Young Zorro (10 page)

“Let's get this straight, Diego,” Trinidad said with a
smirk. “On the water, I'm the captain. It's me who's in charge. Got that?”

Diego sighed; Bernardo shrugged.

Stackpole laughed. “Her big revenge. She gets to order you two around. Well, at least she'll bother someone other than me for a change. I'll get you some heavy sweaters. The wind's chilly out there.”

T
HE NIGHT WAS AS
black as pitch from the tar pits. The only light was a tiny candle shaded in the compass box at Trinidad's feet. In the bit of reflected glow, her face was easy, untroubled. She watched the compass, then the stars, then the black shape of the sail against the stars. Her head nodded between them, up and down. Her hand on the tiller shifted only a little this way, a little that way. The big Pacific swell lifted under the tiny boat and dropped away so the motion was a long, easy swoop. Bubbles caught in the bow wave passed under the hull and hissed away from the transom. Water gurgled musically inside the centerboard box. Trinidad hummed softly to herself with her watching rhythm: compass, stars, sail, compass, stars, sail.

Diego and Bernardo sat against the windward rail of the boat. They were wrapped in a spare sail for warmth. Diego knew he should be afraid: he didn't know what they were sailing into, and they were out on the colossal Pacific in a boat as big as the hacienda's dining table. Yet there sat Trinidad, as calm as Estafina making tortillas in the morning. The boat's motion had a comforting regularity. He felt the lift and fall of the sea, and somehow felt the pressure of the wind in the sail. He felt the driving rush of the boat, too, purposeful and sure.

Diego thought Trinidad would be chatty and annoying for the entire trip. But out here she was another person.

Fans and frilled dresses? Not this tough little woman. Diego remembered the blacksmith's daughter fleeing in tears from the blackbirders. He was glad Trinidad hadn't been there. If a blackbirder had asked her to sit on his lap, there would have been broken crockery flying and something like a bull-and-bear fight. Trinidad would have gotten them into even more trouble. But he liked her for that.

It was Diego who broke the silence. “Are you warm enough?”

“Hm?” Her humming stopped. “Oh, sure. Thick
sweater. Stackpole made it.”

“Knitted it?”

“Sure. Great knitter, Stackpole. Black sheep's wool, unwashed. Oil still in it. Sailor stuff.” Then she fell back to humming, and the conversation was over.

Against all expectations, Diego slumped against Bernardo and the two boys slept like babies in a rocking cradle, wrapped in a canvas blanket. In the rhythm of the boat's motion, Diego dreamed about dancing with Esmeralda Avila.

 

“What?” Diego jerked awake, unsure of where he was for a moment. Trinidad had touched his arm. The motion of the boat had changed in some way, and the light of the risen moon made everything remarkably bright.

“Diego. Bernie. We're about half a mile from shore here, so pay attention.” Her voice was soft. “Don't shout; don't talk out loud. Voices carry over water. When we get close to shore, things will happen quickly. You want to be ready and know what to do.”

“What do we do?” Diego asked. His vanity was stung, because this was all unfamiliar to him and a redheaded girl was firmly in charge.

“Simple,” she said. “We'll be coming into a little
stretch of sand beach behind a big rock. When I tell you to get ready, Diego, you get to the starboard side of the bow. That's your right side. Bernardo, you stay on the port side, where you are now. I'll bring down the sail, and we'll come in slowly. When I say, ‘Now,' both of you jump out on your sides and hold onto the boat. We'll be in water maybe up to your waist. If it's deeper, don't panic. You'll feel the bottom quick enough.”

“So we stand on the bottom?” he asked.

“Don't stand there, but grab the edge of the boat and run up the beach with it as far as you can drag it with the wave. Okay?”

“We jump out, grab the boat, and drag it up the beach. Why aren't you jumping out?”

“Because I'm the captain.”

“That's no good reason!” Diego hissed.

