Covering as many miles as they could each day, pushing the horses to their limits and only stopping to let them rest or spend the night, the five companions arrived back in Los Angeles in only 5 days. Diego didn't find it prudent to head straight for the main entrance to the hacienda, though, at least not until he'd find out what De Soto had been up to since he had returned to the pueblo. Stopping the coach in the hills behind their house, he, thus, guided everyone towards the external entrance to the cave and, through it, to its main room.
They found the place deserted and mostly dark. Only the outside light penetrating through the cracks in the narrow corridor leading to the main room allowed them to see around.
Tornado was there and he still had food left, but his stall didn't seem to have been cleaned in a while, and he seemed in quite a bad mood, neighing and nervously pawing the ground as he saw his master. Diego went to caress his head and the stallion happily enjoyed the attention.
Around the cave, the candles had all burned out and dust was gathering on the desk.
"Nobody has been in here for days." Diego pointed out. "Something must have happened to Felipe!" He concluded as he felt his heart sinking.
Victoria shook her head in an effort to encourage her husband. "You can't know that! Perhaps he –"
"He wouldn't have just stopped taking care of Tornado if he had a choice." Diego interrupted her to say.
"If De Soto harmed him in any way, I will make him wish he was never born!" Don Alejandro threatened.
Diego took the few steps he needed to get to the spyhole and looked through it. The library seemed empty, as did the entire house, so, taking one of the training swords he kept in the cave, he instructed everyone to wait for his return and hurried up the stairs and through the sliding panel.
From the library, not hearing any noise, he carefully made his way through the hacienda. The place seemed completely empty. The worrisome part was that it also looked like it had been thoroughly searched as various items were lying around in places where they didn't belong. True, several of them seemed to have been collected and placed together or clumsily stored away in cupboards or closets, but that was not contributing to decreasing Diego's concern.
The tall caballero checked the servants and the vaqueros' quarters, all of which he found empty, then returned to the main house, heading for the kitchen. He only heard movement when he was about to open the door. He slowly pressed the doorknob and peeked inside to see with some amusement how Sergeant Mendoza was helping himself to some bread, cheese and chorizos, alternating between eating and drinking some of the Madeira wine he had appropriated from the De la Vega reserves.
Perez soon joined him at the table bringing two more bottles of red wine from the cellars.
"Sergeant," the man uttered, "do you think it wrong to wish for Don Diego and Don Alejandro not to come back? I really wouldn't like to hang them! They have always been good people!"
"That is true, Perez. I miss them, but I hope they don't return, either. On the other hand, I'm also afraid that, if they don't, we'll have to hang everyone in their employment and Felipe. I don't want to hang that young man. I've known him since he was still a boy. And Maria, the De la Vega cook, is one of the best in the territory. With Señorita Escalante gone, we need good cooks around here. Besides, what fault do they have if Don Diego decided to join the rebels? He must have had his reasons…"
Diego needn't listen to more. Careful not to make a noise, he headed back towards the cave.
As he arrived, his father was just giving Tornado an apple and the horse was happily munching on it while allowing the don to pat his head. Victoria and Zafira were dusting the desk and the work table, curiously studying the colored liquids in the flasks there, and Juan was reading one of Diego's journals about his adventures as Zorro.
"Well?" Victoria asked her husband as she saw him descend the stairs.
"Ignacio has arrested the entire household, including Felipe, and is planning to hang them all. I think it's time for Zorro to resurrect." Diego informed his wife and his father.
"Are you sure?" She asked, rather fearful. "Your plan is very dangerous, my love. If anything goes wrong…"
"Ignacio already knows, Victoria! He wouldn't have arrested everyone otherwise." Diego explained before turning towards Juan. "Shall we see how you look with the mask?" He inquired with a mischievous look.
The younger man nodded, then took the black clothes and made his way towards the passage leading to the hacienda's library, from where he emerged a while later bearing an incredible resemblance to the real Zorro.
"All you need is one more detail, and not even my son will know the difference," Diego said with a grin, as he applied a fake moustache to the man's upper lip.
Juan looked in the mirror and almost didn't recognize himself.
"Remember what we've practiced and all I told you, and make sure to be careful!" Diego instructed him before leading him to his horse. "Tornado, this is Juan." He introduced the younger man. "He'll be your rider today, and I expect you to be as faithful to him as you've always been to me, my friend! It is very important that you do so!"
The horse smelled the hand Juan offered him, then the clothes he was wearing, content to feel his master's scent, then nodded a few times as if in agreement.
After saddling the black stallion and watching Juan mount him to make his way out of the cave, Diego turned toward the other three people there, who were taking out their own disguises. The two women changed their clothes in the narrow hallway while Don Alejandro only put a monk's robe over his suit and allowed Diego to stick a grey beard to his face, which rendered him almost unrecognizable. He did something similar to Victoria and Zafira, both women transforming into bearded men under his own eyes.
When he was happy with the results, Diego hid a knife in his shoe.
After kissing his bride, he left another kiss on Zafira's forehead, embraced his father and, taking a saddle with him, headed to the coach near which the horses were munching on grass. Choosing a brown stallion, he saddled it and made his way towards the main entrance to the hacienda.
