AN: Dear readers, sorry for taking so long to write this chapter. It was a complicated task, firstly because it's 100% original, secondly because I had to integrate it within the show's narrative, and thirdly, because the next episode as per the show should have been the second part of "The Legend Begins" which, since it references events happening in the episode "Whereabouts" kinda' messes up with my timeline. In the end I decided to move that part of "The Legend Begins" after the other mentioned episode, so the next chapter of this story will tackle the "Pride of the Pueblo" episode.
PS: This installment is a crossover, so you may skip it if you don't like those. But I did make a promise, so I must honor it. :P
Enjoy!
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Winter in California was not exactly harsh. It was normally less hot than during the summer, even if some days stubbornly refused to care what month it was. Other days, though, were rather cold and rainy, and on those days most people of Los Angeles liked taking refuge in the tavern.
With only a little over a week left for him to come up with 1000 pesos of the pueblo's money he had squandered, and fully aware that Zorro would most certainly make sure to interfere with any new plan to forcefully get the money from the people, Luis Ramone was spending most of his time locked up in his office, trying to find a way to fool the official inspector.
He was just considering bribery when, at looking out the window, he noticed a stranger dismounting in the plaza.
The newcomer was not just a simple man, though. He was as tall as Zorro yet far more muscular, and arrived there on a donkey, making Luis Ramone wonder how come the poor animal had not fallen dead the moment the man had mounted him.
Shaking away that thought and curious about the new arrival, the Alcalde exited the office and headed his way, signing for two of his lancers to accompany him. He stopped a few feet from the man, whom he measured from head to toe.
"I am Luis Ramone, Alcalde of Los Angeles, and I demand to know who you are and what you are doing in my pueblo!" He uttered, doing his best to seem intimidating.
The man didn't answer, just stared at him.
"There is a travelers' tax of 5 pesos to be paid by all new arrivals." Ramone continued.
"I don't have any money." The man informed him and turned towards the tavern, decided to ignore him and head that way.
"How about your employer, then?" The Alcalde tried to find out.
"I don't have one."
"I see…" Luis Ramone smiled viciously as a new plan formed in his mind. "Well, then, I will make you an offer you can't refuse, in that case… Señor…"
"Damasco." The man answered as he curiously followed Luis Ramone to his office, leaving his donkey with one of the lancers, who scratched his head at wondering what he was expected to do with the poor creature.
ZZZ
"This spot is perfect." Ramone informed his new lancer a couple of days later. "It's close to the De la Vega hacienda, so he won't even suspect the trap. This afternoon, after discussing in the tavern about their plan to steal the tax money and putting said plan into motion, two thugs will come this way. Zorro is certain to find out and he will certainly be following them, while my men will be following him. You are to dig a pit big enough for our masked fiend to fall into, horse first. I want it ready in three hours at the most. Then, when Zorro is in it, I'll be counting on you to make sure he doesn't come out unless he's in chains."
Damasco nodded, then took a shovel he had brought with him, and started digging without any more words.
The Alcalde smiled and left him to his work, but not before instructing him to cover the pit so that it wouldn't be easily spotted. He returned a few hours later to inspect the progress his new private was making, and was pleasantly surprised to see he had already finished digging and was now covering the ground with branches, trying to make sure the trap would not be easily spotted.
"Find a place to hide! Once he falls into our trap you'll make sure to knock him out!" Ramone instructed his man and the lancer nodded before starting to search for a hiding place.
ZZZ
Gunshots resounded through the plaza, causing everyone in the tavern to exit in order to see what was going on.
"Thieves! They've stolen the pueblo's tax money!" Luis Ramone shouted, pointing towards two men who were escaping on horses, his lancers seemingly even more incompetent than usual as none was yet ready to give chase. "Somebody stop them!" He continued as Zorro passed right by him – as he had expected – following the thieves, and was, in turn, followed by eight lancers on horseback.