“I'm kidding,” she said quietly. “I stay here to keep weight in the stern so the bow is light and rides up on the beach. I'll be in the water as soon as it grounds out.”

“Oh,” Diego said, telling himself he should have thought of that. Well, how good would she be roping a bull?

“You want to grab that painter, too?”

“What painter? Why do we have to paint?”

“No. The painter is what we call the line that's attached to the bow.”

“Why don't you just call it—”

“Hush,” she said, “we're getting close now. Are you ready?”

The boys nodded.

She stood for a moment and gathered the sail as it came down, tucking it into a roll. She sat down again. “Ready?”

Bernardo and Diego nodded. A house-sized rock was looming over them.

The boat paused on the crest of a wave, then rushed forward. “Now!” Trinidad called over the wave's roar.

Diego vaulted over the bow and plunged into the water up to his waist. The bottom was hard sand. The boat that had seemed so small tugged at him like a cow pony. His legs were slow in the water as he pulled up toward the beach. He heard Trinidad plunge over the stern and felt her push forward. It touched once, twice, then the wave fell back and they were out of the water.

“Here comes another wave,” Trinidad whispered. “Keep pulling!”

When the second wave fell back, the boat sat solidly in the sand. Trinidad took the painter from Diego and ran up the beach, tying it around a boulder.

“See that rock face above us?” she whispered. “There's a trail along its base. It reaches over that way, then switches back a few times before the ridge. Off to the right, along the ridge, there's a trail leading down to the beach on the far side. It may be hard to find in the dark.”

The boys followed Trinidad, plunging into shadows. They stumbled at first, following more by sound than sight, but their eyes sharpened even in the dim light. They mounted the steep slope at an angle.

Diego was aware of a vertical wall on one side. They had reached the trail along the rock face. They changed directions several times with the trail. He was glad Trinidad knew her way. He would have been lost long before.

They stopped on the ridge, breathing heavily. Bernardo clicked his tongue like an insect and pointed down. The lights of a few fires glimmered through the trees below.

“If you have a trumpet,” Diego whispered, “now is not the time to practice blowing it.”

Trinidad did not think this was funny in the least.

When they were several hundred paces along the ridge, Trinidad held up her hand. “Stay here,” she said softly. She disappeared and returned. “I found the trail,
about fifty paces farther on. It's steep and it's rocky. Take it slow; pick your steps. We don't want any rocks rattling down ahead of us. Are you all set?”

The descent was a nightmare. The darkness was deeper on the western side of the ridge, away from the rising moon, and the footing was difficult. The sense of height on the slope was hard to judge, so when they broke out of the brush suddenly, the camp's fires seemed right in their laps. They backed into the brush again.

It was a big camp. The closest fire was really a hundred paces away. They were in a cupped valley, about five hundred paces from the trees down to the beach. Sailors were talking around one of the fires, laughing. They heard the clink of wine bottles on mugs. And they heard a few low moans from a dark shape close to them.

Diego began to make out the structure of this shape, a stockade of lashed palm trunks and driftwood. Could this be where the blackbirders kept their pueblo slaves?

“I'll get closer,” Diego whispered. He shook his head. “I don't like it, but we've got to know what's here.”

He could feel Bernardo nod more than see him. He lowered himself to creep on his belly.

Trinidad put her hand on his shoulder and whispered, “Be careful, Diego.” She tousled his hair for luck. She was a good friend to have in a tight spot.

From his hands and knees, the stockade looked miles away. He moved with almost painful slowness, putting one hand down, then a knee, then another hand…a palm frond fell ten paces from him! The crash sounded like a musket shot. But the breeze was blowing, changing its direction. It must have been a sound familiar to the blackbirders in camp, because they continued their drinking and talking.

He crept like the hands of a clock, it seemed, but he was finally up against the palm trunks of the stockade. He could smell unwashed bodies and urine. Another moan two paces away startled him.

