The Legend of Zorro

by Scott Ciencin

  Statehood.

  “Who would like to tell me what this word means?” snapped Father Quintero. His gaze narrowed as hands went up. Good! Some of the little idiots had been listening after all. He waved his stick in the direction of his prize pupil. “Miriam?”

  “It means we’re part of a bigger country now,” announced Miriam, a pleasant-looking blonde with freckles and a pert little nose.

  Father Quintero nodded sagely. “Very good.” His stick motioned next toward a dark-eyed boy who always put forth his best effort. “Raul?”

  Raul ran his hand through his black bowl cut hair, which rose higher on the right as if no one had bothered to balance the bowl after it was set on his head. He ventured, “We get to learn the Declaration of Independence?”

  The teacher nodded with satisfaction. His stick hovered, swaying lazily from one side to the other as Father Quintero surveyed the other students. It leaped in his hand, like a divining rod, driving his attention to a dark-haired boy at the back of the class who wasn’t paying attention.

  “Joaquin?” called Father Quintero.

  The boy stared at Ricardo the Dunce. Did he envy the lad’s position? Well, if so, Father Quintero was in a unique position to do something about it. The lad’s head eased around and now he peered out the window.

  “Joaquin de la Vega,” bellowed Father Quintero. “Perhaps you could tell the class what statehood means to you?”

  Joaquin dragged his gaze upward—and fixed the teacher with his smoldering eyes. “It means the people can rise up against the flaming poker of injustice!”

  Father Quintero stiffened with fury. “And how exactly does a flaming poker fit into your little theory?”

  Sinking low in his chair, Joaquin murmured, “It fits…in your butt?”

  Laughter burst from the other students. Joaquin’s bushy eyebrow raised. What was this now? Had he struck a blow for freedom?

  Judging by his teacher’s reddening face, it would seem so.

  His racing thoughts lighted on the stories he loved so much: Zorro vs. the Bandana Gang, in which the masked rider battled a dozen wicked men intent on revenge for the “Z”s carved on their foreheads. Or Zorro and the Deadly Day of the Dictator, where a villain using children for slave labor in a secluded hacienda paid the ultimate price for his greed, tumbling head first at story’s end into a bottomless pit, the place he had tossed rebellious or sickly children. Father Quintero was indeed a dictator, and the day was long past when his iron rule should be broken.

  Father Quintero slapped his stick on Raul’s desk and roared, “Silencio!”

  The classroom sank into a dark quiet—for a few seconds. Then snickering and titters flickered from row to row, corner to corner, the sounds flittering away an instant before Father Quintero’s angry, searching gaze could seize upon their disobedient owners.

  A low muffled braying rumbled from Ricardo’s seat.

  Joaquin gazed at his friend. No, Ricardo. Think of something awful. Don’t—

  It was too late. Ricardo laughed so hard into his cupped hands that his body quavered and he had to press his legs together tightly to keep from wetting his pants.

  He had presented the perfect target for Father Quintero’s wrath—far easier prey than Joaquin.

  Father Quintero whirled on Ricardo, his stick raised. He bellowed, “I’ll give you something to laugh about—”

  No! thought Joaquin. There would be no further injustices. Joaquin removed his slingshot—and sent a stinging little stone into Father Quintero’s backside!

  Shrieking with surprise and pain, Father Quintero whirled and froze at the sight of the lad blowing on his slingshot the way a cowboy might a smoking gun. The spindly teacher stormed at the boy, advancing with long, angry strides. Joaquin leaped atop his desk, snatching up a ruler.

  “Come here, you little demon!” raged Father Quintero.

  The teacher’s stick whipped down toward Joaquin, but the ruler the boy had taken from another student’s desk deflected the blow with a sharp high crack. Joaquin leaped to another desk as Father Quintero’s stick arced through the air again lashing at Joaquin’s fleeing form. The stick hummed, then hissed—it struck at the boy, then missed.

  Joaquin landed on another desktop, startling a red-haired girl. Dropping to a crouch, he whirled to face the teacher, raising his ruler high. Thwackkk! It struck Father Quintero’s stick. The teacher stumbled, shock and rage boiling over within him.

