◆ Chapter 2 ◆
Libbie Custer stretched her bare legs under the silk cover and listened to her husband snore. It was comforting but also worrisome. He’d returned to the White House late after a meeting at the Willard Hotel with some political allies. As usual, since it was a political meeting where women weren’t welcome, she hadn’t been with him and she didn’t like that. She worried about what he might have agreed to. He was still so naïve when it came to politics and she didn’t want his presidency to become a national disgrace like Ulysses Grant’s had become. She accepted that she was by far the smarter of the two very ambitious people and that George needed her to control him as well as lead him. She and George were a team and a team should not make decisions without both members being present. She was not yet forty and some said she was even lovelier than she had been when she was twenty.
She and George were also still passionately in love and there were many times when they laughingly thought their White House lovemaking would wake the servants.
It could have been paradise, but it wasn’t. She acknowledged that George was in well over his head. If power corrupts, then he was also being corrupted. He’d begun drinking heavily and he seemed distracted by events he didn’t quite understand. She didn’t think he had a woman on the side, or, she laughed softly, on her back. However, if he did, she would exact the only form of revenge a woman could. She would betray and humiliate him as well, and he understood that.
Until and if that unlikely event occurred, she had two goals—protecting him and advancing his presidency.
Beside her, Custer stirred and yawned. “Libbie, I’m bored.”
“That, sir, is a terrible thing to say to a woman you just had your way with. Did my ripe and lovely naked body not please you?”
Only an hour before, she’d been awakened by the familiar feel of his hands roaming her body. He’d gotten her nightgown up to her shoulders and had discarded the silk pajamas from India that she’d given him for his birthday. She’d responded eagerly and matched him stroke for stroke after he’d entered her. When they were finished and he seemed to be dozing, she wondered why so many of her married friends felt uncomfortable with sex. Why did they feel that it was a chore to be endured instead of a pleasure to be savored? For all his faults, she immensely enjoyed having sex with him.
Still, she wondered at his comment.
“How can the President of the United States and master of all he surveys be bored?”
“Because it’s a boring damn job, that’s why. Nothing has happened since I was elected, and nothing will. I also had that damn dream again. Once again I was lying on the ground with a bunch of Sioux standing there and laughing at me. Then one of them reaches down and starts scalping me.”
She stroked his head. “And that’s when you awake, because it is only a dream.”
His notoriety as the man who had subdued the Sioux, as a reporter named Kendrick had put it, had carried him all the way to the White House. He had been nominated as the Republican candidate for president, defeating the other Republican nominee, James Garfield, in the primaries. And later he had narrowly defeated former Civil War general and Democratic candidate, Winfield Scott Hancock, in the general election of 1880.
Yet George, or Autie as his family had sometimes called him before his brothers were killed, was correct. He was serving at a time when not much was occurring in the United States. The Indians had been reduced to a minimal menace and there was peace in the land. Europe might be in turmoil with the Prussians trying to gobble it up, but those wars were far away. The Reconstruction Era of the south was over and those former Confederate states were now free to do whatever they wished. That this meant suffocating the desires of the newly freed Negroes was of no concern to him, or most other people for that matter.
“Libbie, I am terribly afraid that my four, or, God forbid, eight years as president, will be as little more than a night watchman. I’ll become a footnote in history like some other presidents such as Fillmore or Pierce or my own predecessor, Rutherford B. Hayes. I need something exciting to fulfill me. I need to accomplish something important. I need to start a war.”
Libbie sat up. Her nightgown was still above her waist and he grinned at the sight of her exposed body. “You can’t be ready again,” she chided him playfully as she saw his eyes widen. If he was indeed ready she would be as well. “Now, let’s talk about a war. Who would you want to fight? Clearly, it can’t be the Indians again.”
She got up and walked barefoot across the bedroom. “Nor can it be the Mexicans. They’ve done nothing to provoke us and Congress will not let you just up and invade them. We did that once already. Somebody has to start the war and it can’t be the United States. The nation is still recovering from horrors of the Civil War.”
