“Skinner?” Mr. Norris stared at his son.
“He’s crazy, Dad!” Skinny cried.
Jupiter reached into his pocket, and held up the set of car keys. “We found these keys in the barn. Those cowboys were looking for them, and that’s why they were chasing us — to get the keys. The keys were dropped when Pico’s hat was taken. I think you’ll find that they belong to the Norris ranch wagon!”
“Our wagon?” Mr. Norris cried.
“I’m sure of it, sir,” Jupiter said. “I’ll try them, or maybe Skinner will show us his set so we can compare.”
“Skinner?” Mr. Norris stared at his son again.
“I–I — ” Skinny stammered, and suddenly glared at Cody. “I gave them to Cody, Dad! He told me he lost his at the brush fire! He didn’t tell me — ”
“You rotten coward!” Cody raged. “Okay, the keys are my set to the ranch wagon. I dropped them in that barn getting the Mex’s hat, and Skinny knew all about it!”
Everyone looked at the stocky ranch manager.
“Those dumb cowboys are friends of mine,” the manager said angrily. “They’re in trouble, and I owed ’em a favour, so they came to me. I let them camp and hide out on Mr. Norris’s place. The idiots built campfires when I told ’em not to, and got the brush fire started. I knew if Mr. Norris found out the truth he’d fire me, so we went to the Alvaro place and I spotted Pico’s hat in the barn. We took it, and put it out near the campfire later. Only I dropped my lousy keys in the barn!”
The sheriff said grimly, “Why didn’t you look for them then?”
“I was in a hurry to plant the hat,” Cody said uneasily, “and we were afraid of being spotted, and — ”
“And the barn was already on fire, I’ll bet!” Pete cried.
“Yeh,” Cody said miserably. “It wasn’t me, you know? I didn’t mean to cause any damage, or hurt anyone. I just wanted to keep Mr. Norris from finding out about Cap, Pike, and Tulsa camping on his land and starting that brush fire. But those stupid saddle-tramps heard me say we wanted the Alvaro ranch and thought they were helping me by setting the barn and hacienda on fire! I didn’t know until too late, and my keys were inside the barn!”
“You know you’ve been trying to stop us from helping the Alvaros,” Bob said angrily. “You and Skinny! Snooping, listening at windows, trying to scare us!”
“That was just doing my job!” Cody protested.
“A job,” Mr. Norris snapped, “you no longer have! Go and get your belongings, Cody. You’re through as of now!” He glared at Skinny. “I’ll talk to you later, young man!”
“He can get his things,” the sheriff said, “but my deputy will go with him. He’s under arrest for framing Pico Alvaro, and maybe for arson, too.”
The sheriff and his deputy took Cody away to their car. Mr. Norris ordered Skinny to the ranch wagon and faced the boys.
“I want the Alvaro ranch, and I’m going to get it,” he said bluntly. “But I never intended to get it by dishonesty. I’m sorry.”
Before Chief Reynolds went to his car, he smiled.
“You’ve cleared an innocent man, boys. Pico will be released from jail immediately. Well done!”
As everyone else left the hacienda yard, Uncle Titus looked at his watch and told Hans and Konrad to bring up the salvage-yard truck.
“It’s time you four got cleaned up and had some food,” he said to the Investigators and Diego “Then we’ll see if you’re in shape to go to school.”
“But first we must remain out here another fifteen minutes,” Jupiter said. “I think that’s just time enough.”
“Stay out here?” Uncle Titus said, puzzled. “Why, Jupiter?”
“Time enough for what, First?” Bob said.
“Why, to stop Mr. Norris from getting the Alvaro ranch, of course,” Jupiter said a little pompously. “To find the Cortés Sword!”
“I forgot!” Diego cried. “You said you had the answer.”
“And I do,” Jupiter proclaimed. “Follow me.”
He walked towards the county road with the boys and Uncle Titus behind him. The rain had stopped, and the morning sun was trying to break through the clouds. As the group neared the bridge over the arroyo, Jupiter stopped.
“Do you remember that entry in the American lieutenant’s journal? The one that said he’d seen Don Sebastián on a ridge across the creek with a horse and a sword?”
“Sure,” Pete said. “The entry that was all wrong, because coming from the hacienda there isn’t any ridge across the creek.”
“There is now,” Jupiter said triumphantly, “and there was in 1846. Look!”
Beyond the arroyo, which was now a raging creek, the statue of the headless horse stood out clearly on its high ridge!
“In 1846 and before,” Jupiter reasoned, “there must have been two branches of Santa Inez Creek. We couldn’t tell that on the old maps we saw because an arroyo and a creek look the same on a map. But in 1846, when the lieutenant was here, the arroyo was a creek, too. At some point, a landslide on the ridge by the old dam formed that mound and blocked off one branch of the creek. Maybe the same earthquake that buried the cave caused the landslide, too. Anyway, half the creek became an arroyo, and its been dry ever since. Everyone forgot that it ever had been a creek.”
“So that lieutenant was right!” said Bob. “He saw Don Sebastián on a ridge across Santa Inez Creek. He saw him at the statue, and thought it was a real horse as he was a stranger and didn’t know about the statue!”
“Exactly, Records.”
Jupiter led the others across the bridge and started to climb the steep ridge. Pete stared at the headless horse standing against the now clearing sky.
“Don Sebastián must have been hiding the sword cover when that lieutenant saw him,” the Second Investigator said. “So you think there’s some clue we missed at the statue, First?”
“Ashes… Dust… Rain-Ocean,” the stout leader of the team intoned. “I was convinced it was Don Sebastián’s last message to his son José, and it was! Think, fellows! The rain comes from the ocean, and goes back to the ocean in the end. What do ashes go back to? What does dust go back to? They were very religious people, the Spanish Californians. They — ”
“Ashes to ashes!” Diego cried.
“And dust to dust,” Bob echoed. “The phrase from the church’s burial service! It means that in the end everything goes back to where it came from. Where it began!”
“Yes!” Jupiter crowed. “Don Sebastián, badly wounded, had only a short time. He wrote a clue he was sure José would understand at once. He knew José would realize that he had tried to save the sword from the Americans, and wrote those four words to tell José where it was — back where it had begun. With Cortés himself!”
Reaching the top of the ridge, they all looked at the headless horse with its bearded wooden rider proudly staring out over the Alvaro land.
“You mean,” Uncle Titus said, “that the sword is hidden in the statue after all? Just like the cover?”
“But we searched the statue,” Diego protested. “There isn’t anywhere to hide a sword!”
“Don’t say he buried it!” Pete groaned. “I’ve had more digging than I want for another hundred years!”
“No, Second,” Jupiter said, “I don’t think any digging will be necessary. Remember how we wondered from the start about why Don Sebastián would separate the sword from its leather cover? The cover protected the valuable sword yet for some reason he separated them. Well, now I know the reason!”
“Why, Jupe!”
“Tell us!”
“Where is the sword, First!”
Jupiter grinned. “Remember that pot of black paint in the cave that Don Sebastián wrote the message with? Well, he used that paint for something else, too. He really returned the sword to where it had started. It’s not