  Joaquin grimaced savagely as he ripped the ruler to the right with lightning speed, swept it down in a sharp diagonal, then flashed it right again, emblazoning the air with a “Z” mere inches from Father Quintero’s face.

  “Hah!” cried Joaquin.

  With a growl of mindless fury, Father Quintero launched himself at the lad. Joaquin whirled and leaped again, grabbing hold of a dangling chandelier filled with half-worn candles and swung away, narrowly avoiding the teacher’s bony, grasping hands. Joaquin’s boots alighted upon a windowsill. Crouching, he scrambled through the open window and skittered quickly to the right to avoid his teacher’s latest frustrated attempt to snag him.

  The dictator railed against the escaping rebel. Joaquin scampered across the ledge, evading Father Quintero once more. Wild, passionate cheers resounded from Joaquin’s classroom—and from surrounding classrooms. Cries of delight and encouragement rose, cheers for the hero who had dared to stand against oppression, for the lad whose courage was as great as that of any man or legend.

  Joaquin loathed leaving the others behind, but he would return soon to free them all. His gaze streaked across the high metal pole, and the whipping flag of California and the means of his deliverance gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. Unmindful of the possibly deadly drop to the courtyard far below, Joaquin leaped! The air had him for a terrifying instant, and he thought he might plummet like a stone. Then his hands closed on the fluttering fabric. The wind sliced and bit at his face as he spun around the pole. Releasing the flag, he curled his arms about the pole, spun some more, then shimmied down its length. He dropped to the ground in a heroic flourish.

  Vive le revolution!

  A shadow stole over him.

  Gazing up, Joaquin stared into the partially silhouetted face of Alejandro de le Vega.

  “Papi?” Joaquin whispered, stunned to see the man at all.

  Father’s face was rock hard, a single eyebrow raised as if to ask, What, did someone hit you with a stupid stick?

  But what Don de la Vega said was quite simple, and far more troubling. It was a single word that came out as a low growl from some cavernous place deep within the man. “Joaquin…”

  Alejandro strode hard along the dusty streets of San Francisco. Joaquin struggled to keep up with him. They were within sight of a ramshackle two-story sprawl with a half-dozen stagecoaches parked outside. The charred black skeletal ruins of homes and businesses savaged by recent fires lay further down the street, and ash wafted upon the afternoon breeze, stinging their nostrils, clinging like dust to their hair and clothing. A new site for the stagecoach depot—miraculously untouched by the hungry god of fire—was under construction across the street. Laborers sweated while they worked as a peace officer in a deep blue uniform and bowler hat strode their way for standard inspections.

  Alejandro attempted to focus his mind on such details, lest the fires burning within him burst out of control. Whirling on his son, Alejandro unleashed a scorching look as he said, “What’s with you, eh? You’re lucky Father Quintero didn’t throw you out for good—”

  Joaquin shrugged, adjusting the heavy bookbag he had lugged after Papi had made him go back inside and apologize to Father Quintero. The boy pleaded with his hands. “No fue mi culpa, Papi—”

  Alejandro bristled. It’s not my fault, Papi, his son had offered. Alejandro’s frown deepened. “Speak English, we’re about to be Americans—and stop making excuses. Why do you keep picking fights?”

  Shuddering, Joaquin struggled to find the words that might get through to P
api. “You don’t understand, sometimes you have to fight…”

  Alejandro scowled. “Says who?”

  Joaquin pointed. “Says him.”

  Alejandro turned. Slashed on the building before him was the mark of Zorro. In a shock of memory, he was suddenly catapulted back to a frigid evening three years gone. Sam “Velvet Voice” Neeley, a murderer, thief, stagecoach robber and poet from Sydney Town, had killed three men and held a woman at knife point after a robbery at the depot. The grinning madman, an escaped convict from Australia, had holed up in a room above, bragging that he was dedicating his acts that night to Lola Montez, the scandalous “Spider Dancer” of Grass Valley. In the end, Neeley had crashed through a high window alone, his life coming to a close when he landed in this terrible spot and snapped his neck. Zorro had triumphed that night—but Alejandro had taken a blade between the ribs and came within a hair’s breath of never seeing his wife and son again.

  Mi familia es mi vida. My family is my life. How can I say that and still put on the mask?

  Alejandro’s expression hardened. “Listen, muchacho, if Zorro were here he’d tell you fighting isn’t always the answer.”

