Page 61 of Zorro

Buck was right behind him, rope in hand, swinging it with a rhythm that should not have been possible under any civilized code of conduct.

“I warned you!” Buck shouted. “I told you what’d happen if you made that bison crack again!”

From across the compound, Joker’s voice rang out, dry as sin. “If I come out there and someone is hogtied…again….”

Laughter erupted from the BOPE side. One of the operators muttered, looking at his friend. “Os Americanos.” Zorro just huffed out a laugh. These fucking Americans.

D-Day followed Buck out, squinting into the sun, sliding into full rodeo-announcer drawl.

“Well, folks, what we got here is a rare sightin’, a wild American SEAL in his natural state, damp, defiant, nothin’ between his rope and the burn but terry.”

He raised one hand like he was tipping an invisible cowboy hat. “Comin’ up behind him, that there’s the Buckaroo himself. Rope’s high, hips square, wrath of God in his eyes. Look at that form—hoo boy, you can’t teach that.”

Blitz coughed from somewhere out of sight. “Jesus Christ, he’s color-commentating the lasso-calypse.”

Zorro’s towel unraveled mid-turn and flung off like a white flag of surrender. There was no way he was going to use his pumping hands to keep it intact. He needed them for running.

D-Day didn’t miss a beat. “Zorro’s pickin’ up speed but not strategy, oh, and there goes the towel! That’s a full moon over Rio, folks.” He paused, then added with reverence. “Full moon on deck, and gentlemen, that sucker is getting waxed.”

“You’ll have to catch me first, buckaroo!” Zorro howled, now completely, tragically unarmed. He cut left, vaulted a crate, laughing so hard he could barely breathe, while frantically cupping Frank and the boys.

“Beautiful jump,” D-Day announced, “but he's losin' coordination. He’s got one hand on dignity, the other on survival.”

“Yeehaw, motherfucker!” Buck bellowed. The rope flew. It looped. It landed.

“There it is. The rope is up and he’s down! That’s a clean loop, ladies and gentlemen. Textbook cowboy closure.”

Zorro’s legs tangled. Momentum did the rest.

He hit the dirt hard, a graceless sprawl of limbs and humiliation.

“Goddamn,” he wheezed into the dust. “That was…impressive.”

“Time of take-down…14:26. Cause of fall: hubris. Losses sustained: towel, pride, and probably the skin off both knees.” D-Day paused dramatically. “Wait, wait…yes, yes. I think Frank and the boys are unharmed.”

Buck stood over him, chest heaving, rope still in hand. “You were warned. Repeatedly. With affection.”

Zorro turned his head and muttered into the ground, “Tell my mother…I died honorably. Even with my ass exposed.”

“You ain’t dead yet,” Buck said, bending to tighten the loop just a little. “Now say it.”

Zorro groaned. He played the fool like it was armor. Laughed harder than he meant to. Took the fall, because if he didn’t find a way to laugh today, he might just break something.

The guys thought he was just being Zorro. But Zorro was the act. Inside, he was quiet now, and he was hurting.

Buck gave the rope a gentle tug. “Say. It.”

“You’re a majestic stallion, and I’m sorry for comparing you to bison and large kitchen appliances,” Zorro muttered.

Buck nodded. “Good.”

Then he stood and hollered back to the locker room. “Hey, Blitz! Grab your phone! Have I ever got a pic for Doc Sunshine!”

From somewhere nearby, Migs’s laughter echoed out into the sun while full-grown, hardened men rolled around in the dirt, howling.

Zorro hadn’t made it ten feet down the hallway before he heard it, the sound of someone breathing too hard in too tight a space.

He paused.

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