young he couldn’t have been more than twenty-three or twenty-four years old his cynical expression made him look much older. He had cruel lips and the eyes of a rat. Diego wondered how Lolita could be from the same family; that girl deserved better than to be Carlos’s cousin. The impostor accepted a glass of water and announced that he would say mass the next day; he would confess and give communion to any who asked for the sacraments. He was weary, he added, but that same afternoon he wanted to see the sick prisoners and those being punished, including the pair in the stocks. Lolita volunteered to help; among other things, she had brought a box of medicines, which she put at Padre Aguilar’s disposal. “My cousin has a very soft heart, Padre. I have told her that El Diablo is not a suitable place for senoritas, but she pays no attention. She does not understand that most of those men are beasts with no morals or feelings, likely to bite the hand that feeds them.”
“No one has bitten me yet, Carlos,” Lolita replied. “We will dine shortly, Padre. Do not expect a feast, we live very modestly here,” said Alcazar. “Do not worry, my son, I eat very little, and this week I am fasting.
Bread and water will be sufficient. I would be grateful to have that in my room, because after I visit the sick I must pray.“
“Arsenio!” Alcazar called. An Indian stepped out of the shadows. He had been in the corner all the time, so silent and motionless that Diego had not been aware of his presence. He recognized him by White Owl’s description. A white film covered his pupils, but he moved with precision. “Take the padre to his room so he can pray. Do whatever he requests, do you hear me?” Alcazar ordered, bi, senor. “Then you may take him to see the sick.”
“Sebastian, too, senor?”
“No, not him, that miserable ”
“Why not?” Diego intervened. “He isn’t sick. We had to give him a little lashing, nothing much, nothing to be concerned about, Padre.” Lolita broke into tears; her cousin had promised her that there would be no further punishments of that nature. Diego left them arguing and followed Arsenio to the room he had been assigned, where his bundles were waiting, including the large cross. “You are not a man of the church,” Arsenio said when they reached the locked door of the room for guests. Diego flinched, frightened; if a blind man could divine that he was disguised, he had no chance to deceive people who could see. “You don’t smell like a priest,” added Arsenio, by way of explanation. “No? What do I smell like?” Diego asked, amazed, because he was wearing Padre Mendoza’s habit. “Like Indian hair and glue to bind wood,” Arsenio replied. The young man touched his false beard and could not help but laugh. He decided to seize the moment, for surely he would not have another, and confessed to Arsenio that he had come on a specific mission and needed his help. He placed his grandmother’s feathers in Arsenio’s hand. The blind man stroked them with his all-seeing fingers, and his face revealed his emotion when he recognized they came from his sister. Diego clarified that he was White Owl’s grandson, and with that knowledge Arsenio was eager to talk. He had had no news of his sister for many years, he said. He confirmed that El Diablo had been a fortress before it was a prison, and that he had helped build it. He had stayed on to serve the soldiers, and now the jailers. Life had always been hard within those walls, but since Carlos Alcazar took charge it had been a hell; the man’s greed and cruelty were beyond description. He imposed forced labor and brutal punishments upon the prisoners, he held back money intended for food, and he fed the prisoners what was left from the soldiers’ mess. At that moment, one man was dying, others had high fevers from being stung by poisonous jellyfish, and several had collapsed lungs and were bleeding from the nose and ears. “And Alejandro de la Vega?” Diego asked with his heart in his mouth. “He won’t last long; he has lost his will to live, he scarcely moves.
