FicWad

After rejecting the deal Araceli had just offered, the gang leader addressed the man in grey: "Watch her closely!"

The man obeyed and took a step closer to her, tightening his grip on his gun.

"And you," the leader told the man with the red scarf, "got get some rope from the saddlebags. And you, Señora," he went on, "will slowly raise your hands high up... yes, just like that" he added as she complied. "Don't forget that my pistol is less than two feet from your lovely daughter and is aimed right at her... Now you will slowly stand up to your feet... That's good... My associate here will tie your hands, so now lower your right arm behind your back... very well, now do the same with the left one..."

She was white-faced under the dust and the sweat covering her right cheek, while her left cheek was still red from the punch the man gave her a few minutes before.

"Tie her wrists together!" the boss ordered him. "And you," he told her, "no trick! We've seen what you're capable of, but don't forget about my pistol and your daughter!"

Araceli obediently let herself be tied up. Then the bandit kicked one of her antique pistols in a narrow stream flowing a few feet from them. A totally useless precaution since it was the collector's gun which firing system was missing, but no one but Zorro could have known that. Her other pistol was nowhere to be seen: they hadn't noticed that it had been thrown in a nearby bush when the man had kicked it off her hand a few minutes before.

"What are we going to do with her now?" the man dressed in beige asked.

"Perhaps you should have thought about it before you led her to us!" the man in grey retorted.

"What's done is done!" the gang leader cut in.

"We can't take her with us, she'd slow us down."

"Well, we could just..." the man in grey said, not finishing his sentence but making a very evocative gesture with his pistol. "That way we wouldn't be bothered!"

Her eyes grew wide in horror.

"W– w– wait!" the man in beige shouted. "That's never been the plan! There's never been any question about..."

"Well," the other replied, "that was before you brought her here with your stupid initiative! Now we just have to adapt. You can only blame yourself for her fate!"

"Enough with that!" their leader said. "Fortunately for the señora, we won't have to resort to that. You!" he called the red-scarfed brigand, "make her horse go."

Keeping his pistol in his right hand, he took off one of the spurs of his boots and placed it inside his palm. Then he delivered a huge and resounding slap on Esperanza's hindquarters with this hand. The poor mare reared up, neighing in protest, after what she bolted and ran off at full gallop.

"And now, boys, time to hit the road again!"

Two men mounted first while the other two kept their guns at the two hostages. Then the leader handed the little girl to 'red-scarf', and he mounted in his turn, as did the last man.

All along, Araceli couldn't take her eyes off her daughter. She pleaded for them to let her go, repeatedly called the girl's name in a heartbreaking voice and promised to give them everything they asked for if they released Leonor right then, but it was to no avail.

"What we ask for is eight thousand pesos tonight. Nothing more, nothing less. Eight thousand pesos. Repeat this to de la Vega. Now have a nice walk back, it will only be two hours to Los Angeles, I guess."

And with a teasing and overly polite bow to her, they ran off. One of them even briefly looked back to blow her a kiss before catching up with the others.

Zorro began to breathe again: now the kidnappers only had one hostage left. Things would be far easier for him. He wasn't too worried for Señora Valdès; after all the man had been right: she would just have to walk back to the pueblo. Not the most chivalrous thing to think, but right now the priority was Leonor. The señora would certainly agree. And with any luck, he could even free the child and catch up with her mother on the way back.

But as he was about to mount on Tornado's saddle in order to follow the gang of abductors, he noticed something from the corner of his eye: as soon as the men had left, Araceli had gone to her discarded remaining pistol lying on the ground at the foot of a bush, and despite her tied hands she tried to grab the worn-out shooter. It wasn't easy since her hands were behind her back and she wasn't seeing anything of what she was doing.

Of course! Zorro thought: the deafening sound of a gunshot in the silence of the desert wouldn't fail to alert any patrol she knew were currently searching the vicinity of Los Angeles. She probably just hoped one of these wasn't too far from there.

Except she didn't know that if she ever managed to fire the gun, there was a possibility that it might just explode in her back, killing or seriously injuring her.

Zorro's priority suddenly changed, and he rushed to her.

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After having been attacked from behind, groped, held at gunpoint, punched in the face, after having seen her daughter be threatened by two pistols, after having been tied up and abandoned in the desert by a gang of brigands who took her child away from her, Araceli saw a giant black-clad masked and armed bandit suddenly pounce on her while she was kneeling on the ground, half tied up. She screamed, called for help, struggled, writhed, bit, and eventually tried to headbutt him, but after he managed to knock the pistol out of her tied hands she finally noticed that he let go of her and even took a step back.

