Gold on the Hoof

by Peter Grant

  8

  Walt was too preoccupied with the diary to go back to the fiesta. He returned to the camp site, sat down by the fire, lit a lantern, and started to read.

  Captain d’Assaily described General Beauregard’s efforts to stem the Sherman-led Union tide rushing up through the Carolinas. Without adequate resources, Beauregard had failed at every step, leading to the crushing news in late February 1865 that he had been relieved of his command and replaced by General Johnston. For the remainder of the war, Beauregard had served Johnston loyally, but was never again given a combat command. Instead, he had been shunted off to administrative duties, which he performed without open complaint. However, he had confided his bitter disappointment to his aide, and d’Assaily had faithfully recorded it.

  After Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Johnston and Beauregard had traveled to meet with Confederate President Jefferson Davis on April 13, 1865. Captain d’Assaily had accompanied his general. He was not present at the meeting, but wrote that both Generals had told the President it would be necessary to make surrender overtures to General Sherman, as further resistance was pointless.

  “After the meeting, as they were leaving,” the Captain wrote, “the President asked General Beauregard whether he could spare a courageous, intelligent officer, whose loyalty to the cause of the Confederacy was beyond question, for a secret mission of the highest importance. General Beauregard immediately turned to me, and introduced me to the President as entirely meeting his requirements. I was forthwith ordered to accompany President Davis. I bade General Beauregard farewell, not knowing whether we should ever meet again. It was an emotional parting for both of us.”

  Walt read on with growing excitement as the Captain described being taken to a railway goods wagon, part of a special train from Richmond. He was passed through the sentries around it by the President. It was mostly empty, except for a few boxes, sacks, satchels and saddlebags filled with gold coins and paper currency, both Union and Confederate – the remaining contents of the Confederate Treasury. They had been spirited out of Richmond barely hours before the capital city’s surrender to Union forces on April 2.

  President Davis advised Captain d’Assaily that some Confederate forces in Texas were determined to fight on. He could not give them any further material support except to send part of the treasury to them, so they could buy what they needed locally. He asked the Captain to smuggle $35,000 in U.S. pre-war gold double-eagles through Union lines, then get them to Brigadier-General Joseph Shelby and his forces, along with a personal message from the President. He did not know Shelby’s present location, so the Captain would have to use his initiative to locate him and deliver the gold.

  Walt swore under his breath as he mentally calculated. $35,000 in double-eagles… there would be one thousand, seven hundred and fifty coins in that sum… one double-eagle weighed just under one and a fifth ounces… so the total weight of the money would be about one hundred and thirty pounds. “Not too bad,” he muttered to himself. “A single pack horse could carry that much without trouble.”

  That was probably the reason for the amount, he realized. One rider could manage one pack horse with relative ease. He’d done so himself, many times, during and since the Civil War. Any more money would require a second pack horse. That would make managing and concealing them more difficult when sneaking through enemy lines. The President’s advisers had probably settled on one pack horse load as being the most practical amount they could send. As for gold coin, that was an obvious choice. Confederate paper currency might or might not be accepted in exchange for supplies, particularly given the imminent end of the war, but gold would be eagerly accepted by anyone, anywhere, at any time.

  “I shook the President’s hand and solemnly promised him, on my honor and the honor of Louisiana, my home state, that I would succeed in this mission or die trying. He promoted me to Major on the spot, taking insignia of rank from a member of his own bodyguard, and putting them on me with his own hands as a mark of his confidence and respect. I saluted him, and went to the horse cars to select two animals. I chose a black to ride and a brown to serve as pack horse, both geldings in very good condition. They had been well fed, unlike most of our mounts, thanks to belonging to the Presidential Guard. I loaded the horses, collected travel money and rations, and rode away into the night.”

  Walt rapidly skimmed through the following pages. The Captain – no, a Major now, he reminded himself – had made his way through the Carolinas and Georgia, moving carefully at night only, avoiding Union patrols. As news of the surrender spread, he found the going easier because Union forces largely stopped patrolling, content to celebrate their victory in their camps while they waited to go home. He had been able to hunt for food, although unable to buy rations from farmers due to the destruction left by Sherman’s march to the sea.