The other prisoners do his work so he won’t be punished, and they spoon food into his mouth,“ said Arsenic ”Please, Eyes-That-See-in-the-Dark, take me to him.“ Outside there was still sunlight, but inside the prison it was dark. The thick walls and narrow windows admitted very little light. Arsenio, who did not need a lamp to find his way, took Diego by one sleeve and unhesitatingly led him through shadowy corridors and down narrow stairs to the dungeons that had been added to the fortress when they decided to use it as a prison. Those cells were below sea level, and when the tide came in, humidity seeped through the wall, producing a nauseating odor and a greenish patina on the stones. The guard on duty, a mestizo with a pocked face and a seal’s mustache, opened an iron- barred door and handed Arsenio a large ring of keys. Diego was surprised by the silence. He supposed there were several prisoners, but apparently they were so exhausted and weak that they were not making a sound. Arsenio went to one of the cells, felt the keys, chose the right one, and opened the cell door. It took Diego’s eyes several seconds to adjust to the darkness and make out a few dark figures sitting against the wall, and one bundle on the ground. Arsenio lighted a candle, and Diego knelt beside his father, so moved that he could not speak. Carefully he lifted Alejandro de la Vega’s head and laid it in his lap, brushing back tangled locks from his forehead. In the light of the trembling flame he could see better, but he did not recognize his father. There was no trace of the well-built and proud hidalgo, the hero of ancient battles, mayor of Pueblo de los Angeles, and prosperous hacienda owner. He was weathered, filthy, nothing but skin and bones. He was trembling with fever, his eyelids were stuck together, and a thread of saliva trickled down his chin. Only fifty-five years old, he looked like an old man. ”Don Alejandro, can you hear me? This is Padre Aguilar,“ said Arsenic ”I have come to help you, senor. We are going to get you out of here,“ Diego murmured. The three other men in the cell showed a spark of interest but then turned back to the wall. They were beyond hope. ”Give me the last sacraments, Padre. It is too late for me,“ said the old man in a wisp of a voice. ”It is not too late. Come, senor, sit up,“ Diego pled. He managed to sit his father up and give him water. Then he cleaned his eyes with the wetted hem of his habit. ”Try to stand, senor, because you have to walk if we are going to get you out,“ Diego insisted. ”Leave me alone, Padre; I will not get out of here alive.“
“Yes, you will. I promise you that you will see your son again, and I do not mean in heaven, I mean in this world.”
“My son? You said my son?”
“It is I, Diego, sir. Do you not recognize me?” the priest whispered, trying not to let the others hear. Alejandro de la Vega studied him for a few seconds, trying to focus his clouded eyes, but he did not find the familiar image in this hooded and bearded priest. Still in a whisper, the young man explained that he was wearing a habit and a false beard so no one would know that he was in El Diablo. “Diego, Diego… God has heard my prayer. I have prayed so often that I would see you again before I die, my son!”
“You have always been a brave and strong man, sir. Do not give up, I beg you. You have to live. I must go now, but be prepared, because in a short while a friend of mine will come to rescue you.”
“Tell your friend that it is not I that he should free, Diego, but my companions. I owe them a great deal; they have taken bread from their own mouths to feed me.” Diego turned to look at the other prisoners, three Indians as dirty and thin as his father, with the same expression of absolute surrender, but young and still healthy. Apparently in a few weeks’ time those men had succeeded in dissolving the sense of superiority the Spanish hidalgo had displayed all his life long. Diego thought about the twists and turns of fate. Captain Santiago de Leon had once told him when they were observing the stars over the ocean that if a man lives long enough, he will come to revise his convictions and mend some of his ways. “They will leave with you, sir, I promise,” Diego assured him as he said goodbye. Arsenio left the supposed priest in his room and shortly after returned with a simple supper of stale bread, watery soup, and ordinary wine. Diego realized that he was hungry as a coyote and regretted that he had told Carlos Alcazar that he was fasting. No reason to have carried his imposture that far. He thought of Nuria, at that hour cooking oxtail stew at the San Gabriel mission. “I have come only to get the lay of the land, Arsenio. A different person will try to free the prisoners and take Don Alejandro de la Vega to a safe place. That man’s name is Zorro. He is a courageous masked caballero dressed in black; he will always appear when there are wrongs to be righted.” Arsenio thought it was all empty talk. He had never heard of such a person; he had lived fifty years, witnessing injustice on all sides, and no one had mentioned a masked man. Diego assured him that things were going to change in California. They would see who Zorro was! The weak would receive protection, and the evil would feel the edge of his sword and the crack of his whip. Arsenio burst out laughing, now completely convinced that the man was soft in the head. “Do you think that White Owl would have sent me to talk to you if this were a joke?” Diego cried, annoyed. That argument seemed to make an impression on the Indian, who asked how Zorro planned to free the prisoners, considering that no one had ever escaped from El Diablo. It was not just a matter of calmly walking out the main door. Diego explained that even though the masked man was magnificent, he could not do it alone; he needed help. Arsenio stood thinking a long while and finally told Diego that there was another way out, but he did not know whether it was in good repair. When the fortress was built, a tunnel had been dug as a way of escape in case of a siege. In those days pirates often attacked, and there had been talk that the Russians were planning to take over California. The tunnel, which had never been used and now no one remembered, came out in some thick woods to the west, in an old Indian sacred site. “Blessed Mary! That is exactly what I need… I
