Chapter 2

At the hacienda, Felipe was waiting for him, signing agitatedly. "What is it, Felipe? Zorro is needed? What happened?"

Felipe explained he went fishing in the morning but his favorite spot had been occupied by three bandits who had made camp at the de la Vega land. Cautiously, he had snuck upon them to find out their intentions. The men had spotted him, but he had escaped.

Tracking the bandits and capturing them kept Zorro busy during the day and he had to hurry to return to the tavern before the end of the siesta when Victoria expected the visit from Zorro.

Zorro had left the bandits tied up where Mendoza would find them before he climbed onto the roof of the tavern to enter from above as usual where he wanted to wait for the arrival of the false Zorro, but what he saw from the upper floor surprised him. The man who pretended to be Zorro had come earlier than expected, but his reception by Victoria wasn't what either Zorro or the pretender could have anticipated.

The man had a big bump on his head, probably from the pan that she had placed on the nearby table, and he was also gagged and securely tied to a chair in the center of the tavern. Zorro assumed Victoria must have found out that the man wasn't the real Zorro, but when he listened to her talk, he realized he was wrong.

The man struggled in his chair, motioning with his head and arms, begging her to let him go as his gag prevented him from speaking.

"Zorro, please stop struggling," Victoria addressed him. "After an hour, you should have realized that you can't free yourself. How many times do I have to say that I'm sorry for knocking you out and tying you to that chair? You're always leaving so quickly and never have time for me to talk. Now that you have finally come to talk, I won't let you go so quickly again. I'll let you go when I'm finished." The man stopped struggling and gave up.

"That's much better, Zorro. Now, where was I again?" Victoria stood in front of the man, contemplating for a moment about her next words. "Ah, yes. I think I told you already several times how much I care for you and how much I admire you."

The man made a face of pure torture as Victoria continued. "You are the bravest man of the pueblo, and I can't repeat often enough how much this pueblo needs you and how much I need you. You are the sun of my life, and I can't imagine living without you. There isn't a moment in the day when I'm not thinking about you. When I look out of the window, there is always hope in my heart that I will see you and that you will greet me and brighten my day with your smile. I want to spend more time with you and not only a fleeting moment, when so I have time to show you that I feel more than only admiration for you. I want to shower you with my affection if you would let me."

As Victoria went on and on to express her feelings for Zorro, Zorro could almost feel sorry for the man who had to listen to Victoria's rambling for an hour or more while tied to a chair, but he had heard enough. It was time to finish this charade. Swinging from the chandelier, he landed in front of Victoria and her prisoner in the chair.

"I'm very flattered about your feelings for me, but I'm afraid you told them to the wrong man." Zorro bowed at her, pointing at the pretender, who looked relieved to see him.

"Zorro! What are you doing here?" Victoria stared at Zorro and then at the bandit. "If you are Zorro, then who is he?" Embarrassed, she didn't know where to look as she realized she had confessed her feelings for Zorro to a stranger.

"Why don't we find out?" Zorro walked behind the man and freed him from his gag. Taking a deep breath, he looked at Zorro gratefully. "Thank you, Zorro. Thank you so much. Please, let me go. I don't know how much longer I can listen to her. She goes on and on, and never stops, talking all the time about how much she admires you and what she feels for you. It's torture."

Zorro grinned at that. "Well, Amigo, it was your idea to pretend to be Zorro. Why don't you tell me who you are, and why you pretended to be me?"

"My name is Mario Zapatero. I made a bet with my friends that I could convince the Señorita that I'm Zorro, so I could get her money without a fight and maybe have some fun too. I even grew a beard like yours." Zapatero's grin quickly vanished when he realized that neither Zorro nor Victoria liked the idea and that he was at their mercy. "I didn't expect her to knock me out and tie me up. Why would she do that?"

Zorro grinned broadly now. "Señor, if you had followed the local newspaper, you might have read the column of Doña Corazon."

