The Mystery of the Headless Horse

Uncle Titus left the day-to-day running of the business to Aunt Mathilda. He was more interested in scouting for items to sell in the yard. Estate sales, garage sales, fire sales — he attended them all, and he liked nothing better than a chance to buy an old family’s possessions. As Jupe and Pete had predicted, he jumped at the Alvaros’ offer.
“What are we waiting for?” he said, his eyes gleaming.
Minutes later, the salvage-yard truck was heading north, away from the Pacific Ocean and towards the foothills of the coastal mountains and the Alvaro ranch. Hans, one of Uncle Titus’s two big Bavarian helpers, was at the wheel, with Titus and Diego beside him. Jupiter, Pete, Bob, and Pico rode in the back of the open pick-up truck. The November afternoon was still sunny, but dark clouds were building over the mountains.
“Do you think those clouds will finally bring some rain?” asked Bob. No rain had fallen since the previous May, but the winter rains could start anytime.
Pico shrugged. “Perhaps. These are not the first clouds we have seen this fall. We could use the rain soon. The Alvaro rancho is lucky to have a reservoir, but it must be filled every year. Now the water-level is very low.”
Pico looked out at the dry brown countryside dotted with dusty green live-oaks.
“Once,” he said, “all this was Alvaro land. Up and down the coast, and far over the mountains. Over twenty thousand acres.”
“The Alvaro Hacienda.” Bob nodded. “We learned about it in school. A land grant from the King of Spain.”
“Yes,” Pico said. “Our family has been in the New World a long time. Juan Cabrillo, the first European to find California, claimed it for Spain in 1542. But Carlos Alvaro was in the Americas even before that! He was a soldier with the conquistador Hernando Cortes when he defeated the Aztec Empire and conquered southern Mexico in 1521.”
“Gosh, that was a hundred years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock!” exclaimed Pete.
“When did the Alvaros come to California?” asked Jupiter.
“Much later,” answered Pico. “The Spanish did not settle California until more than two hundred years after Cabrillo’s discovery. California was very far from the capital of New Spain in Mexico City, and fierce Indians and harsh country lay in the way. At first the Spanish could reach California only by sea.”
“They even thought California was an island, didn’t they?” said Jupe.
Pico nodded. “For a while. Then, in 1769, Captain Gaspar de Portola led an expedition north and reached San Diego by land. My ancestor Lieutenant Rodrigo Alvaro was with him. Portola went on to discover San Francisco Bay, and finally built a settlement in Monterey in 1770. On the way north, my ancestor Rodrigo saw the area that is now Rocky Beach, and he later decided to settle here. He applied to the provincial governor of California for land and was given a grant in 1784.”
“I thought the King of Spain gave him the land,” said Pete.
Pico nodded. “In a sense, he did. All the land of New Spain officially belonged to the king. But the governors of Mexico and California could make land grants on his behalf. Rodrigo received five square leagues — more than twenty-two thousand acres. Now we have only one hundred acres left.”
“What happened?” asked Bob.
“Eh?” Pico said, looking out of the truck at the land. “In a way, Pete, perhaps justice. We Spanish took the land from the Indians, and others took it from us. Over the years there were many Alvaro children, and the land was divided many times. Some was sold, some given away, some stolen by the tricks of enemies and colonial officials. It seems a small matter, there was so much land.
“After California became part of the United States in 1848, there were ownership disputes and losses for taxes. Slowly our rancho became too small to be profitable. But our family has always been proud of its Spanish-Mexican heritage — I am named for the last Mexican governor of California, Pio Pico, and a statue of the great Cortes still stands on our land — and the Alvaros refused to give up being rancheros. When they couldn’t make the rancho pay, they sold off the land to live.”
“Now Mr. Norris wants the rest!” Pete exclaimed.
“He will not get it,” Pico declared firmly. “It is poor land, and there is not enough for cattle now, but we raise some horses, grow avocado trees, and work a small vegetable farm. My father and uncle worked often in town to support the rancho. Now that they are dead, Diego and I will do as they did if we must.”
The county road that the salvage-yard truck was on had been climbing north through hilly land. Now it reached a large, open area that was fairly flat. The road curved slowly left, to the west. In the middle of the curve, a dirt road meandered off to the right.
Pico pointed up the dirt road. “That leads through the Norris Ranch.”
The Investigators could see the Norris ranch buildings in the distance, but they couldn’t make out the vehicles parked beside them. They wondered if Skinny and Cody had returned.
As the county road completed its turn to the west, it crossed a small stone bridge over a dry creek bed.
“This is Santa Inez Creek — the boundary of our land,” said Pico. “It will not have water in it until the rains come. Our dam on the creek is about a mile north of here — at the head of these ridges.”
The ridges Pico referred to began just past the creek, rising to the right of the county road. They were a series of small, steep, narrow hills that reached down like long fingers from the mountains to the north.
As the truck passed the last ridge, Pico pointed to its top. There, black against the sky, was a large statue of a man on a rearing horse. The man had one arm raised, as if beckoning an unseen army to follow him.
“The conquistador Cortes,” said Pico proudly. “The symbol of the Alvaros. Indians made the statue almost two hundred years ago. Cortes is the Alvaro hero.”
Past the last ridge, the land flattened out again and the road crossed another bridge over a deep, dry gully.
“Another dry creek?” asked Pete.
“I wish it were,” said Pico. “But it is only an arroyo. Rain water collects in it after a big storm, but it has no source of water in the mountains, as Santa Inez Creek does.”
Now the salvage-yard truck turned right, on to a dirt road with avocado trees growing alongside. Soon it turned right again, into a broad, bare yard.
“Welcome to Hacienda Alvaro,” said Pico.
As the Investigators piled out into the dust, they saw a long, low adobe hacienda with whitewashed walls, deep-set windows, and a sloping red-tiled roof. Held up by dark brown posts and beams, the roof overhung a ground-level brick veranda that ran along the front of the house. To the left was a one-storey adobe horse barn. The ground in front of it had been fenced in to form a corral. Twisted oaks grew around the corral and barn and over the hacienda. Everything looked worn and bleak under the cloudy November sky.
A short distance behind the hacienda was the dry arroyo that the truck had crossed on the main road, and beyond that the ridges loomed up. Jupiter pointed out the statue of Cortes to his uncle.
“Is it for sale?” Uncle Titus asked Pico quickly.
“No,” Pico said, “but there are many other things in the barn.”
Hans backed the truck up to the corral while the others hurried across the dusty ground and into the barn. The light was dim inside, and Pico tossed his hat on to a wooden peg so he could see better to point out the family treasures. Uncle Titus and the Investigators gaped at what they saw.
Half the long building held horse stalls and ordinary farming equipment. But the other half was a storehouse. Piled from floor to ceiling were tables, chairs, trunks, bureaux, chests, oil lamps, tools, draperies, bowls, pitchers, tubs, and even an old two-wheeled carriage! Uncle Titus was speechless at the sight of such fabulous treasure.