"I need to see the Alcalde!" Don Fernando Iguara demanded as he was stopped by a lancer from entering the Alcalde's office.
"I regret, senor, but the Alcalde has requested not to be disturbed under any circumstance." The lancer told him.
"I am a magistrate and I need to see him." He insisted. "If not him, I need to see someone else in charge."
"You could try Sergeant Mendoza." The lancer answered. "He should be at the tavern."
The magistrate was obviously annoyed, but decided to go to the tavern anyway.
"Are you Sergeant Mendoza?" He asked the only man bearing the rank as he was entertaining some of his men with a hyperbolized version of the day's events.
"I am. And who wants to know?"
"Don Fernando Iguara. Royal magistrate."
The title rapidly captured Mendoza's attention and he stood up in attention.
"How…how can I help you, senor?"
"The men you have in custody have come to Los Angeles to assassinate me and my wife. They have already been sentenced to death and the execution should have been carried out days ago. I demand to know why has the Alcalde been postponing their execution."
"Well…if you must know, the Alcalde is not feeling well today. He has been seriously injured this morning."
"I heard about that little injury to his shoulder. That can't be an acceptable reason not to do his job. I want those men executed or I will make sure the Governor hears of his inability to carry on with his duties as Alcalde." Don Fernando menaced.
"I…I will go talk to the Alcalde right away, senor. Por favor, wait here!"
Mendoza hurried to De Soto's room and knocked slowly on the door. When there was no reply, he opened and headed to the bed where the Alcalde was fast asleep. He moved him a little and De Soto opened his sleepy eyes to find out the identity of the man he intended to punish for disobeying his order no to be disturbed.
"What do you want, Sergeant?" He asked.
"There's a magistrate here. Don Fernando Iguara. He demands for the members of the Ramirez gang we have in the prison to be executed right away."
"Then execute them and leave me to sleep, Mendoza. And, if you interrupt me again, I will have you sent to the Amazon Campaign or execute you for insubordination! Am I clear?"
"Very clear, mi Alcalde!"
Mendoza exited the Alcalde's bedroom and, after informing the magistrate that the sentence was to be carried out in a matter of minutes, he formed a firing squad and sent his men to bring out the prisoners.
"Sergeant!" Sepulveda called after him, coming out of the prison.
"What is it, Corporal? I told you to bring out those men."
"They say they have information regarding Zorro. They say they know his face and can recognize him." Sepulveda informed his superior.
Mendoza pondered on the issue.
"We could finally capture him, Sergeant, if only we delay the execution!" The Corporal explained.
"What's going on? Why the delay?" Don Fernando wanted to know.
"The Alcalde has ordered me to proceed with the execution!" Mendoza stated.
"But, Sergeant, don't you think the Alcalde would want to interrogate them himself?"
"Sepulveda, they are just trying to delay the execution so that they might escape again! And the Alcalde was very clear in his order and also told me not to disturb him with anything else. We will carry on with the executions!" Mendoza decided.
Sepulveda returned to the jail and brought out the men, who protested all the way, screaming that they knew Zorro's identity and can help find him in exchange for clemency. The last of them was executed just as the De la Vega carriage was making its way into the pueblo, without ever having the opportunity to share his knowledge about the masked outlaw.
"What was that, Sergeant?" Diego shouted, using all his energy to jump from the carriage at hearing the muskets firing.
"We executed the men who abducted Manuel, Don Diego!" Mendoza explained. "The magistrate, Don Fernando Iguara demanded for the sentence in their case to be carried out at once. I had no choice, Don Diego!"
Both men stared at the corpses for a few minutes, then Diego turned around and headed for the tavern with his head bowed, leaving Mendoza to order his men what to do with the bodies.
"Was that your doing?" He asked Antonia, who had stayed behind, leaving his father and Victoria to enter the tavern.
"They were supposed to be executed days ago." Was her only reply.
Diego spent half an hour in silence, feeling guilty about the fact that those men had met their end so hastily. He was, at that point, fully aware that Antonia had decided to protect his identity and convinced the magistrate to pressure for their execution. He was also worried that the Alcalde might take measures against Mendoza for the role he played in the Detective's plan.
"You seem quite content, Sergent, for a man about to be scolded by the Alcalde!" Don Alejandro noted, after hearing the comments about the executed prisoners' allegations of knowing how to identify Zorro, as Mendoza neared the table they were sharing with Victoria and Antonio. "Come, take a sit!"
"Gracias, Don Alejandro!"
"So? Are you going to tell us just why you are so content?" The old don insisted.
Mendoza looked at Antonia with some suspicion, not sure if it was safe to talk in front of her.
"Don Antonio is a friend, Sergeant. You can trust him!" Diego encouraged him.
"Those men said they could recognize Zorro." Mendoza confessed whispering. "I could have found some good excuses to delay the execution till morning, since we haven't received the sentences on them. But, if I had done that, maybe they could have told the Alcalde who Zorro is. I don't want the Alcalde to know that! Zorro is my friend. He saved us again today and he is surely severely wounded. He lost a lot of blood and the Alcalde could easily catch him now."