Custer yawned. “And that also leaves out the nations of Central and South America. They’re all too helpless and too far away and besides, they’d never start anything against us.”
“Agreed, George. Therefore, it must be a European power. However, we must choose carefully. Great Britain is out. Not only is she too powerful, but our economic ties with her are too close. War with Great Britain would be a total disaster. France is too powerful as well, although we very nearly did fight them at the end of the Civil War. They do hate us, so let’s keep them in mind for the future. But right now, they are too mighty. Their navy is second only to Britain’s.”
George smiled at the memory. The French had backed a puppet emperor in Mexico—a pliant fool named Maximilian—and sent troops to support him in violation of America’s Monroe Doctrine. With the Civil War raging, Lincoln did nothing. After the war, an army under General Phil Sheridan was sent to the Rio Grande with the clear message that the French Army in Mexico had to leave. They did and poor Maximilian wound up in front of a firing squad while his mentally ill wife fled to Europe. Neither George nor Libbie would mind rubbing France’s nose in the dirt, but, again, would the French oblige by starting a conflict that the U.S. could win? Probably not, they concluded. The French had their own internal conflicts tormenting them. Their Third Republic had begun with a massive bloodbath.
Germany was a newly created nation dominated by the always belligerent Prussians. She was still trying to get organized, although she might be a possible combatant in the future. But Germany too was doubtless already too strong for America to fight after she’d defeated both France and Austria. Also understood was the fact that Germany and the United States were almost half a world away and couldn’t reach each other.
Italy, an equally new nation, was immersed in internal problems and was also far, far away.
They decided that the Ottomans would make marvelous enemies and not just because they were Moslems who’d abused Americans decades earlier. But they too were far away and doubtless cared nothing about starting a war with the United States. Ottoman ships in the Mediterranean had captured American merchantmen and held their crews as hostages, but that was in the past.
The lands of Asia were already being carved up by the Great Powers. Perhaps the U.S. could slice off a piece of China or Japan, but for what purpose? No, Asia was out.
“Russia?” he asked. “Maybe we could get them to attack us because they want Alaska back.”
“I don’t think so, George. And besides, they are almost our allies.”
He laughed. “You’re right, and who would ever want Alaska returned to them?”
Libbie smiled like a cat. “That leaves Spain.”
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “Spain. Her remaining possessions in the Caribbean are close by and always on the verge of exploding. The Spanish are corrupt and keep slaves, even though they’ve begun to abolish slavery. We can provoke something and a war can easily follow. The Spanish are nothing militarily and we’ll have an easy victory.”
She pulled the nightgown over her head and watched him revel in the sight of her naked body. Even though it was mid-morning, the servants knew enough not to enter without being invited. She saw that he was aroused again and it pleased her. Controlling him with her sex was so easy. It was even better because she truly loved him and wanted him to be a great man.
She ran her hand down his chest and belly and began to stroke him. “First, George, you will finish what you are obviously about to start and then we’ll go about provoking Spain. When we’re done with Spain you will have become one of America’s great presidents.”
Custer laughed and pulled her body to him. What a hell of a woman, he thought. I am the luckiest man in the world.
* * *
The Eldorado was a decrepit wooden steamship of about fifteen hundred tons and she was stuffed with military supplies for the insurgents fighting Spanish oppression in Cuba. At least that’s what journalist James Kendrick had written in his notebook. Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten much farther in his writing because he didn’t quite believe it. The peasant revolution in Cuba was in a quiet phase, so why the rush to arm a population that wasn’t doing anything? There had been a long revolutionary war in Cuba that was now quiet, with both sides suffering from severe exhaustion.
Along with the guns and ammunition, about a hundred men, mostly Americans, were coming along as volunteers. To do what, Kendrick wondered. At the moment, that question was a minor concern. A Spanish gunboat was approaching them and gaining quickly. The Eldorado’s captain had his ship fleeing as fast as it could, but it was a sick turtle racing against a rabbit. Kendrick thought that was clever and wrote it down.
