Assault on Atlantis

by Robert Doherty

  Reynolds, like Bouyer, was a half-breed, and he’d seen all the signs. The two had talked and Bouyer had given him a very strange thing, a clear skull wrapped in a leather satchel, with the admonition to keep it near Custer all the time. What Reynolds would have really preferred was to ride away with the Crow scouts, but he knew this was his place.

  He’d recognized the sun dance circle when they’d passed through it the previous day, and he knew from that and what Bouyer bad given him that he was in the midst of great events. Reynolds had done the sun dance when he was fifteen while still living with his mother’s people. He knew there were things in the world beyond the knowledge of man and much more powerful. The Great Spirit chose a man’s fate when he was born, and all any man could do was live his fate as best as possible.

  As he reloaded, Reynolds looked around. The front half of Captain Yates’s F Troop was in the grassy bowl now. E Troop was bottlenecked in Medicine Tail Coulee behind it, the column of twos halted by the sudden stop of F Troop. Another ravine just downstream looked like it went up to the northeast. The Indian fire was not heavy, other than Custer, only two other troopers had been hit, both wounded. A charge could take the crossing. Reynolds could see the lodges on the other side, the village was there for the taking with a determined charge.

  But Yates was with the general and his brother. They were arguing about whether to take Custer off his horse. At that moment, one of the troopers in F Troop took an arrow through the throat.

  Reynolds remounted. Several troopers were firing, but the rest were milling about, no orders being given, the entire command stopped with the strike of one bullet. Without the general, Reynolds knew there was no one who could lead the regiment, not even Benteen if he were here, and the fire from across the river was growing heavier by the minute.

  GALL

  The edge of his hatchet dripped red as he walked among the bodies. Gall could hear firing from the other side of the river. Warriors had chased the soldiers over there and into the bluffs. The camp was safe, and a victory had been won, testified to by the number of bodies in blue lying about the valley floor and the fact that the white men were running away in a panic.

  He spun about as he heard a shout. A large man with black skin was running, rifle in hand. He had no horse and must have been cut off when the whites retreated. Gall had seen this man before and knew of him. He was named Isiah Dorman, and he scouted for Custer. He had a red wife, but he had betrayed the people and now served with the whites.

  Dorman fired a quick shot over his shoulder at a group of Sioux who were chasing him. He missed. Gall began running to join the fight when one of the Sioux pulled up a shotgun and fired, hitting Dorman in the legs with pellets and tumbling him to the ground. As the black man fumbled to reload, one of the Sioux used a spear to knock the gun out of his hands.

  A warrior fired an arrow at close range, and the steel blade sliced through the man’s chest and imbedded itself in a prairie dog mound behind him. Gall came to a halt and watched. Squaws came running up to the pinned man. They had stone mallets that they used to pound grain and com with. They used those to smash Dorman’s flesh, breaking his arms as he flailed about trying to keep them away.

  Gall felt nothing as the man screamed. A warrior took a knife and gashed open a wound on Dorman’s side. The warrior grabbed a tin cup that was hooked to the black man’s cartridge belt and held it below the wound, filling it with blood.

  One of the squaws had just lost her husband and she had a metal pin in her hand, a picket pin she must have taken from one of the dead horses farther back in the valley. With both hands, she drove it down between Dorman’s legs, slamming through his testicles and pinning him to the ground in that direction. An undulating scream ripped from his throat.

  With that, the squaws moved on to other bodies. But Gall could see that Dorman was still alive, blood pouring from his wounds. A small group of boys came running by, bows in hand, and Gall stopped them with a yell. He pointed at the dying black man and gave an order. The boys notched arrows and fired, peppering his body. The black man was finally dead.

  The firing in the bluffs to the east was much more sporadic now. The white men had lost many horses in the valley. They would not be going anywhere soon, and there would be time to deal with them later.

  Gall looked back over the field of battle and frowned. Why had the soldiers begun to charge and then stopped so quickly? And again, this did not fulfill Sitting Bull’s vision. The soldiers had not fallen into camp; they had attacked on a level field. And where was Long Hair, Custer? Gall had seen the flag one of the soldiers was carrying. These were Custer’s men, but there had not been that many of them. Even the blue coats were not stupid enough to attack the entire Sioux nation with just this handful of soldiers. Were they? Where were the others?

  Gall heard shots downstream, to the north. He looked in that direction but could see nothing through the trees that lined the banks. His warrior’s sense told him the fight was begun anew, though. He grabbed a pony and threw his powerful leg over it. Hatchet in hand, he rode north. Through the village, yelling for all the warriors around to follow him.

  BOUYER

  Bouyer scooped up a dismounted soldier, swinging him on the horse right behind him as he crossed the little Big Horn. He reached the far hank as arrows rained down around and bullets whizzed by. The horse struggled, fighting its way up the steep bluff carrying the two men. Halfway up, it collapsed, spilling Bouyer and the soldier to the ground. Bouyer began to tumble back down slope but arrested his fall by grabbing onto a bush. The soldier continued down and Bouyer saw three arrows sticking out of the man’s back, arrows that would have been in his own back if he hadn’t tried to help the soldier.

