Alondra Gonzalez stared with numb horror at the gallows in the town’s central square. Johns' men had erected it with frightening rapidity. Pine sap dripped down one uncured upright. A raw hemp rope, thick and rough, dangled from the crossbar. The nails holding the structure together shone without a touch of rust.

She focused on the mundane details of construction to take her mind off the figure shackled to a post in the center of the square. He stood, back straight, face turned away from the crowd, staring at the gallows where he would hang in less than an hour’s time. The sweat rolling from his brow came from the hot California sun, not from fear.

Estupido!

The same sweat stung Alondra’s eyes. She wasn’t crying. She refused to cry for an idealistic idiot. The hot summer wind teased strands of her hair free of its confining bun and blew them across her face. She yanked them away, tucking them back behind her head with fierce determination. One came free of her scalp, the pain spilling tears from her eyes for a moment. Blinded by pain, drowning in tears of regret, Alondra lost herself to the memory of how she had come to this square, this day, for this execution.

***

The old man lay coughing his life out on the old, heavy bed. The bed, cherry and oak and mahogany, all polished to a gloss over years of care, spoke of wealth. The sheets, once equally rich, now worn thin, spoke of how long ago that wealth had been won. The woman kneeling next to the bed noticed neither. The old man coughed, one more horrid, wracking expectoration, and then fell still, unmoving.

For Alondra Vega, death was as old a friend as any of the nastier parts of life. She steeled herself and lifted a small hand mirror to the old man's lips. For a count of ten she held the mirror there. When it did not fog, she pulled it away and tugged the worn black silk over the old man's face.

"You should have been a boy!"

The old man's tortured voice echoed through the empty room. Alondra jerked back as if she'd been slapped. Her hands, still on the silk, yanked it away from the old man's face. He stared at her unseeing, his eyes rolling in their sockets. He drew one long, wheezing breath, and then shouted again, his once powerful voice a hideous mockery of itself.

"Senorita Vega, I say it now, though I have never said it before, and shall not live to say it again. You should have been a boy!"

His proclamation made; the old man fell into another fit of coughing. This time blood speckled the phlegm flying from his lips. His eyes did not close, not once as he hacked his life away. When he finally lay still and silent, glassy eyes staring at the ceiling, Alondra lifted shaking hands and drew the silk across his face one final time.

Her task done, she could no longer control her anger or her grief. She turned and, weeping from a caustic mixture of anger and loss, fled the room.

On the old, heavy bed, one last wheeze escaped the stubborn old man before he died.

"You would have been happier that way, daughter."

***

The Fox looked through a pair of heavy binoculars, staring out over the low scrub of the pass. In the distance a single coach rolled along the old trail. If it went unmolested, it would cross directly beneath The Fox's hiding place in less than a minute. That would not happen today. A maid heard Johns give the order. A young peasant heard Johns' Fist, his five most trusted Lieutenants, readying their men for the raid. Both told tales, and those tales reached The Fox as fast as gossip could fly.

In the end, The Fox tracked them to this point. Without a posse, assaulting Johns' men would be suicide, even from ambush. They needed to spring their ambush, to be engaged with the stagecoach, before a clever fox could spring a trap in turn. Even now, they crept in from the sides of the road, cutting off each way the stagecoach might flee.

The perfect moment for the Fist's ambush of the stage passed, and The Fox let out a small snort. Even in villainy, Johns' men were less than men ought to be. Late, they sprang from concealment with shouts intended to scare the horses as much as the men. The big one, Frank, stood directly in the path of the carriage and called to the driver.

"Don't even think about it, boys. We've got twenty guns on you. All you'll get is dead.”

The driver and the hired man riding shotgun both tensed. The driver clutched at the reins, his gaze flickering down to the holster at his side and back to the bandit. The shotgun man, riding with his rifle in his lap, was a statue. He didn’t even glance down at his gun when the leader of the Fist shouted again.

“All right, boys. Put those guns down, real slow like.”

The Fox watched as all of Johns' men left cover to surround the stage. More than expected, and without a distraction the planned counter-ambush would be suicidal. Twenty men were more than The Fox could take in open battle. Without warning a shot rang out. The bandit reaching for the wagon's door flew back, arms flung to his sides. Before the bandit collapsed to the ground a tall, noble figure leaned out the stagecoach door. The Fox blinked; there had been no indication of a Spanish nobleman, pureblood or otherwise, riding the coach today. Either he was of a minor line, or he travelled incognito.

