The Legend of Zorro

by Scott Ciencin

  “Fine!” she snorted. Her hand mockingly whisked through the air. “I hope you and Tornado are very happy together!”

  Eyes one step from madness, Alejandro proudly ground to a halt before her. “Oh, we will be!”

  She flashed a nasty smile—and he realized her game a moment too late. She dove before him and hurled herself through the door, slamming it behind her. She’d left him with the final word, but denied him the final statement.

  Madre de dios! he thought, quaking furiously before the fire. The woman may have hung up her sword, but she still knows how to fight!

  Joaquin’s moonlit stroll had taken him miles from his family’s property. Now, as he climbed the twisting sequoia perched like a sentinel alongside their hacienda, dirt from the small cave he had discovered—and imagined to have once been Zorro’s lair—dropped from his boot heels. Grass stains were ground into his breeches, and a small hole peeked through the side of his billowy white topshirt where a branch had poked him during an impromptu duel.

  Climbing through his bedroom window, he nearly tripped on the wooden toy train he’d carelessly left on the floor. His flailing hand struck out and gripped the edge of his desk, his fingers grazing the collection of dime novels stacked beside his schoolbooks. The books sported flashy covers with images of El Zorro, Pistellero Pete, Riverboat MacReedy and Gamblin’ Joe, the Mysterious Bat, and even Lady Zorro.

  Steady now, Joaquin found himself staring up at his prize painting of Jack the Giant Killer. His father had presented him with the portrait as a present two winters ago. Jack sported the same wild curly black hair, bushy brows and infectious grin as Joaquin. The giant was a brute that even Zorro might hesitate before.

  When you are in doubt, look at this painting and remember that you can conquer anything, my son…anything at all.

  Such had been his father’s loving vow the night that painting was delivered. Alejandro de la Vega seemed different that evening. His spine was straighter, his eyes glowed like fiery coals. He appeared another man entirely—but come the morning, the intensity was gone, and he was his usual distant, distracted self.

  Footsteps rang in the hallway, an angry clatter. Raised voices echoed and grew louder.

  Joaquin gasped. His gaze rocketed to the “sleeping form” lying on his bed. A collection of pillows carefully stuffed beneath the blankets to create the illusion that the boy was still there. Joaquin dove for the bed. Scrambling under the blankets, he pulled the heavy fabric up high and managed a deep rumbling snore as the arguing in the hall abruptly ceased.

  His bedroom door gently swung open. Joaquin stole a look from the corner of his eye as an orange glow filled the room and two silhouetted figures peered in. The svelte form of Mama drew back and Papi stiffly strode inside, his shoulders up around his ears.

  Was father angry? Had he heard Joaquin climb inside, or spotted a clump of dirt on the hardwood floor and deduced that the boy had been out having adventures?

  The mission bell tolled in the night. Señor Zorro was needed. And quiet as a fox himself, Papi padded into the room, perched on the side of Joaquin’s bed and cleared his throat. “Listen, uh…I have to go away tonight, just for a little while. You know your mother, how she gets. But I’ll be back soon, okay?”

  Joaquin was turned from his father. As the bell tolled once more, he felt his father’s lips graze his forehead.

  “El dulce suena, mi angel,” Father whispered.

  Sweet dreams, my angel.

  Alejandro, hesitated. He bent and retrieved Joaquin’s marionette of Tornado, Zorro’s stallion. A strange smile stole across his face, bemused, proud. He carefully hung the marionette on a wall peg next to Joaquin’s jacket and quietly stole from the room, closing the door behind him.

  As the comforting orange glow from the hall faded, Joaquin felt a chill that had nothing to do with the icy breeze wafting in from the still open window.

  Elena stood on the hacienda’s open gallery, pulling her wrap tight around her shoulders. The cold night air swept over her as she leaned against a great column and stared out at the distance. The heroic outline of the masked rider Zorro galloped off toward the mission and its wretchedly insistent bell. Her heart once rose at the sight of the billowing cape, the strong proud lines of the legendary black costume. This was the legacy of her true father, Don Diego, a tradition kept alive by her beloved husband, a man she considered as brave and true as any alive. It used to fill her with such pride…no more.