The Alcalde smiled maliciously as he watched the pursuit, then feigned distress when Don Alejandro and some of the other caballeros neared him.
"How much have they stolen, Alcalde?" Don Sebastian inquired.
"Everything! They've stolen all the tax money in my office." He answered convincingly.
"Desgraciados!" One of the other dons uttered.
"Don't worry, my friends! I'm sure Zorro will come through for us." Don Alejandro assured them.
ZZZ
Tornado was closing in on the bandits. Less than a mile separated the thugs and the black-clad outlaw from the trap set for him by the Alcalde when, just as the men disappeared from his eyesight at turning a corner through some bushes, the masked man nearing them saw two large posters hanging from a tree branch.
He pulled his horse short as he read them. Nobody seemed to be around, except for two crows standing right on the branch from where they were hanging.
Taking down the posters to have a better look, he re-read them, wondering if the message on them was real or they were part of a more elaborated trap. It made no sense for anyone to warn him that the Alcalde had organized the robbery and that the thieves were only leading him towards a trap set for him. On the other hand, how could anyone know he'd come that way, unless some sort of trap was involved?
When he started hearing the lancers nearing him, he decided to do the smart thing and hide in order to let them pass, then follow them from a distance.
"Where is he?" The black-clad man heard Mendoza, who was leading his men, ask the thieves, all of them having stopped their horses right before the pit Damasco had dug.
"He was just behind us!" One of the thugs exclaimed.
"How could you have lost him if he was right behind you?" The Sergeant demanded to know. "He couldn't have just vanished!"
Zorro smiled and waited until Mendoza sent his men to search for him in the nearby area, then slowly approached the Sergeant who had remained with the thugs and Corporal Gomez to guard the pit in which Zorro was supposed to fall. From his vantage point, it wasn't hard for the masked man to realize what the trap was, so avoiding it was not a hard task.
The first thing he did was to knock out the thugs by smashing their heads against each other's. When that was done, he pointed his sword at the Sergeant, not giving him much of a chance to react. Gomez didn't even try.
"Were you looking for me, Mendoza?" He inquired.
"Ah… Zorro!" The military man exclaimed. "Where did you disappear to? We were just behind you!"
"It's not that easy to follow a fox, Sergeant! You should have learned that by now." He answered as he took the bag the thieves had been accused to have stolen and looked inside it. "I hardly think you have much of a reason to arrest these two for stealing pebbles, but I am sure the Alcalde will want to explain to everyone where the real tax money is." He added as he threw Mendoza and Gomez some rope, signaling for them to tie up the two men.
ZZZ
"Too bad Los Angeles doesn't have its own bank." Luis Ramone heard one of the dons utter as he was having a drink at the tavern's bar.
"Indeed. They are reportedly far harder to break into. Still, not even a bank is absolutely safe, my friend. Let's just hope Zorro will be able to capture those thugs." Don Alejandro answered.
An idea surfaced in Ramone's mind, and he chided himself for not coming up with it sooner, just as a commotion was heard in the plaza.
Everyone exited to see Zorro accompanying Mendoza, Gomez, and the two bandits.
"Alcalde, these good people deserve to know the truth about today's robbery! We can do this the easy or the hard way…" The masked man uttered.
"It was all a trap in order for us to capture Zorro." Ramone answered to everyone's dismay, the black-clad outlaw's first of all. It didn't really matter anymore and he didn't want a new Z adorning his jacket. Besides, he already had an even better plan to come up with the missing funds. "I was the one who hired these men to pretend to rob my office. The tax money is safe." He continued.
The masked outlaw watched him suspiciously. It had never before been so easy to extract a confession from the Alcalde. This time it almost seemed like he didn't care about his plan failing. Something was off, but he couldn't understand what. The thought came to him that the real trap was something else, something having to do with the posters. Yet, looking around, he sensed no danger. The prudent thing for him to do was, however, to leave as soon as he could, and take the scenic route to the cave, just in case he was being followed. He, thus, saluted and exited the pueblo at a gallop, while Ramone pensively headed for his office.
