Chapter XIII

The Cuartel

Josefina's mind went blank. Everything around turned into a dark white nothingness, an empty and deafening silence.

No.

He was captured.

No.

What…?

"That is… crazy, Jose, what do you mean they captured… what, el Zorro? Diego isn't…"

"I know, señora, but it seems, imagine, people are saying they want to hang him at dawn."

"Señora!" Josefina flinched when Cresencia suddenly showed up to join the small ring of horrified faces that surrounded her: "Did you hear the news? This can't be possible! What are we going to do?"

What are we going to do.

I don't know.

We have to do something.

What?

Don Alejandro isn't home, let alone Diego. You're the only one left.

Me?

My God.

Fear had paralyzed her. It was time to shake it off.

"Cresencia, please tell everyone else to calm down and not to exchange rumors with people from other ranches. Diego is innocent, this is a misunderstanding."

The maid, who more than once had patched up Diego's scraped knees when he was a child, wiped her eyes with her apron and straightened up:

"Sí, señora."

"Let's go."

The other two followed her towards the stables. Josefina walked and all she could see was a fixed point in front of her, which was her husband's face and the still uncertain way to help him.

"Jose, please… go to don Alejandro's closest friends: don Alfredo, the Torres, the Del Amo too. They know people and have influence and they're going to fix this."

"Right away, señora."

The man practically leaped on a horse and left, leaving a cloud of dust behind.

Bernardo was preparing the coach, but she stopped him:

"No, we have to go as fast as possible."

She hadn't ridden a horse by herself in a while, but she knew that what she'd learnt with her father ages ago, would be helpful.

They were out of the ranch already when she had a better idea:

"Bernardo, it's better if you go find don Alejandro. He's at Santa Rita, right?"

"…"

"I can go by myself."

"He could fix this. Please go get him."

El Zorro's faithful helper didn't like the idea of letting his patron's wife go all by herself through those dark roads and right into the lion's den, but he knew she was right. Also, it's not like he could have helped her a lot once there.

"It'll be all right."

Bernardo nodded and adjusted his hat.

They exchanged one last sad look before heading down opposite directions.

(...)

There were only few people scattered on the town's murky streets. Josefina got off the horse as best as she could and tied it up. The cuartel's gates seemed to be a mile high, as she approached with a resolute walk and sweaty hands. This wasn't the same sort of tension or anxiety that is experimented when meeting a father in law or when dancing in front of a bunch of strangers. This was a primitive and deadly fear, a thing like a skeletal paw that squeezed her throat and sank its fingers on her neck.

"Señorita… I mean, señora, good afternoon." Sergeant García was visibly afflicted.

"Nothing good about it, Sargento. I heard you're keeping my husband in here."

"Uh, that's right, you'll see, we-"

"Could you please take me to Capitán Monasterio?"

The soldier reflected on it for few moments:

". But to be honest… I don't think there's much anyone can do for don Diego."

Get angry.

Get outraged.

Fight.

That, I can do.

"How can you say that? What madness is this?" They went inside. There were lancers all over the place, at each balcony, window, roof and door. She decided not to look at them. "You know Diego, you're friends, you know it's impossible that he could be… what they say he is."

"I'm sorry, señora. The Capitán had been watching don Diego for weeks, even at your engagement party. He prepared the plan to capture him today. I kept on telling him don Diego didn't even know how to hold a foil but… when they took his mask off…" Josefina felt a fist on her stomach when hearing this: "I saw it with my own two eyes: don Diego is Zorro."

Get angry.

Get outraged.

Fight.

"Oh, really? Well this has to be some kind of trap, someone trying to involve him in something that makes no sense at all."

"I wish that were true, and I know it's a tough surprise for you but-"

"Don't waste your breath, Sergeant." Monasterio opened up the door when they hadn't even knocked: "Something tells me this is no surprise for la señora De la Vega."

Fight.

"May I come in?"

The Capitán opened the way with a reverence. The Sargeant had to stay outside.

"Where are you keeping my husband? I didn't see him in the cells."

"Señora, you have no right to come in here and question me. However, since I'm a gentleman, I'll answer: De la Vega is being kept in a high security cell, exclusively prepared for Zorro. It's almost an honor to use it for the first time, I'd say."

Argue.

Fight.

"You have no idea what huge mistake you're making. Diego is no Zorro, and when the rancheros inform the Governor about this arbitrariness-"

"Do not attempt to threaten me or take me for a fool, señora." Josefina didn't blink. Monasterio, a head taller, went on: "I will never understand how no one else had noticed what was obvious to me. De la Vega would always vanish in thin air right before Zorro showed up, and once he was gone, your brand-new husband would appear in some corner with a book on one hand and some fantastic excuse on the other."

"That's not enough to-"

"But of course not! What do you say about unmasking him with over thirty soldiers as witnesses? Is that enough?"

Fight.

Fight.

Fi…

"And what do you say about this?" He pulled out some papers out of a drawer of his desk and dangled them in front of her face.

