shall!" he smiled. Then he shook his head, looking again around the rubble in the garrison yard. "It never ceases to amaze me, what that Zorro can do."

"Yes, you would think from the looks of it that perhaps tonight he had some help," Alejandro replied to his son.

Chapter Nine
Buena Fortuna

The morning after El Zorro's great gallows escapade, Diego and Elizabeth went their separate ways early.  A few hours later, finding himself with an unexpected break in his mid-morning tasks, Diego decided to find his family.  He went upstairs expecting to see Elizabeth feeding the baby.  Instead what greeted him was a large, bark-colored tabby cat with a white lightning streak running down the right side of her nose.  The cat was plunked comfortably in Elizabeth's favorite chair.  Four perfectly shaped white paws were showing.  When Diego entered she looked up at him and yawned.

Diego frowned.  Looking across the room, the bed was empty.  He peered down into the baby's cradle.  It was empty too.  They were gone.  He looked back at the cat, which was following him with large, serene green eyes.  

"You're not supposed to be in here," he told it.  

The cat began to purr.

Diego sighed.  Where could they have gone, this early?  He wanted to go into the pueblo and thought perhaps he would take them along and show the baby off.

The cat's purring increased.  He looked at it again.  Its gaze reminded him of another animal's gaze, many years ago.  He went over to the cat, picked it up, and sat down in Elizabeth's chair.  The cat stood on his lap for a moment, looked into his eyes, and then curled up on his lap, resuming its purr.

"You belong in the barnyard," Diego said, scratching its ear.  "But purring goes a long way around here."  His eyes travelled to the portrait of his mother, holding him at age three, on the wall beside the door.  Again, he thought about that duck.

*****

The duck paddled cautiously out from among the reeds and into the open pond.  Getting across had become an ordeal thanks to the stalking of the two boys who often hovered on the banks of the pond with their nasty rocks.  She now had a nest with five little eggs in it, on the far side of the pond among the tallest marsh reeds.  She could never leave for long, for the eggs were subject to so many predators.  But she had to eat.  The minnows were better among the shorter reeds.  

She paddled a little faster, for the coast appeared to be clear.  Then came the first flying object, splashing in front of her.  

"Almost got it!" came a shout from shore.

Then another rock came, harder and faster.  It fell just short of her right wing and she felt the stinging blow.

"Ha! I hit it!" the second boy cried.

"You did not," said the first.  "You just grazed it."

"I got closer than you did."

It was a small pond, and in the time the short argument took, the duck was able to retreat into the taller reeds.  She found her way to the marshy land and her nest.  Shaking off, she settled onto it, warming her unhatched young.  Another disaster dodged, and the coyotes still had not found her hiding place.  From beyond the pond, she heard a woman's summoning voice.  

"Diego!" came the call.  "Diego are you out here?"

"Si, Mama," came the reply.

Matilde de la Vega walked towards the pond.  She saw her son and the Indian boy he played with, young Windhawk, emerge from the reeds.  "Have you been torturing that poor duck again?" she asked.  "Don't you know she probably has a nest somewhere and she is waiting for her little ducklings to hatch out of their eggs?"

"Si, Mama," the boy answered.  He was ten, his friend was eleven.  Diego was already tall for his age, but he was awkward.  Windhawk was already living up to his name in cunning, stealth and elusiveness.  

"Where has your friend gone?" she asked, coming up to her son.

He looked around.  Windhawk had disappeared.  The boy shrugged, looking down.

"Haven't I told you not to hurt the animals?" Matilde asked him.

"Si, Mama," he said, keeping his eyes to the ground.

"Diego, look at me."

He looked up into his mother's beautiful, dark hazel eyes, the eyes his father insisted were passed on to their son.  She was a tall woman, and wore her long, silky black hair pulled up onto her head in a soft twist. Her gaze was fixed on him in a way that would not let him go.  She always looked right through him.  "Si, Mama," he said again.

She reached out her hand.  "I am going to the San Gabriel Mission this afternoon," she said.  "I want you to come with me."

He took her hand and they began walking towards the hacienda.  A west wing was being added, and the walls were being reinforced.  Workers were everywhere.

Although he was ten and would never admit it, Diego still loved holding his mother's hand.  By nature a calm person, she made the world more serene and beautiful by being in it.  Diego loved his father, Alejandro, as well.  But temperamentally he took more after his easily-lit father, and could be set off when things went counter to his will.  It was his mother who brought calm and dignity to the household when Papa "went off," as she sometimes described it.  So with her son, whose competitive streak burned in him deeply. More than once, Matilde intervened at moments when Diego and Windhawk were at one another's throats on the ground over some disagreement about who had just bested whom.  Thought it would be many years later before he learned to fully draw on the part of himself that came from her, restraining his natural impulse to fight and compete aggressively, Diego knew intuitively that his mother was wise, and special.