That's when she realised he had been talking to her all along:

"...God's sake, Señora, calm down! I swear I mean no harm! Please calm down, I won't hurt you..."

"Leave me alone! Go!" she shouted.

"Señora, please, listen to me! I just want to help you!"

"Go away!"

"Señora..."

But despite her panic, she noticed that the man had a gun at his belt, a scabbard with a sword, a dagger in each of his boots and even a whip. The man could swear whatever he wanted, these 'details' didn't contribute to reassuring her.

Even less so when she saw him put his hand to his boot and pull a sharp dagger out of it.

She cringed and flinched, crying out in fear. But the man in black reached behind her; she felt a sharp tug, and suddenly her hands were free.

She didn't understand. But she remembered the other dagger: in a flash she reached to his other boot and quickly took the knife out of it. But the man had excellent reflexes and she didn't have time to threaten him with it before he knocked it out of her hand.

But she didn't concede defeat just yet and started pummelling him. He quickly caught her wrists and easily immobilised her hands, without even breaking a sweat. Dios, she thought, he was strong!

"For God's sake, Señora, hear me out! I'm here to help you, not to attack you! I know what this looks like, but appearances are deceptive: I'm on your side. And on Don Alejandro's. I'm here to help your daughter..."

She watched him, her jaw tight.

"You're hurting me," she then simply told him, wincing.

He stupidly looked at her, and then suddenly realised he'd been squeezing her wrists very tightly. He released her and helped her up.

"Sorry about that," he said.

Apparently she recovered very quickly since she immediately threw a punch in his face, calling him a liar.

Ow, it hurt. That woman was quite a handful, he sighed inwardly.

He grabbed her wrists again and pinned her hands behind her back to immobilise her arms, thereby encircling her with his own arms. That move propelled her forward flat against his chest, in an unintentionally very intimate position. She was now too terrorised to notice it, and he was still a bit angry at her for the blow he'd just received to pay attention to it either.

"Now you'll listen to me," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm a friend of Don Alejandro's. Or well, sort of... I know what has happened to your daughter, and with each passing second you spend fighting me the kidnappers are running away and covering their tracks. So now I will release your hands and you will let me get on my horse and run after them. Agreed?"

She eyed him suspiciously, scrutinising his black silken mask. Then she very slowly nodded. Only then did he seem to realise that her lips were only a few inches below his, and that he was pressing her very womanly body against his. This was a highly ambiguous and very improper position, even more so as he remembered that Señora Valdès was his father's... what, exactly?

Well, he decided he didn't want to know anything more precise about his father and this woman. Knowing that they had conceived a child together a few years earlier was disturbing enough, thank you very much.

He hastily let go of her wrists and took a big step back. And another one.

She looked at him questioningly:

"Are you... are you really trying to bring her back to me?"

"I swear it, Señora. I'm sorry I can't give you a ride to the de la Vega hacienda right now, but..."

He whistled. Nothing happened. He whistled again, another 'tune'. Araceli saw a horse, a magnificent black stallion, trot to him. He whispered something in his ear. The horse ran off and soon came back with Don Diego's mare in tow!

"I thought she'd have run back home to the de la Vega hacienda!" Araceli said.

"Hmm..." he answered, "sometimes wounded animals just hide to lick their wounds..."

They took a look at her hindquarters: a small cut was bleeding, but she otherwise seemed to be alright. The man in black whispered some soothing words in the mare's ear and she laid her head on his shoulder. Araceli thought that this animal was really very docile and gentle. Very trusting.

The bandit in black whispered again to the mare and then told Araceli that Don Diego's horse would bring her back to the pueblo.

She was about to bend down to pick up the ancient pistol when the man lashed his whip at it and sent it join its counterpart in the water.

"You– you– you... You could have hurt me!" she shouted.

"Sorry Señora, but I'm afraid this relic is more dangerous for the one who's pulling the trigger than for the one who's being shot at..."

He swiftly helped her on the saddle, then he mounted his stallion. He noted that she sat astride and not sidesaddle. Her skirt was torn in at least three places and on two to five inches long each.

"We now go our separate ways Señora," the black man went on, "and when you see Don Alejandro, give him Zorro's regards... But if you see the alcalde or his soldiers, please don't tell them you saw me: we're not on the best of terms... Hasta luego, if we ever meet again!"

And he simply rode off in the same direction as the kidnappers.