Chapter 21 – Foxhunting

"Close the door," Zorro ordered. While the sergeant latched the door, he lifted his shirt to have a look at the gunshot wound in his abdomen.

"Madre de Dios!" the soldier cried when he saw the amount of blood he was losing at the front. "I am so sorry, Zorro. Are you going to be alright?"

Z

Zorro tried to looked behind, but he couldn't reach to see an exit wound.

"Is the bullet out?"

"Yes, it's out, and the wound is not bleeding so badly at the back here."

"That's good. Help me with the cape."

Mendoza helped Zorro to remove his cape and tie it around his waist like a tight sash, on top of the other, both pressing on the bleeding wound.

"I feel so bad about this. I really hope you are going to be all right. I really do. I will never forgive myself if you… Oh, God!" Mendoza babbled.

"Don't worry too much about it, Sergeant, and don't blame yourself," Zorro said, leaning on Mendoza's shoulder for support, catching his breath while pressing on the wound with his left palm, panting with the pain. "Sooner or later it had to happen, because I dodged too many bullets already. I'm very sorry you had to be the one who got me."

He reached then for the paper Ramón had signed and gave it to the sergeant.

"Give this to Don Alejandro. He'll keep it safe. Now, can you distract your comrades so I can get out through the roof?"

"Can you really climb up there? You should see the doctor."

"I can't stay to see the doctor, and you know it. Please, help me up."

Zorro groaned when he pulled himself up to the rafters while Mendoza tried to help him holding him steady, pushing from his legs.

"Good luck. I hope you make it," Mendoza said, heading for the front door. "Lancers, come here, quick! You too!" he shouted outside, calling also the soldiers on the roof. After they had climbed down from it, Mendoza signed to the masked man with his thumb up.

Zorro got out through the opening in the ceiling, stumbling over the roof tiles, running to the other side. Once there, he called for Toronado. Then, too late, he realized he had made a stupid mistake, with his good judgement clouded by the pain and the stress of getting injured, because the horse was trapped inside the garrison's patio, on the wrong side of the building.

Mierda.

"Zorro is there!" Corporal Sepúlveda cried when he spotted him. The lancers headed that way, pursuing Zorro like a pack of barking Foxhounds. Mendoza, acting like a red-coated English Huntsman blowing his horn, called them back unsuccessfully.

"No! Come back here, you fools!"

Mendoza watched the following scene unfold not moving from the spot, feeling impotent to help Zorro but rooting for him.

Boy, how are you going to get me out of here now? Zorro thought, growing desperate. He saw the lancers approaching with the muskets reloaded again, from both sides, the plaza and the patio, as they had got inside the garrison after Mendoza had opened the office's front door. When they aimed at him, ready to shoot, he quickly dropped down flat over the tiles and all the bullets whizzed past him, way above him. He then took a moment to rest over the tiles, immobile, while more soldiers attempted to climb up the roof again.

"Oh, no! He's been shot!" Victoria said from the plaza, grabbing Don Alejandro's sleeve, panicking.

"No, he hasn't. It can't be. I think he dodged all those bullets," Don Alejandro said, uncertain, but unwilling to lose hope.

"Then why is he not moving?"

"I don't know. I think he is playing dead, or looking for something."

"He lost his cape," Victoria said then, biting her nail, wondering where he had left it. Surely not discarded on the floor again, like last night.

While resting on the tiles, Zorro looked at Toronado, who neighed nervously inside the patio, galloping around looking for a way to get out, frantic as a black bull trying to escape from a bullfighting ring.

I'll be damned… I can't believe this! Zorro thought then, standing up.

The horse had found a way to jump over several constructions in the patio on different levels, jumping over them in a sequence, finally reaching the roof as if he was an agile monkey instead of a heavy horse. But Zorro wasn't totally surprised; after all, that clever horse had been up the roof before. The stallion trotted on then, struggling over the tiles, cracking them and ripping them out with his shoes as he went along. A soldier had managed to get up the roof already but, when he saw that black fury coming his way, he jumped down back to the street rather that facing him.