Worse, the crew and passengers had nothing but rifles and sidearms to protect themselves and those they’d taken from the ship’s hold. They’d been disgusted and dismayed to find that the weapons being shipped to Cuba were rusty and most didn’t work. Some even dated to well before the Civil War. It was clear that someone had unloaded a large quantity of junk for a huge profit. Some of the young American warriors now looked frightened. It occurred to Kendrick that he should feel that way too.
When the Spanish gunboat was less than a hundred yards away, she pulled alongside and ordered the Eldorado to heave to. Faced with a pair of cannons and a host of armed men lining the rails, the Eldorado’s captain was about to surrender when shots rang out. Some of the undisciplined American volunteers had begun shooting and others followed suit. Kendrick watched in horror as several Spanish soldiers were hit and fell, with one dropping into the water and disappearing.
The Spaniards returned fire almost immediately. Their cannons were loaded with grape and their shells swept the deck of the Eldorado with flying metal, while the Spanish soldiers fired into what was now a confused mob of Americans. As shells struck the ship, Kendrick threw himself on the deck and tried to make himself invisible. Shells ripped the wooden hull and deck, sending knife-like splinters through the air. He screamed as one imbedded itself in his cheek. He pulled it out and blood began to pour down his face and chest.
Only a few moments later, armed Spaniards climbed over the gunwale and killed those foolish enough to still be carrying weapons. The others, including Kendrick, were gathered in a bunch by the bow. The reporter in him estimated maybe thirty survivors. The Eldorado’s captain was not one of them.
An officer approached the group. “Which one of you is the journalist named Kendrick?”
Kendrick was surprised. He stepped forward and tried to look as unconcerned as he could. “I am James Kendrick, sir, and you are?”
“My name is Gilberto Salazar. I am a major in the Spanish Army. I am delighted that you were not harmed,” he said with thinly veiled sarcasm. “We have been following the course of this wreck since it left Charleston several days ago. You Americans think we are stupid and ignorant of the ship’s intentions, but we are not. Our spies have been well informed about this stinking ship and its cargo, both human and otherwise. You have come to start another civil war and to free the slaves who are already being freed.” He waved his arm at the other prisoners. “These men will be executed for their efforts.”
Kendrick’s mind worked quickly. “You are not counting me among the invaders?”
Salazar laughed. “I would like to, but men more important than I want you to witness the justice we will be handing out.”
“A small point, Major, but aren’t we in international waters? Should you have stopped an American-flagged ship in international waters, or any other ship, for that matter?”
Salazar looked about dramatically. There was no sign of land on the horizon. “You are that good at judging distances? I assure you that we are well within Spanish territorial waters. I suggest that you accept that declaration as a fact and not annoy me.”
Kendrick decided that it was an excellent idea. Just as important, he wondered how Salazar knew his name along with all the information about the ship. Obviously, the Spanish had spies in the group that had chartered the Eldorado.
“What will happen to these men, and me, for that matter?”
“Watch,” Salazar said.
He gave a signal and his soldiers pushed the men, now screaming in terror, into the ocean. Kendrick watched in horror as their heads bobbed in the waves. Soldiers lined the ship’s railing and began shooting at them. In a few seconds there were no more heads bobbing in the water, just an occasional red stain that was being swallowed and erased by the sea.
Kendrick was so stunned that he nearly fell to his knees. Laughing soldiers held him upright. Finally, he regained some of his composure. Salazar stood in front of him and slashed him across the face with the flat of a short sword, splitting his cheek and adding to the blood from the splinter.
“I was ordered to bring you back alive. Nothing was said about keeping you unhurt. You are far from innocent, Kendrick, and while I would like to throw you overboard as well, Spain has uses for you. We will scuttle the Eldorado, after first taking anything of value, of course. Then we will steam to Florida and drop you off at St. Augustine. I urge you to write a full and accurate report of what you have seen this day. Let your foolish and arrogant people understand that Spain is a great power and we will not be insulted by your sending miserable abolitionist revolutionaries into Cuba.”