And he liked the way she held his hand -- not tightly, but surely.  He was learning to hold hers back in the same way.  

"Why are we going to the mission?" he asked.

"The padres need some help," she answered.

"So we are not taking horses to them?"

"Not this time."

"Will Papa come?"

"No," she said, laughing softly.  "Papa feels he needs to stay here and watch over the men repairing the walls."

Diego paused, looking at the chaos around the hacienda.  Then he heard a shout from inside the courtyard. 

"I have said over and over again, you must smooth over the stucco with this, not that!" 

Matilde looked down at her son with a smile.  "I think we have found Papa," she said.

They turned into the courtyard. Alejandro spied them coming through the gate.  "Not that way!" he cried, waving them around towards the stable.  

Matilde and Diego retreated and walked to the stable, entering the compound from the side.  Alejandro greeted them in the stableyard.

"Nothing I say to these men will teach them to do this correctly!" he exclaimed.  "The whole point of rebuilding the wall is to do it correctly!  They seem determined to get it wrong for the second time!  Why must I live with the sins of my father?!"

Matilde let go of Diego's hand to go to her husband and touch his arm gently.  "I see you are having a productive day," she said.

He visibly calmed down at her nearness, taking a deep breath.  "I am only trying to make a home that will not fall apart for our family," he said to her.  He looked at Diego.  "And for his family, some day."

Diego made a face, not wishing to be reminded of his obligations to carry on the family name.  A year earlier, his father had taken him on a long ride and explained to his son that one day it would be his duty to make sure that the de la Vegas remained a powerful and established family in Spanish California.  When Diego inquired as to what that duty would entail, Alejandro told him, "One day you will marry the proper girl and you will make a family with her, just as your mother and I have made a family with you."  Having recently attended a wedding, Diego understood the idea of a man and woman making a pledge to one another and establishing a household together.  He was less clear, and inquired that day of his father, as to what was involved in the making the family part.

"Your mother will explain that to you," Alejandro had stated.

When Diego went to his mother for information, she said, "He didn't tell you?  That scoundrel.  He will tell you, Diego."

"Tell me what?" Diego asked.

"About how families are made," his mother said firmly.  Then she took his hand and led him to his father's desk in the library.

"Alejandro," she said, "put down your account books and take your son to the barn."

Alejandro looked up at her, startled.  "What for?" he asked.

"Show him the new filly again, and explain to him how she entered this world and what was involved."

Alejandro de la Vega blushed.  "Matilde..." he started.

Diego looked up at his mother to see her unwavering eyes on his father.  Years later he still remembered the last thing she said to him as he led Diego out the library door to take him to the stable.  "We shall take this up later," she had said to her husband.  The odd thing was the way she had said it, with a quiet smile.  It was only after Diego was himself married that he understood the promise his mother was making as Alejandro led their son to the stable for his lesson in where families come from.

*****

"What are you two doing here now?" Alejandro asked, as they picked their way among the boards and buckets in the courtyard.  "Why aren't you being schooled?" he asked Diego.

"I finished," came the reply.  

"I suppose you and Windhawk ran off from the priests and started chasing that duck," Alejandro said.

"Si, Papa," Diego sighed.  There was no keeping anything from these people.

"We are going to ride over to the Mission of San Gabriel," Matilde explained.  "It may be late before we get back."

Alejandro looked at her sharply.  "You are not going over there to help with...." he started.

"I am indeed," she interrupted.

"But they are peons!" Alejandro protested.  They stopped in the shade of the stable overhang beside the row of horses' stalls.

"They are weak and poor. They need help," she said firmly.  

"Why are we going?" Diego asked.

"Some peons were hurt in a rock slide near the Cahuenga pass," his mother answered.  "The priests need help taking care of them."

"Do we know any of them?" Diego asked.

"It doesn't matter, Diego," she answered, leading him towards the stalls where their horses were being saddled.  "It is right to help when people are in need.  The priests can use the extra hand, and the peons need those of us who are strong and well-off.  Remember what the Lord Jesus said.  'The poor will always be with us.'"

"If the poor will always be with us, why must we help them?" Diego asked.