  The Little Big Horn below him flowed red. A dozen blue coats lay still in the shallow water as more tried to escape. Bouyer saw Reno to his left, scrambling on all fours up the slope toward the top of the bluff. There was no coordinated withdrawal, just a mad desperate rush to escape. Cursing, Bouyer got to his feet and dashed up the bluff until he reached the top, about a hundred fifty steep feet above the Little Big horn. There were about two dozen soldiers already there, most dazed and just lying about. The bluff was covered with knee-high grass and had great views in all directions.

  Bouyer looked to the north. He could hear gunfire although it was hard to determine exactly in what direction or how far it was, as there was still considerable firing from below. He couldn’t see anything, no sign of Custer or the other half of the Seventh Cavalry.

  This was not coming together the way Bouyer had expected. He’d thought there would be one magnificent battle with the entire Seventh pitched against the united Indian tribes. He blinked sweat out of his eyes, sensing failure. The skulls were dispersed, he knew that. He needed to bring them together. He’d given them to the names listed on the paper he’d received, but he had little idea where all those people were now.

  He saw Reno now on the top of the bluff, collapsing to the ground. Bouyer went over to the major. “Sir!”

  Reno’s eyes had the distant stare of one who had seen things they wished they never had. Bouyer slapped him across the face hard. “Sir. You need to rally the men. The Sioux ain’t gonna stop. They’re gonna come right up that hill you came up unless you put some hot lead into them.”

  Reno blinked, as if Bouyer were speaking a foreign language. Hell, Bouyer thought. Reno not only needed to organize a defense, he needed to gather a strike force to ride out and find Custer. There were at least fifty men here now, with more straggling in every minute. Bouyer grabbed Reno by the shirt and spoke slowly, but forcefully. ‘’Major, you need to take command. Now!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  EARTH XVI

  Earhart had never experienced flight like this. The pod around was displaying the three-hundred-sixty-degree view from the outside of the sphere. She could look in any direction, and she could also direct the sphere to go in that direction simply by pressing one of four lit buttons on the wa
ist-high console that wrapped around her. Up. down. Left. And right or any combination thereof. Simplicity in the utmost.

  There was a city below, with several beaches east and south, and a steep hill with a large statue on top of it. Rio de Janeiro. Earhart had flown there once before. They were over South America.

  “Can you deploy the panels?” Dane’s voice interrupted her flying reverie.

  Earhart looked down at the console. It had come alive when Dane powered up the ship, and at first she had concentrated simply on searching for the controls to maneuver the sphere. Those for the panels weren’t hard, either. A small accordion like symbol was to her right. She pushed it. A loud rumbling noise reverberated through the sphere. Directly in front of her, on the inside of the pod’s surface, a small window appeared, showing the large cargo bay above, and the top of the sphere began opening. The gap grew wider until the entire top was open. Then the panels began folding outward, extending in both directions.

  *****

  Dane had his hands off the portal map, but power was still flowing through him into the pedestal on which the map was placed. The draw wasn’t as intense as it was while moving through a portal, but it was still appreciable. He kept his eyes closed. But there wasn’t anything he could do about the sounds of multiplied pain that echoed through the chamber. He prayed that the Shadow wasn’t an Earth time line, because any civilization that would develop and use such a mode of power was as evil as Nazi Germany.

  That gave Dane pause for a moment as he remembered his Vision of the flag with the hammer and sickle flying over the White House. Could...

  He was jerked out of this train of thought by Earhart’s voice. “We’re moving through the atmosphere. The panels seem to be working. We’re drawing in something.”

  “Where’s it going?” Dane asked.

  There was a pause, then Earhart replied. “Into the panels and storage area. I’ve got some sort of reading. Seventy percent I’m assuming that’s against the capacity the sphere can store.”

  “Is it enough for what we need?”

  “I have no idea. But we can’t take back more than this thing can store. We have to hope it’s enough.”

  Dane opened his eyes. Most of the sailors in the alcoves were dead. One of the still living met his gaze with an anguished look. The leads Dane had noticed were in the man’s body, most likely activated when Dane had accessed the portal map.

  “How much longer’?” Dane asked, unable to break the man’s accusing gaze.

  “Not too much longer.” There was a pause. “We’re over the South Atlantic now, moving west to east. We came in over Rio. There was nobody there. The city was deserted, I saw no signs of human life.”

  “We knew that,” Dane said. “Any idea what happened to help people?”

  “Not a clue. Ninety percent, I’m turning back toward the portal.”

  Dane tore his eyes away from the man. He took a quick count. Fewer than fifteen were still alive. The heads of the rest were just like those who had previously occupied the alcoves, solidified into dull gray skulls. He looked down. The portal map looked like a mass of pulsing golden snakes. He forced his hands into it, feeling the heat.