ZZZ
"Did we do it? Have we just saved him?" A young man asked the one accompanying him as they both watched Zorro exit the pueblo.
"It's easy enough to find out, Sibling." The other one said taking out what looked like a photograph. "No. This wasn't it." He answered rather stiffly.
"We can't stay here for much longer! We risk messing everything up even further. Father will certainly not be pleased with us." The other young man answered.
"Indeed. But there's no future to return to unless we succeed in our mission. We'll have to keep trying." His companion explained.
ZZZ
Felipe was eagerly awaiting Zorro's return in the cave when he heard Tornado's hoofs resounding in the passage leading to the main room. His rider jumped off the horse as soon as he reached the stables, and took out the two posters informing him of the trap, which he had kept in the stallion's saddlebags.
"These saved my life today. And, most probably, also Tornado's…" He uttered, giving the boy the papers.
"What are they?" Felipe signed his question.
"A warning. Whoever left it made sure it wouldn't be seen by the thugs I was chasing, although I have no idea how he did it." His mentor replied as he took off his mask. "They were hanging from a tree branch and I am rather certain there was nobody around there. Luis Ramone had hired those bandits, Felipe, with the only purpose of leading me towards a pit the new Private Damasco had dug and in which Tornado would have probably broken at least one of his legs. Thanks to that warning, though, I was able to avoid said trap. And, curiously enough, the Alcalde simply confessed to everything. The tax money is safe… well, as safe as it can be in his possession."
ZZZ
It was a cool afternoon of early November, a few days after the previously-described events, when it started to rain about half an hour after the De la Vegas, accompanied by Felipe, arrived at the tavern. The place was packed with lancers, caballeros and farmers, so the two young women working there needed to stay on their toes, constantly taking orders and bringing drinks and food to their patrons.
"Well, I don't believe we'll be heading home anytime soon." Diego muttered to his father at seeing it was pouring outside.
"No. But we'd better get the horses to the municipal stables." Don Alejandro replied.
The tall caballero was just preparing to exit when Felipe stopped him and went in his stead.
Hurriedly taking the horses with him, he headed for the stables and was back just a couple of minutes after he had left, soaking wet and freezing.
"You should have let me do it!" Diego chided him. "Señorita," he then addressed the taverness, "do you have a free room where Felipe could get warm and dry?"
Victoria smiled at seeing the boy's state and nodded. "You may use the second room upstairs. I still have to clean the other ones. He can stay under the covers to get warm while his clothes dry." She replied.
About ten minutes later, the boy was undressed and hiding beneath the covers, while Victoria was carefully placing his clothes on two chairs which she positioned near the fireplace in the kitchen.
"I'd better go home to bring Felipe something dry to wear." Diego suggested when the rain stopped just as suddenly as it had started.
His father only nodded, so he headed for the stables and mounted Esperanza, guiding her towards the hacienda.
The road was muddy and, since the rains had been falling daily, sometimes lasting all through the night, for a little over a week by that point, he knew from experience that he needed to be careful in order to avoid possible quicksand which might have formed during the last week.
"Help! Can someone hear me?" He heard a voice shout in English, just as he was nearing a hill from which he could see the hacienda.
Looking around, he noticed the pit hole dug by Private Damasco, which he had intended to cover but hadn't gotten around to yet. A white-haired man he had never seen before, was struggling to get out of it.
Diego guided Esperanza that way, then dismounted and carefully headed towards the person trapped in the hole.
"Oh! Hola! Ayudo… por favor?" The man asked in bad Spanish at seeing him.
"Right away!" The tall caballero answered in his best English, taking his saddle rope and tying it around his mare's saddle horn.
"You speak English!" The man noted. "I must have travelled to the wrong time." He added mostly for himself as he followed Diego's instructions of tying the rope around his waist. "Is this November 8th, 1812, California, the Los Angeles area?" He asked as he was being dragged out of the pit.
