“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!
“Hopeless,” a fire captain said to Pico. “Sorry, Alvaro. Sparks must have jumped over from the brush fire.”
“How could that happen?” demanded Pete. “There was hardly any wind!”
“Hardly any at ground level,” said the fire captain. “But there’s often a good breeze just a little way above the ground. Hot air rises from a fire, carrying sparks with it, and the upper-level winds can catch the sparks and carry them quite a distance. I’ve seen it happen before. It wouldn’t have taken much to set fire to the dry old roof timbers in these buildings. And once the fire reached under the roof tiles, the rain couldn’t put it out. If we’d seen the blaze sooner we might have saved something, but with all the smoke… ”
The captain trailed off as two walls of the old hacienda fell in. The flames on the house died rapidly, with nothing left to burn. Pico and Diego stood in silence. The boys and Uncle Titus watched in dismay, unable to think of anything to say.
“The things in the barn!” Pete cried suddenly.
Uncle Titus, Bob, and Jupiter turned to look at the barn. It, too, was a smouldering ruin. Several walls still stood, but everything inside had burned. Everything that Uncle Titus had been going to buy from the Alvaros!
“Everything is lost,” Pico said. “And we haven’t any insurance. It is all over now.”
“We can rebuild the hacienda!” Diego said fiercely.
“Yes,” Pico said, “but how can we pay our mortgage? How can we keep the land to build on again?”
“Uncle Titus?” Jupiter said. “We agreed to buy those things in the barn, so they were as good as ours. I think we must pay for them.”
Uncle Titus hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, I think you’re right, Jupiter. A deal is a deal. Pico — ”
Pico shook his head. “No, my friends, we cannot take such charity. I thank you for the generous thought, but we must keep our pride and honour if nothing else. No, we will sell our land to Mr. Norris, pay our debt to our neighbour, and find a home and work to do in town. Or perhaps it is time to return to Mexico.”
“But you’re Americans!” Bob protested. “The Alvaros have been here longer than anyone else!”
“Perhaps,” Jupiter said slowly, “you can find the money you need somewhere else.”
Pico smiled sadly. “There is no way, Jupiter.”
“Maybe there is,” the stocky leader of the Investigators said. “A long shot, but… Do you have to make those mortgage payments right away? And is there somewhere you can live for a while?”
“We can live with Señor Paz, our neighbour!” Diego said.
Pico nodded, “Yes, and I think we can wait a few weeks to pay him, Jupiter, but what —?”
“I’ve been thinking about that Cortés Sword,” Jupiter explained. “If it was stolen during the Mexican War, it should have turned up somewhere in more than a hundred years. I’m sure soldiers would have sold it for cash at once. The fact that it never has shown up makes me wonder if it was really stolen at all. Maybe it was hidden just like that sword cover we found!”
Diego said eagerly, “Pico! I’ll bet he’s right! We — ”
“Craziness!” Pico exploded. “There could be a hundred reasons why the sword has never been seen again! It could have fallen into the sea with Don Sebastián, or simply been accidentally destroyed. Perhaps soldiers sold it to someone whose family has quietly kept it all these years. It could be in China for all we know. You are jumping to conclusions because of that sword cover, but the cover could belong to any number of swords. No, finding the Cortés Sword is a childish fantasy, and we won’t save our ranch with fantasies.”
“That’s all possible,” Jupiter admitted, “but the sword cover didn’t get into the statue by accident. With enemy soldiers in town. Don Sebastián would have had good reason to hide a valuable sword. I think you should at least look for it, and we can help. Pete, Bob and I have experience finding things.”
“They’re detectives, Pico,” Diego said. “Show him, fellows.”
Bob handed Pico their business card. It read:
When Pico looked sceptical, Jupiter handed him a second card. This one said:
“I see you are detectives,” Pico said, “but it is still a foolish idea. Who could find a sword lost for more than a hundred years?”
“Let them try, Pico!” Diego urged.
“It can’t hurt,” Uncle Titus added.
Pico looked at the ruins of his fine old hacienda and sighed. “Very well, they can try. I will help all I can, but you will forgive me if I am not optimistic. For instance, where will they begin, eh? How? With what?”
“We’ll think of something,” Jupiter said lamely.
Soon after, Hans arrived with the truck. The Alvaros went with Guerra and Huerta to their neighbour Emiliano Paz, and the Investigators rode back to town. In the back of the truck, Pete asked:
“Jupe? Where do we start?”
“Why,” Jupiter said with a grin, “the answer’s in your hand.”
“It is?” Pete looked down. He was holding the old sword cover.
“I didn’t want to raise false hopes,” Jupiter explained eagerly, “but I noticed something. There are small symbols on the metal fittings of the cover. We’ll call Mr. Hitchcock, and maybe he can send us to someone who can identify those markings.”
The stout leader’s eyes gleamed. “I’ve got a hunch what they are already, and if I’m right, we’ll be on our way to finding the Cortés Sword!”
