They skirted the dam and found themselves on a large, brush-covered mound at the base of the high ridge. It was this mound that blocked the arroyo on the west side of the ridge. A faint path led down to the creek bed, thirty feet below the dam. Before walking down it, everyone turned to look back. The whole countryside on both sides of the creek above the dam was a charred waste.
“Burned land will not hold water,” Leo Guerra said grimly. “If the rain goes on, there will be floods.”
Chastened, the group walked down the mound and along the bank of the now muddy creek bed. On the far bank was the dirt road that went through the Norris Ranch. It, too, was crowded with vehicles and fire fighters returning to the county road. The Investigators saw the Norris ranch wagon drive slowly past. Skinny was in the back with some other people. He saw the boys across the creek bed, but even he was too tired to react.
“Is that Norris land right over there?” Bob asked.
Pico nodded. “The creek is our boundary from the county road until just before the dam. Then the boundary goes north-east a short distance into the mountains. The dam and the creek above it are all on our land.”
The high, rocky ridge on the group’s right now dipped low. Beyond it the Investigators could see the whole series of ridges leading south. Pico turned away from the creek bed to follow a grassy trail through the small hills. Everyone strung out single file on the trail, enjoying the sight of unburned land. Low brush grew sparsely on the ridges, with brown rocks showing in between. Smoke still hung everywhere, but the rain had nearly stopped. The sun broke through the clouds once and then set.
Pete still had the energy to walk briskly, and Jupiter was too impatient a person to dawdle. The two boys soon found themselves in the lead. As they climbed the trail up the side of the last ridge, Pete and Jupiter were ten or, twenty yards ahead of the others.
“Jupe!” Pete cried, pointing upwards.
High on the ridge above them, through the drifting smoke, a man rode a great black horse! In the twilight, the boys stared up at the rearing horse, its massive hoofs pawing the smoke-filled air, its head…
“It — it — ” Jupiter stammered, “ — it’s got no head!”
Rearing on the ridge, the great horse was headless!
“Run!” Pete yelled.
4
The Headless Horse
The headless horse seemed to leap towards them through the smoke!
Bob and Diego ran up as Pete and Jupiter turned to flee. Further back, Uncle Titus, Pico, Leo Guerra, and Porfirio Huerta hurried along the narrow trail through the ridges.
“It’s got no head!” Pete yelled. “A ghost! Run!”
Bob stopped and stared up at the black horse and rider as the smoke thinned. His eyes widened.
“Jupe, Pete, it’s just — ” Bob began.
Diego laughed loudly. “It’s the Cortés statue, fellows! The smoke made it look like it was moving!”
“It can’t be Cortés!” Pete cried. “That statue of yours had a head!”
“Head?” Diego gaped. “Why, the horse’s head is gone! Someone’s broken our statue! Pico!”
“I see it,” Pico said as he arrived with the others. “Let’s take a look.”
They swarmed up the smoky ridge to the wooden statue. The trunks of both the horse and rider had been crudely carved from single blocks of wood, with the legs, arms, sword, and saddle carved separately and attached. The horse was painted black, trimmed with the red and yellow of Castile. Under the high saddle, daubs of paint suggested an ornamental covering on the horse. The rider was painted black, too, except for a yellow beard, blue eyes, and red trim on his armour. All of the paint was faded.
“The statue used to be painted regularly,” Diego explained, “but we haven’t been able to take care of it right for a long time. I think the wood is getting rotten now.”
In the grass beside the horse lay the broken-off head, its open mouth a faded red. Pico pointed to a heavy metal container on the ground nearby.
“There’s what knocked the head off. It’s a cylinder of chemicals for fire fighting. It must have fallen out of a plane or helicopter that passed over the statue.”
Pete crouched down to study the head. The long wooden piece included most of the horse’s neck, too. It had broken off cleanly. Both head and neck were hollow, as if the carver had wanted to lessen the weight of the wood before pegging it to the horse’s body. Something projected slightly from the end of the hollow neck. Pete reached inside and pulled it out.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Let’s see,” Jupiter said, taking the object.
It was a long, thin cylinder of leather with dull metal fittings, hollow inside.
“It looks,” Jupiter said slowly, “like a sword scabbard. You know, what a sword is carried in, the way a pistol is carried in a holster. Only — ”
“Only it’s too big inside,” Bob said. “A sword would sure rattle around inside that.”
“And there are no hooks to hang it from a belt,” Jupe added.
“Let me see it,” Pico said, taking the cylinder. He nodded. “Jupiter is partly right. It’s not a sword scabbard, but it is a sword cover. It went over the scabbard to protect a valuable sword when it wasn’t being worn. The cover looks quite old.”
“Old? Valuable?” Diego was suddenly excited. “Maybe it was the cover of the Cortés Sword! Pete, look in the head — ”
Pete was already searching inside the broken head. Then he examined the whole statue. He shook his head.
“Nothing else inside the head and neck, and the bodies and legs are all solid.”
“Foolishness, Diego,” Pico snapped. “The Cortés Sword was lost long ago.”
“A valuable sword?” Pete asked.
“Supposedly, Pete,” Pico said, “although I sometimes wonder. It may have been just an ordinary sword that acquired a fabulous legend. It was in our family a very long time.”
“Did it belong to Cortés himself?” Bob asked.
“So our family history says,” Pico answered. “Our ancestor Don Carlos Alvaro, the first Alvaro in the New World, once saved Cortés’s army from an ambush. In gratitude, Cortés presented Don Carlos with the sword. The story is that it was a special ceremonial sword given to Cortés by the King of Spain. It supposedly had a solid gold hilt and was all encrusted with jewels — the hilt, scabbard, even the blade. Rodrigo Alvaro brought the sword here when he settled on this land.”
“What happened to it?” Jupiter asked.
“It vanished in 1846 at the start of the Mexican War, when Yankee soldiers came to Rocky Beach.”
“You mean American soldiers stole it?” Pete exclaimed.
“Probably,” Pico said. “All soldiers in enemy country have a habit of ‘picking up’ valuable items. The army officials later insisted that they had never even heard of the Cortés Sword, and maybe that was true. My great-great-grandfather, Don Sebastián Alvaro, was shot by the Americans attempting to escape from arrest. He fell into the ocean and was never found. The Yankee commander of the Rocky Beach garrison thought that the sword fell into the sea with him. In any case, it vanished. Perhaps it never was so fabulous. Just an ordinary old sword that my great-great-grandfather had with him when he escaped.”
“But,” Jupiter said thoughtfully, “no one really knows what happened to the sword, and someone must have put that old sword cover inside the statue’s mouth, and — ”
“Pico! The hacienda!”
Diego was standing at the edge of the ridge on the far side. Everyone ran to join him, and stared across the fields in horror. The hacienda was on fire!
“The barn’s burning, too!” Uncle Titus cried.
“Hurry!” Pico shouted.
They raced down the slope and across the fields to the flames leaping into the evening sky. The smoke of the burning buildings mixed with the smoke still drifting from the last of the brush fire. A fire truck was parked in the dusty hacienda yard, and grimy fire fighters were trying to get close to the house with a hose. But even as the Alvaros and their friends reached the yard, the roofs of both the house and barn collapsed with a crash. There was nothing of the two buildings left now but burning ruins!