"That is correct. It's November 8th today and we are just a couple of miles from the pueblo." The caballero replied happy to be able to practice his English.
"Oh, good! Good! There was no malfunction, then. I am trying to find my sons. They left home a few days ago, and I tracked them here. You don't happen to know the whereabouts of two teenagers named Jules and Verne by any chance, do you?" The white-haired man inquired.
"I'm afraid not." Diego told him.
"I knew I shouldn't have re-built that car…" The strange man confessed. "I am Doctor Emmet Brown, by the way." He then introduced himself extending his hand, then immediately withdrew it at noticing it was fully covered in mud.
"Don Diego de la Vega… At your service!" The caballero answered gallantly.
"Great Scott! You are Diego de la Vega? I see! My sons must have travelled here to meet you. They have always been big fans…" The man uttered to Diego's dismay.
"Fans?" The caballero inquired, certain the meaning of the word escaped him.
"Yes! Yes! Of course! Their mother used to tell them stories about you." The stranger answered absent-mindedly, not even noticing the baffled expression on the caballero's face. "I do have my task cut out for me, though. I followed them here, but my tracking device stopped working the moment I arrived." The white-haired man said, losing himself in thought. "They could be anywhere…"
"Tracking device?" Diego again wondered if he had heard him well as the stranger's words made little sense to him.
"Oh… Yes… No matter… I need to find those two." The Doc stated. "If you point me towards Los Angeles, perhaps there's someone there who might know them."
"It's that way." A very confused Diego stretched his arm in the direction of the pueblo.
"Thank you! Goodbye, Don Diego! Good luck with… with everything! I should probably not tell you this, but it will all go your way in the end!" The man said as he headed towards the pueblo.
The caballero watched him leave almost frozen, then shook his head, and steered Esperanza towards the hacienda. At passing through the same area with two of his vaqueros on his way back, however, he found a half-muddied newspaper written in English. Certain it belonged to the strange man who had introduced himself as a doctor, he did his best to clean it while instructing the men to fill the pit, and put it in his saddlebags, intended on returning it to his owner once he'd see him again.
The man wasn't in the tavern, so Diego made his way directly to Felipe's room, noticing in passing that Ramone's new lancer was having a little too much to drink.
ZZZ
Sitting at a corner table were three strangers, all dark-haired, having a whispered conversation in English. The tall caballero hadn't granted them more than a glance since they hardly seemed dangerous. They, however, made sure to watch his every move.
"You have no idea in what kind of trouble you are! What possessed you to steal the DeLorean?" The oldest of the three, a man with a large moustache, who didn't seem more than three years or so the other two's senior, addressed the two younger men.
"We thought you wouldn't notice Father. After all, we can just set the time of return a few minutes after our departure. You and Mother should have never found out." One of the other two suggested.
"That is no excuse to do what you did! And, for your information, your mother would have realized it anyway. She always knows when any of us uses the time-traveling vehicles!" The older man said. "How long have you been here, anyway?"
"Just a couple of weeks… maybe a month or so." The same younger man stated, looking worried.
"Weeks, maybe a month? In all that time you might have affected the space-time continuum… You might have started an entire chain of events leading to a disastrous future… By the time we return, the Nazis might be ruling the world… Or the French! Napoleon is still alive in 1812… We might all return to a future so much worse than anyone can imagine!" The older man explained as, in his head, he saw thousands of ways in which everything might go wrong, his tone of voice betraying something akin desperation. "Your mother will ground us all…. Indefinitely!"
"I don't think you need to worry about that at the moment, Father." The older of his sons said, taking out a picture of their family depicting their mother partly transparent.
"Jules! Verne! What did you do?" The older man asked in disbelief after looking at the picture.
"Well… We don't really know… Not for certain, at least." Verne answered.
"Truth is, this isn't the first time we've come here." His brother stated.
