Chapter 13 Epilogue
Impatiently pacing up and down the library, Diego waited for the moment when then doctor would finally let him see his wife and his newborn son. Both were fine, but he had to wait until they were presentable.
Had it taken that long when his daughter was born two years ago? Diego could hardly remember. His life had changed so much in the three years he had been married.
He had kept up his role as Zorro after his marriage, as there had still been a need for him and the alcalde hadn't changed in his determination to capture Zorro. About two months after his marriage, the alcalde had chased him on his new horse and when Zorro leaped across Perdido canyon on Toronado, the alcalde's horse had shied and its rider had plunged into the abyss. De Soto's body had never been found. As Don Alejandro had been named alcalde, Zorro had no longer been needed.
Diego's thoughts were interrupted by the doctor, who told him that he could see his wife and son now.
"I'm so happy, and I love you so much," Diego kissed Victoria, sharing a moment alone with her before his father and Felipe came in to have a look at the youngest de la Vega.
Z Z Z
At the same time, a man in an Indian tent far north from California was stirring in his sleep.
"No," he cried out, waking up.
"Shh, it's alright. Your nightmare again, White Hunter?" the woman beside him asked.
The man sat up and it took him a while to recognize where he was, but he calmed down when he saw the familiar surroundings again - the tent he had erected with his own hands after they had stopped on their way north, the furs from the animals he had hunted together with his tribe, and finally his wife, Yellow Blossom.
"Yes, there was a black ghost that was hunting me and he was laughing evilly before vanishing like a shadow."
"Do you think your dream has something to do with your former life?" Yellow Blossom inquired, a little afraid.
"It may be, but I can't remember anything before I woke up in the tent where you cared for me after you found me at the shore of the fast running river."
"But, if you regain your memory one day, will you leave me then?" the woman asked anxiously.
"The medicine man said I will probably never get back my memory after so much time has passed already. And, even if I did, I would never leave you. I belong to you and this is my life now."
The man who had once been called Ignacio de Soto and White Hunter now, due to his white hair, tenderly touched his wife's belly, heavy with his child, before turning around to fall asleep again - no longer dreaming of black masked ghosts or white washed buildings in a southern country far away from him. Even the memory of his beloved Madrid, the splendid town with its marvelous buildings and broad paved streets half a world away, was lost to him.