The Mystery of the Headless Horse (7 page)

When Jupiter left the Historical Society, he rode to the library and found Diego. The slender young Alvaro boy was looking gloomy.

“There’s a lot in the old newspapers about shoot-outs in the canyons around that time,” he reported, “but nothing that helps us figure out what happened to Don Sebastián.”

“Never mind now,” Jupiter said eagerly. “I think I’ve found something! Bob and Pete should be finished at the jail by now — they’ll probably be at Headquarters. Come on!”

The boys rode quickly through the rain to the salvage yard. To avoid being seen by Aunt Mathilda or Uncle Titus and perhaps grabbed for some chore, Jupiter led Diego in the back way. He stopped his bike along the rear fence about fifty feet from the corner. The entire fence around the salvage yard had been decorated by Rocky Beach artists, and Jupe had halted in front of a dramatic scene of the San Francisco fire of 1906. A little dog sat in the painting near a red spout of flame.

“We named the dog Rover,” Jupiter informed Diego, “so this secret entrance is called Red Gate Rover!”

One of the little dog’s eyes was a knot in a board. Jupiter carefully pulled out the knot and reached in to release a hidden catch. Three boards in the fence swung up, and Diego and Jupiter slipped into the salvage yard.

Once inside, they parked their bikes and crawled through hidden passages in the junk piles until they reached a panel that opened directly into Headquarters. Bob and Pete weren’t there.

“They’re probably still talking to Pico,” Jupiter said. “We’ll wait.”

“All right,” Diego said, “but what did you discover?”

Jupiter took out a piece of paper. His eyes gleamed with excitement.

“A second lieutenant who came here — one of Frémont’s men — kept a journal. I found this entry for 15th September, 1846,” Jupiter explained, and began to read. “ ‘My senses are in a whirl! I fear the strain of our invasion has affected my mind. Tonight I was ordered out to the hacienda of Don Sebastián Alvaro to search for hidden contraband. Just at dusk, I saw what can only have been the figment of a deluded mind. On a ridge across what the local people call Santa Inez Creek I clearly observed Don Sebastián Alvaro himself leading his horse and nourishing his great sword! Before I could attempt to cross the creek total darkness engulfed me, and not wanting to risk an encounter alone at night, I returned to our camp. There I was informed that Don Sebastián Alvaro had been shot and killed trying to escape from us that very morning! What, then, did I see across the creek as I left the Alvaro hacienda? A spectre? An illusion? Had I heard some casual reference to Don Sebastián’s death and not remembered until the Alvaro hacienda dredged it from the depths of my tired mind? I cannot say’.”

“But Don Sebastián wasn’t shot!” Diego cried eagerly. “So that lieutenant really did see him! And, Jupiter, he had the sword!”

“Yes,” Jupiter agreed triumphantly, “I believe we have now proved conclusively that Don Sebastián was alive on the night of 15th September, and that he did have the Cortés Sword with him after he escaped. There was nothing wrong with that lieutenant’s mind or eyes. The moment Bob and Pete arrive, we’ll go out and investigate the spot the lieutenant described!”

But after half an hour Bob and Pete still had not appeared at Headquarters. Diego became alarmed.

“Could something have happened to them, or to Pico?” the slim boy asked uneasily.

“That is always possible,” Jupiter acknowledged grimly, “but I think it is more probable that they learned something from Pico and went to investigate on their own.”

“But where would they go?”

“Considering that their task was to question Pico about where he had last seen his hat, I suspect that they have gone to your hacienda. Let’s go find them.”

Jupiter and Diego slipped back out through Red Gate Rover and rode their bicycles as fast as they could out to the burned hacienda. The rain had stopped and the sky slowly brightened. Santa Inez Creek was running full and high when the boys crossed it on the stone bridge of the county road. Passing the rank of ridges between the creek and the arroyo, they glanced up at the headless Cortés statue high on the last ridge.

“Jupiter! The statue! It’s… it’s moving!” Diego cried.

They slammed on the brakes of their bikes and stared up at the statue.

“No, it’s not moving!” Jupiter said. “There’s someone up there near it!”