* * *
Alfonso XII, King of Spain, was shaken by the news of American outrage over what they were referring to as the “Freedom Ship Massacre.” Away from the crowds of courtiers and sycophants who roamed the halls of the Palacio Real in Madrid, he had directed both his current and former prime ministers to meet with him in secret. There was so much emotion in Madrid that any open meeting might cause an explosion of panic.
The king was young, only in his mid-twenties, and his family had only recently taken power after a bloody civil war that had ripped Spain. This made him feel insecure. As the leader of the Spanish empire, he had to show strength in the face of this crisis with the United States. The Spanish empire might be only a shadow of what it had been in the past, but it could not be trifled with.
Nor was the king particularly healthy. He suffered from a number of illnesses which weakened him. The king was considered a liberal and had planned reforms to make Spain a freer country, but the news from the United States had pushed those thoughts aside. Spanish honor and its empire had to be protected. And he had to maintain his tenuous hold on the throne. Showing weakness was not an option.
Thus, he had chosen to meet with the two most important men in Spanish politics. They were his current prime minister, Praxedes Sagasta, and Sagasta’s predecessor, Antonio Canovas. Of the two, he was confident that Canovas would be the better war leader. The man had helped crush a previous coup and had done so with great brutality. It was rumored that many hundreds of Spanish men and women had emerged barely alive from weeks or even months of horrific tortures in his prisons. That is, if they emerged at all. Canovas’ brutality sometimes made the king shudder, but he did what had to be done.
“Sire, the situation is intolerable,” Canovas said and the king was pleased to see Sagasta nod in agreement. “What the Americans wish we cannot give if we are to be still considered an important nation in the eyes of the world.”
The king looked at the document on the table, wishing it to go away. It was the message from the President of the United States, George Armstrong Custer, although they strongly suspected that the actual author had been his secretary of state, James Blaine.
The American demands were many. First, they required an apology for what they referred to as the murders of innocent Americans. They professed horror that there had been summary and brutal executions but no trials. Second, they demanded reparations in the amount of one million dollars per person killed.
Canovas had pointed to that paragraph and sarcastically said that no one man is worth a million dollars, especially not an American pirate.
The American demands then included the establishment of naval bases in Cuba at Santiago and, in Puerto Rico at San Juan. They demanded recognition of the still-quiescent rebels as the legitimate government of Cuba.
And finally, they demanded that a Cuban-born Spanish officer named Gilberto Salazar be sent to the United States for trial. He would be charged with nearly a hundred counts of murder.
All of these had been categorically rejected by the king and the Spanish government, although the official notice of rejection had not yet been sent.
Canovas was predictably outraged. “They send a pirate ship full of rebels and weapons and we are supposed to do nothing? What arrogance. We cannot apologize or pay for their criminal actions. Nor can we allow the Americans to get a foothold on either Cuban or Puerto Rican soil. The Spanish empire has shrunk and can shrink no longer. Cuba is the crown jewel of what remains and we cannot even begin to let it go. If the Americans get a base in Cuba, they will use it to arm and train the rebels and then take over the whole island. Cuba will become a colony of the United States.”
It was an ugly fact that the once-proud Spanish empire in the new world, first begun by Christopher Columbus in 1492, had been in decline for more than two centuries. The colonies of South and Central America had successfully rebelled and discarded Spain. Only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained as Spanish outposts in the Atlantic, along with the Philippines in the Pacific. They also recalled the ugly fact that some in the southern United States had wanted to add Cuba as another slave state before the American Civil War. Ironic was the fact that a number of unrepentant Confederates had moved to Cuba and now made it their home.
The king stood and gestured for the others to remain seated. “It is my understanding that not even the rebel Cuban leaders, such as Jose Marti, fully trust the Americans.”