  He had reached his parents’ home in Baton Rouge at the end of May, and broke his journey there for a few weeks. They were overjoyed to see him, but nonplussed by his determination to complete his last mission. Through newspaper reports, he’d learned that General Shelby had decided to cross into Mexico with his forces, rather than surrender them to the Union. He had approved wholeheartedly of this defiant attitude, even more so because he’d seen the destruction wrought by Sherman’s army in a wide swath across Georgia. He was determined to offer both the gold and his services to General Shelby as soon as possible.

  At this point, Walt was interrupted by the return of the relief sentries from the fiesta, and the departure of those who had stood guard to join the festivities. He poured himself some coffee from the pot on the coals, and settled down to read again.

  The diary described how Major d’Assaily had bought passage on a paddlewheel riverboat to New Orleans, then a ticket on a coastal steamer to Brownsville in Texas. He had traveled in civilian clothing, concealing the gold, his uniform and his weapons in two steamer trunks, and passing himself off as a merchant. He noted in passing his deep regret that he could not take his cavalry saber with him, as it could not be carried openly without attracting unwelcome attention, but was too long to fit into the trunks. He had reached Brownsville by late July, where he’d learned that the French-imposed Emperor of Mexico, Maximilian, had offered land to General Shelby and his veterans in the vicinity of Vera Cruz. However, he was unable to obtain passage on a ship going there. He had decided to buy horses in Brownsville, cross into Mexico at Matamoros, and continue his journey overland.

  He had paid a smuggler to get him and his horses across the river above the port, without going through border formalities that would reveal the gold; but the smuggler had somehow learned what he was carrying. He’d tried to kill him, and steal his horses and the pack saddle, as soon as they’d landed in Mexico. The Major had fought back, receiving a stab wound to his left arm, and had managed to recover the gold while killing the smuggler. He had headed westward towards Monterrey, away from the coast, to avoid any of the man’s colleagues who might seek vengeance.

  Unfortunately, the smuggler must have spread the word about the gold. Others had followed him. In two brisk fights, he’d killed two more, but, heavily outnumbered, he’d been forced to turn north, fleeing from their pursuit. He’d reached Monclova, only to find that some of them had got ahead of him and hired local assistance. In a fight outside the town, he was wounded by a bullet, and forced to head northwest towards San Buenaventura. From there, he had turned north again, heading into the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental.

  In his last neat, easily legible entry, he wrote that he had taken to a mountain trail that climbed seemingly ever upward. “I know not where it leads, or how long it will take me to get there, or even if these fiends from hell on my trail will let me live that long,” he had written despairingly. “I shall go on as far as I can, and fight as long as I can; but I am sore wounded, and do not know how much time is left to me. May God help me!”

  There was a blank page after that entry. Turning it, Walt found a scribbled, half-legib
le entry in pencil, sometimes obscured by dark brown stains that he instantly recognized as dried human blood. He’d seen enough of it in his life to be certain of that.

  “I write these words in haste,” Major d’Assaily had written. “They wounded my pack horse. It could not carry its load any further. I buried the gold and President Davis’ message beneath a flat, triangular rock, midway along the top of the southern wall of a canyon that lies due west of Rancherias, about seven miles from it. I could see the town clearly, and took a bearing on it. Also, I took a bearing on the church tower of a town that my map calls Santa Rosa de Múzquiz. It bore precisely north by east.

  “From that place, I followed the trail to the top of the valley, where it turned north. There I removed its saddle and released the injured pack horse, to find its own way out of these mountains, if it survives. I passed two trails that joined mine, then this trail entered a horseshoe bend in a deep valley. I can go no further. I killed those hot on my heels, but they have wounded me twice more, and others are sure to come.

  “I write these last words in the hope that none of my pursuers can read English. God grant that my Confederate brothers in arms may find this diary, and retrieve the gold, and make good use of it for our cause. I can do no more. Farewell and Godspeed. Pray for my soul.”

