PART TEN: SHE RIDES AGAINST EVIL
Zorro pulled Tornado behind a large boulder just fifteen yards away from the Indian miners’ camp. ‘Dios! There are more than twenty guards on duty!’ He turned Tornado around to check their horses’ tethers. Several more guards were standing nearby. ‘Santa Maria, I beg you to please help me! The odds are too great against me!’ His heart ached as he watched the guards beat several Indians into submission. Finally, one of the mercenaries lost patience and stabbed a resisting Indian with his sabre. Zorro’s conscience would not allow him to stand idly by while human beings were suffering.
‘Ah, By the Blessed Virgin. Por favor, give me strength!‘
Tornado’s ears twitched backward and he moved anxiously beneath Zorro. “What is the trouble, boy, eh? What do you hear that I do not--”?
A group of black masked riders burst into the workers’ camp, scattering Guiterrez’s men! Several guards were killed immediately and the group of masked men spilt in two smaller units. One group concentrated on freeing the Indians, leaving the larger party of men to fight Guiterrez’s guards. The surprised Indians cheered their arrival.
‘I simply do not believe my eyes‘. There, leading the disguised riders, was a woman dressed identically as Zorro! “Madre di Dios!”
“Come on, Tornado, we cannot let them do all of our work, can we?”
Zorro rode directly into the center of the melee and wheeled Tornado so that he was next to the female rider the Indians called “La Doña Negra.” He fired his one pair of pistolas, eliminating two other guards. After using those shots, he leaped from Tornado to engage one of Guiterrez’s mercenaries.
“Whoosh!”
Zorro felt rather than saw the attacker behind him. The vicious looking vaquero almost decapitated him by whirling his weapon just inches from his head. He swung around just in time to see the lady in black engage his attacker in battle. Zorro drew his rapier and attempted to defend her from the vaquero. To his surprise, she waved him back!
The Dark Lady again jumped in front of Zorro, but the sheer force of her adversary’s blows drove her to her knees. Zorro called the man a spineless coward for fighting a woman. To his great shock, La Dona Negra sprang to her feet and resumed the swordfight.
Silently he watched the Dark Lady in action against the vaquero, who seemed to be more than a match for her. Then he realized that the lady had closely watched her adversary and learned her opponent’s flaw in his strategy. She had cleverly permitted him to gain some ground. La Dona Negra mixed her opening moves first with some cutting and slashing techniques and then by using some finely executed epee style feints against the mercenary. She continued her aggressive offense, employing only rapid thrusting moves, never allowing the swordsman time to think. Now, it was Guiterrez’s man who stumbled and fell over a low rock outcropping. The vaquero’s eyes were filled with terror... he was about to lose his life to a woman!
She held back her rapier and motioned for him to resume the duel.
Zorro was amazed at --and approved ---this gallant gesture. Somehow he was not surprised as she deftly began to parry each and every thrust that the vaquero made when he resumed the swordfight.
In the meantime, the Fox occupied himself with fending off the few thugs who dared to fight him.
When he scared away the last of the mercenaries, he resumed watching her technique. ‘Por Dios!’ He thought incredulously. Gone were the fancy wide slashes with her rapier. Almost daintily she wove her rapier in and out of the thug’s lines of defense. Zorro belatedly realized he had only witnessed such a fine display of swordsmanship when he attended the University in Madrid.
Again she disengaged from the duel. Guiterrez’s mercenary yelled that he would no longer fight with a female. La Doña Negra told him he was a coward.
The mercenary retaliated by shouting every curse he knew.
“Oh, so you are afraid to duel with La Doña Negra, a mere woman!” She yelled out, “Atencion, senores! This porco shrinks before a woman! Can it be true that he is not a man?”
Zorro winced. In between his sporadic fighting with the few inept swordsmen remaining from Guiterrez’s gang, he warned her: “Doña Negra, taunting your opponent is most unwise! Por favor allow me to fight this criminal!”
She shook her head vehemently. “No further courtesies shall be given to the likes of this thug!” La Doña Negra said.
The swordfight resumed. ‘Madre di Dios!‘ Zorro said admiringly to himself. Now she changed tactics a third time ---- Doña Negra again employed her slashing moves, which drove her opponent crazy. He was sweating profusely and shaking his head. Then she switched strategy briefly by lightly touching the vaquero’s blade, then withdrawing it just as quickly. Doña Negra’s rapid change of her tactics did not permit the mercenary a chance for him to follow through with his thrusts.
She wholeheartedly pressed home her attack more and more. Doña Negra was getting tired and she knew her adversary was as equally fatigued.
Zorro noticed this and shouted his encouragement. to La Doña Negra. “Muy bien, Dark Lady! Have courage!” Zorro secretly hoped that the vaquero at this stage of the duel was thoroughly confused. Then he would let down his guard...