  “How do you know what he’d say?” asked Joaquin with a nasty snicker.

  “Trust me, said Alejandro, his mouth tightening into a stubborn line. “I know him a lot better than you think.”

  Joaquin looked at his father as one might a pair of manure-soaked boots. “No you don’t, you’ve never been in a fight in your life—you didn’t even fight to keep Mom!”

  Alejandro’s large powerful hand shot out and caught Joaquin’s arm. The boy gasped. Papi’s grip was fierce, vice-like. There was no pain—yet there was no going anywhere, either. His father’s eyes blazed like the sun. The man who had been insubstantial as a light breeze seconds earlier now towered as a stone giant, the golden flames of the afternoon at his back, his face dark with fury.

  Who was this man? It was as if his father had become…someone else.

  A raw breath came from Alejandro’s throat. He forced himself to calm down. “I am your father, Joaquin, don’t talk to me like that. There’s nothing on this earth I wouldn’t do for you or your mother. Understand?”

  Joaquin drew back as his father’s grip loosened. Alejandro could see that the boy ached with longing. Joaquin wanted to believe; he wanted it more than anything in the world. If the boy knew the truth, perhaps he would believe.

  If the truth were known…

  “Don Alejandro!” called a voice from over Alejandro’s shoulder.

  Alejandro tensed—and instantly slipped on yet another mask. It would not do for his friends to see him undone like this. With a wide, gracious smile, he turned to greet Guillermo Cortez and his wife Blanca, who held their newborn son. From the back of their wagon, which also served as their stall in the marketplace, a sign advertised the finest in gold mining equipment. Guillermo set up his stand, eyeing the potential customers flocking to the stagecoaches ahead.

  The sign standing before a collection of shining fresh shovels, pikes, and lanterns read, “Cortez and Son.” Alejandro stole a fleeting glance at his own son, who appeared unimpressed with his father’s sudden transformation. Joaquin glowered and brooded, lost only to his own concerns. That had been Alejandro once—before Don Diego found him.

  “Guillermo, Blanca,” beamed Alejandro as he gestured at the baby, “look at little Jose.” A tiny gold bracelet with a black coral charm in the form of a fist dangled from the baby’s wrist, an Azabache meant to protect one from the Mal de ojo, or evil eye, which sometimes resulted from too much admiration or envy by others. Alejandro winked to Guillermo. “Poor thing, he’s as ugly as his mother.”

  Blanca laughed at the hidden compliment. She raised her free hand and tossed a loving flourish at the scraggly-haired ten-year-old. “And look at you, Joaquin, growing up so fast!”

  Flattered, Joaquin accepted her words, marking them with a shrug and a wistful smile.

  Guillermo clasped Alejandro’s shoulders. “If business keeps up, we’ll be able to pay you back sooner than we thought.”

  Alejandro laughed warmly and patted Guillermo hard on the back. “I told you, compadre, it was a gift. To celebrate your son’s birth.”

  The sound of whittling caught everyone’s attention. Alejandro stepped from Guillermo and saw a man in a frock coat testing a finely sharpened Cortez blade. His back was turned, but Alejandro had the sense that he was indeed carving something.

  Cortez waved to get the man’s attention. “Uh, señor, that knife is only two dollars.”

  The man spun, still working the blade on a pair of wooden teeth. He finished and popped the false teeth into his mouth.

  Alejandro’s gaze narrowed, his heart slowing as he recognized Guillermo’s customer:

  Jacob McGivens.

  “Give you five hundred,” suggested McGivens. “For that I’ll take the deed to your rancho…with the Lord’s gratitude.”

  Guillermo’s hands gathered into fists. Chest heaving, he called, “What do you know about the Lord, McGivens?”

  Fingering the flesh around the crucifix-shaped scar upon his face, McGivens said, “Just as he sent his only son to endure mortal suffering, my daddy branded me with my own cross to bare.”

  Blanca hugged Jose to her breast and backed away, her eyes filled with hatred as she stared at the gunman. “Tell your bosses at the railroad we’ll never sell.”

  McGivens spun the knife, stabbing it into the table. He gestured like a friend giving advice to Cortez and remarked, “Family man like you? Might wanna keep his woman on a shorter leash.”