Were these blackbirders or captives? There was only one way to tell, though it would be the most dangerous thing he had done all night.

Diego tossed a pebble at the stockade. “Can someone tell me where Padre Mendoza's mule has gone?” he whispered.

There was a sudden stir of bodies. Diego was terrified.

Then a voice whispered back, “Who wants to know?”

Diego gulped. “Diego de la Vega, amigos. Are you in trouble out here?”

“The worst,” the voice replied. “Wait a heartbeat,
hijo
, there is a friend of yours who wants a word with you.”

There was a pause, more shifting of bodies, and then the familiar voice of Montez almost in his ear, “Estafina didn't send you with any tamales, did she?”

“No,
Tío
.” Diego called Montez “uncle” as he would any older man. “But when she finds that you've been lying about on the islands, doing nothing, you'll be in trouble. She'll say, ‘There's work to be done, Montez! The night is for sleep; the day is for work!'”

Montez gave a short chuckle.

“She has missed you. We've all missed you. Help is at hand.”

“
Gracias a Dios
,” Montez whispered. “God be thanked. Can you get us out of here?”

“How many of you are there,
Tío
?”

A whispered conference behind the stockade, then, “Maybe four dozen, Diego. Men of the pueblo and a few sailors. Why are we here? What did we do to these men?”

“All you did was show your skill. Whoever took you wants only skilled men. We think someone plans to set
up some kind of colony. They need you to make it prosper. Who took you?”

Diego heard the voice of the carpenter, Paco Pedernales. “Vaqueros, but of a strange kind. Not
Californios
, but perhaps from somewhere below Panama. Then these bad sailors.”

“Did they say where they were taking you,
Tío
?”

“Not by name,” Paco whispered mournfully. “Someplace far away, across the ocean. Far from California.” He sounded frightened by the distance from home.

“How many sailors are keeping you?”

“Not more than fifteen or twenty, but they are well armed. What can you do for us, Diegolito?” Montez asked.

“Now, tonight, nothing. But with God's grace, we'll get back to the mainland by morning. When Don Alejandro and Estafina come for you, I don't envy those sailors.”

“God bless you,
hijo
,” Montez said.

“And you,
Tío
. But now I must get back to the mainland and see to your rescue. Adios,
hermanos
.”

 

Diego crawled back to the treeline as slowly and carefully as he had come. But now the fate of his
Angeleño
friends rode with him. The journey felt much longer.

Finally Bernardo's hands gripped his arms and pulled him into the bushes.

Trinidad wanted to know everything immediately, whispering, “Well? What's over there? What's the story?”

“They're all in the stockade, all the pueblo men and some sailors.”

“Are they tied up? Are they hurt? Are the blackbirders close?”

“Before we have a public meeting about it, Trinidad, can we just get out of the blackbirders' pockets? We must get back to the mainland as quickly as we can.”

“I just wanted some information,” she hissed.

“I'll tell you everything when we're on the water again. Get us out of here, Captain!”

The mention of her honorary title satisfied her. She tousled his hair again, and they started up the trail behind her.

When they were across the ridge, Diego asked, “Can you land us near our hacienda?”

“If the wind doesn't change, yes. I can drop you offshore, but I can't land the boat in surf. We shouldn't sail to San Pedro, first? Are things moving that fast?”

“Fast, very fast. You heard what Stackpole said: if the
blackbirders feel threatened, they'll run with whatever prisoners they have. And once they're gone, none of them will ever come back. Don Alejandro must hear of this immediately.”

“What can he do?”

“If the don can't do something, no one can.”

On the beach they dragged the boat across the sand into the water. They fought the waves, getting the little vessel off the shore and clear of the rock. There was the mainland looming across the moonlit channel. Diego wished he had wings.

T
HE WIND WAS STRONGER
, but it had shifted into the northwest. The steeper waves were behind them as they headed south and east. When the breaking crests passed beneath them, the little boat lifted and surged forward. Diego watched Trinidad constantly maneuver, using the tiller and the sail. This was not the dreamy motion that had lulled him to sleep on the way out.

