Come Sundown

by Mike Blakely

  McRae was furious, and I could hear him shouting and driving his men faster as his artillery muzzles began to roar his epithets across the valley to his enemy, Teel. He’d fire, and look up at me, and I’d signal him with my arms, telling him how to correct his aim. His third shot actually hit a Texas artillery piece, and crippled Teel’s ability to fight back. When McRae had three guns trained on Teel, he sent a soldier to relieve me of signal duty, and I was free to get back to the First New Mexico Volunteers.

  I looked around for a horse, but all I could find was a huge mule. I could tell from the rigging he wore that he had torn away from an ambulance or a supply wagon. He was spooked, and I was able to catch him only because he dragged a long rein that he kept stepping on. He didn’t want to have much to do with me, caked as I was with horse blood and dirt. I caught the dragging rein and calmed the mule a little by making Comanche horse grunts at him. I drew my knife and cut away the busted leather rigging. I cut the reins down to about eight feet and led the mule up next to a boulder to facilitate my mounting him. All this while shot and shell and grape whistled and boomed and pounded.

  When I rode back to the left flank, the boys looked at me in astonishment. Several of their mounts shied. Blue urged his horse near and said, “Where in the hell did you get so bloody?”

  “A shell landed under me. This is horse blood, not mine.”

  “Well, go wash it off,” Kit ordered. “You’re spookin’ the men and the horses. And get yourself another mount from one of the boys afoot. You might just as well paint a bull’s-eye on yourself up there on that beast.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As I rode the mule down the slope to the river, I heard Kit say, “You done good. Teel pulled back to the old river channel.”

  I lay down in the cold river and let the gore wash away from me and my clothing. Refreshed by the frigid bath, I rode back up the slope and traded the giant mule for a good-looking horse tied at the picket line. One of the volunteers guarding the road shouted at me in Spanish, saying to get away from his horse. I shouted back that I had orders from Colonel Kit Carson to pick a fast horse, and if he didn’t like it, he could take it up with Kit. The volunteer cussed me soundly in Spanish, but I took the horse.

  Twenty-Six

  I spent the next hour carrying dispatches from one officer to the next as the battle continued. My horse exhausted, I returned to the fort to report to Colonel Canby, and to pick fresh mounts. I found him on his front porch, buttoning an overcoat. The governor was still at his side, but had pulled a chair out on the porch to listen to the distant cannon fire.

  I jumped from my saddle, stood to horse, and saluted. “Colonel Carson scouted the road to the north and found no sign of the Texans trying to flank us on the left,” I said. “Pino’s Second New Mexico Volunteers are on their way to take Kit’s position now.”

  “Where’s Kit going?”

  “Colonel Roberts has just ordered him to the front line to take command of Duncan’s men. Most of them are Mexican, and Kit speaks Spanish well. Duncan doesn’t. That’s why he’s had trouble advancing.”

  “Very well,” Canby said as he buttoned his overcoat. “Kit should be an inspiration on the front. Tell Colonel Roberts that I am on my way to assume command.”

  I rode hard, made my report to Colonel Roberts, and watched the progress down below for a minute while my saddle pony blew. The men in the middle of the Union line, with their rifles outreaching the scatter guns and revolvers of the Texans, had pushed the Texas middle back from sand hill to sand hill, and forced the Rebels almost all the way to their last line of defense—the old dry river channel. Here, eventually, the Texans would either die in a horrible slaughter or strike out like two thousand diamondbacks in a rattler’s den. There would be no retreat.

  “Have you caught a glimpse of General Sibley all day?” Colonel Roberts asked me, speaking loudly above the continual rumble of the cannon.

  “No, sir. I think he’s commanding from the rear. I’ve seen many a courier ride up the trail to the bluffs.”

  Roberts turned his field glasses to the right to watch a skirmish between some Union snipers on the top of Mesa de la Contadera, and some shotgun-wielding Texans sent to force the snipers off the high ground.

  Roberts chuckled. “If Tom Green takes command, we will have a proper scrape on our hands.”

  “Yes, sir, I agree.”

  “Carry on, Greenwood. Tell Kit his boys had better be ready for it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I loped back to the far Union left. The first thing I did when I returned to my unit was to replace the horse I had taken and set that big mule free. The man whose mount I had commandeered smiled and saluted me with relief. What fool would want to ride into battle with his head and shoulders sticking up above everything else in the entire command?

