The Mystery of the Headless Horse (8 page)

When school finished that Thursday the rain had slackened a little, and the four boys made good time out to the ruins of the hacienda. Alert, they watched carefully for any sign of the three tramp-like cowboys.

The dirt road into the mountains was a quagmire after the whole week of rain, so they left their bikes under a makeshift shelter of burned boards. Bob had brought a saddlebag with tools and a flashlight, which he took off his bike and hitched to his belt. The boys started to walk up towards the dam and the great rock of Condor Castle.

“If it gets any wetter, we can swim back,” Pete moaned.

They walked off the road through the chaparral and over the rocky ground as much as they could, so their shoes didn’t get too muddy. When they got close to the high rocky ridge of Condor Castle, they found the arroyo was too full of water to cross. They had to go around the end of it to get on the ridge, climbing over the mound that separated the arroyo from Santa Inez Creek.

A lot of brush had washed loose from the soft dirt of the mound. Slogging through the mud, the boys reached the ridge, only to have their feet sink into its lower slope as they climbed.

From the top of the giant rock of Condor Castle, the four boys had an awesome view. Above the dam Santa Inez Creek was far over its banks, spreading out across the burned land. At the dam itself, water poured not only through the centre gate but also over the whole top, forming a great waterfall. Below the dam the creek boiled and surged high against the mound at the base of the ridge, then flowed in a torrent down towards the county road and the distant ocean.

But the awesome view wasn’t what Jupiter had on his mind.

“Where,” he said, looking all around, “could a man hide to be sheltered, relatively safe, and more-or-less comfortable for a long time — if he had friends to help him?”

“Not on this ridge, that’s for sure,” said Pete. “We were all over it the other day and couldn’t even find a crack.”

“Are there any caves around here, Diego?” Bob asked.

“None that I know of,” Diego said. “Maybe far back in the mountains.”

“No,” Jupiter shook his head. “I’m sure the place must be close.”

“Maybe the dam’s hollow,” Pete suggested.

“Very funny, Second,” Bob said.

“Perhaps,” Jupiter said, “there’s a secret, hidden canyon where a tent or lean-to could have been erected?”

“There’s nowhere like that, Jupiter,” Diego said. “I’ve been all over these hills.”

“What about tenant houses? For the workers back then!” Bob speculated. “Don Sebastián must have had workers.”

“Yes,” Diego agreed, “but all the houses were down near where the county road is, on good land. Anyway, they’re gone.”

“Diego?” Pete said. “Where does the other fork in your dirt road go? The fork that doesn’t come here to the dam?”

“Just back deeper into the mountains, then curves back out to the county road on Señor Paz’s land.”

Pete pointed away from the dam and creek to the far side of the arroyo. “Does that path over there join the other fork?”

“Path?” Jupiter squinted, trying to see where Pete pointed.

“Yeah, over there. It goes away from the dirt road and off around that hill.”

They all saw the narrow trail that cut through the chaparral and disappeared among low oak trees around the slope of a hill.

“The shack!” Diego cried. “I forgot about it! There’s an old line shack back in there, for the vaqueros on roundup in the old days. It’s just boards and tin. I haven’t been near it for a long time.”

“Was it there in Don Sebastián’s time?” Jupiter asked.

“Oh, yes. At least, Pico told me there’s always been some sort of shack there. In the old days, it was an adobe room.”

“Almost hidden, not used much, and the path to it can be seen from Condor Castle!” Jupiter exclaimed, staring across the arroyo. “That could be the place!”

They climbed down from the giant rock, sinking into the soft earth as they slid down the lower slope and crossed the mound above the arroyo.

Jupiter looked nervously at the overflowing dam.

“I assume the dam will hold,” he said. The unathletic leader wasn’t the world’s greatest swimmer.

“It always has,” Diego said. “Of course, it’s pretty old.”

“That’s real encouraging,” Pete muttered.

On the other side of the muddy road, the boys followed the narrow trail through low oaks and thick chaparral. It was heavily overgrown from lack of use. Crossing the rocky shoulder of a hill, the path led into a small canyon nestled between two bigger hills. The canyon was dark and shadowy on the grey day.

“There, fellows!” Diego pointed.

A tiny, ramshackle hut was tucked in under a massive rock overhang, almost invisible behind trees and high brush. The flat roof was made of thin, rusted sheet metal and the walls were of rough-hewn boards with gaps between them. The door came off as Diego opened it and crashed to the ground in a cloud of dust. The sheltering rock overhang had kept the shack and the ground around it dry.

