“Enjoy the Fiesta, boys!” Mrs. Dalton called after them.
Actually, Bob and Pete were quite excited at the prospect of seeing the famous Santa Carla Fiesta, and they rode off in a holiday mood. The road from the ranch wound through the vast inland valley, surrounded on three sides by the brown mountains of Southern California. Away from the sea the sun was hot, and the boys noticed that all the creeks they passed were dry. At one point they crossed the wide bed of the Santa Carla River itself. Down below the bridge, the river bed was completely dried up, with small plants growing on its sun-baked surface.
Soon the highway began to climb towards San Mateo Pass. Bob and Pete had to get off their bikes and walk them around hairpin curves. Mountain valleys yawned close to the right, while rocky cliffs climbed steeply to the left. The boys walked slowly in the bright sun. After a long, hot hike they finally emerged at the top of the pass.
“Golly! Look at that!” Pete cried.
“Wow!” exclaimed Bob almost at the same moment.
Spread out before their eyes was a breathtaking panorama. The mountains sloped away to low foothills and then a wide coastal plain that spread in all directions to the blue water of the Pacific Ocean. The city of Santa Carla shimmered in the sun, its houses like tiny boxes in the great green expanse. Boats moved on the blue surface of the sea, and the mountainous Channel Islands seemed to float in the distance.
The boys were still staring at the magnificent sight when they heard thundering hoofbeats behind them. They whirled to see a horseman galloping down the highway straight at them. He rode a great black horse with a silver-mounted bridle and a silver-trimmed charro saddle, its enormous pommel horn glinting in the sun.
The boys stood transfixed as the horse bore down on them. The rider was a small slender man with dark eyes who wore a black sombrero, a short black jacket, flared trousers, and a black bandanna over the lower half of his face. He carried an ancient pistol that was aimed straight at the boys.
El Diablo!
9
A Sudden Attack
The black horse reared high above the paralysed boys, its hoofs pawing wildly at the air.
The rider waved his pistol and shouted, “Viva Fiesta!” Then he slipped off his black bandanna to reveal a boyish face full of mischief.
“Come to the Fiesta!” the young man shouted again, turned his horse in mid-air, and galloped off down the highway towards Santa Carla.
The boys stared after him.
“A Fiesta costume!” Pete groaned.
They looked at each other and laughed with relief. Scared by a boy in costume!
“I’ll bet there are ten El Diablos in the Fiesta,” Bob observed.
“Well, I hope we don’t run into any of them in dark alleys,” Pete said.
The boys climbed back on their bikes and began the long descent down the winding road through the pass. Soon they came out of the mountains into the outskirts of Santa Carla. They rode past houses, a golf course, and several outlying shopping centres of the bustling holiday resort.
When they reached the downtown section, they parked their bikes in a rack at the library and walked to Union Street, the main thoroughfare of Santa Carla. The street was blocked by police barriers in preparation for the Fiesta parade. People were already lined up behind the barriers, most of them dressed in the colourful costumes of old Spanish days. A holiday atmosphere filled the air.
Bob and Pete hurried to make their purchases at a little shop selling souvenirs. They bought a dozen thick white candles and three straw sombreros. Then they rushed out to the kerb just as the first band came marching past with a blare of trumpets and banging of drums.
After the band came the floats, decked with flowers and pretty girls and men in costumes. Most depicted important moments of California history. One showed Father Junípero Serra, the Franciscan missionary who had established most of the fine old missions that stretched up the long coast of California. Another represented the day John C. Fremont had raised the American flag over Santa Carla when the city had been taken from Mexico. Another showed El Diablo in his famous escape. At least five El Diablos rode around this float. One of them was the same grinning young rider on the black horse who had startled them at the top of the pass.
“Look at all the horses!” exclaimed Bob.
“I sure wish I could ride like that.” Pete watched the horsemen with admiration.
Both boys were good riders, though not yet perfect, and they watched the horses with great interest. Ranchers in Spanish costumes, along with mounted police posses from up and down the state, went by, riding troops of golden palominos. Some of the horses performed intricate dance steps out in the street.
There were carriages and covered wagons and old stagecoaches, and then a float depicting Gold Rush days. Bob shook Pete’s arm.
“Look!” he whispered, pointing towards two men who were walking beside the Gold Rush float. They had a burro loaded with food and shovels and pickaxes, and one of them was the bearded old man from the cave — Ben Jackson.
“The other one must be his partner, Waldo Turner,” Bob said.
The two old-timers seemed to delight the crowd. They looked like real prospectors, even to the dust and dirt on their mining clothes. Old Ben was obviously the leader, his white beard flowing as he limped proudly along, leading the burro. Waldo Turner, a taller and thinner old man with a white moustache instead of a beard, followed behind.
The floats kept coming, the bands played on, and the boys might have forgotten all about their mission at the library if Pete hadn’t suddenly noticed the man.
“Bob!” he whispered urgently.
Bob looked up and there, a few feet away, was the tall, scar-faced man with the eye patch. The man didn’t seem at all interested in the parade. As the boys watched, he hurried across Union Street and vanished.
“Come on,” Bob said, and the boys quickly followed.
At the corner, they saw the tall man some twenty feet ahead and walking fast. From time to time he slowed down, as if watching something ahead.
“I think he’s following someone,” Bob observed.
“Can you see who it is?” asked Pete.
“No, you’re taller,” Bob said.
Pete stood as tall as he could, but he couldn’t tell who or what the man was following. Then he saw him turn off the pavement.
“He’s going into a building,” Pete reported.
“It’s the library!” said Bob.
The man vanished through the tall double doors, and the boys hurried after him. Inside, they stopped. The library was almost deserted on this Fiesta day, yet the boys could see no trace of the tall man with the eye patch.
The main room was large, with many bookshelves and several exits into other rooms. Quickly the boys looked up and down the aisles between the shelves. Then they explored the exits. To their dismay they found the library had two doors leading to a side street. And the tall man was nowhere in sight.
“He’s gone,” Pete said, crestfallen.
“We should have split up and one of us gone around to the back. Jupiter would have remembered that most libraries have more than one entrance,” Bob said dejectedly. He was unhappy with himself for not thinking of such an obvious point.
“Well,” Pete said. “He’s gone and we might as well get on with that research Jupe wanted.”
Bob agreed, and the two boys inquired about where they would find books on local history. A kindly librarian directed them to a small room that contained a special California history collection. Just as they were walking up to the desk in the smaller room, a heavy hand fell on Pete’s shoulder.
“Well, well, our young investigators!”