Prime Minister Sagasta agreed. “The Americans are greedy, rapacious, ambitious, and worse, not Catholic. Almost all of them are heretics who hate the Catholic Church. This is obvious from the way they treat their Irish immigrants. They cannot be allowed to gain any advantage in Cuba. Their secretary of state, Blaine, has stated his belief that the United States should continue to expand wherever it can, so this incident with the Eldorado does not surprise me. Their President Custer appears to be the same kind of man—rapacious and ambitious. The Americans will attempt to take advantage of us no matter what we do. Therefore, we must reject everything and especially decline to arrest Gilberto Salazar, a man many consider to be a true patriot and hero.”
Canovas added, “And let’s not forget that he is not only a patriot, but also a Catholic who commands a legion of more than a thousand loyal, well-armed and well-trained soldiers that he is supporting with his own considerable fortune.”
“Still,” the king said wryly, “it would have been so much easier if Salazar had brought his prisoners into port where they could have been interrogated and then put on trial. His summary execution of so many men was a tactical mistake.”
“Agreed,” said Canovas, “I would have liked to have had them in my prisons for a couple of weeks. I guarantee you that they would have confessed to just about anything, including fornicating with their mothers and barnyard animals.”
Alfonso shuddered but dismissed the comment. “Their message is phrased quite cleverly. They are saying that if we do not accept everything they’ve demanded, Spain will have declared war on the United States. In effect, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”
Canovas shook with righteous anger. “Then let’s give them what they want! If they want war then they shall have it. We shall either win back our empire or die with honor. We will never let them forget that we are Spaniards with centuries of empire behind us and they are nothing but barbarians.”
* * *
Sarah Damon and Ruth Holden watched and cheered as yet another band marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and past the White House. Sarah, the younger of the two at twenty-five, could barely bring herself to call it the White House, instead of the President’s House, as most people were now doing. She thought White House sounded too common.
Sarah wondered when she would see her brother’s regiment. He was a captain in the newly formed First Maryland Volunteers, one of a number of units springing up all across the nation and forming to fight the Spanish should a war actually come.
Finally, the First Maryland came in sight and marched past them. “They’re almost in step,” laughed Ruth and Sarah agreed. “Of course, they have been training for the last few weeks.”
“But look at Colonel Fowler,” Sarah said and pointed at the overweight older man who led them. He was clearly in distress. The fifty-year-old Fowler’s face was beet red and he was having a hard time walking. “Someone should help him. He might be about to have a heart attack or even a stroke.”
“Dear God, you’re right. It shouldn’t take a doctor’s daughter like you to recognize that the man’s in trouble. However, we both know the man. He is stubborn and unmovable as a large boulder. As long as he can, he will lead his men.”
“Right into the grave,” Sarah said. “Just like my late husband.”
Ruth reached over and patted Sarah’s hand. “Are you getting through it?”
“My husband was a good man and he was good to me in many ways. His death was senseless.”
Ruth did not respond. Sarah’s husband had been fifteen years older than she, a hard-working and prosperous businessman and farmer and, one day, he’d simply and unexpectedly collapsed and died at his desk. He had left two large farms and a shoe factory to Sarah, along with several other businesses. Recognizing her own limitations and the restrictions of what she thought was a near-feudal society, she sold them and had invested the proceeds in strong stocks and bonds. She was particularly enamored of Mr. Bell’s telephone company.
Two hours later, Sarah’s brother Phil Barnes met them in the restaurant of the Hay-Adams Hotel. He looked distraught. “The colonel’s in the hospital. The march was too much for him. We tried to tell him it would be but he’d have nothing of it.”
“How bad is he?” Sarah asked. She wasn’t fond of the argumentative and stubborn Fowler, but that didn’t extend to wishing him ill.
The waiter brought a glass of cold water which Phil downed in one long swallow. The waiter grinned and brought him another. “They think it’s a heart attack and, if that’s the case, he won’t be returning to the regiment anytime soon and that scares the heck out of me.”
