Zorro knelt beside his father. Gently, he loosened the tie from his father’s neck. He needed to do what he could to stop the bleeding. He opened his father’s shirt and pressed the material from the tie to the wound. It was barely adequate. He had never tried to treat a gunshot wound before. From its location though, he dared to hope that if the bullet could be removed, his father stood a good chance of recovering. As he worked, he listened as his father spoke to him.
Don Alejandro had regained consciousness again to find Zorro kneeling over him, loosening his tie. As the man worked on him, he was again struck by something so familiar in his manner.
“Strange. So strange,” he murmured almost to himself. Then to his benefactor he said, “It is almost as if I had known you.” He peered closely at Zorro’s face trying to see more. “You seem so much like someone I know.”
When Zorro kept on working on his wound and did not respond, he continued speaking, looking out into the night, “I’m a foolish old man with foolish dreams. So often have I dreamed that my son would come back from Spain and he would be like you.”
Zorro stopped what he was doing. He cradled his father’s head in his hand listening to his every word. If ever there was a time to let his father know his secret, that time was now. The longing in his heart to confide in his father was so powerful. But no. Not yet. For the second time this night, he found himself swallowing past the lump in his throat.
His father continued. “Now that you are so close, it is so much like my dreams. I feel almost that I could pull aside the mask and there would be the face of my son, Diego.”
Their eyes met and Don Alejandro, with a trembling heart reached up, wanting permission to do just that.
Zorro was trembling also, but he gently denied his father’s request as he took his father’s hand and moved it aside, shaking his head slowly as he closed his eyes, not trusting himself to speak. He felt as if his heart might burst if he tried. Then he looked at his father once more.
Don Alejandro smiled weakly at Zorro. “I would not pull away the mask,” he said. “I would not have the courage. An old man must cling to his dreams, as desperately as he clings to life . . .” Quietly, Don Alejandro slipped into unconsciousness.
Only now could Zorro find his voice. With all the conviction he had in his heart, the son of Don Alejandro made a promise saying, “You will have many years left, my Father, . . . to live and dream.”
Slipping his arms under Don Alejandro, Zorro embraced his father to him, holding him for a long moment, and then picked him up. He had a long way to go to take his father to the safety of the cave, but his last ounce of strength would be exhausted before he failed the man he carried in his arms.
END