SLASH, SLASH! Her blade moved so fast that it was almost invisible. He heard a ripping sound as her weapon tore a huge cut in the man’s upper left arm and he began bleeding.
The vaquero cursed her and promised that the Commandante would hang both of them. “You cannot defeat me!” He yelled defiantly, and then retaliated with harder and harder blows, but they were ill aimed and Dona Negra parried them aside easily.
Belatedly, Zorro realized that he was needed to help free the Indians. ‘Hmm. It appears that she has things under control for now.’ Zorro wanted to observe the entire fight, for he had seen very few left-handed duelers, and never a female dueler!
He quickly joined the lady’s men, who were unlocking the Indians’ shackles and helping those they could ride behind them on their horses to freedom.
Doña Negra herself was thoroughly fatigued and grew slightly fearful because she had never fought such a duel. Seconds later, by swinging her rapier repeatedly in and out of her usual line of attack, she completely caught her opponent off guard. The Dark Lady quickly and perfectly lunged forward with her rapier. Her blade caught the man in the chest and plunged through his heart.
Doña Negra was breathless after killing the capitan’s mercenary. She let her weapon fall. ‘By the Blessed Virgin!’ She gasped. ’I had never hurt someone or certainly never killed anyone in my entire life!’ The Dark Lady muttered to herself as she began shivering violently.
Zorro was shocked. He had never seen a woman kill a man, even though the battle was fought according to all the fencing rules he had learned in California and Spain.
When he walked over where she was still trying to catch her breath, he thought momentarily that the Dark Lady would shatter like so many tiny pieces of glass, so brittle was the look in her eyes. La Doña Negra was shaking intensely. One of the vaqueros brought her water. She gulped some down some of it, but Zorro stepped up and took away the flask.
“Drink the water slowly, Doña Negra.” He said softly, “or you will certainly go into shock. Is it Señorita, or shall I say Señora?” Zorro drew in his breath sharply. ‘Do you not know her? Ah, my head still has not cleared from the gunshot wound to my temple.’
Doña Negra nodded and with her hands made a chopping motion to show him that she was too exhausted to speak. She took several deep breaths and then managed to whistle for her mount to pick her up. The Dark Lady tried to mount her steed, but Zorro pulled her down - very gently - from her saddle.
‘Dios! I think that he recognized my voice! He is looking at me rather strangely!’ she thought anxiously. Too fatigued to resist him, she literally fell into his arms.
“Doña Negra.” He began, “if you will permit me to call you by that name - while I appreciate your assistance in this dreadful matter, perhaps, may I suggest, you should confine yourself to ah, less strenuous activities --at least temporarily!”
La Dona Negra said nothing for almost five minutes, allowing her to recover her senses somewhat.
Again he tried to get her to respond to him. “Come, I will address you as ‘señora.’ Somehow I do not think of you as a ‘señorita.’ You have done a very serious but brave deed today.” He briefly touched her chin. The Dark Lady’s eyes remained somewhat unfocused. “Señora,“ he said kindly, “you are going into shock. I am here as a friend. ”
Zorro then gave her the canteen and permitted her some more water. “Gracias,” she whispered. The vacant look disappeared from her face, “Please I must leave--.”
He shook his head. “No, señora. Not until after you have answered a few questions to satisfy my curiosity, por favor.”
“Bueno.” Doña Negra murmured.
“Gracias, señora. First, I would like to know if you were my rescuer three nights ago. If so, I owe you my life.”
She looked up at his stunning hazel eyes. 'I wonder if he realizes the effect he has on women! El Zorro if only you knew the power you have over me...I have given you my heart ... if only.’ the Dark Lady thought sadly.
“Sí, Señor Zorro.” She kept her eyes downcast.
He guided her over to a huge boulder where she could lean against it for support. For each time he touched the Dark Lady, she shrank away from him.
“Por Dios, Señora! I am not going to hurt you!” To reassure her, he moved back from La Doña Negra a little.
‘She reminds me of someone. Those unusual eyes.... a dream, I had a dream about a lady dressed in black. She was ... I must try to remember!’
“Where in the name of Heaven did you learn to fence like that?”
“In Spain when I was six years old. Papa wanted all of his children to be males, so although I was a girl, he was determined to make the best of the situation. He was quite insistent that my sister and I learn the foil, rapier and the saber styles of fencing.”
Zorro laughed, “You most certainly did learn and learn well, Señora! But I am still puzzled by your decision to help the Indians.”
Doña Negra bit her lower lip and turned her back to him. “I have my ... reasons, El Zorro! Let us leave it at that.”
The Fox edged closer to her until he could touch her shoulder. As he did so, Doña Negra flinched as if she had been touched by a white-hot branding iron and dropped the canteen.