No matter how sweetly the sea might have rocked him, he could never have slept on this passage—not with this responsibility. How could they rescue their friends?

The moonlit shore seemed to approach like a turtle, in slow jerks. Then it leaped out at them, looming fast. Trinidad was fighting big whitecaps close inshore.

“Diego, Bernie, I can't bring the boat too close without breaking its back on the bottom.”

Bernardo made a sign. Diego translated it. “He says he's a duck. Easy.”

“I'll get you as close as I can. When it's time to go overboard, we'll wait for a lull between waves. I'll give you the signal. I'll take the boat out again and scoot down to San Pedro and Stackpole.”

“Not a word to anyone else!” Diego shouted. The inshore waves were noisy now. He looked ahead to the lines of surf that began off the beach. Then he changed his mind and turned back to Trinidad. “The fishermen in San Pedro…Stackpole will know who he can trust?”

She nodded: Of course.

“Whatever the don decides, we'll need boats to get men back out to Santa Cruz.” Trinidad's face darkened. “Yes, yes, and women,” Diego added. Her face brightened again. “Perhaps as soon as tonight. And, God willing, we'll need boats to bring back four dozen
Angeleños
. When can we get back to the island? What will the weather do to us?”

She thought a moment and shouted over the rising noise of the breakers, “This wind will die out in the afternoon. We can use the land breeze this evening. The
tide? Not so bad, not so good. It will be a slow passage this evening, but we can make it.”

“Then tell Stackpole to have some trustworthy men and boats ready. But it's got to be kept secret! No one, especially Moncada and his vaqueros, can get wind of this. We need surprise!”

“Stackpole's a Boston Yankee. They're good at keeping things to themselves,” she shouted. “Now get ready to swim for it. Over you go!”

Diego and Bernardo rolled over the boat's side between crests. The night was chilly enough that the sea felt almost warm for a moment. Then the illusion disappeared and the cold began. They were struggling to ride the big waves in, desperate to stay close to each other. Stackpole's heavy sweaters felt like lead weights when they lifted their arms out of the water to stroke. They touched bottom once, but that was an offshore sandbar. Then they were tumbled forward by a big breaker and came up spluttering.

They looked behind them and waited for a fresh breaker. It gathered offshore and they started to swim inshore as fast as their clothes would let them. They caught the wave, and for a few thrilling moments they bodysurfed down the face of the wave before being tumbled again. They rode another breaker, and another.

The last breaker spit them up onto the beach like bundles of old clothes. They tried to rise and run to dry sand, but the undertow sucked them off their legs long enough to be pounded by a following wave.

They stood in the shallows, streaming with water, sand gritting under their clothes.

Bernardo pointed out to sea. Trinidad had gotten her boat out of the breakers and was running down the channel toward San Pedro. He motioned toward the cliffs ahead: Let's go.

 

The hacienda door was barred, so they climbed in over the sleeping porch. Not a good idea.

They had walked only a few paces when both Don Alejandro and Regina stepped out of the shadows in their nightshirts, each holding a sword at the ready. Estafina appeared in the hallway with a cocked pistol, and Scar called from the veranda, “
Patrón?
”

“It's Diego and Bernardo, Scar,” the don called back. “Come in through the front. Estafina, uncock that pistol and unbar the front door.” His face was serious as he turned to the boys. “Where have you been? We've all been upset! Worried sick! You can't rattle around like this on your own!” He was angry, but the boys could see that it came out of his concern for them. He didn't
wait for answers. “Get out of those clothes. Dry off and come to the kitchen.”

Regina said nothing, but Diego caught her glance and saw the gladness in her face. She was relieved they were back.

The kitchen was warm and bright with candles when they came in. Estafina was kneeling by the hearth fire, feeding it kindling and swinging a pot of stew over the flame. Her creed was simple: If there is trouble, fix food.