"We wanted to see Zorro's first public appearance. We found some records of the pueblo at the library and Jules didn't want to believe he had used a glider, so we made a bet. It's why we first came here. I won." Verne explained.
"Then why did you come back? Didn't you already learn how dangerous affecting the timeline can be?" The older man wondered.
"Because we then wanted to see how he had met Grandfather. Mother told us the story, so we wanted to see it happen for ourselves. I personally doubted it was completely true." Jules explained. "When nobody stopped Grandfather's wagon from going down that cliff… we realized something had gone wrong. So we tried to find out what, but everyone here was afraid to talk about it. All we were able to find out was that…" he uttered lowering his tone and looking around to make sure nobody heard them, "that the man behind the mask had been executed in November of this year, long before he was due to die. But we don't know the date, nor why it happened. With the car low on fuel, we decided to return in October, and do our best to prevent whatever we had initially caused to happen.
"It was useless at the beginning. Then, a couple of weeks back, my sibling pointed out that the first time we were here we had accidentally pushed the blacksmith's daughter into a lancer while partaking in the celebration at the tavern. It was just a small accident, and we left right away, but… we checked it out…. the young lady and the lancer ended up marrying a few months earlier than they were supposed to according to the initial town's records…"
"Which had already triggered a chain of events leading up to that nice man's death decades before he was due to die! Great Scott! After we find a way to make this right, you'll be grounded for a whole year! No more time travelling for you two!" The older man threatened.
"You can't be so cruel! Besides, we might have already found a way to change things…" Verne uttered.
"Which means we don't deserve any punishment. After all, if we fix our mistake it will be like it had never happened at all, right?" Jules asked.
Their father looked inquisitively at them. "No… No… I am not sure I can trust the two of you." He informed them.
"Just give us a chance! Look…" Jules uttered taking out a photograph of empty chairs, "this is a photo of the De la Vegas, taken in 1862. There were 22 people in it, including two babies. If we manage to make things right, they will all be here. And we already know how to make things right. You see that lancer?" The young man asked, pointing towards Damasco. "During the last week we've learned that the blacksmith's daughter had seen him in Buenaventura, when she had gone to buy material for her wedding dress, not long after we had first come here. She also mentioned that he didn't use to look like that, but was much thinner. Apparently the lancer she had married had laughed at him when he was unable to carry a large barrel by himself. I think the man might have felt insulted, so he decided to build up body mass, then came here… I doubt he's in his right mind… But I'm rather certain everything that went wrong has something to do with him. So we've been following him like hawks... We already prevented Zorro from falling into one of the Alcalde's traps. But it seems like that wasn't what we truly needed to prevent…"
He had barely finished saying that when Private Damasco stood up and, without a word, headed for a nearby table – where two of his colleagues were playing cards with some farmers – picked up one of the cups on their table and threw it away, defiantly looking towards the man who was drinking from it.
The cup hit the kitchen wall just as Victoria was exiting through the curtains and shattered into pieces, a couple of them cutting her arm.
"Are you crazy?" She shouted at Damasco, who didn't even glance towards her as he was absorbed in a staring contest with the lancer who was married to the blacksmith's daughter.
The man slowly stood up. He was much smaller than the brute, thinner and two heads shorter, so he glanced desperately at his friends, hoping they might come to his aid. Nobody dared do anything, the other men averting their eyes and quietly deciding where to take refuge should a fight start.
Only Diego, sitting with his father and Felipe a few tables away, first headed for Victoria in order to check on her, then, enraged, made his way towards the brute, decided to give him a lesson and completely forgetting for a few moments that he was pretending to be a whole different person when in public.
"He'll give himself away!" Verne told the others as he stood up, and, before Diego reached Damasco, he planted a punch in the man's jaw, causing little reaction except for attracting the private's anger onto him.