“Hold, miscreants! I am Don Rinaldo Ernesto de Gonzalez y Martin, third son of Ernesto Dominic Gonzalez, Captain in the Spanish Army, a Scholar of the Sorbonne, and I will not tolerate your molestation of these men!”

By sheer force of personality, the newcomer froze the bandits in place. They stared in shock, first at their fallen fellow, then at the pistol wielding hidalgo leaning from the door of the stagecoach. Eyes narrowed; he leveled his revolver at the bandit leader.

“Surrender to me now, fiend, or I will not go easy on you.”

Despite his momentary surprise, Frank rallied. “You got… what? Five more bullets in that gun? Even if you hit with each one, I got enough guys to take you anyway, and I don’t take kindly to folks who go shooting my men.”

The hidalgo kept his gun aimed at the bandit leader. His hair, shoulder length and black as pitch, shifted gently in the hot breeze blowing in from the high desert. His eyes, dark as night, stared unwaveringly down the barrel of his gun. The Fox scanned the crowd of bandits. Each of them focused totally on the soldier in the carriage, readying weapons, awaiting the word of their leader. The driver and his shotgun rider surreptitiously shifted hands closer to their weapons. The moment had almost arrived.

Don Rinaldo’s voice rang out again, the strong, confident voice of a man accustomed to giving orders.

“You take me for a fool, sir. Should we put our weapons down, you will slaughter us like sheep. We may die here, we may die now, but we will die on our feet, like men!”

The bandit leader shrugged his lack of concern, his hand dropping to his side as he did. Coincidentally, it put his hand closer to his pistol.

“Your funeral, Donny boy. Kill ‘em.”

With those words, the bandit leader drew. He was fast, but not fast enough to beat a pistol already leveled at him. Rinaldo fired, and The Fox moved.

Before the bandits could react, twelve shots rang out under the blinding sun. As Frank ran away clutching at his bleeding, broken hand, twelve of his men fell. Another of the Fist raised his shotgun, lining it up on the hidalgo, who swept his pistol across the falling, ducking bandits. Before either could fire, a heavy fighting knife slammed into the bandit's shoulder.

The scattergun went off. A few pellets caught the shoulder of one of the horses. The stage team bolted, leaving the remaining bandits alone with The Fox. Six of them, armed with guns. The Fox alone, one fighting knife remaining.

The Fox leapt forward, knife flipping from hand to hand. A feint to the left, a jump to the right, and the knife slid home in a bandit's eye. Guns thundered. Scattergun pellets hammered in from all sides. The bandits cheered when The Fox fell.

Rinaldo's pistol took them by surprise, hitting one of the remaining members of the Fist in the arm. As the injured man fled, the last four bandits turned to face him. The Fox stood, hiding the pain from deep bruises. Armor could keep pellets from being lethal, but nothing could blunt their force entirely. This time the knife sank into the nearest bandit's kidney. He screamed his life away, and the remaining bandits fled in terror.

The Fox and the hidalgo stood facing one another across a field littered with dead and dying bandits. The pain of cracked ribs forced The Fox to a hoarse whisper.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"You came back."

"A man could do no less. You are the one known as The Fox."

The echoes of command lingered in his voice, in his posture, and The Fox responded, albeit unwillingly.

"I am."

"I have come to bring peace to this land."

The Fox's mask hid a harsh smile. "Tyrants often start with that goal."

Rinaldo threw his head back and laughed; a laugh so pure and clean it even touched the battle worn heart of a jaded old vigilante. "I am no tyrant, Fox. I am a teacher. I am going to teach the people here about the power of acting as one. I will teach them, and they will bring for themselves the peace they long for."

"That does not sound like the path of the hidalgo."

The man facing The Fox, to all appearances a purebred Spanish nobleman from his gently curling black hair to his polished black boots, shrugged the comment off. "The time of the hidalgo is more than a hundred years in the past, my friend. It falls to those of us who remain to come to benighted corners of the world and try to usher in what comes next." He reached out a hand to the masked legend. "I have heard you defend the weak. Would you help me make them strong?"

The vigilante shrugged, but reached out and took Rinaldo's hand as he spoke. "I hope for all our sakes you can, Don Rinaldo."

***

Alondra looked down the great curving staircase, faint nausea still clutching at her gut. The pounding at the main door surprised her, distracting her from the illness that had been her constant companion for the past month. Her dear Rinaldo approached the door; he’d given the few servants who remained to them a vacation. She disagreed with him regarding that, but he was her husband, her man, and she deferred to him in this as in all things.

