Table of Contents

THE SANCHEZ FILE, Chapter Two

How did Sanchez drown, unraveling the mystery

 On Christmas morning a search began for the body downstream along the banks of the Pajaro and in tree snags in the river, but it was never found. Some were sure it had been swept out to the Pacific Ocean. The manner of his drowning remains a mystery, but two versions have been told over the years.

According to the San Francisco Call of 1919, this is what happened.
Sanchez ignored the frantic pleas of a servant that the river was too dangerous, and urged his horse into the raging waters. He was 20 feet from the shore when the horse stepped into quicksand, unseating Sanchez. Within a minute he was gone, swallowed up in the torrent.

  In the other version, Alta Barcelon y Alvarado, born in San Juan in 1840, told historian Ralph Milliken in 1937 what had happened when she was twelve years old:

It was Christmas Eve. The San Benito and Pajaro Rivers were full from bank to bank. A crowd of twenty to twenty-five young men had been over at Gilroy practicing and rehearsing for the Pastoral Play to take place that night at San Juan Mission. All these men came on horseback from Gilroy to the San Benito where they had a ferry. They found the ferry there, but no one to run it.
Sanchez was with the party and he said, 'I'll run the thing and take you over. '

They all dismounted and got their horses into the ferry and then themselves. The water was very high. When about midway across, a floating tree being driven by the strong current struck the ferry amidships so forcibly that one of the cables was broken.
That caused the boat to nose in towards the bottom and only for the presence of mind of one of the boys, disaster must have followed. Quickly drawing his poniard (dagger) he cut the remaining cable. This straightened the boat which was swiftly carried down stream.

Sanchez who was in the stern of the boat was holding on to the cable. He had said to the boys while getting on, 'We'll go across or we'll all go to hell'. One of his Indians swam out to him and begged him to let go the rope and he would save his life. But it seems his fingers were locked and stiff from the cold and he could not let go. Presently he sank with exhaustion and was seen no more.

The Indian went back for help and his faithful servants hauled in the cable. But he was no longer there. The current had taken his body down stream and all search for the body later proved in vain. The men on the ferry shoved all the horses, one by one, overboard and these easily swam out. The men stayed on the boat which by good luck was carried toward the south bank of the Pajaro among the willows and cottonwood trees and there they managed to catch hold of some branches and scramble out.
They got to San Juan rather bedraggled. But after proper treatment they all came to, and the play was consummated at midnight, the same as usual.

This statement I know to be authentic.

 (Signed) Alta Barcelon y Alvarado
 Milliken Archives,  San Juan Bautista Library

Malpaso

Years later everyone in San Juan would say it was not only the river that was Malpaso, the evil path. It was Encarnacion Ortega. Let her into your life and you invited misfortune and death.

But an American woman living in San Juan described a different Encarnacion in a letter to her sister. After a visit to her she wrote, "she talks English very imperfectly, and is a good deal shy of Americans, which makes her seem reserved, but she is kind at heart."

In spite of these good words, Malpaso did determine Encarnacion Ortega's destiny and those associated with her for the next forty-two years.
After Sanchez drowned she had four more husbands. All of them died horrible deaths while they were married to her. Seven other men in her life were murdered. Her children had troubled lives.

Once it became known that Sanchez was dead rumors spread that he had buried large quantities of gold near his home by the Pajaro river. Men swarmed over the hillsides digging frantically, afraid someone else would find the treasure first.

But some crafty Americans in Monterey knew the real Sanchez treasure was not buried. It was in the long-horned cattle that roamed the fields and hillsides. It was in the thousands of acres of grasslands, green from winter rains. More than anything else it was in the eyes of the beautiful widow, Encarnacion Ortega Sanchez. Let those eyes look with favor upon you and a treasure was yours. The saloon cynics would have added with a smirk, "And even if there was no gold!"

Chapter Three