“Someone hiding behind the statue!” Diego cried.

“There’s two of them. They’re running now!”

“Coming this way down the ridge!”

“It’s Bob and Pete!”

“Come on!”

They shoved their bikes into the brush beside the road and ran forward. Bob and Pete were slipping and sliding down the end of the ridge towards the road. Out of breath and panting, the four boys met where the ridge ended in a deep ditch beside the pavement.

“We found some evidence, First!” Pete panted.“And three guys found us!” Bob gasped.

“What three guys, fellows?” Diego asked breathlessly.

“We don’t know, but they’re after us right now!”

“Back to the bridge,” Jupiter puffed. “We’ll hide under it!”

“They’re sure to look there, Jupe!” Bob objected.

“There’s a big drain-pipe back down the road!” Diego cried. “It runs into this ditch, and it’s all overgrown! Come on!”

They raced back along the muddy brush-filled ditch. Diego scrambled amidst thick and thorny chaparral to uncover the mouth of a giant drainage pipe that came out of a hillside. The boys tumbled inside the pipe despite a thin stream of draining rain water, and pulled the brush back across the mouth. Huddled together, they waited anxiously.

“What evidence was it you found?” Jupiter whispered.

Bob and Pete told him about the set of keys and their adventures in the burned barn. Diego looked at the keys in the dim light of the pipe.

“I am sure they aren’t ours,” he said.

“Those men said they lost them and had to jump the ignition of some car?” Jupiter pondered. “From the way you tell it, fellows, it sounds as if they were at the barn before it burned. And they obviously don’t want anyone to find the keys and know they were there! Perhaps they stole the hat and planted it out at that campfire!”

“But who are they, First?” Pete wondered hoarsely.

“I don’t know, Second, but somehow they must be involved with the fire and Pico’s arrest. I… Shhhhh!”

In the pipe they all fell silent. Running feet were coming along the road! The boys peered through the thick bushes and saw the three saddle-tramp cowboys! Grim and silent, the three menacing men trotted past.

Diego whispered, “I never saw them before! If they work for Mr. Norris, they’re new.”

“Then what are they doing here?” Pete asked.

“That is something we must learn, Second,” Jupiter said.

“All I know,” Bob said, “is I hope they don’t come back!”

The four boys waited, listening hard. Down the road there was only silence. After another fifteen minutes, Jupiter sighed nervously.

“I guess one of us had better look,” he said.

“I’ll go,” Diego said. “They’re after Bob and Pete, not me. And I live out here, so they might not be suspicious.”

The slim boy slipped out quickly so that there would be little chance of anyone seeing where he came from. He climbed up to the road, turned left, and disappeared towards the bridge. In the pipe, The Three Investigators waited again. Bob was the first to hear someone coming back. He started to go out.

“Wait!” Pete whispered. “Maybe it’s not Diego!”

They waited. Someone stopped in front of the pipe.

“Okay, fellows, it’s all clear.”

It was Diego! The Investigators piled out, and Diego led them back to the bridge over Santa Inez Creek. He pointed towards the mountains. Far ahead, the three cowboys were disappearing north along the dirt road of the Norris ranch.

“They gave up,” Diego said with a grin. “And this is just about where we want to investigate, isn’t it, Jupiter?”

“Investigate what?” Bob and Pete asked together.

Jupiter told them about the lieutenant’s journal, and showed them the page he had duplicated from it.

“Wow!” Pete exclaimed. “Don Sebastián really did escape! And he must have had the Cortés Sword with him!”

“I’m sure he did,” Jupiter said, and he sighed. “But what that lieutenant wrote isn’t going to help us find it!”

“But, Jupiter, he wrote — ” Diego began in protest.

“He couldn’t have seen what he said he did,” Jupiter interrupted, “or, at least, where he saw it. Look, he wrote that he was leaving the hacienda, so that means he was on our side of the creek, the west side. He looked east, across the creek, from right about here. He says he saw a ridge — but from here there aren’t any ridges at all on the other side of the creek!”

On the far side of the swollen creek, as far as the boys could see, the land was flat all the way past the Norris ranch buildings!

