Chapter 4

Diego de la Vega stormed into the barracks where the garrison's cells were. Visibly alarmed, he rushed up to the one his soon-to-be son had been moping in for several hours, stopped in his tracks only by the bars that separated them.

"Felipe! Felipe, how are you? You're not hurt, are you? Are you treated well?"

Sergeant Mendoza, who had entered after Diego, spoke up to defend his men:

"Of course he's treated well, Don Diego! Who do you think we are?"

But neither Diego nor Felipe paid him any attention. Diego had slipped both hands through the bars and wrapped the young man's ones in his large palms, not uttering a word, emotion painted all over his face.

Likewise, the young prisoner's eyes had lit up with a new hope as well as a boundless trust and confidence when Don Diego entered. Trust and hope that the sergeant had trouble understanding: admittedly, Don Diego was a good man, a friend he truly liked and esteemed, but well, let's face it: if Mendoza had serious trouble and found himself in danger, Don Diego was certainly not the first person he would think to call to for help to get out of a thorny situation... and certainly not the one with whom all his hopes would lie!

Diego then spoke again:

"Please forgive me for not coming sooner, Felipe, but I wasn't home when the sergeant stopped by. I had gone out."

Felipe nodded; he grasped perfectly well what this simple 'I had gone out' meant and, just as Diego had long since learned to understand Felipe's signed language, the latter had also learned to read between Diego's lines – or rather words – and to take his hints when he couldn't speak clearly in the presence of a third party. The two men sometimes understood each other without even having to talk now. They knew how each other's mind worked.

Then everything suddenly changed again. Don Diego released Felipe's hands and let out a flurry of questions:

"What happened, Felipe? Tell me! Tell me what really happened!"

"I told you what happened,Don Diego…" Mendoza intervened.

"If you don't mind, Sergeant," Don Diego interrupted rather dryly, "I'm asking Felipe. It's his version I want to hear."

"Hear, Don Diego?"

But obviously enough, Diego didn't feel like nitpicking right now and he threw an almost dirty look at the poor sergeant. He never liked when people emphasised the young man's disability in such a way and in his presence, and Mendoza also realised it was not the best time to embark on lexical quibbles. Don Diego was in no mood for a friendly conversation with him.

After his unusual fit of temper, Diego set all his attention back on Felipe.

"Tell me," he repeated. "What happened?"

Felipe began a series of gestures. First he mimed horse riding.

"Where?" Diego asked.

Felipe made another gesture.

"On the Camino Real?... North?"

The young man nodded. Mendoza thought it more prudent not to point out aloud that he had already told so to Don Diego; he kept his thoughts to himself.

As for Diego, he was beginning to put together the pieces of puzzle he had gathered from Mendoza with those Felipe was now giving him:

"A horse rider?"

Felipe nodded again but added something: with a wave of his hands he mimed long hair and with another more suggestive gesture he drew a resolutely curvy shape.

"The rider was a woman?... The horse… reared up?... And they fell to the ground?

Felipe then raised his right hand to his left shoulder and pretended to twist it.

"She fell on her shoulder? Did it break?"

Felipe shook his head.

"Sprained, then? No? Dislocated, out of joint?"

A nod from Felipe.

Diego winced, sympathising with the poor woman. Dislocation was never a pleasant matter, and often a very painful one. Felipe went on: he put a hand on Diego's shoulder and the other on his elbow, and then pretended to make a sharp move. Diego winced again; Felipe nodded and then raised his hands a bit, arms spread in a gesture of helplessness. Diego simply told him:

"I know, but you did the right thing."

Felipe indicated that right after this the victim fainted. Seeming to question Diego, he motioned to the outside, and made the sign for 'woman'.

"I don't know, Felipe," Diego said before turning to Mendoza. "How is she, Sergeant? Has she finally regained consciousness?"

"I don't know, Don Diego. I went to see the alcalde, then I rode to your hacienda but you weren't there, and neither was Don Alejandro, so I left the message telling you to come to the garrison as soon as possible, then I rode back here and I had to write the report, then it was lunch time and then you arrived. I hadn't time to check on her, and I didn't see Corporal Sepulveda, but he should know about the señorita: he took her to the doctor."

Felipe seemed to suddenly remember something: putting his left wrist above the other, his right hand flat, and curving two fingers of the left one, he made a sign that Diego didn't seem to identify right away. Then with his right index finger he sharply jabbed his left forearm and finally ended his sentence by indicating his thigh.

"A sting?" Diego asked.

A nod from the young man.

"You've been bitten by a snake?" Don Diego then asked with a bit of panic.

Waving 'no' with his hands in front of him, Felipe shook his head and made again the curvy sign for 'woman'.

"The rider?"

Another nod.

"She's been bitten by a snake?"

'No'. Felipe then made the first sign again, insisting on his bent fingers.

"A scorpion?"

'Here, you've got it!', Felipe seemed to tell him. He then mimed the act of pulling a knife from his sash and cutting through the air in front of him. Diego then turned to Mendoza.

"Well, now you can see Sergeant, this is the reason why Felipe's knife lay next to the woman, with her blood on its blade!"

But even though Mendoza wholeheartedly wished to believe this version, he couldn't manage to let it convince him.

"But Don Diego, you weren't there... We've all heard the señorita scream and beg him to leave her, and…and to let go of her, and… and not to... not to..."

He didn't want to end this sentence, but he hoped that Don Diego would grasp the idea he was trying to convey without it needing to be spelled. The sergeant went on:

"I can understand that you believe him, Don Diego, I really do but... but all we have is his word... well, so to speak... and well... we all were there, we heard and saw–"

"Basically, you're telling me that it's Felipe's word against yours, Mendoza, aren't you?"

"You weren't there, Don Diego…" Mendoza objected half-heartedly. The sergeant wasn't feeling really comfortable with himself. He would have greatly preferred to be anywhere but there.

As if driven by an unusual energy, Diego suddenly set off and went to the door in a firm step, stating:

"Well, someone else was there too, wasn't she? And her version will help you make up your mind, since Felipe's word means nothing to you anymore!"

Making another abrupt half-turn, Don Diego strode back to the cell and, slipping his arms through the bars, right up against the railings, he hugged the young man tight and soothingly murmured:

"Don't worry Felipe, I'll get you out of it. Don't worry, I'm taking care of it..."

Mendoza thought that circumstances had a strange effect on Don Diego, to the point of making him forget that the boy was deaf and that it was therefore no use to talk to him if your lips were not in his field of vision!

Then just as suddenly, Don Diego stormed out of the room in three quick strides and, through the window, the sergeant saw him cross the plaza at a brisk pace.

Truly, this very day Jaime Mendoza was going from one surprise to another. And this time it was Diego de la Vega who was disconcerting: the sergeant had expected to see him devastated, anxious, perhaps even distraught and lost, while hearing the disturbing news. Despondent, anyway. Instead of which, Diego had dashed to the jails, full of spirit, ardour and energy, demanding to be led to Felipe right away. Mendoza had expected to be facing a broken-down, devastated man in the doldrums, instead of what he found himself facing a lion ready to fight tooth and nail for his cub.