  The last few words faded out in a dashed scribble, as if the writer could no longer see clearly or control his hand. Walt gulped, imagining the sheer determination and willpower that had driven Major d’Assaily to this last effort. He had surely kept faith with his country and his cause, no matter what the outcome of his final mission.

  Walt closed the diary, poured more coffee, and sat back to think. Had the gold ever been recovered? It seemed unlikely. The old man had said that the Major’s body had been dug up and searched by unknown persons, presumably those who had been pursuing him; but by then his diary had been taken to Nueva Rosita. They would not have known who had it, or where to look for it. In its absence, could they have found any sign of where the gold had been buried?

  “I guess there’s only one way to find out,” he said softly to himself, feeling a growing sense of excitement. “I’ve got to go look for it myself – but I’ve got hosses to buy, too. Can I do both at the same time?”

  He fetched his map and examined it closely by the light of the lantern, calculating distances and times. He also had to consider whom to take with him. It would be foolhardy to go into unknown country alone, particularly since he’d had evidence, earlier that night, that it was hardly free of unsavory characters. He might have to fight them, just as Major d’Assaily had done. There might also be Indians in the Sierra Madre Oriental, the mountain range forming the eastern spine of Mexico, who might regard a lone white man as easy prey. No, he had to have at least one person with him… but who?

  He puzzled over the problem long into the evening. By the time the others returned from the fiesta, he had the kernel of a plan. He decided to sleep on it, and see how it looked in the morning.

  Walt woke at dawn, and rolled out of his blankets. He shook Tyler and Nastas awake, then stoked up the coals of last night’s fire with fresh fuel and put coffee on to brew. As soon as they were dressed, they came together by the fire.

  Walt explained to them the events of the previous evening, and what he’d read in Major d’Assaily’s diary, without going into detail about what he’d carried on his mission or where he’d buried it. He described it simply as “an important dispatch for General Shelby”, which was true, of course, but left out a lot.

  Tyler was fascinated. “Dang, what a piece of history! What are you gonna do with that diary?”

  “I’ll try to return it to his parents, if I can trace them. I know they lived in Baton Rouge at the end of the war. That’s a starting point – but it’s not why I woke you. I’d like to see if I can find what he buried.”

  “I sure would, too! You gonna go after it?”

  “I reckon so, if you’ll come with me, Nastas. I’ll need someone to watch my back while I look. The people who killed the Major, all those years ago, may still be around, and they may be watching for anyone trying to find his back trail.”

  “I shall come,” the Navajo agreed. “Just the two of us?”

  “Yes, just us two. Tyler, I’ll leave you in charge of the others. Take them down to Monclova. It’s about four days’ ride from here. If we haven’t joined you by the time you get there, wait up to six days for us. We have time in our schedule before the first horse fair, so that won’t delay us much, and it’ll give the horses a chance to rest.”

  Tyler frowned. “What if you ain’t there after six days?”

  “Then you’ll have to take the men down to Monterrey and Saltillo, and continue the mission. If we don’t reach you there, something serious has gone wrong.”

  “I’ll have some of the boys come lookin’, then.”

  “That’d be good, but only if you can hire locals to replace them and keep on buying horses. Remember, we’ve got a job to do. That comes first. I shouldn’t really be goin’ off like this, but I gotta admit, that diary’s caught my imagination. I’d kinda like to do as the Major asked, and recover his message, even if only for the sake of history.”

  “I can’t argue with you. We both wore the same uniform, so we know how he’d have felt about his last mission. When will you leave?”

  “Soon’s we’ve eaten. You take the main body south, while Nastas and I turn east.”

  The six men had moved closer to Nueva Rosita during the night. They watched from a clump of bushes less than half a mile from the camp as Walt and Tyler got the men together, explained what they were going to do, and saddled their horses.

  “What’s that hijo de puta doing?” one asked sourly, trying to make out what Walt was doing as he selected weapons and other items from his two personal pack horses, and loaded them onto another. Meanwhile, Nastas collected food, utensils and their bedrolls, and loaded them onto a second pack horse.