  The false smile plummeted from the scarred man’s face as he surged at Guillermo. Alejandro’s left hand stabbed out, his open palm suddenly pressed against the gunman’s chest. McGivens stopped, confusion rippling his brow.

  “They said, they’re not selling,” warned Alejandro, his tone level, unyielding.

  McGivens regarded the don curiously. “We met before, sir?”

  Alejandro shrugged. “I’d remember a man with wooden teeth.”

  A single eyebrow raised, McGivens sniffed the air near Alejandro’s face, wrinkled his lips in disgust, and added, “And I’d remember a Mex-breed dressed up like a white man.”

  The muscles in Alejandro’s face and neck tensed. He wanted to take this grinning devil apart, but Joaquin was staring at him intently. The boy wanted him to fight—and that was exactly why Alejandro could not give in to his anger. He had to show Joaquin that there were other ways.

  McGivens fixed Joaquin with a crooked grin. “Think your pappy’s gonna crow, Little Man?” asked McGivens. “Or’s he gonna cluck?”

  “Leave him out of this,” warned Alejandro.

  McGivens hand came up in a blur, slapping Alejandro’s face hard enough to leave a bright red welt. Joaquin lurched forward to defend his father, but Alejandro stepped back from McGivens and thrust a warning hand in his son’s direction. Joaquin’s chest heaved, his breath catching and ratcheting unevenly, but he remained where he was.

  Jaw clenched, Alejandro struggled with the urge to put down the vicious animal before him.

  “Señor,” said Alejandro, fighting to keep his voice from quaking with fury, “as a gentlemen I’m obliged to teach my son to turn the other chee—”

  Grinning, McGivens slapped Alejandro’s other cheek, really putting his back into it this time. The blow connected like a thunderclap, snapping Alejandro back and rocking him on his heels. The sharp explosive sting that seared Alejandro’s face spread to his brain, his fury overwhelming him at last.

  “Y’mean that cheek?” taunted the scarred gunman.

  Alejandro dug in his heels and lunged for the man, a snarl writhing from his lips. McGivens whipped up his fists in a classic boxer’s stance. Guillermo surged in, seizing both of Alejandro’s arms as an earthy voice called from only a few yards away.

  “Everything all right, boys?”

  Alejandro forced the fight to drain out of him a
s he turned and locked gazes with the tall police officer he had seen earlier at the construction site across the street. Alejandro took the officer’s measure: young, square-jawed, Irish. The man was stiff in the back and shoulders, and his lips curled into a sneer, as if he had something to prove. The Daily Herald had run a piece just last week about green recruits forgetting to bring their weapons to work and running from fights because they didn’t know what else to do. This man was looking for trouble—so he could show everyone how the job should be done.

  Eyes blazing, Alejandro backed away.

  “Respects to you, officer,” said McGivens, tipping his hat while flashing his dull wooden grin, “respects, respects.”

  The policeman drew a sharp breath, his brow furrowing as he seemed to debate with himself over making more of this, then he strolled on. When the officer had vanished into a gambling house down the street, McGivens turned to the others and winked.

  McGivens lept onto his Mustang and jerked the reins. The Mustang’s head flew up and he snorted and chuffed angrily, swinging his body around so violently that his rump smacked against Cortez’s wagon, knocking over the table the craftsman had set up. A cascade of hammers, shovels and pikes crashed and clattered to the ground.

  Alejandro grasped Cortez’s arm, holding the man in check with a nod to Blanca and Jose. Shuddering, Guillermo nodded and shrugged off his friend’s grip. McGivens playfully mouthed the word, “Oops.”

  “Think about my offer now…’’ McGivens said quietly as the din’s echoes faded, “or I’ll be obliged to do the Lord’s work.”

  McGivens drove his spurs into the Mustang’s flanks and shouted a wretched curse at the beast. The enraged horse galloped off, McGivens holding his hat and laughing as dirt kicked up around them.

  Alejandro bent to help Guillermo pick up his tools, but the proud man firmly brushed him aside and set to the task alone. Blanca’s smile was thin and pained as she nodded her thanks at the don.

  Looking to his son, Alejandro saw only two burning coals, the boy’s dark eyes gleaming with a shameful rage.