Moments later, after pushing his comrade straight into Diego, the force of the push causing both of them to fall to the ground, he punched the young man who had dared confront him, leaving him motionless on the ground, then did the same with his two companions who had meanwhile also decided to interfere.
As a true brawl started, Diego hurried to get Felipe, his father and Victoria to safety, then searched for Alicia, whom he protected from a flying chair and dragged towards the kitchen, then outside.
Meanwhile, Don Alejandro and Victoria had already made their way to the Alcalde's office, demanding the lancers' intervention to stop the fight.
By the time Luis Ramone and his men intervened, several tables and chairs were in pieces, the floor was littered with broken plates and glasses, and the three strangers were lying unconscious on the ground.
"Who started this?" Luis Ramone asked.
"Private Damasco. He tried to attack Villanueva and these three men tried to help your corporal." A don who had been present there informed him and others supported his statement.
The Alcalde looked towards the lancer he had recently hired. Two lancers were doing their best to help him stand as the hits he had received and the effect of the alcohol made his knees rather weak.
"Attacking another lancer, causing damages to the tavern, knocking out three men. I'm sorry to say, Private, but you're fired! Which is quite a shame… But I will not tolerate such conduct." Luis Ramone informed the brute as his lancer forced him out.
After making sure Alicia was helping Victoria clean and bandage the cuts on her arm, Diego had the lancers help the three unconscious men to the second floor and to the bed Felipe had vacated a while earlier.
Checking that they hadn't incurred any bad injuries, he let them rest while he, his father and Felipe helped the young women clean up the taproom and fix every piece of furniture that could be repaired. About an hour later, with the main room in order, Don Alejandro and the boy headed towards the hacienda to see if they could find some more pieces of furniture to lend to Victoria until new tables and chairs would be made.
In turn, Diego, checking on the three strangers and seeing they were still not waking up, asked the taverness to bring him some herbs he could use to get them to regain consciousness. She did so, then, after allowing Alicia to return to her house for the evening, she headed for the Alcalde's office in order to present the total costs she expected the garrison to pay in order to cover the damages.
"Great Scott!" The older man exclaimed with a start, in perfect English, as he suddenly stood up at smelling the herbs Diego had used.
The caballero found it strange that he was the second person that day to talk to him in the language of Shakespeare. Besides, he had heard that exclamation before, another fact which seemed strange to him.
"What happened?" Verne asked as he also came to his senses just moments later.
"You were in a fight." The caballero answered. "You should take some time to rest. Victoria, the owner of the tavern, was kind enough to offer you this room for the night as a reward for having stood up to that lancer. You were lucky you only seem to have suffered minor injuries. It could have been far worse."
None of the three said anything, just watched him somewhat perplexed.
"Don Diego? Did we avoid you giving yourself up?" Jules wondered as his brother hurriedly took out a photo he was carrying with him, then did the same, taking out the photo of their family which he had earlier shown his father.
"I'm sorry?" The caballero asked, curiously looking at them.
"She's back! That was it! It worked!" Jules exclaimed as Diego caught a glimpse of the picture depicting a middle-aged woman, two teenage boys, and the man he had helped out of the pit hole that very day.
"It did! They are all here again!" His brother also stated at watching the photo he was holding.
"Well, we need to go now. Thank you and goodbye to you, Don Diego! Please give our thanks to your wif… I mean, to Miss Victoria for her hospitality. Let's go, boys!" The older man uttered as he was already exiting the door followed by his sons.
"I knew I shouldn't have rebuilt the DeLorean!" A few moments later the caballero heard him mutter through the open window leading into the empty back alley. "When did you get these metamorphosis devices anyway?"
"2087. Aren't they great? They can even make us look like birds! And we also got a teleportation device from 2134. But it only works on very short distances." Verne answered. "Let me show you!"
The caballero curiously looked out of the window, trying to make sense of that strange discussion, but the three men had completely vanished by the time he glanced out. Shaking his head, unsure of what to make of the strangers and their words, he climbed down the stairs and headed towards the kitchen, where Victoria was just returning with a bucket of water.