  “It’s different from what they’ve done other mornings,” another admitted.

  They watched as the group mounted. Tyler waved, then led the main body onto the trail to Monclova. Walt and Nastas watched them go, then reined their horses around and rode off in the direction of Santa Rosa de Múzquiz.

  “They’re splitting up!” the first speaker snapped. He looked around. “All right. Hernan, you and Onofre follow the main group today, as usual. Report back to the boss tonight, and tell him about this. Meanwhile, the rest of us will follow those two, to find out what they’re up to. We may be able to get them on an isolated stretch of the trail. We owe them for last night, after all.” His voice was savage.

  “But I can’t ride!” Tiburcio moaned. His knee was tightly wrapped in cloth torn from a shirt. “That cabron screwed up my leg too badly! What am I supposed to do, Esteban?”

  The leader shrugged callously. “That’s your problem. Sandoval wants that man dead, an’ we’re the only ones around to do it.”

  The injured man grabbed Esteban’s arm. “You bastard, you can’t just treat me like mierda to be scraped off your boot!”

  Esteban’s eyes narrowed. He whipped a knife from its sheath at his waist, and plunged it into Tiburcio’s chest. The bandido opened his mouth to scream in pain, but Esteban’s other hand came up to pinch his cheeks hard, forcing his mouth shut again as he worked the knife back and forth, thrusting deeper. All Tiburcio could do was let out a muffled moan of agony as he sagged, staring at his murderer in disbelief. It took him less than thirty seconds to lose consciousness, and another minute or so to bleed out internally.

  Esteban wiped the knife blade clean on his victim’s shirt, and sheathed it. “When you report back tonight, tell the boss he doesn’t have to pay Tiburcio any more,” he said to Hernan. Guffaws of coarse, merciless laughter greeted his sally. “Felix, Hector, take the rifle ammunition he got from Hernan and Onofre last night. Divide it in three, and give me my share. That, plus what we got from them earlier, will give each of us two
full reloads for our rifles. That should be more than enough to handle those two.”

  “What about our belt guns and knives?”

  Esteban snorted. “You saw how fast that gringo drew last night. He’s as good as the boss. We’ll have no chance against him with revolvers. Much better shoot him from a safe distance with our rifles. I’ve got Hernan’s knife. That’ll be enough for a day or two. When we’ve dealt with those two men, we’ll have their guns; and we can come back via Nueva Rosita, and get our guns from the alcalde.”

  “What if he don’t want to give them to us?” Felix asked.

  Esteban gave a slow, hard smile. “I hope he doesn’t. He’s got a pretty daughter. We’ll use her to teach him the hard way not to defy us!”

  9

  “They are still there,” Nastas reported later that afternoon. “They are hanging well back, two or three miles. There are three of them, not four.”

  “Maybe the one I kicked can’t ride,” Walt guessed, accepting the spyglass he’d loaned Nastas earlier. “Did this help?”

  “Very much. It brings people closer than binoculars. I must get one.”

  “We’ll see about that when we get back across the border. Question is, what do we do about those three?”

  “We can ambush them,” the Navajo suggested. “This road is deserted, apart from us.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t have legal cause to shoot them – at least, not yet. I don’t want to have to argue with the Guardia Rural about that. On a road like this, where we can see a long way, others can see just as far. We don’t know whether anyone’s watchin’ us from off the road.”

  “True. Perhaps when we turn into the foothills, to follow that valley?”

  “Perhaps, but again, I want to be a long way from witnesses if we have to take them.” Walt thought for a moment. “Let’s push the pace a little. We can be in Santa Rosa by five. Let’s ride through the town, and then turn off the road on the far side. Since they’re hangin’ that far back, they won’t be able to see what we’re doin’. I reckon they’ll think we’re going to sleep there. They’ll probably wait until dark before they come in after us. If we keep low and ride towards the mountains, through the thicker bush, we can circle back and find the trail to that canyon while they’re sitting outside town, waiting. With luck, we’ll shake them off, or at least make them waste time looking for our tracks.”