Inside, there was a single small room with a dirt floor. Bare planks held up the rough-hewn boards that formed the outside walls, and the sheet-metal roof rested directly on narrow open beams. There was no electricity, no window, and no plumbing. There was also no furniture, but a rusty old stove had once given heat.

“A great place to hide for a couple of years,” Pete said. “I’d hate to live here two days!”

“You might feel differently, Second, if soldiers were chasing you, and you had a valuable sword people wanted to steal,” Jupiter observed. “But I admit it’s pretty bare.”

“Too bare, First,” Bob said. “No closets, no cupboards, no nooks, and no crannies! There’s nowhere to hide anything.”

“Gosh,” Diego said as he looked at the bare, open walls and ceiling, “Bob’s right. There’s nowhere.”

“The floor?” Pete suggested. “Don Sebastián could have buried the sword here, and left the spot unmarked.”

Jupiter shook his head. “No, if he’d buried the sword in here, the fresh dirt would have shown for a long time. I don’t think he’d have risked that. However — ”

The stocky First Investigator was looking thoughtfully at the rusted old stove. Its pipe went up through the tin roof, and its feet rested on a slab of stone.

“I wonder,” Jupiter said, “if this stove can be moved easily?”

“Let’s find out,” Pete said.

The tall Second Investigator gave the stove a push. It was solid and heavy, but it moved. It wasn’t attached to the flat stone under it.

The pipe was jointed with a short section just above the stove. “Slide up that short piece,” Jupiter ordered.

Pete pushed at the short section of pipe.

“Gosh, it’s rusted tight,” he said.

“It wouldn’t have been in 1846,” Jupiter exclaimed. “Break it off if you have to.”

With the help of some tools from Bob’s saddlebag, Pete broke the rusty stovepipe just above the stove. Then, all together, the four boys heaved the stove off its slab. Pete kneeled and tried to move the stone.

“Ooofff,” he grunted. “It’s too heavy, First.”

“Over there.” Diego pointed to a wall. “That beam of wood looks loose.”

Jupiter helped Diego to rip the beam from the wall while Bob and Pete rolled the stove close to the slab. Pete dug down beside the slab until he found the bottom, then scooped out a hole big enough to let the end of the beam slip under the edge of the slab. With the middle of the long plank resting against the stove as a fulcrum for their lever, the four boys heaved their weight down on the other end of the wood.

The flat stone slab flipped up and fell away, revealing a small, deep hole under it! Diego bent over the dark hole.

“I see something!” he cried even before Bob turned on his flashlight.

He reached down into the hole as far as he could and pulled out some short lengths of frayed rope, a heavy sheet of paper that was brown with age, and a long, rolled-up piece of canvas that had been tarred black. Diego looked at the browned piece of paper.

“It’s in Spanish,” he said. “Fellows! It’s a proclamation from the US Army dated 9th September, 1846! Something about rules for the civilian population.”

“That tarred canvas is just the size for wrapping a sword,” Jupiter realized. He began to unroll the canvas with trembling hands.

“It’s empty!” Pete groaned as the canvas opened on nothing.

“Diego, is there anything else down there!” Jupiter said.

Bob stood over the hole with his flashlight while Diego looked inside and felt around with his hand.

“No,” Diego said, “there’s nothing I… Wait! I’ve got something! It’s… It’s just a small rock.”

Dejected, Diego brought his hand out and opened it to show a small, dusty rock. He rubbed it clean against his shirt. Now the small, almost square stone was a deep and glittering green!

“Is it…?” Bob started to ask.

“An emerald!” Jupiter cried. “The Cortés Sword must have been in that hole! That must be where Don Sebastián had it hidden at first. When he escaped from Sergeant Brewster, he got the sword and hid it somewhere else. Maybe someone had a hint that the sword was here, or maybe he just didn’t think this shack was safe enough.”

“He was right,” Bob said. “We spotted it pretty fast.”

“Then he wouldn’t have tried to hide out here himself,” Diego said. “This can’t be the place.”

“No,” Jupiter agreed, “but the emerald means that we’re getting closer. Now we know that Don Sebastián had the sword out here. It wasn’t smuggled to him. Sergeant Brewster’s story has one more lie in it. No, the sword was here until Don Sebastián came for it that night and hid it somewhere else! He hid the sword, and himself, and he had to do it fast.”

