Young Zorro by Diego Vega

horse riding away. Perhaps they could follow and spy on him.
    They froze, hearing the double click of a flintlock pistol being cocked just behind them.
    â€œYou boys wanted to see El Chollo?”
    Diego said quietly and respectfully, “ Sí , Señor.”
    â€œYou boys know what cholla is? You don’t have it much around here. It’s a cactus that likes company. If you put your fingers near it, it doesn’t want you to go away. Just a touch and you’re stuck. Sticky, painful stuff, cholla. You maybe don’t want to mess with it.”
    â€œSeñor,” Diego said, not turning around, “we’re not here to bother you.”
    â€œYou’re not bothering me. I’m amused.”
    â€œIt’s just that I saw you give a medal to Señora Porcana. Perhaps the medal Señor Porcana was wearing when he died.”
    â€œAnd you’re wondering if I killed Porcana?” he asked.
    There were times when Diego’s eagerness overcame his good sense. Perhaps, he thought in the split second before he spoke, that’s what courage is about and why it gets so many people killed. He gulped and said,“Excuse me, Señor Chollo, but yes. No one is here with us. We are just boys. You could tell us without involving yourself in any way.”
    â€œYou don’t know much about the world, boys. Another bandit, he might be insulted by the question and blow your brains out. Another bandit, maybe. But there are bandits and bandits. You know why no one has ever caught El Chollo?”
    â€œNo, Señor.” This was one of the times Diego wished Bernardo could speak, just to take some of the load from him.
    â€œBecause El Chollo doesn’t rob poor people. They have troubles enough. I rob only the Spanish and the soldiers. I give a little back, even, and some to the church. Enough to buy me some warning now and then.”
    â€œSo you didn’t—”
    â€œPorcana was my friend. We grew up together. I ate his wife’s tortillas many nights. I gave that medal to him, and his wife deserved it back. No, I didn’t kill my friend. If I find the men who did, they would be better off in a bonfire. I saw them ride off.”
    Diego glanced at Bernardo. “You were the reason they rode off so quickly!”
    â€œ Sí , I saw them only at a distance. They were not,somehow, like our vaqueros. Their style was different, their boots and their hats, small things. So I will be looking for them. And you boys”—he tapped each one on the back of the head with the muzzle of his pistol—“have no reason to come looking for El Chollo, right?”
    â€œEl Chollo?” Diego asked. “I never heard of such a fellow. Never heard of him, certainly never saw him. I think he is one of those hill legends, is he not?”
    A slow chuckle from behind them, a long silence, and when they turned, no one was there.
    Â 
    After the burial they all rode back toward the camp and the apartado . Bernardo was playing his flute mournfully, but Diego knew he would be listening.
    â€œ Papá , what did Padre Mendoza say about the skilled men and the kidnappings?”
    They rode on for a time. Don Alejandro said, “He agrees with us that someone is capturing our craftsmen and taking them into some kind of slavery. Probably to make a colony or a kingdom, as we said. It’s vicious, wicked, ambitious, and dangerous. Mexico City won’t help us. Madrid can’t. We must find a way to unravel this mystery ourselves, hijos . Ride carefully from now on. And keep your eyes sharp.”

8
T HE B EAR
    M OST VAQUEROS WERE YOUNG men in their twenties. But there were older men, too. A few of them had learned their trade from the old padres, starting as Gabrieleños who had hardly seen a horse. It was a hard trade to learn, but there was a swagger to it like no other. Vaqueros were proud men.
    The old hands woke stiff and wrapped their aching knees and elbows in