Ruth smiled. “You can say hell. I’ve heard the word and so has Sarah. Now why does it scare you?”
“Because right now I’m the acting major and that makes me second in command. If Fowler doesn’t return, then I’m in charge of the regiment.”
“God help the First Maryland and the United States of America,” Sarah said while stifling a smile.
She did understand much of what he meant. The regiment had been organized only a few weeks earlier and consisted of close to eight hundred men, and most of them had never been in uniform before. Worse, the handful who had had military experience had not been officers and had forgotten what they’d learned in the sixteen years since the end of the Civil War. All the regiment had were uniforms, old weapons, and little else. Fowler, who had served in the Union Army had fought in several Civil War battles and had been attempting to impart his knowledge and experience to his raw unit.
There was no way on earth that her brother could lead a regiment. The War Department would have to do something about this tragic circumstance. Sarah and her brother thought President Custer was wrong in pushing for war, but they had confidence in Generals Sheridan and Sherman. Yes, those two would do the right thing for the First Maryland.
* * *
Captain Martin Ryder waited for the command that would send him in to see Lieutenant General Phil Sheridan. To Martin, Sheridan had been a true hero of the Civil War and was now the man rumored to be the heir apparent to the current commanding general, William Tecumseh Sherman.
Ryder had been ordered to report to the War Department and wondered what he might have done wrong. No explanation had accompanied the summons and that concerned him. The War Department was located at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, almost adjacent to the White House. Ryder could imagine a beleaguered President Custer looking out a window and wondering just what he’d gotten himself into with a war with Spain close to a reality.
Ryder was still young for a captain. He was only twenty-seven, although some said he looked older. His light brown hair was thinning and his clean-shaven face was weathered. At least he was still lean and wiry. A lady friend once said he had a nice smile if he’d only ever use it. She was right, he thought, but there was so little to smile about. His military career might have peaked even though there was war on the horizon. He was afraid that he might be assigned some backwater job while others got promotions. Of course, a backwater would be safe, but he hadn’t joined the army to be safe.
Since that momentous day on the Little Big Horn some six years earlier, he’d been stationed at a number of places in the Pacific Northwest and California. He’d spent two years rounding up drunken Indians who’d left their reservations, and another two stationed in a small post outside San Diego. There he had to deal with drunken and sometimes lethal Mexican bandits who kept slipping across the border to rustle cattle and steal anything that wasn’t nailed down. The years had been dull with moments of sheer terror as life and death had sometimes been only a matter of inches apart. Sometimes luck determined who lived and who died. There had been a number of skirmishes with the Mexicans and he’d again seen men die bloodily and horribly. Ironically, since devastating the Indian attack on Custer, he’d never actually killed a man.
He recalled the long-ago conversation he’d had with the journalist, James Kendrick. The man had been right. Custer and the Army had wanted him out of the way. The future president could not be embarrassed by anyone contradicting the official version of the near-massacre at the Little Big Horn.
He’d thought things had been turning around for him when he’d recently been assigned as an aide to the commandant at West Point. He’d even been permitted to give some lectures, although he never spoke about his experiences with Custer. Some thought it odd, while others put it down to modesty. He didn’t much care what other people thought. He was seriously thinking of resigning his commission and getting on with life as a civilian, but he wondered if his resignation would be accepted with war clouds darkening.
He also wondered if he wanted to resign at this moment. If war came, he felt duty and honor bound to use his skills to help his country and the Army.
“You may go in, Captain,” said a boyish lieutenant whose attitude told Ryder that he was not impressed by mere captains. Ryder felt like giving him a quick punch in the groin just to hear him squeal.
Ryder entered Sheridan’s office and saluted the short, stout man seated behind the desk. Lieutenant General Phil Sheridan, he noted, had gained a lot of weight. He was no longer the trim cavalryman who’d given the Rebels fits. He was only in his early fifties and looked decades older. Ryder could not help but think that that if Sheridan represented the best of the Army, the Army was in trouble.