“Jupe?” Pete said suddenly. “What’s that noise?”

They listened. It was a loud drumming sound from somewhere outside. Almost a roar like an avalanche…

“Rain!” Bob exclaimed. “It’s hitting everywhere except here, under the rock overhang. Wow, it’s a real deluge.”

“No,” Pete said, “I mean that other sound. Hear it?”

Jupiter shook his head and Bob shrugged. But Diego heard it.

“Voices!” Diego whispered. “Someone’s out there.”

They slipped out the doorway and crouched behind the thick bushes that hid the shack. The three tramp-like cowboys were crossing the small canyon in the downpour. Their voices floated through the heavy rain.

“… saw ’em come this way, Cap. Four of ’em.”

“… keep followin’ this trail.”

The men moved on past the shack without seeing it under the overhang, and vanished around the next hill. Jupiter stood up.

“They won’t be back for a while,” he said. “We’ll get back to Condor Castle before they spot us. Come on.”

But this time Jupiter was wrong! The boys were still crossing the open canyon when voices shouted behind them!

“You four!”

No one had to tell the boys to run!

The boys charged out of the narrow, overgrown trail into the muddy dirt road, and stopped. Breathless, they looked right and left, not knowing which way to run!

“If we run down the road,” Pete said, “those cowboys might catch us before we got to the county road!”

“They’d see us if we tried to climb up on the ridge!” said Bob.

“And we can’t run up the road and cross the dam,” Diego added. “It’s all under water — we’d be swept right over!”

Paralysed by indecision, the boys stood on the road in the torrent of rain.

Behind them, the three pursuing cowboys crashed through the thick brush, swearing and raging as they got in each other’s way. The violent voice of the black-haired Cap could be heard urging the others on.

“Hurry!” Pete cried. “Let’s try the road!”

“No,” Jupiter ordered. “Down in the arroyo! Towards the end of it, near the dam! They’ll be sure we wouldn’t try to run that way — so we will!”

Wasting no more time, the four boys plunged down into the arroyo. They clung to the side, trying to keep above the water that almost filled the deep gully. Under the cover of the steep sides and thick brush, they started to work their way towards the dam.

Up on the road heavy boots sloshed in the mud. Their hearts pounding, the boys flattened themselves against the steep bank of the arroyo, silent and motionless in the cover of thick chaparral. Three harsh voices argued angrily almost directly above them!

“Where the devil did they run!”

“Slippery little punks!”

“You think they really got the keys?”

“Sure they did! They ran, didn’t they, and we couldn’t find no keys at that barn!”

“Cap? Maybe they ran to the dam, huh?”

“Don’t be dumber than you gotta be, Tulsa. Even kids’d know better’n to try crossin’ that dam now!”

“They ain’t over on that ridge, so they must’ve took the road. Come on!”

The three cowboys sloshed away towards the distant hacienda and the county road. In the arroyo, the boys waited quietly in the rain.

“They’re gone,” Bob finally said with relief.

“We’d better go, too,” Diego said. “We can’t hide here.”

“Only where do we go?” Pete asked. “They’ve got us blocked on the road, we can’t cross the dam, and they’ll come back this way sooner or later.”

“Perhaps,” Jupiter said, “there is somewhere close to the dam where we could hide until we’re sure they’ve gone for good. And if there isn’t, we’ll cross that low mound and use it as cover to get to the far side of the ridge. Then we can hide behind Condor Castle. We’re not safe in this arroyo. Those guys only have to look over the edge and they’ll see us.”

Staying close against the bank to remain hidden from the road above, the four boys made their way along the arroyo to its end. Now they could hear the water crashing over the dam on the other side of the low mound that separated the arroyo from the creek.

“Look for some space behind a rock, or a hole in the bank, or an overhang,” Jupiter said.

Clinging to the sides, the boys searched the end of the arroyo with their eyes.

“Gosh, Jupe, there’s no safe place to hide in this arroyo unless we get down under the water!” exclaimed Pete. “I don’t even see a gopher hole!”

“Maybe there are some rocks we could hide behind on the other side of the road,” said Diego, and he poked his head up out of the arroyo. “Fellows!” The slim boy leaped down against the arroyo bank. “I saw them! On the road! Those men are coming back!”

The boys all flattened themselves close to the bank of the deep arroyo. They spoke in hoarse whispers.

“Did they see us?” Bob asked.

“I don’t think so,” Diego said.

“Where were they on the road?” Jupiter wanted to know.