She still wondered at that. A year before, she’d been content in her spinsterhood. At nearly forty years old, no man had paid court to her in over a decade. Combined with her secret ‘hobby’, a holdover from her misspent youth, she believed no man ever would.

A year ago, bandits attacked his stagecoach. He fought like a man, but her Rinaldo was a scholar, not a fighter. He could have been killed, but The Fox appeared and saved the entire stagecoach crew. Soon after, Rinaldo swept her off her feet, flattering her with compliments that she knew she didn’t deserve, but couldn’t resist.

Six months later, they married. Now, a year after they met, she had put away her hobbies and Rinaldo had put away his books. She maintained his household, and he had taken on a proper man’s role in the community, campaigning to become the next governor of the state of California. His campaign brought people to their house at any time of day or night, but most of the time he would give her advanced notice that she might have proper refreshment prepared. The knocking today was atypical. Rinaldo hadn’t told her to expect visitors, but by the sound a crowd of men waited outside.

“Rinaldo, will we be having guests?”

He stopped with one hand on the door’s handle. When he turned to her, his raptor beauty took her breath away as always. She tried to maintain a proper matronly demeanor, but when he smiled at her, she responded. A low chuckle, half joy and half desire, trickled out despite her best efforts.

“I’m sorry our unscheduled visitors awoke you, love. Are you feeling any better?”

At his mention of her nausea, it returned once more. Thankfully, it didn't bring her to her knees as it had earlier, but it still forced her to clutch at the banister for balance. Alondra forced a pleasant smile.

“I’ll be fine, love. Shall I go ready refreshments?”

“No. These men were impolite to call without warning. If they deserve drinks, there is brandy in my study. If they do not…”

Rinaldo’s frown made it clear that despite his ongoing struggle for the rights of the lower classes, he finally took his own importance seriously. With that frown on his face, he swung the door open.

Alondra recognized the man on the other side of the door. David Gomez was the local Sheriff. Not a bad man, but far too closely tied to Bradley Johns, a local magnate who opposed Rinaldo’s bid for governor. She knew Rinaldo didn’t understand why Mr. Johns did not want him elected, but that was because Rinaldo was too honest for his own good. Johns' money came from trade; all the local stores carrying goods from Europe or the Eastern States came on a Johns Steamer or a Johns Rail Car.

Alondra knew, and Rinaldo did not, the secret of Mr. Johns' effective security. The same men who manned the guns on his steamers, who rode shotgun on his stages, and who guarded his rail cars were the men who, on other days, attacked and destroyed the stages, ships and cars of others. The Fox knew but did not have the evidence to bring the man to trial yet. Someday, perhaps someday soon, Johns would make his mistake, and The Fox would be there to help Rinaldo bring him to justice.

In the foyer below, Rinaldo’s conversation with Sheriff Gomez escalated suddenly to shouting.

“I ask you again, Mr. Gonzalez, to submit peacefully!”

“And I say to you again, Mr. Gomez, that I will not go without a warrant or a reason!”

Gomez deflated visibly; his anger suddenly transformed to resignation. “I did not wish to say this in front of… in front of the Senora.”

“I assure you, Mr. Gomez, I hide nothing from my beloved wife.” When Rinaldo glanced at her, the edges of the smile she loved so well teased at his solemnity. That smile came whenever he thought of her, whenever he spoke of her, whenever he looked at her. Heat raced across her face, but Gomez’ next words turned her belly to ice.

“I have been provided with evidence that The Fox is responsible for almost every act of organized banditry in this area for the past ten years.”

Alondra’s fan snapped out an instant before her face could betray her. She barely heard her husband’s next words.

“But… Gomez. Why would The Fox have saved so many travelers, destroyed so many bandits?”

“A terrible ruse, Mr. Gonzalez, as I suspect you know. By saving some, The Fox kept them from realizing he was responsible for the fate of the others. Also, if a band escaped his control, he destroyed them to make an example of them. I have evidence of all of this.”

Lies!

She wanted to scream at them, to leap down and belabor them, to make them take back the horrid lies spewing from Gomez' mouth, but she could not. If she did, these men might reveal her secret, her "hobby". Her precious Rinaldo must never know. If he knew, he would forsake her, would never smile for her again.

Rinaldo frowned down his long, aquiline nose at Gomez. In his most regal, dismissive voice, he demanded the respect due a hidalgo. It did not escape Alondra that he hadn't invited the Sheriff or his men inside the hacienda. By the look on the Sheriff's face, Rinaldo's lack of hospitality hadn't escaped Gomez either.