"Do not be cheeky with your mother!" Alejandro said to his son.  He looked at Matilde.   He knew not to argue with his wife when she was bent on fulfilling a charitable purpose.  He kissed her cheek lightly and said, "I must return to those fellows at the wall.  Please travel safely, my dear.  Take Juan with you, so that if you decide to remain there overnight he can come and let me know.  Otherwise I shall expect you tonight."

"Si, Alejandro," she replied.

He looked at his son.  "Mind your mother, Diego, and help her with anything she asks.  Don't wander off."

"Si, Papa," the boy said.  He watched his mother's eyes follow his father out into the sunshine and away to the courtyard.  He was becoming more and more aware of the connection between the two of them, though he could not exactly pinpoint what triggered this growing consciousness.  

Diego sat on a bale of hay and watched as their servant Juan saddled his mother's black Andalusian mare and his own young buckskin mare.  When he turned nine, Matilde and Alejandro had given him his first full-sized horse, which he named Fortuna.  He had been thrilled with the horse, though he could not resist asking why he had been given a quiet little mare.

"You will grow into each horse you own, Diego," his mother had told him.  "Do not question your gifts."

His father's eyebrows raised at that one.  "That is a lesson the Trojans might have argument with."

Diego was studying the story of the Trojan War at the time, and observed, "The Trojans did not receive their horse from their parents.  They received it from the Greeks."

"That is right, Diego," his mother said.  "We do not question gifts from those we trust.  On the other hand your father is right in suggesting that, taking a lesson from the Trojans, we be cautious of gifts from those we do not know."

"Or those who are, as the Greeks were, our sworn enemies," Alejandro added.

Now as he sat in the stable watching the horses being readied for riding, Diego felt a mix of excitement and apprehension over going to the mission.  A rock slide meant that people were hurt.  He liked going to the missions with his mother, especially when they took a number of horses along.  But this trip was for a different purpose. 

"Why must I come along?" he asked.   

"It is very simple," she answered, looking at him on his perch.  "You are a strong boy and one day you will become a strong man.  You are from a very fine family and you will have many responsibilities when you are grown."

Oh no, Diego thought, she is going to tell me about carrying on the family name.  He shifted uncomfortably.

"It is important now for you to see and understand that not everyone has what you have, my son.  Do you remember the lesson we have had in church?  'To whom much is given, of him much will be required'?"

"Si, Mama, I remember."

"This is a time when we will see what is required."

Diego sighed.  He wanted to go back outside and find Windhawk.  But he followed his mother's instructions.  Soon they were on their way across the arroyos towards the Cahuenga Pass on their horses, followed by Juan in a horse-drawn wagon filled with blankets and other supplies.  It took 45 minutes to reach the Pass.  Matilde made Diego recite his verb conjugations in Latin, French and English along the way, reminding him that all he was learning outdoors with Windhawk would do him no good once he went to the University in Madrid.  This information did nothing to improve his attitude about the conjugations, but he was more or less captive and therefore cooperated.  At one point he thought he heard the sound of another horse behind them, and began to suspect that they were being followed by Windhawk.  But he never spied his friend or the swift paint pony he rode.

When they reached the Pass, the results of the rock slide were still very apparent.  Several small wagons full of broken clay water pots and baskets were abandoned in the rubble.  It had happened early that morning, the result of one of the many tremors their land was subject to.  They had all felt it in their beds shortly after dawn.  It was some hours later that a messenger from the mission had ridden in to speak with Seņora de la Vega.  Diego had noticed the robed visitor but had not known the content of his message.

They had to slow down in order for the horses to pick their way around the many rocks in the road.   At first it appeared that the wagon could not make its way beyond a certain point, but the Seņora was insistent, Juan was persistent, and eventually they got past the worst of the pile-up.  Then Matilde stopped.  

"This is what happens, Diego, when the earth moves.  People were trapped here, on their way to the river to fill their clay pots with water."

The boy kept his eyes ahead.  "I wish the earth would stay still," he said.

"It is the price of living in this beautiful place," his mother said as the horses resumed walking.  

"Is it beautiful here, Mama?" Diego asked.  He had nothing to compare to California.

"It is one of the most beautiful places on earth," she replied.  "The sun shines most of the time, the air is cool at night, and the ocean brings us the breeze.  We do not freeze, as they do in so many places in Europe and on this continent.  Do not take California for granted, my son.  We are very blessed to be here."