"Do you need any help?" He asked her with a smile, looking at the pile of dirty plates and cups on the kitchen table.
She chuckled at the offer, then recomposed herself at realizing she was being rude to her friend. "No, Don Diego… Thank you! I'll be finishing in no time… The Alcalde promised his men will make new tables and benches to replace the broken ones, and that he'd pay for the broken plates and glasses from the money the private was due."
"I am glad to hear that. Well… Then… I guess I should be going." He uttered intrigued with Ramone's recent behavioral change.
"Yes, it's already quite late… But I'd rather you stayed a little while longer. Those three men… they seemed like good people, but there was something strange about them… I just can't put my finger on it…" She answered.
"I tend to agree. However, you should know that they already left… after asking me to thank you for your hospitality. I doubt we'll be seeing them again anytime soon." Diego told her.
"They're gone? So it's just the two of us here?" Victoria wondered.
"Yes. Which is why I think I had better leave. I'll let Sergeant Mendoza know you are alone tonight, so that his men will keep an eye on the tavern." He answered.
"Yes. Thank you!" She replied, somewhat disappointed that he was leaving.
"Have a good evening, Señorita!" He wished her before he left to do as he had promised.
"A good evening to you too, Don Diego!" She replied, then followed him to lock the main door to the tavern.
The tall caballero headed home, his thoughts at the four (or, rather, three, even if he didn't know that) English-speaking strangers he had met that day, and the events which followed. Remembering the man he had saved from the pit, he also remembered the piece of paper he was carrying in his saddlebags.
As he arrived home, he stabled Esperanza, then pulled the piece of paper out to study it. The date and name of the paper had been destroyed by the mud, but he could make out the place where it had been published – London – and a couple of articles, his attention being soon drawn by one about a new substance used by a certain James Young Simpson in order to render unconscious those undergoing surgery, so that they might not feel the pain. Not everything was visible, but the article did mention information about how it was prepared and precautions to take in order for the administered doses not to be fatal. Diego could also make out the word "ether", even if the half-destroyed text around it seemed to suggest a comparison with something whose partly-erased name ended in "roform".**
With a broad smile, he, thus, decided on his next experiment.
ZZZ
Just a few days before the arrival of the official sent by the new governor to assess the way the Alcalde had been using the public funds, The Bank of Los Angeles opened its door to the pueblo's citizens. Of course, none of them knew that the bank belonged to Luis Ramone, except for the man hired to work there, a well-paid clerk brought from Santa Barbara, and who was sworn to secrecy about the identity of his employer.
Glad they'd no longer have to drive all the way to Santa Paula or San Diego to deal with a bank, many of the pueblo's caballeros soon left their money in the care of the newly-established institution, and were especially glad to see that Luis Ramone was fully committed to protecting it, already allocating a few of his lancers to guard it.
While the young De la Vega was skeptical about moving funds from institutions which had faithfully served the family for decades, Don Alejandro decided it was a good idea to deposit a small sum in the new bank, not only because it was more at hand in case he needed it, but also because he wanted to support 'local initiative'.
As his plan worked better than he would have imagined, the Alcalde was, thus, able to impress the official sent by the governor, and the man soon informed him that he'd advocate for him receiving a position better suited for him, such as commander of the garrison in Monterey, a position which appealed to Ramone's ambitions.
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**As per my research, ether was discovered (or rediscovered as per some versions) in the 1840s by an American, and does not put the people inhaling it to sleep, only numbs their pain and may cause a state of euphoria. Chloroform, on the other hand, while also invented by an American, was initially used as a pesticide, until a Scottish doctor experimented with it as an anesthetic in 1847. Consequently, Diego would have needed information from the future to use ether in the 1810s-1820s and the way his ether acts makes me believe it's actually (a version of very fast-acting) chloroform – which it is, based on this story, except he confuses its name with that of ether