"Read." She shoved them aside. "As you wish. Let's see: Graduate with honors at the Spanish University of Military Arts, Diploma for Academic Excellence at the Fencing Academy of Madrid, first place in five, ten, fifteen, no, seventeen different tournaments, not one second or third place, if I may add. Training in equestrianism-"

"None of that proves-"

"-and use of different weapons such as firearms, spear, javelin, even archery, señora! There's only one missing diploma here, and it's that of the acting school. De la Vega may have been able to fool the idiots, but not me. I always knew behind that façade there was an outlaw, a thief and a traitor to the Spanish Crown, and that's why tomorrow at dawn he'll be hung and the town of Los Angeles and all of California will be free from his crimes once and for all."

There was no air. Not possible to breathe.

She was asphyxiating.

Fi… fight…

"You… can't do that. There has to be a trial."

"I'm pleased to inform you're wrong. The law says it, when a criminal of this kind is captured in flagrante."

"Diego is not a criminal!"

Monasterio gave her a malevolent smile. He went back to his desk, pulled out a cigar and lit it.

"And you?"

"What about me?"

He took a long puff and let the smoke slowly out:

"Are you? You should know that being a criminal's accomplice makes you one as well."

"I can't be an accomplice of something that's not true or real! Diego is innocent, those papers must be fake and all of this is you wanting a scapegoat to make the Governor believe you actually do anything useful at all."

Another puff of smoke:

"I admire your loyalty, señora; that, I must recognize. But if you don't want to join your husband at the gallows, you'd better start telling me who the other accomplices are. The deaf-mute servant, perhaps?"

"There are no accomplices because there is no crime. Diego would never-"

Funny how the both of them stayed paralyzed for a couple of seconds, just like a cat and a mouse facing each other, as a commotion arose outside.

"What in the-"

They both heard it, too: some lancer's voice, louder than the rest:

"He's getting away! El Zorro's getting away!"

Monasterio grabbed the pistol he always carried in his belt and reached the door in two strides, but before he had the chance to twist the knob, two rather skinny arms hung on to his neck and face, like a cat or an octopus would.

"Get off of me!" he roared, but she wouldn't have, not even if she had a canyon pointed at her. She poked his eyes, pulled his hair, scratched his face with nails and ring too, kicked him and would have bitten a good part of his ear off if he hadn't managed to free himself and toss her against the wall like a recently gutted fish.

"You'll pay for this-"

He hadn't finished talking when two gunshots were heard, followed by more uproar, more yelling.

The Capitán slammed the door shut behind his back.

Josefina didn't move. She wasn't registering the pain she might have from her fall. All she did was try to hear a coherent word above the noise outside, a clue that would tell her those bullets hadn't reached Diego.

God…

God…

She wasn't able to put together any other word. She started to cry the tears that had been accumulating, ever since Bernardo came in through the library's doorway.

About a century went by until Monasterio appeared again, a bleeding scratch on his forehead, mad as a bull and cursing left and right, not that the presence of a lady mattered to him at all in this moment.

He was followed by Sergeant García…

"Señora!"

…and don Alfredo:

"Jesucristo! What have you done to la señora De la Vega, Monasterio?" They helped her up, each one by an arm: "This is the last straw, you have lost your mind, I will see that you never use that uniform you're undeserving of and-"

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"

"YOU shut your mouth, you villain! You've gone too far this time, defaming an innocent man and mistreating his wife."

The Capitán didn't even pay attention to him:

"Sergeant García!" The soldier let go off Josefina and stood to attention: "Round up all, do you hear me, ALL of the lancers for a search starting right this second, I myself will be in the vanguard. We'll comb all of the town and lands around. There shall be not a rat hole we don't check or a rock we don't lift. He can't go far wounded and by foot."

Wounded.

Wounded.

Wounded.

God

"Yes, Capitán… Capitán?"

"What the hell is it?! Is something not clear enough?"

"No, Capitán, everything's clear. It's just that…"

"WHAT?"

"It's just that don Diego, or, that is, Zorro… he managed to take his horse. So he's not really on foot."

Monasterio seethed in anger, throwing another rain of insults on the Sergeant, crowned with a:

"I'll get you executed for this!"

He snatched a musket and another pistol from under his desk:

"What the devil are you waiting for?"

"Yes, Comandante, I mean, nothing, Comandante."

And they both left.

The ones who stayed heard the soldiers and horses leave with a racket of hooves and orders yelled all over the place.

"Are you all right?" Don Alfredo was still holding her by an arm.

"Diego's hurt?"

"As far as I could hear, he got shot in the arm or shoulder."

God.

Arm or shoulder.

That heals…

Right?

"Are you all right?" he asked again.

"Yes."

"Please allow me to take you home."

"No!" she moved away: "I have to stay."

"What for? There's nothing to do here."

"I do more here than in the ranch. I'll wait for them to get to back. They're not going to get him, I swear."

Don Alfredo knew it was pointless to insist. In the eyes of that young girl who more than once had served him lunch or a glass of wine at the tavern, he saw a boiling mixture of anger, resolve, fear and even triumph.

"I swear. They're not going to get him" she repeated.

(…)