Seven days it took them to get back to the pueblo, during which time they were able to catch up, each sharing with the other all the pain they had had to endure – or, in Diego's case, part of it. First, however, Diego had to deal with Felipe's nightmares and the traumas inflicted on him during the last couple of years.
This time, however, the boy didn't keep it all bottled inside, like he had done with the trauma of seeing his parents dying. Instead, he recounted for Diego how the woman who had claimed to be his mother, just an hour or two after leaving Los Angeles, stopped by an arroyo where a man was waiting for them. There, the entire plot became obvious, and Felipe was tied up and gagged, becoming their prisoner.
For about a week, the two had planned their attack on the bank. When everything was ready, they put on some good clothes that made them look like a don and a doña, forcing him to also dress elegantly. Then, they headed with him into the bank, explaining to the employees there that the boy's father was asking for the sum of 20,000 pesos to be sent to him through his son. The clerk complied but noticed that Felipe was trying to signal something to him. When the clerk started asking the boy some questions and he couldn't answer, the man who had orchestrated everything grew impatient and, taking out a gun, shot the poor man. The woman then grabbed the money and, together with her accomplice, escaped the town, leaving Felipe behind.
To a certain point, he was relieved at realizing he was free from them, but he had nowhere to run and an injured man on the ground. So, he tried to help the clerk, certain he had nothing to fear anymore. When the lancers came, however, they found him in a pool of blood. He never knew if the man recovered, for the doctor arrived just as he was taken to jail. His abductors joined him there just a few days later, and, after a short trial, they were both sentenced to hang. Not being given any chance to defend himself, he was considered their accomplice and sent to the Fortress.
Once there, the older men seemed to pity him and most of them behaved kindly towards him. Some did steal his food when they were very hungry, but he didn't mind it very much. He had been through hunger and thirst; he had been humiliated and treated like a fool just because he couldn't talk, but still he dreamt about returning to the De la Vega Hacienda one day. Now he could hardly believe that that dream was finally coming true.
"And how long have you been able to hear, Felipe?" Diego asked at one point.
The boy signed that he had been able to hear for three years at that point.
"And you never told my father?"
Felipe shook his head.
"I'm sure he will be glad when he finds out. But that will have to wait, Felipe," Diego continued as he started telling him his own story, or, at least, the parts of his story he thought were fit for him to tell a 14-year-old.
ZZZ
On the third day of their voyage home, Felipe noticed, not far from them, a black stallion running across a field.
"It's a beautiful animal," Diego remarked when the boy pointed him out. "Look at him run, Felipe!"
The boy smiled, then signed to ask if Diego wanted to try to catch him.
"It could be dangerous. That horse seems to be wild. No marks on him indicate otherwise," he replied as he steered the horse forward.
The black stallion, who seemed to have noticed them, stopped to glance at the humans, then headed towards them until he came to a stop just in front of the mare they were riding.
The caballero stopped, wondering what the stallion was up to.
Nodding his head a few times, the black stallion then slowly headed west, stopping once to look back, turning at noticing they were not following him, then starting on his way again.
Diego glanced at Felipe. "I think he wants us to follow him," he said, and the youngster nodded his agreement.
Soon they reached a ravine and Diego dismounted, following the stallion on foot and leaving the boy with the horse. Not far from there, a foal was lying on the ground. His mother was standing right next to him, seeming to try to make him stand.
"Stay back, Felipe!" Diego warned. "This could be dangerous."
Making his way towards the horses, carefully not to agitate the adults, the caballero neared the foal. "He's ill, Felipe. Unless he stands up he will die," he said as he reached for the foal and helped him up. He was heavy despite his young age, but the caballero managed to help him up nonetheless. "Better?"* he asked him as he saw the foal heading for his mother to suckle on her milk. "I'll take that as a yes," Diego muttered as he turned and headed back for Felipe. Remounting his horse, they took one last look at the black stallion, the mare, and the brown foal and returned to the main road north.
It was about half an hour later when they noticed that the family of horses had been following them.
"Strange… Perhaps they are just heading in the same direction," the caballero told his ward, more in joke than seriously.