  Zorro paused at the top of a hillock, gazing back at her.

  Come back to me, willed Elena. Come back now, to your son, your family. You have served the legend. Now serve what the legend stands for.

  The horse and rider hesitated a moment longer—then bolted off in the moonlight. Her head hung sadly, Elena stole away in bitter silence.

  From the Private Journals of Elena de la Vega

  Several nights ago, the subject of popular author Edgar Allan Poe and his devilish frights came up at the dinner table. The conversation spilled into the den and found vibrant life until just before our visitors left. At the door, one of our guests asked if I could name my greatest fear. I said it wasn’t something I gave much thought.

  I was lying.

  I can tell you what frightens me most. Losing him.

  No, not Alejandro. Whenever he puts on that damnable mask, I prepare myself for the morning he will not come home at all. In that, I lose him a little more each day.

  Joaquin, my son.

  I try to hold on so tightly, I need him to know that this is real, that the love I have for him means something. I don’t want him looking back on these days as I have done on my early life, wondering what was real and what was a lie.

  Lies are a prison.

  Please Lord, I beg of you, let me one day find the key to release us all.

  From a Scroll Fallen in a Corner in Alejandro de la Vega’s Hidden Lair

  Today. Big day. Nearly broke my hand on a bandito’s jaw.

  Hah!

  It is good to be Zorro.

  I wonder what’s for dinner?

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, Elena de la Vega knelt in her private garden, the lovely cinnamon scent of the romania, her favorite flower, gently tickling her nose. Her fingers brushed one of the petals, and the gentle touch of the lightly swaying flowers whisked her away to other times. She thought of Don Diego, the man who had given her life. He had secured these flowers above her crib when she was an infant. And she recalled the light musical laughter of Don Montero, the man who had raised her as his own. He had also made this rare flower, which only grew in California, a part of her life when he presented her with a bouquet of romanias upon her arrival in this great land. This flower had long been a source of comfort to her.

  Not today.

  The breeze suddenly shifted. The romania’s scent turned bitter, conjuring images of events she had either been too young to remember, or had simply not been present to see, though they had been described to her many times: her mother’s violent death, her true father’s decades-long internment in a filthy hole.

  Gasping, Elena broke free of the dark reverie’s stranglehold and glared at the romania.

  The flowers needed pruning.

  Elena surveyed the grounds and satisfied herself that no one was watching. Digging among the rose bushes, she found a carefully concealed sword, one of many weapons her husband had stashed about the hacienda in case their enemies ever learned he was Zorro and launched an attack.

  Elena raised the weapon, gripping it expertly. She familiarized herself with its weight and balance in only two sharp strikes.

  “Hah!” she cried. The blade swept out in a shimmering silver blur. Stems snapped, flowers streaked into the air, and the basket beside her filled quickly with the spoils of her attack. There was joy in this, she realized, her sword flashing, her anger evaporating as she embraced the discipline of steel.

  The voice of Don Diego whispered, This is who you are. Do not deny it. Do not
fight it.

  Startled, she gazed at the half-dozen quivering stems still standing in the wake of her attack and dropped the blade. She hid it once more, snatched up the basket and hurried from the garden.

  I sometimes think we are the same, Alejandro, thought Elena as she fled the battlefield. Our passions are our undoing. I seek to deny them too much; you, too little. Where does that leave our son?

  The breeze, which had shifted again, bore no answers.

  Joaquin de la Vega bit back a howl of frustration. His mother was at it again. As he sat with her in the dining room, waiting for breakfast, she put him through the morning ritual of inspection. Her long cool fingers adjusted the sweep of his hair, tugged on his topshirt, and nudged his chin from side to side as she checked to see if he had washed behind his ears and if he had scrubbed his face to her rigid standards of satisfaction.

  Then, smiling, she grilled him for any little story he might tell of his time at school and at play.

  Zorro, Zorro, Zorro—I have seen Zorro!, he thought.