  Visions, glimpses of other Earth time lines shot through his mind, but he focused on finding this one. He caught a glimpse of the abandoned city, recognizing Rio now, and he hold.

  “We’re at one hundred percent capacity,” Earhart reported. “I see the portal.”

  Dane flinched as a spasm of red hot pain shot into his palm.

  “Keep it open. Eric!”

  He could hear the panic in Earhart’s voice. He gritted his and tightened his grip. Ignoring the pain. It felt as if his bands were on fire, burning. He could even feel the flesh peeling back. The pain went deeper and deeper, into the marrow of his bones.

  “Steady.” Earhart’s voice was almost a whisper, as if she were afraid anything louder would distract him. “Steady. Eric. Steady.”

  The sphere lurched.

  “We’re in. Now to your Earth time line.”

  Dane pulled his bands away from the portal map, surprised to see them intact. He looked about. “We can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re all dead.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  LONSOME CHARLIE REYNOLDS

  “We have to cross now!” Reynolds yelled at Captain Yates. The entire unit was stalled, some of Yates’s men laying down a covering fire across the river, but the rest were bottled up in the coulee, able to neither advance nor go back due to the press of the column coming downhill behind them. The firing from the Indian side was getting stronger.

  Yates was dismounted, standing next to where Tom Custer was tending to his brother. The younger Custer. Boston. Was there along with the youth, Autie. A family gathering, thought Reynolds, but one that had taken the heart out of the regiment.

  If Yates wouldn’t act, Reynolds knew he had to. He turned his horse toward the river and rode into the water, hoping that some of the troopers would follow him. He knew they could take the crossing with one charge and if they did that, the way into the village would be open. Beyond that he didn’t know what would happen, but he saw it as their only chance. If they could take some squaws and children hostage, perhaps they could negotiate their way out of this.

  Water splashed around his horse’s hooves and bullets cracked by. Reynolds paused in midstream and fired his rifle. He glanced over his shoulder. A squad of soldiers was following. We are going to do it, he thought, when his horse suddenly reared up, front legs high into the air. As he slid off the side of the bucking horse, Reynolds saw the shaft of the arrow sticking out of the horse’s chest and then he felt the wind explode out of his lungs as the horse rolled on top of him and then off to the side, dead. He heard his bones breaking, but curiously, he felt nothing as he gasped air back into his lungs. The water of the little Big Horn splashed over the lower half of his body as he lay, his upper back against the body of his horse.

  Reynolds looked down. Like a piece of firewood, he could see white bone sticking out of the water. His bone, from his leg. He wondered why he didn’t feel anything, but then, when he tried to move and couldn’t, he knew. His back was broken.

  Reynolds twisted his head and looked back the way he’d come. The squad of soldiers was staring at him, halted, and Captain Yates was giving orders, turning them around to go downstream and up the next coulee. They had Custer on his horse again, his family around him, keeping him in the saddle as they rode away.

  Reynolds lifted an arm and signaled for help. Few saw the gesture. But Autie Custer did. He hesitated, looking between his brother and the trapped scout, and then dashed out into the water.

  “Take this.” Reynolds held out the satchel containing the skull.

  Autie took it. “But what about--” his words were cut off as an arrow grazed his left cheek. Slicing it wide open.

  “Go!” Reynolds yelled. Autie turned and ran, taking the skull with him. Reynolds watched him and what was developing.

  In Medicine Tail Coulee the rest of Yates’s troops came down and then turned ninety degrees to the right, heading up Deep Coulee. C and E Troops followed Yates, but the farthest back units, Calhoun and Keogh’s troops, L and I, were able to do a right flank and climb up out of Medicine Tail Coulee where the banks were not so steep.

  They were leaving him. Reynolds turned back to the west. Warriors were now standing on the banks in the open, firing at the retreating troops. He could see more arriving on ponies every second. A pair ran out into the water toward him. His rifle had gone into the water during the fall. He reached under water to his belt and pulled out his pistol. But he knew the cartridges were soaked and would not fire. He let it drop out of his hand. The two warriors were close now, splashing through the creek, one with a musket at the ready, the other with a steel ax.

  Reynolds signed with his hands. Kill me.

  Reynolds raised his eyes to the sky above. The eagle was still up there, far above
the insanity practiced by men on the ground below. Steel flashed through the sky, between Reynolds and the eagle, and he saw its flight no more.

  BENTEEN

  They had left the pack train behind as they moved forward, as there was no way the mules could make any sort of decent time. Benteen had not been sure how to take Sergeant Kanipe’s message, because it was directed to the commander of the pack train, which technically was MacDougall, not him. They were following a trail, although Benteen wasn’t sure if it Was Custer’s or Reno’s.

  A figure came riding from the west, straight toward the head of the column. Benteen halted his horse and waited. He recognized Trumpeter Martin and could see that his mount had been run hard. There was blood on the horse’s flank.