“Somehow,” Jupiter said gloomily, “he must have made a mistake — about where he was, or in what he remembered when he wrote in his journal.”

The boys looked at each other unhappily.

“I guess it’s a dead end, fellows,” Jupiter said.

Dejected, they walked towards their bikes to ride home.

It started to rain hard again that night, and poured down all the next day. The Investigators had no time to talk about the Cortés Sword or to try to identify the car keys from the burned barn. After classes, they were busy with school activities all afternoon.

“We don’t have any new leads anyway,” Pete said sadly.

Diego visited Pico in the afternoon and showed his brother the keys. He described the three mysterious cowboys to Pico. But Pico didn’t recognize the keys, and he had no idea who the three strangers were or why they were interested in the ruined barn.

“Unless,” the older Alvaro said bitterly, “Mr. Norris has hired toughs to force us off our ranch!”

After their dinners that night, The Three Investigators returned to the library and the Historical Society. They searched through the old newspapers, journals, diaries, memoirs, and US Army reports again. They re-read the false report of Don Sebastián’s death, the statement declaring Sergeant Brewster and his two confederates to be deserters, Don Sebastián’s baffling letter with its heading of “Condor Castle”, and the American lieutenant’s apparently erroneous journal entry. The boys could find nothing new that seemed important.

Rain continued to come down all that night, and all day on Wednesday. Flood warnings went up in the county. After school, Bob and Pete both had chores to do at home. Diego went to visit Pico again, and Jupiter wearily returned to the Historical Society to continue the plodding detective work.

Their chores completed, Bob and Pete met at Headquarters. They took off their wet rain gear and huddled around the small electric heater in the hidden house trailer to wait for Diego and Jupiter.

“You think we’re ever going to find that sword, Bob?” Pete asked.

“I don’t know, Second,” Bob admitted. “If only it all hadn’t happened so long ago. There are all kinds of reports of shooting and running around back in the hills, by the Mexican locals and the US Army, but we can’t tell if any of them involved Don Sebastián or those three deserters.”

Diego came climbing up out of the trap-door from Tunnel Two. The slender boy looked even more miserable than he had the last two days. Pete and Bob stared at him in alarm.

“Has something happened to Pico?” Bob cried.

“Is he in more trouble?” Pete echoed.

“Nothing has happened to Pico, but he is in more trouble. We all are.”

The unhappy boy took off his wet jacket and sat beside the two Investigators close to the glowing heater. He shook his head hopelessly.

“Señor Paz has sold our mortgage to Mr. Norris,” he said.

“Oh, no!” Pete groaned.

“But,” Bob said, “he promised to delay as long as — ”

“It is not Don Emiliano’s fault,” Diego said. “He must have his money, and with Pico in jail there is no way we could hope to pay him for a long time. And, Pico needs money for bail and for his defence. Pico told Don Emiliano he must sell now.”

“We’re sorry, Diego,” Bob said quietly.

“Gosh,” Pete said, “it sure looks hopeless. I mean, we’ll never find that sword without more clues, and now there isn’t much time to hunt for them. How long do you think we — ”

There was a sudden banging and scrambling outside the panel that led to Red Gate Rover. Jupiter came tumbling in through the panel, wet and puffing.

“Skinny was tailing me!” the stout leader announced, out of breath, “but I eluded him and sneaked through Red Gate Rover without being seen!”

“Why was he chasing you?” Diego wondered.

“I didn’t stop to ask him,” Jupiter said bluntly. “He may have just wanted to talk, but I wanted to get here, and didn’t need to waste time talking with Skinny! Fellows, I’ve found — ”

There was a loud crash as something heavy fell into the mounds of junk around the hidden trailer. Then another crash sounded nearby, somewhere else in the salvage yard. Skinny’s voice came to them from out in the rain:

“I know you’re around here somewhere, Fatso Jones! You’re all around here somewhere, I bet! Think you’re so smart!”

Another crash! Skinny was standing out in the rain-soaked salvage yard hurling heavy objects against all the mounds of junk, knowing the Investigators were hidden somewhere but not sure where.