"Attaboy, Toronado!" Zorro said when the horse reached him. He pulled himself up on the saddle with some difficulty, grunting, and when he was up and ready the horse carried on advancing unsteadily over the tiles.

"See? I told you he was alright," Don Alejandro said, smiling while tapping Victoria's hand reassuringly.

Approaching the edge of the roof, Toronado started a canter to gain some speed. Knowing what was coming, Zorro grabbed the stallion's mane and hoped for the best. The mighty horse reached the edge of the roof and, while the soldiers shot their muskets one more time, he jumped into the void, flying to reach the street at the other side, beyond the carts that blocked the way out of the plaza.

Toronado landed heavily on his hands, tripping over, touching the ground with one knee, but he recovered quickly his balance and carried on running. At landing, with the violent bump that thrust him forward out of control, Zorro knocked his already throbbing lower abdomen on the large saddle's pommel. The intense, unbearable pain he felt nearly knocked him off the saddle unconscious, but he managed to hold on while the horse kept galloping, carrying him to safety out of the pueblo, back to the hacienda De la Vega.

"Did you see that? Did we really see that?" Don Alejandro said, awestruck, immediately forgetting the grudge about the roses. "What a guy!"

"Absolutely bonkers!" his brother said, equally astonished. "Why did he do that?"

"I don't know. To get away in style? That's Zorro for you!" Victoria said, with a broad, radiant smile. Zorro had saved the day and, one more time, he had got away unscratched, and that's all she needed to know.

Right then, the alcalde came out of his office, stepping unsteadily into the plaza with a hand over his bruised jaw, just in time to see Zorro getting away.

Damn! I had him this time! How can he always get away? How?

"Lancers! Chase him! Get him!" he screamed, livid.

This time, the alcalde had not been able to come up with a novelty plan to trap the masked bandit, and he only had ordered the inept lancers to shoot at will, non-stop, hoping someone would get him. He was amazed his "less is best" kind of planning had worked, and he was even more amazed because the soldier who had finally managed to hit the masked outlaw was Mendoza, the foolest of them all, at the best of times totally unable to hit a large target only five metres away from his nose.

The lancers tried to get on their horses to give chase, but the heavy carts were still on the way. By the time they moved them to a side, Zorro had already disappeared.

"MENDOZAAAAAAAA!"

The sergeant ignored the call, and walked quickly through the crowd to find Don Alejandro.

"Zorro wanted you to have this," Mendoza said, handing over the folded document.

"What's this, Sergeant?" Don Alejandro said, taking the paper to unfold it. He immediately spotted some red stains on it. "Is this blood?"

"I'm afraid I shot him down, Don Alejandro. But I didn't mean to!" the sergeant said, looking so stressed it seemed he could fall apart crying at any moment.

"What are you talking about? He just jumped from the garrison's roof on Toronado and carried on galloping away! What do you mean you shot him down?"

"That's his blood in there, Don Alejandro. Honest to God," the sergeant said, pointing to the piece of paper. "The alcalde threatened to court-martial me if I didn't shoot my gun, so I did, aiming away from Zorro, of course, but I hit him with a bullet in the abdomen, at his side. I still don't know how."

"How could he jump off the roof like that if he was so severely injured?" Don Emilio said.

"I don't know how on Earth he managed to do that on that crazy horse in his condition. He should see a doctor as soon as possible."

Victoria was listening with her jaw dropped, in shock. The radiant smile had disappeared, as well as the healthy colour of her skin, which had turned nearly as white as the paper Don Alejandro was holding. Felipe could not believe it either, and at the mention of the doctor his heart raced. He was the doctor, and he had to return to the hacienda to help Zorro immediately.

"That cannot be happening. He's fine. He has to be, because…" she started, but she fainted before she could finish the sentence. Don Alejandro caught her in his arms before she dropped to the ground, flaccid like a rag doll.

"Victoria!"

"Señorita! Are you alright?" Mendoza said. Between them, they carried the unconscious Victoria into the tavern while Felipe seized the opportunity to disappear undetected to help Zorro at the cave.