Sometimes it seemed to Diego that his mother did nothing but instruct him.  Of course she played with him, and encouraged his play with others.  Unlike other parents of his peers in the pueblo, she did not object to his friendship with Windhawk.  "You can never know who will end up being your friend," she told him.  

"Why do you always teach me, Mama?" he asked as they continued towards the San Gabriel Mission.

"How do you mean?" she asked.

"You are always teaching me things and telling me things.  Ricardo's mother does not do that.  She sends him off to the mission school or off with his father or sometimes off to the woodshed, but she doesn't tell him things all the time."

"Parents are different," Matilde smiled.  "To me, there are so many things to prepare you for.  We have high hopes for you, Diego.  You will be a leader in the pueblo one day.  Papa and I want you to be ready.  That is why we teach you things.  That is why we will send you to Madrid for your formal schooling."

"When do I have to do that?" he asked.  

"Not for some years, yet," she answered.  "We will send you when you are sixteen or seventeen, and you will come home when you are twenty-two."

That seemed like a long way off, though it also seemed like a very long time to be gone.  "Why do I have to go away for so long?" he asked.

"It will take that long for you to learn what the professors there have to teach you," she answered.

"Will you come with me?" he asked.

She smiled at him.  "I will come with you to help you get settled in Madrid, but then I will come back home to Papa and wait for you to return to us here in Calfornia."

This horrified Diego.  "You won't be there with me, or Papa either?" he asked.

She laughed.  "By then, you will not need us with you.  And perhaps you cannot imagine this, but you will not even want us there.  You will want to be with your friends and make the discoveries that a young man makes when he is first on his own."

Diego could not imagine a time when he would not want to be near his parents.  He loved exploring and getting into mischief, but it never occurred to him that Rancho de la Vega and his parents would not be there to return home to.  "I am not sure I want to go to Spain," he said.

"We have lots of time for you to get used to the idea," his mother said, as they rounded the last curve on the road in the pass.  Before them lay the sparkling San Fernando Valley, lush with river grasses and sloping hills, the great San Gabriel mountains rising in the distance.  "Good," she said, as they paused to take in the sight.  "We will arrive soon.  Take some water, Diego.  We will be very busy once we arrive."

As he took a drink, Diego noticed movement out of the corner of his eye.  They all saw it, and before them a red fox was trotting across the road some yards ahead of them.  The fox looked over at them as he crossed, and then continued without increasing his pace.

"Why wasn't the fox afraid?" Diego asked.  

"He knows he can outrun and outwit us," his mother answered.  

"But we might have a gun!" Diego said.

"Foxes are very smart, Diego.  He was probably watching us for miles and could tell that we would do him no harm."

Diego looked at the place in the underbrush where the fox had disappeared.  "I wonder where he went," he said.  He and Windhawk had not, for all their effort, ever discovered a fox's lair.

"No animal is harder to capture than a fox," his mother answered.  "They are wily animals.  Have you finished your drink?  Si?  Then let's go on to the mission."

*****

What they found was over a dozen peons in great misery.  Matilde walked among them with the padre who led the mission, and agreed with his conclusion that two of them were so badly injured that they would not live to see the next sunrise.  Of the ten remaining, three could still die, four were bound to recover, and two were unhurt but devastated by what had happened to their companions.  One of those two was a little girl who appeared to be slightly younger than Diego.  She sat by her badly injured mother in horrified silence.  

After tending to the injured as she could, distributing more blankets, offering food and water, and trying to ease pain, Matilde sat down next to the little girl.  She motioned for Diego, who had watched all of the ministrations from a side bench, to come to her. 

"Hello muchacha," she said to the child.  The little girl would not look up, she only stared at her mother, holding on to her hand.  "What is your name?"

The child did not answer.

"I want you to meet my son, Diego. How old are you?"

Still the girl said nothing.  Matilde looked at the mother.  She was one of the ones who probably would not last the night.  She looked at Diego, and nodded in the direction of the little girl.

"Buenos tardes," Diego offered.  "I am sorry your mother was hurt."

The child looked at him.  Tears formed in her eyes.  She looked over at Matilde.  "It was such a big rock," she said, beginning to cry.

Matilde reached for the little girl and the child let herself be held by the tall, strange woman with the beautiful eyes.  Diego stood by feeling helpless.  Not knowing what else to do, he patted the little girl's shoulder as she wept in his mother's arms.  Then he stepped back.

Finally the little girl slowed down her crying.

"Can you tell us your name now?" Matilde asked.

"Maria," the little girl answered.  "That is my mother's name, too."

The padre came up to join them.  He checked the older Maria, who was all of 25, and then looked at Matilde.  He shook his head sadly.

