~Chapter 4~

Slowly Alejandro came to his senses. His whole body ached. His stomach still cramped. His head hurt, his eyes were burning, he couldn't open them.

Yet he could hear murmuring and whispering beside his ear. Suddenly he felt strange lips against his mouth. Elena? No, it could not be, she never wore that kind of cheap, strong scent . . . . He pressed his own lips tightly together and turned his head from side to side although he felt totally dizzy, trying to open his eyes. There was an unbearable pain at the back of his head.

The female voice beside him murmured, "Eh, mi guapito, if you don't want to kiss me I'll try something else!" Alejandro noticed she began to unbutton his pants. He wanted push her away but it was impossible because his wrists were tied together and his ankles too.

This was too much! Finally he opened his eyes and used the muscles of his belly and stood up and the woman lay on the ground. She sprang up with a stream of language Alejandro had never heard even from a whore, seized him by his shirt and tore it down the back. Then he saw a bald and tattooed man nearly twice his size coming toward him. Alejandro had seen him before but only on WANTED posters. It was the infamous pirate known as Scourge, and he looked even scarier in real life than on the posters.

And to his left loomed another face that looked familiar. It bore a slight resemblance to that of Captain Harrison Love.

But Captain Love was dead.

As Rose tried to flee from her supposed kidnapper, she stepped on the hem of her too-long gown and fell flat on her face. As Ahmed bent with the intention of helping her up, she rolled away from him to where the bags he had dropped lay. She snatched a scimitar that had fallen from one of them, and sat up holding the haft in both hands, the curved blade pointed toward him.

"Don't come near me," she said in a melodramatic whisper. "Or I'll make shish kabob out of you."

She was amazed at herself. All she knew about using the weapon consisted of knowing which end went where.

But he didn't make a move. She felt herself go weak in the knees. Even in the ridiculous kimono he had grandeur, not so much because of his physical size, which was not impressive, but rather because of his bearing and grace. She could believe he was a prince. He didn't look much like an Arab or an Iranian, for that matter. She would have guessed Spanish. His face was all sensuous Latinate curves with enough ruggedness to save it from being insipidly pretty. His hair was curly and sweaty and tendrils of it clung to his forehead in a way that made him all the more appealing.

But it was his eyes that truly held her. Under normal circumstances they would have had her gasping for breath. Surely no terrorist ever had such soft, large, kindly, brown eyes with a jewel-like depth and luster, fringed with lashes a woman would have coveted. Rose sometimes prided herself on "not being some pathetic bimbo" like almost every other girl she knew, who fell for every line they heard from any guy who wasn't butt-ugly. But not even in the movies had she ever seen a face to equal his, a cross between that of a Don Juan and an angel.

She backed off a couple of inches on her rear end, still clutching the scimitar, but he still made no move toward her. Who was he? Why had he been naked when she had first seen him? Her first thought was that he meant to rape her, but that didn't make much sense. She was unworldly even for a girl in her twenties, but even she was aware that rapists didn't usually get naked prior to assaulting their victims. And he looked like the last guy on earth who needed to rape anybody. On the contrary, he looked like he needed that blade to keep women, and men too for that matter, from molesting him in public.

And then she heard running steps. Still holding the scimitar, she turned her head just in time to see a young woman in a long black dress running toward them, brandishing a long sword, her long hair flying behind her like a black banner.

"ALEJANDRO! What do you think you are doing?" she screamed. She was the most beautiful woman Rose had ever seen. But she looked outraged. And evidently she knew the man.

"He kidnapped me," cried Rose, backing off from him toward the woman. "I don't know how it happened, but…"

"Madame," he said, "there is some mistake. My name is Ahmed, and I have never seen you before. I come from - "

"Alejandro, have you gone totally mad? What is the meaning of this? Why did you cut your hair? Who is that girl, and what is going on? I demand to know!"

Her speech sounded strangely old fashioned, like her dress. Evidently she had forgotten the camel, if she had seen it at all. She held the sword out as though she would run him through, and made a move as if to do so.

Suddenly Rose cried out, "NO!" and struck the sword out of the woman's hand with the scimitar.

Elena stood as if in shock, looking down at the sword the girl had struck out of her hand. The girl looked as stunned as Elena felt.

The man picked up the fallen sword. Holding it by the blade, he silently handed it back to Elena, stepping from the shade into the sunlight so she could see his face more clearly.

"You -- you are not my Alejandro," she stammered. "You have scars on your face -- Alejandro has none. Yet your features are identical to his, your build is the same, and so is your voice. He never told me he had a twin brother! An older brother, yes, but not a twin!"