"I do not believe a hero like the Fox could do such a thing, but you must follow your evidence. The truth will come out in court. Still, what does this have to do with me?"

The Sheriff shook his head, as if disbelieving his own words. "I have also discovered evidence that The Fox resides at this hacienda, Senor."

At Gomez's announcement, time froze for an endless moment. Silence reigned as Alondra's world fell to pieces. In slow motion, Rinaldo turned his head toward her. She tried to turn away, to interpose her fan, but her body would not obey. Her beloved looked up at her, more ferocity in his gaze than she ever remembered seeing…

And he smiled.

He turned away from her, his face firming into the haughty disdain of a pure-blooded Spanish nobleman. His voice echoed through the foyer, drowning out any sound she might have made.

"So, you have found me out at last, Gomez."

Shock painted itself across Gomez' features. He'd obviously expected more denials. His hand groped for his sidearm, but before he could draw, Rinaldo's big, strong right hand gripped his shoulder.

"No need for that, my old friend. For I did not lie, you see. The Fox has always been the friend of right, and I know you are a good man. The truth will have its day."

"But how can that be, Señor? The Fox has been with us for decades, but you have only just moved here this year!"

"Of course, Gomez. The Fox has been the champion of the poor here in California since men of España came to these shores, yes?"

The Sheriff's brows drew down in confused agreement, "Yes."

"It is a title, Gomez. I inherited it from another."

"Who is this other, Señor Gonzalez. I would not lose a good man to this…"

"The life of a fox is never a safe one, Señor. I am The Fox you are looking for."

The Sheriff sighed, his hand lifting to grasp Rinaldo's shoulder, then drop back down to his side. From behind the Sheriff, Alondra heard the coarse voices of Johns' Fist, his five most trusted henchmen, and knew her poor, naïve Rinaldo had just signed his own death warrant.

***

Alondra stood in the ratty old jail trying not to fidget, trying not to scream. It had taken her most imperious tones to get even this modicum of privacy with her husband. She wished for the quiet of their bedroom with its understated elegance. Instead, the adobe walls crumbled when her fingers brushed them, the bars on the windows a mass of rust. Must permeated the ever-parched air. She clutched her shawl close about her shoulders and ran a thumb across her wedding band. One more time she opened her mouth to plead with her husband, but before she could speak Rinaldo cut her off.

"You will not argue with me, wife. You pushed me to become the nobleman you wanted. This is the result."

Her mouth shut with a snap. His words lashed at her, feeding her already crushing guilt. The weight, too much to bear, overcame her. She dropped to her knees, clutching at the rusty old bars of the jail cell. Tears filled her eyes. Rinaldo reached through the bars to lay a hand on her head.

"Sweet Alondra, each of us is given a destiny. We are also given the strength to meet that destiny, if only we have the courage. For those who wore the mask of The Fox in the past, that destiny was to risk their lives and honor as champion of the people of this land. For me, it appears I must be a martyr to this cause."

"No! You can fight! You must fight!"

Through eyes clouded with tears, Alondra saw Rinaldo smile sadly. "No, I cannot, my love. You know that as well as I. I was trained as a soldier, yes, but my talents lie elsewhere."

"Tell them the truth then! Tell them you are not The Fox!"

"Have you thought this out, my Alondra?"

She could do nothing but stare mutely at him as he looked down on her, a man feasting his eyes on what he would never again be able to touch.

"The only way to prove I am not The Fox is to give them another. I could not bring myself to give them a scapegoat, which means I must give them the real Fox. That would leave the people without a champion. On some dark night soon, bandits would creep into our house and slay me. That would leave the people of this place without a champion or a teacher, and darkness would cover the land."

"You don't know that!"

"Yes, I do. Alondra, are you my wife or not?"

She choked out her next words. "Until death do us part, Rinaldo."

"Then heed me, wife. I need you to take three messages for me."

Hope surged in her breast, only to be crushed by his next words. "To The Fox, the message is simple. Avenge me. Scourge these oppressors of the people from the land, as I cannot."

"Yes, my husband."

"To the people, tell them to take up the power that is their birthright, and demand the peace and freedom they deserve."

"I will, my Rinaldo."

Rinaldo knelt before her, his hand reaching through the corroded old bars to cup her chin. "To my son…" on the last word, his voice broke. She ignored it, staring at his beautiful black eyes. "To my son, tell him to stand and face his destiny. Tell him how his father met fate without fear. Tell him what it means to be a man."

"I will, my love."