"Maria," Matilde said, "I do not think your Mama is going to get well.  I think her injuries have hurt her too much and that perhaps the Blessed Mother will help her by taking her up to heaven."

"But she can't go away," Maria began crying again.  Matilde took her back into her arms. 

"Do you have a Papa anywhere?" Matilde asked, looking into the little girl's eyes.

Maria shook her head.  "He died in a fire," she said.

"Aunts or uncles?" Matilde asked.

The girl shook her head.  "Only Mama."

Matilde hugged the girl more tightly.  This peon child was about to be orphaned and there was no one to claim her.  "Maria," she said, "I want you to stay here and hold your Mama's hand for a while.  It will be very hard, but you must say your goodbyes to her in your heart, and tell her how much you love her and that you will always remember her.  Diego and I will come back to see how you are in a little while.  All right?"

Maria nodded, and sat down again next to her mortally injured mother.

Matilde stood up and took Diego's hand, leading him away.  They went outside, and she sat down on a bench.  Diego looked into her face to see that there were tears in her eyes.

"Mama, why you are crying?" he said, puzzled.  He sat down next to her.

"The little girl will be alone in the world after her mother dies," Matilde said.  "It makes me very sad." She put her arms around her son.  He hugged her, not entirely understanding but feeling certain that somehow it was what his mother wanted.

"You are a good son, Diego," she said to him, letting go of him and wiping her eyes off.  The padre came up to them from inside the mission. 

"The peon woman has died," he said sadly.  "The little girl was saying a prayer when it happened."

Matilde nodded.  "May the poor woman rest in peace.  Can you take care of burying her?" 

"Of course," the padre answered.

Matilde was silent for a moment.  Then she said, "The little girl appears to have no other family."

"Si," the padre said.  "We can keep her here, we have several orphan children already.  They help around the mission."

"No," Matilde said.  "She will go home with Diego and me."

Diego looked at his mother sharply.  

"We will teach her to serve in our hacienda," Matilde went on.  "She is only a peon child, but she needs a place to live and a purpose to her life.  We will add her to our household."

"That is very generous, Seņora de la Vega," the padre said.  "Our Lord in heaven will bless you for such kindness."

After the padre left them, Matilde looked at her son.  "I know you think I should discuss this with Papa first," she said.

He nodded.

"He will not object, when I tell him that I will use the girl as my own servant," Matilde said. "It is the right thing to do.  We will stay overnight here in the mission and help the padres again in the morning, and let Maria be here to say a last goodbye to her mother when they bury her in the morning.  Then we will take her home and help her become part of the household at Rancho de la Vega.  All right?  This will be something you can help with."

Diego felt a great deal of turmoil.  Having a girl around?  A new servant who was not even his age?  It was a very unsettling thought.

"You will not make me marry her some day, will you?" he asked his mother.

Matilde looked at her son in amazement and then laughed.  "No, Diego, she is a very nice little girl but she is not someone who would be the right match for you."

"Who would be?" he asked suspiciously.

"Someone from your own class," Matilde answered, brushing the black lock of hair that had fallen onto her son's forehead away.  "And a meek girl will not do for you.  You will need someone with a great deal of spirit."

Diego frowned.  "What does that mean?"

Matilde smiled.  "You will understand soon enough, my son."  Then she thought about it for a moment.  "Think about the difference between my Cyclone," she referred to her Andalusian mare, "and your Fortuna."

Diego considered it.  "Cyclone is more temperamental," he said.  

"Yes, she is more spirited," Matilde told him.  "And Fortuna is more quiet and obedient.  That is what I mean.  You will need a wife who is more like Cyclone.  Otherwise I fear you will be bored, and that is never good in a marriage."

Diego wrinkled his nose.  He truly did not like the reminders about having to marry one day and thus be around a girl a lot.  Spirited or not, the whole project held no appeal.  He concluded then and there that he never wanted to grow up.
 
She stood up.  "Let us go back inside and see who needs more food and water.  I want to show you how to take care of a broken arm, and I want you to be kind to Maria and try to help her get used to the idea of coming home with us.  I will tell her, and then you can describe the Rancho to her so she will have a picture in her head.  That will give her something to look forward to."

He nodded, feeling he could do that much.  They returned to the mission. For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, Diego watched and helped as his mother set broken bones and fed the injured and comforted the downhearted, including little Maria.  By the time he fell asleep that night, he was exhausted. His heart, while confused, was very full.

