Chapter Ten

Chasing a Hunch

The tavern was still closed for siesta when Stephano made his way slowly down the stairs. He could hear noises coming from the kitchen and knew Victoria was beginning the preparations for dinner. He went to the bar and leaned against it, waiting. It wasn't long before Victoria came through the curtain, carrying a tray of clean glasses. She started when she saw Stephano.

"I'm sorry, Victoria," he said softly. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

She gave him a half-hearted smile and he knew immediately that she was still upset by the earlier events.

"I didn't hear you come in. I guess I was lost in what I was doing," she replied, putting the tray down and beginning to stock the glasses behind the bar.

Stephano watched her, momentarily at a loss for words. There was so much he wanted to tell her, but knew he couldn't. He gripped the saddle bag strung across his shoulder a little tighter, but placed the bedroll that was under his other arm on the bar. He reached for Victoria's hand.

"I'm sorry about your friend, Victoria."

For a moment, her eyes filled with tears again, but she quickly blinked them back. She pulled her hand away and resumed stacking the glasses. After a moment, she said softly, "He was a good boy, Vicente. He was so proud to be a soldier. It was all he talked about when he was a child, wanting to serve in the army. When he was assigned to the garrison at Monterey he was so excited. It was a good assignment and he knew it. It would give him a chance to shine, right in front of the governor."

Victoria managed a smile as she remembered the little boy that used to scamper around the plaza, following the soldiers and mimicking their movements, practicing for the day he would wear the uniform.

"I'm sorry," Stephano repeated.

Victoria's smile disappeared. "Zorro will find whoever did this," she said sternly. "They will pay for it."

Stephano swallowed hard. "Perhaps," he said quietly. His anger at his brother's actions once again flared and he had to force himself to unclench his fists. Enrique would pay a price for what he had done, but it wouldn't be from Zorro. Not if Stephano had anything to do with it. But before he could deal with his brother, he had other matters to attend to. He grabbed the bedroll from the bar.

Victoria seemed to notice for the first time that Stephano had all of his gear with him. "You are leaving?"

"Si," Stephano said. "I just stopped to say goodbye. Joaquin and I…have some work to do."

"Oh? Where will you go?"

Stephano hesitated a moment before answering, but when he did, he felt a sense of relief, knowing as he said it that it felt right. "East. Joaquin and I are going east."

Victoria was about to ask him more, but stopped herself. She had a feeling that Stephano wouldn't offer anymore detail than that anyway. "Well," she said slowly, "I will miss our talks, Stephano. I hope you have a safe journey. Perhaps we will see you in Los Angeles again some day?"

Stephano gave her his shy grin and shrugged. He wanted to kiss her, but having seen her with Zorro, he knew it would not be welcome. Instead, he took her hand once again and gave a light kiss to the back of it. "Adios, Victoria."

"Adios," she said as she watched the mysterious man disappear through the kitchen curtain. She heard the back door close and allowed herself a moment of sadness, for losing both Vicente and Stephano.

Zorro made it to the pass before the soldiers from Los Angeles returned. He knew how tired the soldiers were and that it would take them some time to gather fresh mounts and return. It would give him a little time to look around. The signs were quite plain that a struggle had occurred. The rain from two nights ago had made the ground soft enough to plainly show the tracks of several horses and men. Most he knew were from the soldiers, but it was easy enough to find the separate tracks of the bandits. There were four of them and they led to the south and east.

The sun was warm as he rode, and he could feel a trickle of sweat run down his back. It wasn't the first time he wished Zorro could stick to working nights, when the black outfit wasn't quite so hot. But he had to admit, tracking was not so easy most nights. And these were tracks he desperately wanted to follow to the end, where he would find the ones who killed Vicente and the other soldiers.

Several times, he lost the tracks among the rocks and he found himself doubling back to regain the trail, but each time, he managed to find it again and continue on. By the time the sun was beginning to set, he knew he was getting close. He could tell by the tracks that the horses he was pursuing were no longer running, which meant they were either getting close to wherever they were going, or no longer feared being followed.

Just as the sun dipped below the horizon, Zorro found what he was looking for and dismounted. The tracks led into a camp, now deserted. The remains of the fire were still warm, though, so he knew that they hadn't left long ago. There were empty bottles lying around the camp, and Zorro realized grimly that it had been a fairly large group camped here. And he also knew he would have no chance of picking up the trail of the four men he had been following. Tracks for at least a dozen men led away from the camp, three groups headed in different directions.

With a whistle, Zorro called Toronado over to him. He mounted the big horse and pointed him back in the direction of Los Angeles. He couldn't follow all three groups of men, and not knowing which group the murderers were in, he had to find another means of finding them. If his hunch was correct, Stephano was behind this somehow and if he could find Stephano, he knew he would find the answers, and the men, he was looking for.