Sheridan waived him to a chair. He was breathing heavily. “You’ve had an interesting few years since saving Custer’s tail, haven’t you?”
Ryder flushed. Like many senior officers, Sheridan did not hold Custer in high esteem. “It hasn’t always been interesting, sir.”
Sheridan snorted, but did not appear angry at the comment. “Your superiors have always given you high grades and you have the respect of your peers. Rumor has it you might have risen quite high if you had not been held back by that Custer debacle. Damndest things happen when you try to do your duty, don’t they?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s right. The road to hell is sometimes paved with good intentions. But now there’s about to be a war and nobody’s going to remember that strange day on the Little Big Horn. Do you speak Spanish?”
“Pretty well, sir. Learning it was almost essential while I was stationed by the Mexican border.” He declined to mention that it had been a lovely young señorita who’d been his tutor and that much of his lessons involved a detailed study of her anatomy.
“You’re to be commended. Too many young officers would have pissed away their time drinking and screwing Mexican women. You didn’t do any of that, did you? Don’t answer. Do you want coffee?”
Before Ryder could respond, a mug of black stuff was in his hand, courtesy of the smirking young lieutenant. “Captain, we are going to have to rebuild the Army if we’re going to fight Spain. We will need experienced officers who can be promoted to higher positions so they can command what is now little more than a rabble with mostly ancient weapons and using even older tactics. That is if they’re lucky and they have any weapons at all. A need for a man of your talents just opened up. The colonel commanding the First Maryland Volunteers collapsed and nearly died while marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in the extreme heat. Even if he survives, he will not ever return to his regiment. To say that the rest of the officers in his regiment are inexperienced would be a gross understatement. They need a younger commander with combat experience and common sense. They need you, Captain. Effective immediately, you are to take over the First Maryland with the brevet rank of colonel.”
“Sir, I’m at a loss.”
Sheridan smiled, “Don’t be. You deserve it; just don’t make too big a mess of things.”
Ryder was almost giddy. He’d gone from captain to full colonel in less than five minutes. Granted it was only a temporary rank, but it might become a permanent opportunity if he didn’t screw up. At the very least, there was the possibility that his new permanent rank would be major when the war ended. Of course, there first had to be a war. It was considered probable, but the Spaniards might act sensibly and negotiate a settlement. Would that change his thinking? Would he want to stay in the Army?
Sheridan continued. “The regiment is here in Washington, so take over as soon as you can get your new rank sewn on your uniform. Also, I’m sure you remember Sergeant Haney. Well, he’s Master Sergeant Haney now and he’s just out of the hospital where he’d been recovering from a broken leg. He says he fell off his horse, but I think he fell out of some woman’s bed. He’ll be joining you and, between the two of you, you ought to be able to whip nearly a thousand volunteers into shape.”
The lieutenant knocked on the door and reentered. “Sir, we’ve gotten a response from the Spaniards.”
Sheridan looked forward eagerly. “Well, out with it, damn it.”
“They reject all our demands and, in turn, demand that we send the man they say is the chief pirate, President Custer, to Madrid in chains.”
Sheridan’s jaw dropped and Ryder thought his did as well. The general recovered quickly and laughed hugely. “Custer in chains? My, my, what an intriguing possibility that is. I know a lot of people who’d pay money to see that picture.”
* * *
Gilberto Salazar lay in the mud and tried not to show his men how uncomfortable he was. Leadership often came with a price and getting muddy water down his shirt and into his pants was a small one to pay.
Nearly a hundred of his legionnaires were arrayed in a line to either side of him and were as well hidden as he. His only regret was that they were not able to wear their splendid white uniforms. Instead, they were dressed as the rabble they were out to kill.
