Spanish Gold (2 page)

“Steady!” yelled Alverez. “Steady.”

And then the Indians attacked. First a few leaping into the river, running in the ankle deep water, followed by more and more until it seemed that the bank was alive with the enemy. A shrieking, screaming horde, rushing forward, threatening to overrun the Spanish line.

“Coming up behind us,” yelled a man. “There are more behind us.” His voice had risen, filled with panic.

Alverez stood and turned, running to a wagon. He reached up, touched the side, and saw another force attacking them, these men mounted on horses. Fifty of them. Maybe more.

As he watched, the pickets deserted their posts, running for the safety of the wagons, but the horsemen caught them. Using clubs and lances and knives, the Indians cut down the fleeing men. Savages leaped from the horses, cutting, slashing, stabbing at the three dying men.

The main body of attackers did not stop. They rode on, whooping and screaming. Alverez glanced to the rear, then forward, and in that moment, didn't know what to do. The Indians were all around him.

“Fire!” he screamed.

There was a single volley. Smoke from the weapons rolled out over the river. A few of the attackers fell but the others came on, angered. They didn't slow as the crossbow bolts began to fly. More dropped into the shallow water, blood beginning to stain it.

Alverez held his ground, turning so that his right side was toward the oncoming enemy. He aimed his pistol carefully, bringing his hand down in the classic technique. He squeeze the trigger, saw the spark flash, and heard the weapon fire. The target was lost in a cloud of blue smoke that burst from the barrel.

He whirled at a sound behind him. The riders had reached the wagons. He drew his sword and stepped back, away from the makeshift wall so that he would be able to maneuver. Around him the two forces met with a sound like the surf on a beach. A sudden crash. Steel clanging against the stone of lances and the hardwood of the clubs. Men grunted and screamed and cried out. There were wet slaps and piercing shrieks of agony as both defender and attacker died.

An Indian warrior who was nearly nude and carrying a lance attacked a Spanish soldier in armor and leather and using a sword of the finest Toledo steel. The soldier slashed, hacking an arm from the Indian and then driving the blade into the attacker's chest. The Indian staggered to the rear, holding his wound as blood poured from it.

The soldier died an instant later, a lance shoved into the small of his back from behind. He screamed in surprise, falling forward onto his sword.

An Indian attacked Alverez. His face was painted in black and white, giving him the look of a skull that grinned. Alverez lunged and the savage leaped rearward. He slashed to the right and the attacker tried to dance away. The tip of the blade cut his bare belly, drawing a bloody line across it. The surprised man dodged in the wrong direction and Alverez killed him with a sudden lunge.

Alverez whirled, his back against the side of a wagon, and realized that his men were dying too fast. Their bodies were scattered along the bank and behind the line of wagons. Most of the horses had been driven off, and the slaves had grabbed weapons dropped by the dead and turned them on the defenders. The war whoops mixed with the cries of the wounded and the dying filled the air.

The attackers were killing the wounded, smashing heads with clubs or cutting throats with stone knives. They set fire to the wagons. Smoke filled the air as they looted the caravan, carrying off the food, the clothes, and the gold that had been taken from the mines to the west.

Alverez knew that all was lost. His brother was dead. The majority of his men were dead and the rest were dying at the hands of the whooping, screaming savages. He whirled, leaped between two wagons, thrust at an Indian, and then ran. Ran as fast as he could, not looking back. Not caring what was happening behind him. He ran away from the scene of the massacre. Away from the celebrating Indians and the burning wagons. He fell once, and then crawled forward into an arroyo, the side sloped and the dirt hard, almost like stone.

Scrambling around, he saw that the Indians were swarming all over the wagon train. They were wearing the armored chest plates and the helmets of dead soldiers. They were dancing with the heads of his soldiers decorating the tips of their lances. They were waving the pennants and flags they captured. And a few of them were carrying the bars of gold across the river and toward the bluffs in the distance.

Having caught his breath, Alverez glanced to the left. The arroyo narrowed, but offered him some protection. He pushed himself away from the sides, slid to the bottom, and began running along it. After a while he could no longer hear the screams of his men or smell the smoke of the burning wagons. A while longer, and he no longer heard the celebration chants of the dancing savages.

The cannonade had begun just after noon and had not let up for hours. Explosions erupted in the Union lines, ripping at the men and the equipment. The Federal batteries, dug in on the top of Cemetery Ridge, returned fire, matching the Rebels round for round until the barrels began to glow a dull cherry and the powder reserves ran low.

David Travis, a young man who had been swept up with passion after the Confederate victory at Bull Run and had joined the army, now crouched behind a split-rail fence. He had shed his blue coat in the afternoon heat and watched as the artillerymen fired volley after volley at the Rebel lines.

Travis was surrounded by thousands of other soldiers. Some, like him, had seen horror after horror. They had watched friends ripped to pieces by artillery or shot to pieces by rifle volley, or hacked to bits in the hand-to-hand fighting that often followed the first few shots.

Travis, his head down so that he couldn't see the Confederate cannons opposite him on Seminary Ridge, waited for the attack he knew was coming. For three days the men had maneuvered, fought, and died on that ground. Thousands had been killed and thousands more had been wounded. During the nights, when the winds died and the shooting slowed, the cries of the wounded and dying drifted over the battlefield and toward Gettysburg.

“They're coming!” screamed a man. He stood up and pointed, looking back at the Union lines.

An officer ran forward and took a position near the Angle. He wore a black hat and a dirty blue uniform. In one hand he held a pistol and in the other, a sword.

“Prepare to fire,” he ordered.

Travis looked up then. The shadow valley in front of him was filled with smoke and dust. The booming of the artillery, sounding like the thunder of a distant storm, faded slowly. In the trees opposite them the first of the long gray lines of enemy soldiers appeared.