"Was that also why you didn't send your men to follow him?" Antonia asked with a smile. "You don't really want him captured?"
"Well…" the Sergeant looked around, wondering if it was safe to confess "the Alcalde did offer Zorro a truce and, since it is still in effect…"
"Zorro has a good friend in you, Sergeant!" Diego told him with undisguised gratitude. "But won't Ignacio be upset when he finds out?"
"He is still asleep and ordered me to go on with the execution. Plus, there are several witnesses who heard the magistrate menacing he will take measures against the Alcalde if we don't execute those men. And…he can always order us to get on the trails tomorrow…Zorro left a lot of blood as he was escaping."
Don Alejandro and Victoria looked at each other, remembering they had not erased the trails they had been following to the hills and further.
"I don't think there will be any trail left soon…" Antonia replied at noticing a lightning brighten the evening sky as a thunder followed. "That rain that's about to fall will erase any tracks if there are any…"
Everyone at the table smiled at that remark.
"I sometimes think that there must be some higher power protecting him!" Mendoza whispered as hearing the rain starting to fall.
"Maybe there is, Sergeant! Maybe there is…" Diego agreed, gulping his glass of juice, his mind going once more through the list of coincidences that arranged the events in such a way that he managed, once more, to survive a conundrum that could have easily lead to his downfall.
ZZZ
"Are you really going back to Spain?" Diego asked Antonia the next morning, just as she was about to get on the stagecoach for Monterey.
"Not yet, considering I still have some gold to retrieve." She answered with a wink. "I just said so yesterday because your father might try to find me in Santa Barbara and I wanted to give you a good excuse for when he doesn't."
"Always thinking three moves ahead, aren't you?" He wondered with a smile.
"I wouldn't be the world's greatest detective otherwise, would I?" She inquired with a smug. "You were right, though! We make a good team."
"And you were wrong!" He answered, making her frown. "I did live to hear you scream." Diego clarified.
"Yes…What can I say…Desperate times…" She confessed. "It was a pleasure to see you again, Don Diego!" Antonia said instead of goodbye, as Don Armando was heading their way, accompanied by the magistrate and his wife.
Don Armando glanced at Diego with a knowing smug, as he passed him by and entered the carriage, making Diego sigh at the idea that someone else probably also knew his secret. It would have been easy for the man to guess it, considering he knew Antonia's every plan.
"Don Diego!" He heard De Soto's voice calling to him, just as the stagecoach was exiting Los Angeles.
"Alcalde! How are you feeling today? I understand you have been wounded in one of yesterday's fights." He uttered.
"Yes…about that, I was wondering if you might take a look at my injury. Your friend assured me he had enough experience, but I trust your opinion more." De Soto stated.
"I am flattered. Let's have a look, then." He agreed and followed the Alcalde to his office. "He did a very good job on it, Ignacio!" Diego noticed, impressed at inspecting the already-healing wound. "There I no sign of infection, and it is already on the mends."
"It seems swollen." De Soto protested.
"Nothing out of the ordinary. It is still a deep wound." Diego assured him. "I can give you some tea to help with the swallowing, though, if you'd like."
"Tee? Not sure…but if you think it might help..."
"I will send them later with Felipe." He replied as the Alcalde was putting his shirt back on. "You were lucky that knife only injured your arm."
"Zorro was the lucky one. Had I not been….suffering…because of the wound, those thugs might have led me straight to him!"
"Yes…I heard they claimed they knew his identity. But do you think that was truly the case?"
"Why would they claim so, if they didn't? I am still trying to figure out Mendoza's punishment for not having told me about their claims before he ordered the execution."
"But I heard that he only gave the order because the magistrate had menaced to ask the Governor to remove you as Alcalde. Anyway, Ignacio, if those men really knew Zorro's identity, why would he have let them live? And why did they not share the information they had, before they died, since they had nothing left to lose?"
Ignacio looked at him, puzzled, trying to find the answers to those very obvious questions he had not even considered asking before. Since he could not reason from the perspective of a man like Diego, De Soto, reasoned from his own perspective, realizing that, if he was Zorro and someone had found out his identity, thus threatening to send him to the gallows, he would have killed that man. His nemesis, however, had not killed any of the members of the Ramirez gang. This led him to the conclusion that the thugs were no threat to him.
"I see your point." Ignacio stated, after carefully massaging his beard with two fingers, while pacing the room. "Mendoza was probably right and they just wanted to buy themselves some time to escape…"
"If that is so, I'd say there's no need to punish the poor Sergeant for doing his duty and defending his superior, is there?"
"No…I guess not."
"Well, Ignacio…if you don't need me for anything else, I guess I will probably see you later at the tavern!" Diego stated as he was preparing to exit the office.
"Yes…later. Thank you for your help!" The Alcalde said.
Diego just nodded and headed for the tavern with a grin on his face.