Captain Fly-by-Night

Moonlit dust whirls above the adobe roofs of a forgotten Californian presidio where authority itself has become a frayed mask: two wayfarers, each clutching a stamped government safe-conduct, limp through the gates swearing that the same spectral bandit—Captain Fly-by-Night—relieved them at pistol-point of everything down to the lint in their pockets. Commandant and friars interrogate, yet every answer spawns three new riddles; the robber chief seems to materialize within the very fortress that vows to hang him, his laughter echoing along the cloisters like a cracked mission bell. Duels flare at cockcrow, secret panels yawn behind altar screens, and love letters change hands inside a hollowed-out saint’s head while dragoons gallop in circles, always one ridge behind the outlaw’s drifting black plume. By the time the presidio’s torches gutter out, identities have traded owners more eagerly than playing-cards in a gambling den: the accused becomes the accuser, the pious turns brigand, and the gallows rope, pre-knotted for a gala spectacle, ends up framing the moon like a macabre halo. What remains is not a tidy capture but a lingering suspicion that every badge, habit, or passport might merely be another silk mask in the Captain’s endless wardrobe of night.