“Hold your fire,” screamed the officer and the order was passed along the line. “Hold your fire.”

“Wait for them to get into range.”

“Pick your targets. Make every shot count.”

Travis wiped his face on the red flannel sleeve of his sweat-stained shirt. He took a deep breath and swallowed the lump in his throat, suddenly afraid.

From the right, five hundred yards away, came a rattling of weapons. Clouds of light blue smoke rolled out as one brigade opened fire. The volley slammed into the left flank of the attacking Rebel divisions. Men fell, dead or wounded. Others pressed forward, filling in the gaps as they struggled to maintain straight lines.

“Hold your fire,” ordered the officer close to Travis. “Wait for it.”

There was a rippling of fire from the far left. The artillery fell silent and the drifting smoke obscured the ground in front of them. Another volley from the right smashed into the Confederates and one regiment broke, turning to run. But the others kept marching forward, their lines as straight as those on a parade ground.

All at once there was a scream from the Rebels and then a surging charge. The three divisions that Pickett commanded merged into a single mass of men that seemed to be guiding on a single copse of trees just behind Travis. To him it looked as if the entire Confederate army was attacking him personally.

“Take them,” ordered the officer. “TAKE THEM!”

Travis lifted his rifle and aimed into the center of the attacking mass. As he pulled the trigger, a thousand others did the same thing. There was single, drawn-out crash as the weapons fired and a rolling, boiling blue cloud of gunsmoke.

A hundred, two hundred Rebel soldiers died in seconds. The attackers were engulfed in a cloud of smoke and fire. Bits of bodies exploded upward. Equipment flew apart. There were screams of pain and shrieks of agony.

And then there was a shout from the Rebels. A single, long cry made up from ten thousand soldiers as they suddenly rushed the Union lines. A moment later, as the Federals struggled to reload their rifles, the two forces crashed into one another. The fighting became hand-to-hand as the two sides mixed.

The smoke from the cannon and the rifles and muskets filled the air, hiding and then revealing the soldiers. The sun faded and the landscape turned gray. The world was suddenly locked in twilight where the ghostly shapes of men struggled to kill each other. The fighting was bayonet against bayonet, pistol against pistol, and man against man.

Travis tossed his useless rifle to the side and drew his revolver, searching for a target in the smoke. A single, hatless Rebel loomed over him, climbing to the top of the fence, but before he could move, Travis shot him in the stomach. Blood splattered back, splashing Travis. The odor of gunpowder was overwhelmed by that of hot copper and human bowel. The man wailed as he wrapped both hands around his belly and toppled back off the fence.

“Kill them all!” screamed the officer.

“Help me!” shrieked a man.

Travis turned toward the sound of the voice. A Rebel soldier held the barrel of his own weapon, the bayonet on the end of it, and tried to stab a wounded Yankee soldier. Travis aimed, fired, and saw the Rebel's head explode into a crimson cloud.

Travis felt something smash into his side. He staggered to the right and fell, rolling on his back. The Rebel soldier stood over him, his weapon held in both hands, the steel bayonet pointed at his chest. Ihivis fired once, twice, three times, and the enemy fell back.

The Rebels surged forward, screaming, overrunning a Union battery. They pushed beyond that, toward Meade's headquarters on the ridge, shouting their victory.

But the Union counterattacked, throwing another regiment into the fight. More men died, some quickly, a bullet in the head or the heart. Others fell wounded, their blood pumping from them to turn the ground into a bloody quagmire.

Travis was suddenly lost in a twilight world. Everything faded, disappearing in the drifting clouds of dust and smoke. The shouts, screams, and orders were lost as he stood, his empty pistol in his hand.

Something came at him. A deformed man. One arm was missing and the side of his uniform was soaked in blood. His face was white and he dragged his rifle behind him. Travis watched as the man stopped, looking skyward, and then toppled forward, landing on his face. In that moment, the Rebel attack broke. There never was any command to retreat. Just too many soldiers who had taken too much. Given too much. They turned from the Angle, from the split-rail fence, from the Union lines, and began the long, slow march back to Seminary Ridge.

All around him the Yankees poured fire into the retreating mass. Volley after volley slashed at the Rebels, killing more of them. The men dropped in piles, their bodies littering the open ground.

Cannon on the ridge behind the Yankees fired down into the valley, slaughtering the survivors. Hundreds were killed in the retreat.

“Cease fire. Cease fire. Cease fire.”

But the men refused to obey the order, loading their weapons and firing at the fleeing Rebels. Some were screaming their hatred. Others stood numbly, looking at the broken bodies of the dead scattered on the open ground.

Travis stood silently behind the split-rail fence, his empty revolver in his hand. The odor of death drifted to him, overwhelming the gunpowder. He was afraid to breathe, afraid to move.

Around him the firing tapered and died. Those who hadn't been wounded in the fight, stood, one by one, facing the open ground where Pickett's and Pettigrew's divisions had been cut to ribbons. An unhealthy silence descended, punctuated by the booming of the artillery and the cries of the wounded.

“Jesus,” said a man, his voice low. “Jesus.”

An officer mounted on a huge brown horse galloped up. He reined it to a halt in a cloud of dust and looked down at a lieutenant who stood hatless.

“I want you to get your men moving. We're going to counterattack.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. Get ready to attack.” He jerked on the reins and the horse turned. He galloped off.

The lieutenant glanced at the men who were standing silently. Dirty, sweaty men with vacant eyes. Men who, for the moment, had lost the ability to reason, and the lieutenant knew that he could never get them to attack the Confederate positions.

Travis waited for orders. Sergeants moved along the line, checking the bodies of the dead and treating the wounded. Stretcher-bearers walked the field searching for the injured, loading them and rushing to the rear where the field hospitals stood.