“Just about where that trail joins it,” Diego whispered. “Where we came down into the arroyo.”

“Maybe they’ll go back to the shack,” Pete said hopefully.

“No,” Jupiter said grimly, “they’ll come to check out the dam. We’re stuck here. Let’s just hope they don’t decide to look in the arroyo!”

The boys strained to hear the approaching cowboys over the sound of the waterfall at the dam. Finally voices floated towards them.

“… if we don’t see ’em by the dam, I say we come back here and beat the bushes in the ditch!”

“Uh-oh! That tears it!” whispered Jupe. “We’ll have to get out of here. Look, as soon as those guys get past us and out of sight beyond the mound, we’ll crawl up over the mound as fast as we can, and down the far side. Then we can get on to the ridge above the creek and take cover behind Condor Castle!”

“But, Jupe,” objected Pete, “we’ll be right out in the open when we’re on top of the mound!”

“I know, but just for a few seconds. If we’re lucky, the men won’t look back before they reach the dam. By that time, we can be safe behind rocks on the ridge.”

Pete shook his head at Jupe’s scheme, but there was no time to think of anything better. On the road, the three cowboys were now passing the hidden boys. Their voices were still raised in argument. Jupiter cautiously peeked over the rim of the arroyo. As the cowboys disappeared out of sight beyond the mound, Jupe said, “Now!”

On their hands and knees the boys crawled out of the arroyo and up the low mound. They sank into the rain-soaked earth and pulled up bushes by their roots as they went. They felt as if every eye in the world were on their exposed backs. But there was no shout behind them as they tumbled over the crest of the mound and slid down the far side to the edge of the swollen creek.

“We made it!” Pete exulted.

“To the ridge!” Jupiter urged. “Run as low as you can!”

Bent double, they ran like crabs along the soft, slippery mound. Twice Jupiter and Bob slipped and fell sprawling, and once Diego nearly plunged into the raging creek. Plastered with mud, they ran awkwardly on with surefooted Pete helping the others. At last the boys reached the steep, rockier slope of the high ridge.

They scrambled up towards the shelter of the great rock of Condor Castle, dislodging showers of stones from the muddy slope.

Behind them, shouts carried above the roar of the creek!

“Cap! Over there!”

“On the ridge!”

“It’s them! Get ’em!”

The boys froze on the steep slope and looked back. The three menacing cowboys had left the road and were standing close to the dam.

“They’ve seen us!” Diego wailed.

“And too soon!” Pete groaned.

Even as the boys watched, the three cowboys began to run across the low, soggy mound from the corner of the dam towards the ridge.

“What do we do, Jupe?” Bob cried. “They’ve got us cornered up here!”

“I… I… ” Jupiter faltered.

A strange noise filled the air through the pouring rain and the steady surging of the creek — a roaring sound that seemed to grow louder as each second passed. It came from somewhere above the dam, from the flooding upper creek, and rushed closer and closer and closer. Halfway across the muddy mound between the dam and the ridge, the three cowboys stopped and listened, too.

“Look!” Pete yelled.

A wall of water crested ten feet above the dam!

“Something’s let go upstream!” Diego cried.

Filled with brush, logs, boulders and whole trees torn up by the roots, the massive wave poured over the dam and crashed down into the already boiling torrent of the lower creek. The whole rocky ridge on which the boys stood seemed to shudder. On the opposite bank of the creek, sliding mud carried brush and trees down into the water.

“Fellows! They’re coming again!” Diego yelled.

The three cowboys were running towards them across the mound. The boys started to flee, but stopped when they saw the long mound seem to split in half below! A huge section of muddy earth slid down into the boiling creek — taking the three cowboys with it! Flailing wildly, shouting and swearing, half swimming and half hanging on to debris, the cowboys were swept downstream in the raging torrent.

“They’re gone!” Bob exulted.

“Not for long,” Jupiter declared. “They’ll crawl out downstream, and be between us and the county road! Let’s move!”

Pete led the way up the slope to the great rock of Condor Castle. They climbed up over it and started down the other side. On both sides of the ridge, mud and boulders had slid down in the heavy rain, exposing new boulders and rocky outcroppings below Condor Castle.

“Wow, the mud’s sliding everywhere!” Pete exclaimed as he led the way down the steep, slippery slope.

The athletic Second Investigator leaped over a large row of exposed boulders. The others climbed up the boulders behind him—and stopped, gaping.

Pete was gone!