“Now, Diego. And you, Bernardo. Explain to me how you justify—”

Diego held up his hand. “Forgive me,
Papá
.” He kneeled down beside Estafina and put his arm around her. “I have seen Montez. I have talked to him. He is being held captive, but he is well and sends his love.”

Her strong face didn't change expression. There was, perhaps, a tiny trembling of her lips. Tears welled in her eyes. She nodded once and turned back to the fire to hide them. She was one reason Diego was proud to have the warrior blood of the Gabrieleño in him.

Later, after explanations and details, they sat at the table as the morning light rose around the hacienda.

“The four dozen prisoners, they are in a stout stockade, yes?” Don Alejandro was going over some of the situation. When Diego nodded, he continued. “There are fifteen or twenty guards, heavily armed. The camp is in a little…” He struggled for a description.

“It's something like a ravine,
Papá
. It opens onto the beach where there is a line of trees at the edge of the sand.”

The don nodded. “And there is a path that leads down from the ridge, a path you found by coming up the other side of the ridge?”

“We didn't stumble on it,
Papá
. Trinidad knew it well. She knows the island and all the water around it.”

“I wish this child, Trinidad, were here. Is she reliable?”

Bernardo put his hand flat on the table: Absolutely.

Diego said, “She is honest and she has courage. She is at home on the water as Scar is in the saddle.”

Don Alejandro looked under raised brows to Diego, doubting this. Then to Scar.

Scar lifted his shoulders a finger's width: Let's hope she is.

“Stackpole has faith in her. And Stackpole is a man we can trust,” Diego said.

The don thought a moment, then nodded.

“Stackpole says that if these slavers are frightened, they will leave immediately with whatever prisoners they have now. He thinks time is important.”

The don looked at Scar and turned back. “I just hope we have enough time.”

“I took a risk,
Papá
. I've asked Stackpole to gather several fishermen and their boats, men he can trust, for tonight.”

“That was a risk,” the don agreed, “but it was sensible. We'll need them. And I agree that time is crucial. We will strike tonight. But I still need to know more about that island. Scar…”

The
mayordomo
leaned forward.

“Send for Juan Three-fingers and his crew, and for six other vaqueros who will be good in a fight. Send word for some of our old soldiers—Hermosa, Juarez, Padillo, Verde—”

“I will be with you,” Regina announced. It wasn't a question.

“And I.” Estafina rose and placed both of her big hands on the table.

Don Alejandro paused, looked at Estafina's hands, and said, “
Está bien
. That's good.” He turned to Scar. “Muskets, fifty rounds for each man…and woman. Swords for all and pikes for those who want to carry
them. Can you fix me a couple of grenades, like in the old days, Esteban?” Scar grinned around the saber cut on his cheek, looking forward to making some grenades.

“And let's get this Trinidad girl up here. And Stackpole. Send a good man to San Pedro with horses to bring them back. I want everyone here by mid-afternoon with all our tools laid out. We need a council of war, my children.”

The don addressed them all as his children, but no one was insulted.
Capitán
Alejandro de la Vega was merely reassuming his rank and station as a leader of troops. True, they were irregular troops: an unusual little army of vaqueros, retired soldiers, boys and women, plus a small navy consisting of a one-legged Yankee, the abandoned child of an Acapulco prostitute, and some mestízo fishermen.

The
capitán
lit a cigar with jaunty confidence: with a force like this, the blackbirders didn't have a chance.

 

Diego and Bernardo looked at each other. Diego had at first thought the rough-talking dock orphan Trinidad would offend his reserved, often argumentative mother. On second thought, however, they were both wildly independent, strong women.

Doña Regina strode out of the hacienda dressed scandalously in men's riding trousers and a black silk blouse. Her hair was pulled back under a black scarf. She took one look at Trinidad clinging to the saddle horn, at her wild, red hair and her mended trousers dusty from the road. She called, “You are Trinidad? Look at the way these brutes have treated you, all the way from San Pedro!” She gave the vaqueros an evil look.