"What does the local newspaper have to do with it? And who is this Doña Corazon?"

Victoria threw Zorro a look, and he decided to ignore the last question. "In this newspaper, a woman who called herself 'One who is pining' asked for help about a man she rarely sees, and the answer from Doña Corazon was to tie him up and tell him about her feelings. Señorita Victoria must have taken this literally."

Victoria blushed and turned her head away in embarrassment.

"Will you kill me now? Because I impersonated you?" Zapatero asked anxiously.

"You should know that I don't kill, but you will spend a night in prison because you wanted to rob the Señorita," Zorro declared. He walked out of the tavern to call for the sergeant.

In the meantime, Victoria turned to Zapatero. "You scoundrel! You thief! You imposter! You .." Victoria added some more insults as she screamed at him while Zorro couldn't hear her. "How could you do that! Pretending to be Zorro! If you ever tell anyone what I said, I'll kill you personally."

She took her pistol from the drawer at the bar and pointed it at the helpless Zapatero, who shook his head fearfully. "I won't say a word. Please, don't shoot me. Please!"

"What happened here?" Mendoza entered the tavern together with Zorro.

"This man tried to rob Victoria, but fortunately she was clever enough to knock him out and tie him up," Zorro explained.

"You should have known not to mess with the Señorita," Mendoza said to Zapatero, as he untied him from the chair to guide him out. "Either Señorita or Zorro will get you. You will have time to think about it in the jail."

"Si, Sergeant," Zapatero said, "please take me to the prison. Just get me away from here."

"Normally, bandits don't like to go to prison. You're the first man who asks me to take him there," Mendoza wondered, as he led the man away, who offered no resistance.

"Thank you, Zorro, for not telling Mendoza what really happened," Victoria said, still embarrassed. "How much did you hear?"

"I appreciate your feelings for me, Señorita, and I'm sorry that I always have to be on the run, but you know the alcalde." Zorro took her hand and kissed it. "Please promise me you'll never try that on me."

Zorro held her hand and looked into her eyes.

"I promise," she whispered, blushing. "You know now how I feel."

"I do." Zorro bowed to her.

"Will you come more often then? Now that you know I'm no threat to you? Is that the reason you didn't come here recently?"

"I had my reasons," Zorro grinned. "I'll try to come. You know how much I care for you." Turning around, he ran into the kitchen and climbed to the upper floor before he escaped over the roofs again.

The next day, Mendoza told Diego about his prisoner. "Can you imagine someone going to jail voluntarily? I have never seen a man before who was so happy to be escorted to jail. I wonder what else Señorita Victoria did to him besides knocking him out that he was so relieved to get away?"

"I believe women have ways to torture a man that men don't," Diego stated.

"I don't know, Don Diego, but if you say so, you could be right," Mendoza said.

Victoria heard Diego's remark when she passed by his table. Victoria stopped in her tracks and looked back at Diego. Did he know what really happened? But how? It was impossible, wasn't it?


From the episode Freedom of the press -Transcript

Don Alejandro with the newspaper
Diego! [He turns so he is standing next to Diego on the plaza.] Here's an interesting piece of advice. "Dear Doña Corazon; I am in love with a man I see rarely and even when we do meet, our conversation is fleeting at best. What should I do? Signed, One Who is Pining".

Diego
"And what is Doña Corazon's reply?"

Don Alejandro [chuckling]
Listen. "Dear Pining; The next time you see him, don't let him get away. Tie him up if you have to so you can let him know how you truly feel." [He chuckles again then looks up.] Hey, Diego.

[Shot from Don Alejandro and Diego's point of view of the tavern where Victoria is on its porch, shaking out a rug. She notices them watching her and starts to go back inside but stops, looking over at them with a puzzled expression.]

[Closeup shot of Diego then Don Alejandro nodding in her direction.]

Don Alejandro
"If I were Zorro, I'd lay low for a while."

[Diego looks over at Don Alejandro then back in Victoria's direction then smiles.]