"Madame," Ahmed said, "I seem to be suffering from loss of memory. I have no idea how I got here, and neither does this unfortunate girl. I believe we were both drugged and abducted and brought here by-by Iranian terrorists, but how and why, I have no idea. I remember only my name, nothing else."

"Iranian? What is that?" Elena exclaimed. "A country I never heard of?"

"Whaaaaaat?" the brown-haired girl said. "Holy cow, have you been living under a rock? Iran? The country that took our guys hostage at the Embassy in Teheran, remember?"

Elena stared at her. The girl still held the scimitar. She was pretty in an Anglo-Saxon goody-girl way, in spite of the outsized garment she wore, but her speech sounded very strange even for an American. Elena could hardly understand her at all; it was as though she had come out of a whole different era.

"I do not know what you are talking about," Elena said rather coldly. "What is 'our-guys-hostage'? What is a terrorist? And what is holy about a cow? I live in a hacienda, there is no rock above it or even near it."

Rose suddenly burst out laughing, not as if she found anything funny; it was just as if she had suddenly gone crazy. Ahmed put a steadying hand on her arm, and she managed to calm down after a minute.

"She is completely bewildered, Madame," he explained. "Can you please tell us where we are?"

"You are in California," Elena said, "a few miles from Los Angeles, in the --"

"We're in L.A.?" Rose gasped. "I was sure we were somewhere near Hollywood, everybody I've bumped into around here is drop-dead gorgeous and wearing funny costumes--or no costumes at all, if you know what I mean, both of which are perfectly in keeping with Tinseltown…Boy howdy, I must look like a mud fence."

Ahmed said, "This man who looks like me? Where is he? Perhaps he can be of assistance?"

"He was supposed to meet me here at the hour of noon," Elena said looking up at the sky. "I have been waiting for him for a long time. I wonder what could be keeping him?"

She looked up again trying to determine the time by the position of the sun. Rose looked at a band she wore on her wrist.

"It's one twenty-five by my watch," she said, "and....oh my God, you're not gonna believe this, the date says . . . 1849! Can you imagine? I must have been asleep the last time I set this baby!" She burst out laughing again.

"What is so funny? It IS 1849," Elena said.

Alejandro couldn't move. It seemed he had fainted.

But his mind worked fast. He tried to concentrate on saving himself. He remembered the countless training lessons with Don Diego, about all the different methods of fighting against many men.

Then he realized he was tied to a tree.

The next thing he sensed were greedy hands running over his arms, his chest and downward once more. He heard Nestrelda whispering, "Ohhhh Sweeeetieee! Mmmmmm! NOW I will have you, yes!" And once again she pulled at his pants. Although he felt a terrible dizziness he brought his forehead against hers with his with all his strength. She lurched backwards, rubbing her forehead and swearing with pain. Then she sprang forward and slapped his face hard.

The tree bark cut into Alejandro's bare and bleeding back, his arms cruelly twisted behind his back. Suddenly he felt a terrible burning pain across his chest and stomach, which already ached from the punches and kicks he had received. Through half-open lids in front of him he saw Scourge grinning with a whip in his hand, asking, "How do you feel now, hey? HERO! Ha ha ha!" His breath reeked of rum.

Alejandro spat in the pirate's face. Scourge raised his arm again and cracked the whip once more.

Love stepped forward once more with a cigar between his teeth, nudging Scourge out of his way. He stepped close to Alejandro and blew the smoke straight into his face. Alejandro coughed until he suddenly felt the burning end of the cigar on his shoulder.

"Reckon it's time I went out and fetched the lovely Señorita Montero to come join the party, right, amigos?" Love said with a little chuckle. "Wouldn't want her to miss out on all the fun, hey?"

"Oh right, and I'm Dolly Parton with a boob reduction," Rose said rolling her eyes up. "So where are all the gold miners, may I ask?"

Then she saw that Elena looked perfectly serious. Rose felt seriously spooked, herself. This woman didn't LOOK crazy. But it was evident that she truly believed it was 1849. This has got to be a dream, thought Rose giddily, looking at the jeweled and intricately carved ivory hilt of the scimitar. Or I AM on a movie set, or I AM on drugs, or, or…

"Someone is coming," Ahmed said suddenly. "I hear hoofbeats."

"That will be Alejandro," Elena exclaimed, her face lighting with joy and excitement. Whew . . . she was perfectly breathtaking, thought Rose with a little ache of envy.

Soon the most magnificent black stallion she had ever seen came galloping out from the trees, beautiful in keeping with the humans, but foaming and looking extremely agitated. He wore a saddle and bridle but had no rider.

"Tornado!" gasped Elena, looking outright terrified.