Assault on Atlantis

CHAPTER TWELVE

The gallows beckoned, casting a long shadow from the morning sun, the tip of which just touched the jail where the condemned man awaited his fate. He did not wait easily or with resignation. He screamed, he ranted, and he ran about his cell. He’d been doing it for three days, ever since the Army Adjutant who enforced the law in the territory had slapped the irons on him while he slept off a drunk at a saloon just down the street. His face matched that on a poster, which stated that he’d already been convicted and sentenced once, and escaped. The sentence was death, and the Adjutant had no problem carrying it out as quickly as possible to minimize the cost of housing the prisoner and then collecting the reward and contributing it to the Seventh Cavalry’s officer fund, which was in line with the colonel’s orders. Given that the colonel was not only the Adjutant’s commander. But also his brother, there was no question of disobedience.

There was only one thing that bothered the Adjutant, Captain Tom Custer. The prisoner had had in his possession a fossilized human skull and a small leather pouch full of dust-gold dust. Captain Custer didn’t care about the skull, but the dust intrigued him. Given that the prisoner, who the Poster said was Toussaint Kensler, a.k.a. Tucson Kensler, was going to die this morning, Captain Custer thought the time was ripe to question him.

Captain Custer indicated for the guard to open the gate to the cell. He drew his pistol and walked in, pointing it at the prisoner. “You will sit down immediately, or I will save the hangman some work this morning.”

Kensler stared at the muzzle of the gun with wide eyes, shaggy, unkempt hair covering most of his face. “Listen, General-”

“Sit down on the floor.”

Kensler sat down, fidgeting. “You can’t do this to me, General. I dun it. I finally dun it.”

Custer kept the gun trained on the man. “Done what?”

Kensler leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You let me live. Let me go. I’ll draw you a map. Show you where it is. There’s plenty for all. Plenty.”

“Tell me.” Custer glanced over his shoulder, making sure the guard had moved away from the open door.

“No.” Kensler shook his head, dirty hair flying back and forth. ‘’No. No. No. No. You got to let me go.”

Custer reached with his free hand into his tunic pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. It was a roster of the Seventh from the morning role. He tossed it at the man, along with the stub of a pencil. “Draw the map.”

“No. No. No. No. You’re gonna kill me. Why should I? Why? No.”

Custer nodded. “All right. Wait.” He walked out of the cell to the office and retrieved Kensler’s wanted poster. He brought it back to the cell. “Here. See.” Custer tore the wanted poster in half. ‘That’s it. We can’t hang you now.”

Kensler grinned, revealing a few remaining dirty teeth as he watched the pieces float to the floor. He giggled as he crawled over and gathered the remains, tucking them inside his shirt. “I’m free now. Yes, I am.”

“Draw the map.”

“Oh sure. Sure thing, General.” Kensler put the roster face down on the floor and took the pencil between grubby fingers. He squinted, tongue stuck out the side of his mouth as he drew. Custer edged forward. Leaning over so he could see what was appearing. “That a river?” he asked.

“The Yellowstone,” Kensier said.

That oriented the young captain. The Black Hills. There’d been stories of gold in the hills for years. But those who went in didn’t come back out. Several groups of miners had set out to the west in the past couple of years and had never been heard from again. There was even a story that a flatboat coming down the Heart River had been carrying a load of gold, but it had been ambushed by the Sioux, everyone slaughtered, and the boat sunk along with the gold.

And then. Of course. There was the treaty that said it was illegal for whites to go into the Black Hill country. It was set aside for the Lakota Sioux.

“Did you dig a miner” Custer asked.

Kensler cackled. “No, General. No mine. Just picked it up in the dirt. Just laying there in the stream.” He held up the map.

Custer stooped over and took the piece of paper, putting it back in his pocket. “Guard.” He called out.

When the sergeant at arms appeared. Custer pointed at Kensler. “Gag the prisoner.”

Kensler blinked, not quite understanding, and by the time he did it was too late. The sergeant at arms wrapped a leather lariat around his head. holding a piece of rag jammed into his mouth. Kensler’s protests were muffled as he was hustled out of the prison and to the nearby scaffold.

Captain Custer waited just long enough to see Kensler fall through the trap and hear the prisoner’s neck snap before he hustled over to Regimental headquarters to show his brother the map. George had aspirations. High aspirations. He’d confided to Tom that he saw a future for himself in politics. If Grant, that damn fool, could be president, George didn’t see why he couldn’t. Especially if he had a great victory over the Indians and the financial backing one needed to run such a campaign. Gold in the Black Hills could solve both those problems.

Crazy Horse sat cross-legged on top of a rock on top of the crow’s nest. He could see for many miles to the north, east and west. It was beautiful country, the heart of the Lakota hunting land, and crawling across the center of it, like a black poisonous snake, was a long column of blue coats.

He reached into a pouch and retrieved the telescope he had taken from a surveyor he’d slain several years earlier. He extended the metal tube and put it to his right eye. He scanned along the column until he reached the front. The blond hair caught Crazy Horse’s eye. Long and flowing in the breeze.

Crazy Horse had heard of this leader of the white soldiers. Some called him Son of the Morning Star. Others dubbed him Creeping Panther for his attack on Black Kettle’s village on the Washita. Some even said the white man had a mixed-race daughter, named Yellow Swallow, with Me-o-tzi, daughter of the Cheyenne chief Little Rock.

Crazy Horse didn’t care what anyone called the man. He was leading surveyors into the Black Hills, the heart of Lakota land. He watched the column as it moved north until the last rider was out of sight.

They would be back. That was as sure as the sun rising the next morning. And when they came back, the Son of the Morning Star would rise no more.

Bouyer read the Rocky Mountain News article for the third time. It validated what was already being talked about in all the saloons and on the streets of Denver. There was gold in the Black Hills. Gold for the taking.

He was standing on the comer of Laramie Square in downtown Denver. He could literally feel the excitement around him. Dry goods stores were packed with people buying mining equipment and provisions, and there wasn’t a spare mule to be bought within twenty miles-this despite the fact it was late fall and snow covered the Rocky Mountains just west of the city. Bouyer knew some fools would head north now and most would perish in the winter. The smarter ones would wait for the spring. Then, just as the mountain streams would swell with run-off, the trails leading north would be packed with prospectors.

There wasn’t a mention of the treaty in the article. The one the government had signed with the Indians ceding the Black Hills to them in perpetuity.

Bouyer went back to the part that interested him the most. The fact that the Seventh Cavalry, under the command of George Armstrong Custer, had been the ones who made the discovery while on a survey mission. Bouyer didn’t believe that for a moment-why survey land that had been given to the Indians? He knew there was more going on than was being reported.

He’d left the Dakota Territory this past summer, even though he’d heard rumors that the Seventh would be marching. He’d had no vision or heard any inner voice indicating s was the year. Plus, most of the leaders on the list that he’d given to Crazy Horse were on reservations, content to eat government beef for the time being.

That would change now, Bouyer knew.

He folded the paper and stuck it under his arm. As he walked out of the Square he felt a cold breeze as his back and a tingle in the base of his skull. Bouyer halted, putting out one hand on a wood pole to steady himself. He closed his eyes.

In his mind’s eye he saw a place. Large slabs of slanting reddish rock towered over a mining town set near the foothills. A voice whispered to him: at the base of one of those slabs of rock.

That was it. Bouyer opened his eyes. He knew the place. The Flatirons-so named because they resembled the device used to press pants-outside the town of Boulder, northwest of Denver.

Bouyer headed for the stable.