He chuckled to himself. One of the side benefits of going to war with the United States was that the rebels, quiet for a few years, had emerged from their rat-holes and again begun fighting for freedom from Spain. It was not lost on Salazar and other Spanish leaders that many of the rebels were slaves who were beginning to get their freedom as the result of the treaty ending the war in 1875. However, slavery in Cuba still existed and would until the year 1888. The idea was that the slaves would somehow be able to buy their freedom from their masters.
Salazar shifted slightly, thus allowing a fresh stream of dirty water to enter his clothing. He hoped he wasn’t getting bugs or leaches in his crotch. Some people, he thought, deserved to be in bondage and that included the poor blacks who were now rebelling against the Spanish empire. Of course, not all of the rebels were Negroes, but a lot of them were. The group he’d been tracking fell into that category.
The sound of gunfire interrupted his thoughts. A few seconds later, he heard screams. The other company of soldiers he’d brought with him had begun pushing the rebels in his direction. In effect, they were beaters sending animals to be slaughtered. All he had to do was make sure that his men didn’t shoot their fellow legionnaires.
“Hold steady,” he said as he saw motion. As expected, the fleeing rebels were taking the path of least resistance through the thick underbrush and would emerge into a field where they could be cut down like weeds.
The first to come into view were a couple of dozen women and children. A few seconds later, their men followed, looking fearfully behind them and not to the front where the real danger lay. Only a handful of the rebels had rifles. Most were armed only with machetes that they held nervously. They began to run faster. They had to leave the field and hide in what amounted to a jungle. Some were wounded and were being dragged by their companions.
“Now,” Salazar yelled. He stood and opened fire with his pistol and was delighted when a woman he’d aimed at staggered and fell.
His men responded with well-disciplined fire that ripped through the rebels, throwing them around like toys. They howled and tried to escape to their right and left, but his men followed them with their rifles, cutting them down.
In less than a minute it was over. Salazar figured that a few had made it to safety, but that was not a major concern. Let them tell of the punishment Gilberto Salazar could inflict on the enemies of Spain.
His men had commenced picking through the dead and the wounded. The men were executed immediately, as were the young boys. His philosophy was that pups could grow up to become wolves, so they needed to die. The few surviving women and young girls were handed over to his men who had already stripped them and were raping them on the ground. They would not survive their ordeal. His men would make sure of that.
He would not take a woman from this group. Not only were they black, but they were filthy. He had a wife and a mistress and his choice of the many Spanish ladies in Havana, should he desire it. What he would like to do now was go home, bathe, and put on a uniform as befitted his rank and his victory.
He thought it would also be nice to be able to advertise his successes. He had been thinking it would be advantageous for Spain to have these printed in American newspapers where they would doubtless be misinterpreted as atrocities. How difficult, he wondered, would it be to have an American reporter on hand to witness them? He quickly thought of Kendrick, the man he’d permitted to live after the others on that pirate ship had been thrown to the sharks. Would Kendrick come to Cuba? Of course he would, Salazar decided. All reporters lusted after good stories. He could provide one—and a war to boot.
* * *
Across the field and well hidden in the dense growth, Diego Valdez watched as the massacre played out. He’d been one of the fortunate ones. He’d been on the far right flank and had quickly seen that safety lay in running in that direction. He’d been slightly wounded in the leg, but was otherwise unhurt. He’d told the fool in charge of the group that they were being pushed to an ambush, but that man, now dead, would hear nothing of it. His idea of an escape plan was to have everyone run as hard and as blindly as they could.
After a while the screams died down and only a few moans were heard as the soldiers finished with the women. When done, they slashed the women’s throats and left them. Diego would not go out to check on them until later, if at all. Even though one of the women was his sister, he couldn’t risk looking for her until it was truly safe. He would have to save his grief for later. He wouldn’t put it past Salazar to leave men behind to look for survivors and those wanting to help them. Being lighter skinned had helped him in the past, but he doubted there would be any advantage today. No, he would return to Havana, swallow his anger and shame, and try to earn a quiet living, all the while thinking of a way to win freedom for Cuba.