  He told her none of what had happened the previous afternoon. She did not share his love for the country’s masked protector—and she often fretted over him as if he were one of her fragile little statues. If she knew what he had faced at the mission, she might never let him leave the hacienda again. So instead he told her of a typical boring day at school and she rewarded him with a warm and loving smile.

  As the morning pressed on, the servants were all on their best behavior; never a good sign. Gregorio, their most loyal servant and Joaquin’s friend, was unusually tight-lipped. The histrionic explosions generally heard from the kitchen as Monsieur Vioget hollered at the staff did not sound once. Even Manuel, their driver, made a point of never meeting anyone’s gaze as he drove the pair into the city. They all knew something Joaquin did not. It maddened him and his usual façade of cheeriness crumbled even as the salty breezes of San Francisco Bay wafted in through the cracked open window beside him.

  As they left their carriage, Joaquin gazed at his mother’s beautiful face and wondered what she was thinking. She wanted him to be happy. He could tell that much, at least. But she pursued her desire so fervently that she often made him miserable. Today, her smile was so bright, her attitude so cheerful, he feared she might break in two if she caught even a glimmer of the idea that everyone could see beyond her act to know that something was very wrong.

  Elegantly crafted clouds drifted high above San Francisco’s bustling harbor, pausing occasionally to gaze with favor upon the exotic collection of stately white English clipper ships, bold crimson-hulled Russian trawlers, and emerald and gold Chinese junks moored in the harbor’s sprawling reaches. The rich blue sky nestled the high fluttering masts and sails, and men sang drunken odes to their mistresses as they scrambled aloft and worked the riggings.

  Elena and Joaquin crested Telegraph Hill, stepping away from the great swarms of people hurrying from hotels and gambling houses to fisheries, office blocks, smiths, or squat wooden houses. Conestoga wagons with curved bottoms jostled alongside oversized stagecoaches, egg-shaped hansoms and lone riders galloping with no regard to people sauntering into the street.

  Parasols spiraled and patriotic buntings flapped in the breeze of the warm, fair morning. Stout men in pale linen suits tipped their bowlers to the ladies, carefully avoiding soot-faced peddlers with bouquets of flowers nestled under their arms. Telegraph lines reached overhead, while below, pastel colored shells once lovingly gathered from the shore then carelessly discarded crunched against cobblestones beneath rushing feet. Remnants of fireworks gathered in the gutters and a well-dressed man on an adjacent street corner adjusted the chain on his vest and burst into an aria from Don Giovanni in a rich baritone.

  Elena reached up and delicately replaced a loose lock of her silky raven’s hair that had escaped from her tight bun. She gazed down at the bristling sea of activity surrounding the boats, her heart filled with longing. The water was like glass. Elena imagined that upon it she might be magically transported to some lovely and exotic port of call. She could only dream of the faraway wonders those aboard the strange foreign vessels witnessed. Had one been bound for Persia, for a midnight rendezvous with the prince’s own vessel? Had another sailed to the former pirate haven Madagascar, or traversed clandestine routes once taken by the Phoenicians on their way to Tripoli? Even to sail around the cape and see the shining spires of this country’s New York would be a grand adventure.

  A sigh escaped her as she patted Joaquin on the back. Her thoughts had come dangerously close to fixing on the day she had first arrived in this land by boat, and her adopted father’s now shattered dream of an independent California.

  Joaquin trudged along next to her, moody, sullen, suspicious. He’d been fixed like a hunting hawk on his father’s absence all morning. Elena pointed to the penny arcade in an attempt to distract him. He only shrugged.

  She tugged on her figure-flattering smoke-colored outing jacket, her hand grazing one of the fancy filigree buttons. Her white silk scarf, tucked over her blouse, caressed her long lean neck, and her black skirt and boots sometimes caused Joaquin to remark that if she wore a black scarf instead—the only color a proper mask should ever be—she would be like Lady Zorro. Elena smiled thinking of the innocent remark and the long ago summer when her real life exploits gave rise to that particular dime-novel legend.