"Find some salts to wake her up. Ask one of the bar tenders. They should know where they are kept," Don Alejandro said.

ZZZ

At the cave, Zorro passed his long leg over the saddle and slowly let his body drop down to the ground, where he lay for a while, catching his breath. He was amazed he had made it so far without passing out, because he had been very close.

After a few minutes resting he stood up to have a look at the wound. He took all Zorro's gear off, removed the cape and the sash acting as pressure bandages on his abdomen, and unbuttoned the black shirt. The wound wasn't bleeding so much as before, but it was still oozing, and after crashing so hard against the saddle he had a large, sore bruise covering the whole area. The gunshot was on a side, and he had to hope the bullet had gone in and out without touching any internal organs, or he would be even in more trouble. He washed the wound then, applying lots of dressings and another tight bandage around his abdomen, and then put on Diego's white shirt, with his tight-fitting blue waistcoat on top to cover any possible blood stains showing.

Before he went upstairs he sat at his desk to rest a bit more, and above all, to think. Even if nothing important had been damaged, he could still develop a nasty fever, and he would need a few days to recover, resting in bed, which would be a difficult thing to do at home without raising suspicions. Unless I could fake it, he thought. The mortar and pestle still resting on the table, right where he had left them that morning, gave him an idea.

ZZZ

"Mendoza! How did you let him get away? We had him this time!" the alcalde barked when Mendoza returned to the garrison from the tavern. The doctor had treated Ramón's wounds, he had changed his trousers already, and now he looked very stiff, unwilling to sit down on his chair.

"I don't know, mi alcalde. He knocked you down, and while I tended for you he escaped through the roof. That man is not a man, mi alcalde. He is a… a… a superb man."

"What? A Superman? What a ridiculous term to refer to somebody! He's not such a thing. He's a rotten, lucky, dastardly criminal, and he has to be somewhere nursing his wound right now. So, think hard: who wasn't at the plaza today?"

"I don't know, mi alcalde. Everybody was there."

"Not everybody. Esteban de la Vega wasn't there. Who else?"

"Don Esteban? How could he be Zorro if he was… well, I mean, after what you… I don't think so."

"I'm not suggesting he is Zorro, you dimwit! Zorro has been a thorn on my side way before he came. But I'm going to write a list with all the men in the pueblo who didn't attend the flogging. And, if necessary, I'll have a look at their abdomens. So, who else wasn't there? I know I may be asking the impossible, but think, goddammit! Think!"

ZZZ

Diego hesitated with the glass in his hand, because the mix was obviously too strong in its emetic effects. But, as he needed an excuse to be sick and go to rest in bed as soon as possible before he would faint, and he didn't have time to prepare another one, he gulped it down at once. Right then, Felipe came through the secret door.

"Are you alright?" he signed, jumping down the last stairs to get to his side quicker. "How bad is it?"

"Not too bad. It's on my side, and I hope the bullet hasn't touched anything inside. But I feel lousy, and I think I am going to faint at any moment. And, now I think I may have done something really stupid. The herbal mix I gave to Esteban was too strong, and I just drank the leftovers to pretend to be sick as well so I can go to bed. I only hope my guts don't escape through the gunshot wound when I retch."

Felipe looked at him with eyes wide open then, panicking.

"I'm only joking, Felipe. That's not going to happen, but sure it is going to be painful as hell. The mix to reverse the effect is in the kitchen. Please keep it safe, because I will need it later. Now, let's go upstairs," Diego said, leaning with a hand on Felipe's shoulder for support.

At the hacienda, Esteban was still asleep. He woke up soon after, calling for Diego.

"Are you alright?" Diego said, walking slowly to his side.

"Yes. I feel better now, thank you. The nausea is gone, thank God. Do you know what happened at the pueblo?"

"How could I? I have been here looking after you. But I think Felipe is here already. He can tell you."

Felipe came into the room and Diego signed: entertain him. I am going to rest a bit before my father arrives.

Diego sat in one the comfy armchairs at the library then, but he couldn't rest for long, because shortly after he heard the familiar voice calling for him.

"Diegoooo! Are you here?"

ZZZZZ