As they found a stream near which they had some shade to rest, Diego decided to camp there for the night, and noticing the horses had also stopped just twenty feet away, also in the shade, started gathering herbs, soon enough stirring a concoction into a small pot. In the meantime, the black stallion and his mare watched the caballero closely, as if wondering what he was up to.
Adding the concoction to some water to disguise the taste, Diego headed for the foal, offering it to him to drink. The little one seemed to hesitate. "It will help you recover sooner," the caballero tried to explain, though he very well knew he was talking to horses and the animals would not understand. Still, he had been talking to horses all his life – except for the years spent talking to rocks and rats – and had long since noticed that his voice served to calm the animals.
The black stallion watched the foal drink, then went to the caballero, beginning to sniff him and, at the same time, causing him to chuckle.
Thanks to his concoction, the foal improved quite a little by the following morning and was now able to run. Consequently, the caballero was certain the three horses would go their separate way and dared pet the black stallion on the forehead as goodbye. The horse allowed the caress as he spent some time sniffing the caballero, then watched him leave.
However, looking back at some point, Felipe saw that the horses were still following them, led by the black stallion, and warned Diego. Finding it to be a rather strange behavior for wild horses, the caballero picked up the pace, curious to see what they would do, and noticed that the horses, too, had started galloping, though at the pace set by the foal; so he stopped.
"They want to come with us…" Diego told Felipe rather puzzled. When they stopped for lunch and siesta, Diego prepared another dose of the concoction to give the foal. After he drank it all, he left him to continue his lunch as provided by the mare. At that point, Diego headed for the black stallion and reached to pet him on the head again.
"You want us to be friends, boy, don't you?" he asked, fascinated with the beauty of the animal.
A couple of hours later, as they resumed their journey, and they saw that the horses kept following them, Diego shrugged his shoulders. "I believe we have just recruited three new horses for the hacienda," he said with a smile.
When they camped for the night, Diego again headed for the black stallion, offering him an apple and starting to pet him again. "You like me, don't you?" he asked, and the horse nodded as if confirming that fact. "I wonder…" saying that, the caballero circled the animal, trying to determine how threatened he was by human presence. The stallion just looked back curiously at him. "How would you like to be a count's stallion?" Diego asked. The horse made a snoring sound and shook his head. "No? Are you sure?" he inquired, though he was by no means under the impression that the animal understood what he was saying. Instead, he was trying to get the horse accustomed to the sound of his voice so that he might tame him.
"What should we call him?" he asked Felipe as they were sitting by the fire a while later.
The boy took a moment to think, then signed.
"He is fast as the wind…" Diego interpreted his signs. Felipe realized he had misunderstood him. "Not like the wind… Like…a… tornado." He realized. "We should call him Tornado!"
Felipe smiled and nodded.
The next two days the caballero dedicated to taming and training the wild stallion decided to make him the Count's riding horse. Some fifteen miles from the pueblo, not long after Tornado first allowed him to mount and ride him for a few miles, Diego put on the disguise of Señor Gilarranz.
"Where are we going?" Felipe signed to ask, realizing they were not heading for the De la Vega Hacienda.
"A new house, situated about half a mile north of the De la Vega lands. The abbot lives there." Diego replied.
"The abbot?" again the boy signed.
"Si, Felipe… The abbot is one of the disguises Emmanuel and I invented for ourselves. The only one we can both use, in fact. A few months back, as we stopped for supplies in Veracruz, we learned that my father was going through some difficulties, and had sold part of our lands. So I sent one of my men to buy them in the name of the church and have a hacienda built on them for an abbot who had decided to self-exile to California."
"Where does Don Alejandro live, then, if he sold the hacienda?" Felipe signed to ask.
"Still there. He is coordinating the works to enlarge it in preparation for the count's arrival."
"The count's arrival?" Felipe signed to ask.
"Another of our disguises, though it is mine, this time. I am now the Count of Dragonera, a title the King offered me in exchange for a rather large donation. The ship the count is traveling on is anchored in a bay south of Los Angeles until time comes for the count to actually arrive. Till then, I will play the abbot and find out all I can about Gilberto Risendo and Ignacio de Soto. They will pay for all their crimes, Felipe," Diego promised as he ended his story.
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AN: Scene from NWZ. I take no credit for it.