  Today of course, he said nothing. He simply scratched his neck where his starched white collar grazed his skin and kept finding excuses to unbutton his jacket or kick dirt up on his breeches and polished shoes.

  A gaggle of well-dressed women burst from a doorway up ahead. Laughing, they spun as a group and nearly collided with Elena and Joaquin. The door to Lady Lily’s French Café slowly swung shut behind them.

  “Oh, yes,” cried one of the women happily. “Henri Herz is opening at the National Theatre and I simply must attend—”

  “Doña de la Vega,” whispered the silver-haired, redcheeked lady in the lead. Señora Rodriguez stiffly drew her large cashmere shawl up about her neck. Behind her, a hushed rustling faded as three younger women drew to a sudden stop. Señora Rodriguez was the most smartly attired, her dress the envy of her followers.

  Elena smiled warmly. Señora Rodriguez was highly interested in politics, as was Elena. In fact, Señora Rodriguez had been instrumental in ensuring that the equal division of property between a married man and woman, a holdover from Mexican law, made it into the charter for statehood.

  Elena drew a deep breath, rifling through possibilities for heady conversation. Perhaps she should lead with her knowledge of arguments over the Town Council ruling that all titles to land made by grants or sales in any form, by any person or persons whatever, other than the legally elected Alcalde or Town Council, were illegal.

  “Señora Rodriguez, how wonderful to see you,” said Elena brightly, anxious to move beyond the formalities and get to the grit of their conversation.

  “Of course,” agreed the older woman.

  Easing her hands onto Joaquin’s shoulders, Elena said, “May I present—”

  A lacy hand shot out, a fluttering fan snapping open to cast a frantic breeze upon the older woman’s powdered face. “Oh, my dear, I must beg your indulgence for an old woman’s frailties,” droned Señora Rodriguez. “The sun, you see, is quite barbaric today and the heat has simply taken its toll. I do hope you’ll forgive me for running off, but I must get home and into the shade. Another time!”

  With that, Señora Rodriguez flickered a weak smile at Elena and swept past her. The ladies behind her were hauled along as if by invisible tethers, leaving Elena to nod and smile graciously, despite the anger and disappointment welling inside her. Elena refused to look back at the departing women, though she heard their titters. She had everything in common with them, but they shunned her. She’d heard them talking often enough. They called her the Spanish Queen. The Faraway Princess. The Southern Californian with her “odd ways.” She’d even been accus
ed of being too aloof, too “European” for their small colonial town.

  Joaquin casually spit on the street in the general direction of the haughtily swaying skirts, and on any other day, Elena might have taken him by the ear for that. Instead, she brushed the back of his head and moved them along.

  As Elena swept along the bustling street with Joaquin, she could not drive the women from her thoughts. Did these women avoid her because her adopted father’s dark dealings had been exposed, his fortune lost? Looking at all the new businesses bursting into existence around her, she knew that many of the wealthiest were thieves: the trick was not getting caught. The money she and Alejandro now enjoyed had been earned, though that might have been another stigma, dirt beneath her nails.

  It is like you wear many masks, Elena, Verona La Salle, one of the women with Señora Rodriguez today, had once told her. No one knows which of the faces you show is real, and what to make of you.

  Cursing herself for caring how these women viewed her, Elena drew a deep breath and forced herself to loosen her vice-like grip on Joaquin’s now pale hand and to slow down in her breakneck flight through the city as she desperately sought a means of calming herself. She’d studied ballet as a child. She was unduly demanding of herself, expecting she could instantly attain the absolute and effortless grace and perfection of the older students. Her teacher often told the struggling, frustrated beauty to consider the secret of the swan.

  The swan glides across the water as if by magic. A slow regal turning of the head when something interesting appears, a delicate subtle shift of the shoulders when easing off in a new direction, the tiniest shudder when reaching what might be a sudden jarring stop. This is all we see above the surface. Were you to peer below the waterline, you would see something quite different. The legs pump and scramble frantically, they claw savagely, desperately at the churning, unpredictable waters. Yes, while all is serenity itself above, a fight for survival rages below.