  Finally, I rejoined Kit and Blue as they sat their saddles and watched the battle below. I reported to Kit, and he nodded his agreement to the orders to the front. His face showed neither fear nor foreboding.

  “We’ll watch here a spell, yet,” he said. “When we see Pino coming to relieve us, I’ll give the order. I don’t want the boys thinking about it too long.”

  Looking beyond the middle ground between the two armies, I sensed the Confederates preparing to make a move in the deadly chess game below. I saw couriers scrambling everywhere behind the Texas lines. It seemed the entire Texas brigade was in confusion. Then I saw a particular rider, and pointed him out to Kit. “Look, there’s Colonel Green himself. Look at him ride!”

  “He’s taken command, then,” Kit said. “Somethin’ will happen.”

  We watched Colonel Thomas Green, the old veteran of San Jacinto and Monterrey, as he galloped his steed behind the sand hills almost a mile away, often in the line of Union rifle fire.

  “My God,” Blue said. “What are they aimin’ to do?”

  He pointed, and I saw the red pennants rise aflutter in the air as steel points poked skyward on long wooden poles. Captain Willis L. Lang’s Company of Confederate Lancers was poised to attack.

  “You don’t reckon they’ll really charge with them spears?” Blue wondered.

  “Maybe it’s just a diversion,” I commented. “Surely they won’t charge rifles with lances.”

  The moment the words left my mouth, a yell rose from Lang’s gallant horsemen, and they charged over the sand, among the scattered cottonwoods, their pennons wiggling like little red minnows in a sea of smoke. They angled to the Confederate right, gaining speed.

  “They’re gonna strike the Pikes Peakers!” Blue said. “The boys from Colorado!”

  “Probably think they won’t fight because they’re not in regular uniform,” Kit said. “That’s a mistake. Those boys from the mountains are tough.”

  Not only were the Colorado volunteers tough, but they had drilled enough to know how to meet a cavalry charge. They formed a skirmish line in two ranks as the lancers charged on through lead and smoke, half of the Pikes Peakers taking a knee while the others stood behind the kneeling men and waited, their rifles ready. I could only imagine how fearsome those galloping lancers looked to the Colorado volunteers—and how ominous that line of armed infantry must have looked to Lang’s charging company.

  In the middle of that raging battle, a hush fell over the valley. Cannon and rifle fire ceased as every soldier in the battle turned to watch the spectacle of fifty primitive weapons riding down upon the muzzles of a hundred rifles. I’ve seen my share of charges and attacks and counterattacks. This one beat anything I had ever imagined for sheer bravery and disregard for danger. Those horsemen wielding the ancient weapons would neither slow nor falter. If anything, they charged ever harder at the Coloradans.

  I held my breath. Blue groaned.

  Under his breath, Kit said, “Hold your fire, boys,” as if the Colorado volunteers might hear him.

  The gap between the two forces closed and the valley got so quiet that I thought I could hear the flapping of the pennon
s. The lancers fanned out and their steel blades began to dip. A ragged line of smoky white muzzle blasts appeared; horses fell as if tripped, and men tumbled from the charging mounts. The sound of the rifles hit us like a drumroll as lances jabbed sand and snapped. Yet the surviving lancers charged on—horse-borne pikes into Pikes Peakers.

  The second rifle volley hit men and horses almost point-blank and the clash became a close-quarters bloodbath. The Coloradans used their bayonets while the Texans—many of them wounded—drew revolvers. The lances were scattered like splinters. Only one had drawn blood, plunged into the thigh of a Colorado scout—an old mountain voyageur called “Cheyenne Dutch.” Captain Lang himself was wounded too badly to fight, as was his second in command, Lieutenant Demetrius M. Bass.

  Half of Lang’s company of lancers were already killed or disabled by wounds. None had managed to stay in the saddle and most of the horses were dead. The lancers who survived fought afoot now, blasting at bayonet points with their Colts. The Texans who had carried two pistols in their belts stood a chance of fighting their way out of the ranks of the Coloradans. Others drew their bowie knives and hacked away in desperation.

  Somehow, the surviving lancers regrouped and fell back together, dragging some of their dead and wounded. The Coloradans pursued them, some having found the time to reload. It was the saddest, most spectacular charge I could envision and it made my blood boil with rage that General Sibley, the drunken tent inventor, would send men to their deaths in such a foolish way.