She passed over Stackpole (who had ridden the same distance and with a whalebone leg that didn't fit a stirrup) with “Señor Stackpole. You are welcome.”

Then she returned all her attention to Trinidad. “You must excuse them, little sister. They are accustomed to the company of cows, little more. You will come with me now and refresh yourself.”

Trinidad nearly fell from the big mare she had ridden. Regina rushed to help her while the boys stood by. Diego was just as happy that she couldn't ride worth a bean. The two women disappeared into the hacienda.

Don Alejandro was impatient to begin his council of war and paced around the table. But Regina believed there were more important things to do. She reappeared with Trinidad only after the girl's hair had been brushed, she had been washed, and was dressed in clean
clothes—fresh trousers with a silk blouse. Bernardo recognized his trousers and Diego the shirt.

“We are at your disposal, gentlemen,” Regina said, as if the two women had been waiting all along. She took her place at the table, and the men returned to their seats—Stackpole, Scar and his vaqueros, and half a dozen former soldiers who had served under Don Alejandro. They were older men, with gray in their hair but unmistakable iron in their bearing. Estafina stood in her usual place beside the table. On it was a map of Santa Cruz Island.

“
Está bien
,” Don Alejandro said. “Can you read a map, child?”

“She's been raised with nautical charts,” Stackpole said, but Trinidad held up her hand to him. She would answer for herself.

“Yes, Señor.”

“
Bueno
. Here is a map of Santa Cruz Island. Can you show me approximately where the trails you took are located?”

“No, Señor,” she said.

Don Alejandro looked at her, surprised.

“I can show you
exactly
where they are located. Here”—she traced a route with her finger from an indent in the southeastern coast of the island to its
ridge—“along the ridge, here, then down to this little valley, here.”

The don nodded his approval. “And this ridge road, it goes both ways? Do any other trails descend from it to the southwestern side of the island?”

Trinidad nodded. “The ridge road runs out to here. There is a trail to this beach. It also runs farther to the southeast and connects to a trail here that runs down to this beach.”

“Excellent,” the don said. There were many questions and many comments, and the table went through a big pot of coffee before the don was satisfied.

“Make no mistake,” he addressed everyone in the room, “these slavers are evil men. They are outlaws, no better than pirates. I don't want any of you hurt because you offer too much mercy. Be sensible, be hard, leave your pity at home. We've met some of these men before in the pueblo. My impression is that they'll put up a fight to defend their…property.” The don's face showed his disgust for slavery. “We must assume they have been in a real battle before. But at sea, on their own terms. We have them on land, and we can box them up like rabbits in a pen. They will not have come up against disciplined soldiers, caballeros. I expect them to crumble and run.”

He had drawn a rough map of the valley, showing the stockade where the prisoners were kept, the general locations of the tents and fires Diego had described, and the places trails came down from the ridges.

“You men on the beach, remember your fields of fire. Don't fire directly up the valley, but across it at an angle. We don't want to hit our captive
Angeleños
with bullets meant to free them.”

The men nodded.

“And when the signal is given, get under cover, quick!”

They nodded their assent again.

“Questions?”

The groups of men had been assigned, they had their orders and their places, they knew what was expected of them. They looked at one another. Juan Three-fingers said, “I think we're ready,
Patrón
. There's just one thing….”

“What's that?”

“We're horsemen. We're a tiny bit worried about how we'll do as sailors. Some of us…well, it's a long way from the land.”

Stackpole spoke up. “I will be with you, amigos. You will do well, I know. If you throw your dinner up, do
it away from the wind. This is all that is asked of you for the sailor part of things.”

The vaqueros grinned and nodded, and Juan said, “Away from the wind, right?”

“
Sí
, and away from me.”