*****

When the little party returned to Rancho de la Vega the next morning, Diego led Maria away while his mother went to his father to explain what had happened at the mission and why they now had a new servant girl.  Unsure about how to entertain the new arrival, he led her out to the pond.

"This is where the ducks live," he told her.  "One of them has a nest over here somewhere.  Would you like to help me find it?'

"Si," Maria said.  She was quite shy, but was learning to follow Diego's lead.  

"Take off your sandals, then," Diego told her, pulling off his own shoes. 

They worked their way around the edge of the pond and into the marshy area among the tallest reeds.  "This is squishy," Maria said, feeling the mud oozing around her toes.

"Si, it is supposed to keep us from wanting to come in here," Diego said.  Then he caught his breath, for they had stumbled to within a few feet of the duck's nest.  He pulled the reeds apart and they peered into the little flat spot, where the mother duck was sitting on her eggs.  "Shhhhhh," Diego said.  Maria leaned over to get a better look.

The duck stared up at them.  It was one of the boys who threw rocks.  The other creature she did not recognize.  She wanted to leave, but these little ducklings were very close to their hatching point and she knew she should not go. She also knew there was danger that the eggs would be stolen by this tall human pair.  Thus she met the eyes of the rock-thrower.  

Diego felt the duck's look.  He remembered his mother's words from the day before, "haven't I told you not to hurt the animals?"  

"I am not going to hurt you, duck," he pledged.

Maria looked at him, puzzled.

"I used to throw rocks at her," he confessed.  

"Why?" Maria asked, aghast.

"It was fun to see if I could hit her," he said.  "But now I understand."

They looked back at the duck.  The duck relaxed.  She now gazed into Diego's hazel eyes with the certainty that he would at least cease getting in the way.  

"Let's leave her alone," Maria said.

"Okay," Diego agreed.  With that they made their way quietly back to the more solid ground, and cleaned their feet at the water's edge.

*****

A knock came on the bedroom door, and Diego started out of his long-lost memory.  The cat in his lap jumped to attention, her claws sinking into his thighs.  "Ouch!" he cried, lifting her off his lap.  "Si?" he said to whoever was at the door.  He dropped the cat on the floor.  Naturally, she landed on her feet.  

"It is Maria, Don Diego, I have a message from Seņora Elizabeth," came the voice from the other side of the door.

He went to open it, and there stood the young woman who had been in their household from the time she was eight.  Now she was Elizabeth's servant.  Along with Bernardo, she was the most trusted and valued of all the de la Vega household staff.  

He smiled at her.  "Hello Maria.  Where is Elizabeth?  Where is the baby?"

"She said to tell you they are in the live oaks grove above the garden," Maria answered.  She smiled up at him, and then lowered her head.  

"Thank you, I will find them.  Can you tell Bernardo to prepare the carriage, I want to take them into the pueblo.  And Maria, somehow a cat has gotten into our room, can you chase it out?"

"Oh, si, Don Diego," she said, "I am sorry!"  She went into the room and as he headed for the stairs he heard her say, "You again!"  He smiled.

A few minutes later he was walking through the bright sunshine, towards the cluster of live oaks. It had been many years since he had thought of that trip to the San Gabriel mission and the kindness his mother had shown that day. He had forgotten about the fox crossing their path, and about the duck.  He realized how persistent his mother had been, in showing him over and over how to learn from the world around him.  He realized, anew, how dedicated she had been in trying to instill in him values that would make him a good, if privileged, man in a hard world. "Your privilege is an accident of birth, Diego," she had told him more than once.  "Never take it for granted."  

Elizabeth had once suggested to him that perhaps his creation of El Zorro was somehow connected to the things his mother taught him.  In this, he now believed, his dear wife was right.  He shook his head with a smile as he climbed the hill.  His mother had also been right about the wife he would need.  Definitely more like Cyclone than Fortuna, he thought, as he chuckled to himself. Though certainly she is my buena fortuna.  A duck, a fox, Maria, and much about his mother.  This was a story Elizabeth would like.  

He sighed, feeling a moment of gratitude for that sly tabby cat on Elizabeth's chair.  She had set all these tender memories in motion.  Perhaps he should tell Maria to indulge the animal now and again.  Good deeds deserved reward.

Ahead of him he saw Elizabeth sitting on a blanket in the shade, shaking her hair in the baby's face.  Chubby little hands were reaching up and grabbing at Mommie's showering chestnut hair.  Both of them were laughing.  Diego smiled broadly.  "Here are my girls," he said softly.