Zorro was bewildered. “Señora, por favor, I shall not harm you! Please sit down.” She silently obeyed him and reached out to take the canteen from him. “Sí, drink, senora." He held her hands around the canteen as she swallowed it. The Dark Lady briefly stopped shaking.
Zorro sat down next to her and tried to get La Doña Negra to meet his gaze. The Fox waited some more minutes and then got up. 'By all the Santos! I simply cannot leave her in this distraught state of mind!’
“Señora, please tell me who you really are so that I can bring you safely home!“ When she did not answer immediately, he raised the señora up and drew her to his chest. The Dark Lady again started to tremble violently against him. Zorro lifted her chin close to his mouth.
“Por favor, señora speak to me! I am only here to help you.” Zorro sighed audibly. ‘Those eyes! NOW I REMEMBER! NO, IT CANNOT BE!’ La Doña Negra’s eyes are violet like Dona Carmen‘s!’
“Doña Carmen!” Zorro exclaimed as he pulled off her mask.
She finally spoke in a small choked voice. “El Zorro, it b>is I, Carmen.”
“Dios! But why the masquerade? Why should you care what happens to some Indians? After, all, you are a Sanchez by birth and a Rodriguez by marriage! Your family is of older hidalgo blood than either the de la Cruzes or the de la Vegas!”
La Doña Negra shrugged. “You, a don in the most eminent family in Alta California, care for these unfortunate human beings do you not? Señor, until you have endured a forced marriage to the devil himself, then you might begin to understand!”
She turned away from him and redonned her mask. “What are you going to do ‘Zorro’? Refuse to socialize with me again because of my ’unladylike behavior?’” She asked bitterly until she saw a kind look in those beautiful eyes.
Zorro shook his head. “You were the one who sent me home with Tornado. I owe you my life, ‘Doña Negra.’” He said huskily as he held her tightly against him. The Fox reached down and tenderly kissed her right hand. “Carmen, I -- we need to talk, but not as La Doña Negra and El Zorro! What are your intentions now that you know about my alter ego?” he asked softly.
“Simply this, ‘Zorro‘.” Doña Negra reached up and placed her lips gently against his right cheek and briefly hugged him. “Hasta la luego, Señor Fox, mi corazon!”
Doña Negra was emotionally drained. She had to leave now or she would completely break down. Sensing her distress, the Fox reluctantly let her go. She whistled for Night Shadow and when he trotted up behind her, she quickly mounted him.
“Vaya con Dios, El Zorro!”
“Wait!” Zorro held onto Night Shadow’s reins. “We must talk Doña Negra--, --I mean, Carmen. He drew her mount closer to him so he could whisper. “ Por favor, call me Diego!”
She bit her lower lip before answering. “At your hacienda, about noon, ...Diego?”
“Sí, agreed. Diego shall be waiting for you in the patio.”
“Buenos noches.” Doña Negra whispered before she spurred her horse toward home and some much-needed rest.
Despite the lateness of the hour, the first thing she did when she arrived at home was bathe. As she soaked her sore limbs in hot water, she allowed herself the luxury of thinking that Diego had accepted her as she was, even as La Doña Negra. And after Carmen had revealed her love for him, she saw - or thought she saw -- a little spark of something new in his resplendent hazel eyes. Was it just admiration or something more meaningful, a glimpse of promises yet to come? While she lay awake later that night, recalling how tenderly he had held her, Carmen started to have hope. Hope that perhaps.... Well, all she could do was to pray for guidance. She crept into bed and her eyelids drooped almost immediately. ‘iHe does love me, he does love me.’ She muttered dreamily. Then she quickly fell into a deep slumber. br>
As for Zorro, he went home and spent most of the night thinking about his newly discovered sincere affection for Senora Rodriguez. After stripping off his soiled clothes, he sat by the unlit fireplace in his bedroom. He put on a silk brocade robe, lit a cigar and poured him some jerez. ‘iHow fearlessly she fought that foul mercenary! And how deeply she regretted having killed him!/i’ Diego was pleased that she now dominated his thoughts. ’La Doña Negra, my Doña Negra!‘ Then he remembered the prophecy in the dream he had three nights ago. “Carmen,” he whispered. “Mi corazon... my true love.“
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
A courier arrived in Santa Barbara and delivered his weekly oral report to Senor D’oro regarding Capitan Guiterrez’s latest misfortunes. Senor D’oro was most distraught when he learned that both Zorro and La Dona Negra again thwarted his plans to become the richest man in California. ’How dare they interfere with my well-crafted strategy! It is time for me to act. I will either destroy them or the masked fox and the dark lady will destroy me...so be it!’
Besides, when one had as much gold as he possessed in almost unlimited quantities, men of influence could easily be bought. And there are other, more powerful men in Alta California for whom bribery was the essence of life. ‘Oh my dear cousin in La Reina de Los Angeles, I shall confront you soon enough!’
Chapter Eleven
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