“Well, you’re not so smart, you hear?” Skinny yelled in the rain. “We’ve got your Mexican pals now, smart guys! Saturday we take over their ranch! You hear that?”

The four boys in the trailer looked at each other. Only Jupiter seemed puzzled. The others hadn’t told him yet about Emiliano Paz selling the mortgage.

“Saturday, that’s all!” Skinny shouted. “No way you’re gonna help those wetbacks now! It doesn’t matter anymore what you think you’re up to! This time you’re beaten, big shots!” Skinny laughed nastily. “So pleasant dreams, punks! Pleasant dreams!”

For a time they could hear Skinny’s laugh as it slowly faded away in the salvage yard. Then there was only the drumming of rain on the trailer’s roof.

Jupiter fumed. “Skinny and his dumb bravado! He just wants to make us think — ”

“No,” Diego said. “This time he’s right, Jupiter.”

He told the stout First Investigator about Emiliano Paz selling the mortgage to Mr. Norris.

“Our payment is due on Saturday,” Diego said glumly. “Don Emiliano would have let us pay part of it, but if we don’t pay Mr. Norris in full he can foreclose the mortgage and take the ranch.”

“So,” Jupiter said, “Mr. Norris appears to have won.”

“Jupe!” Bob cried.

“You’re not going to just quit!” Pete exclaimed.

“I–I would not blame you,” Diego stammered.

Jupiter’s eyes flashed. “I said that Mr. Norris appeared to have won! That could mean that no one will try to stop us anymore. We must make the most of all the time we have left — and we don’t have much!”

“No time,” Pete moaned, “and no clues!”

“On the contrary,” Jupiter declared. “We have many clues. We simply haven’t yet interpreted them correctly. And I have just found still another proof that our speculations are correct.”

The stout leader of the team took a paper from his pocket. “Bob was right when he suggested that Don Sebastián might have planned to hide himself out in the hills as well as the Cortés Sword. He planned to do it, and he did do it.”

He handed the paper to Diego. “It’s in Spanish, Diego, and I’m not sure I’ve got it exactly right. Read it out for us in English.”

Diego nodded. “It’s from a diary, I guess. The date’s 15th September, 1846. ‘This night, word came to our small group of patriots that the eagle has found a nest. We must plan for the care of our most noble bird. Predators are everywhere, it will not be simple, but perhaps now there is something to be done!’ ” Diego looked up. “You think that the eagle was Don Sebastián, Jupiter? That this entry means that local patriots escaped, and planned to help him to stay hidden?”

“I’m sure of it,” Jupiter said. “That diary belonged to the local Spanish mayor then, a personal friend of the Alvaros, and in my reading I learned that Don Sebastián was nicknamed ‘The Eagle’ in his young days!”

“But,” Bob said, looking at the paper with the Spanish writing on it, “how does this help us, First? I mean, maybe I was right and Don Sebastián did hide out like Cluny MacPherson, but this entry doesn’t say where. What about later entries in the mayor’s diary, Jupe? Do they help?”

“This entry was on the last page of the diary, Bob, and there wasn’t a second diary of the mayor’s. He was killed a few weeks later fighting the invaders. I guess he got too busy to write.”

“Well, if Don Sebastián did hide out in the hills,” Pete said, “what happened to him? Maybe his friends helped him to escape out of the area, and he took the sword with him and never came back!”

“That is possible, Second,” Jupiter admitted. “It has been all along — but I don’t think that happened. If it had, I’m sure there would have been some reference to it in all the diaries and memoirs we’ve read. No, fellows, I don’t think Don Sebastián escaped for good. I think something happened to him out in the mountains, but I don’t know what, and I don’t think anyone else knew back then either! I think that is the key to the whole mystery — what did happen to Don Sebastián!”

“If they didn’t know back then,” Pete said, “how do we find out?”

“We find out, Second, because we do know where he planned to hide!” Jupiter declared. “He told us when he headed his letter ‘Condor Castle’! I’m convinced that the answer is out there near that great rock. There is something out there that we’ve missed, and right after school tomorrow we’re going to go out and find it!”