  As the few surviving dismounted lancers fought their way back, they were joined by reinforcements from the old river channel—comrades who had watched their courageous charge and now came to cover their retreat with shotguns and pistols. The pursuit of the Colorado volunteers faltered, and at that moment, Captain Trevanion T. Teel loosed a round of cannon fire from one of his field guns. Captain Teel, who had already blown a good horse right out from under me, exhibited his artillery skills again as a round of canister cut through the Pikes Peakers and shattered their counterattack.

  The tide changed once again, and the chess pieces shifted. The right Texas flank, inspired by the gallantry of the lancers, and now encouraged by the artillery support, advanced at a determined trot and drove the Coloradans back toward the river. Teel kept his fire directed ahead of the advance and our Union left crumbled just across the river from our position.

  “Where the hell is Pino?” Kit muttered. He wanted us in on the fighting now, but he could not move until Pino came to take our position.

  As the Union left reeled backward, the Union right advanced, aided by blazing artillery of Hall’s battery. The beleaguered Texans who had held the fringes of the bosque for hours, turning back charge upon charge, could now hold out no longer, and I could see them even across the mile of smoke, pouring out of the timber and falling back to the old river channel. It was as if two separate battles were going on within this one battle. The Rebel right was gaining ground, as was the Union right. The entire line of battle shifted counterclockwise from a hawk’s-eye view.

  And here, things sulled as dozens of wounded men pumped their last pints of blood into Rio Grande Valley sand. The occasional artillery blast tested one line or the other, and a few sporadic rifle shots cracked, but the battle had fallen into a lull by unarranged mutual consent. Men were exhausted. Ammunition was scarce along both fronts. Supply wagons with reloads, food, water, and medical supplies began to advance from the fort on our side, and from the Texas supply train across the valley.

  We had some time to rest and consider what we had seen. We ate some hardtack and jerked beef and washed it down with water from our canteens. No one in the First New Mexico Volunteers seemed too hungry. The hardest part was yet to come, and we knew that. We dreaded that. Yet we ached to get on with it and get it done. Nothing was worse than sitting here waiting.

  Twenty-Seven

  “Look,” Blue said. “That looks like Pino’s boys coming down the road.”

  “That’s them,” I agreed. “They’re escorting the rest of McRae’s battery.”

  Kit nodded. “Prepare to mount!” he shouted, his old warrior’s voice booming with extraordinary resolve. Captains and lieutenants passed the order on down the line until every last man had heard. “Mount!” Kit ordered. “Form fours!” he shouted.

  Within seconds the First New Mexico Volunteers were mounted and filing into their familiar positions by squadron and platoon. As they moved into place, the men were quiet, except for the rattle of their equipment and the hoof beats of their mounts. Kit rode to the center of the right flank of his regiment.

  “Listen, boys,” Kit said in a voice loud enough to carry to the farthest man. “Oigan, hombres.” He would give the whole speech alternately in Spanish and English.

  “You’ve seen what can happen down there. Now, them Pikes Peak boys looked brave and fought hard. They remembered their drillin’, and stood their ground. They did good. You’ll do good, too. Listen to your orders and do what you’re told. I know you’ll be brave and do your part. It’s time for us to ride down there and win this battle for our country, and for the notion that men ought to be free. That’s what we’re fittin’ fer. Don’t forget that. These Rebels—well, they’re tejanos. You all know that they’ve wanted to get their hands on New Mexico ever since Sam Houston won at San Jacinto. They’ve sent expeditions here to conquer us before, and failed. They’ve attacked our trade wagons to Missouri. They’ve sent agents to build Texas counties out of our pueblos and our valleys. Now, they’ve sent a whole army, but we won’t let ’em take our country. No, sir! Our side is in the right, and we have no choice but to fight them that’s in the wrong and come invadin’ our country. Now, check your weapons and get ready. I’d sooner die than give up a single pumpkin patch to them no-’count Texans!”

  A Mexican soldier let loose a grito—half shout, half scream; a yell that expressed both joy and sorrow—and a host of others released their anticipation with battle cries lost in the smoky valley air.

  “Move ’em out, Blue.”

  “Squadrons—trot! March!” Blue said, and we all began our movement toward the front.

  We stayed on the main road until we came face-to-face with Miguel Pino’s volunteers. Kit and Pino exchanged salutes, and Kit led his men down off the road, toward the Valverde Ford—a remote river crossing out here in the wilderness, now the unlikely object of such violence and bloodshed.

  We passed field hospitals where men groaned and screamed in pain. Others sat with bloody, bandaged stumps where arms and legs had once grown, blank expressions on their faces. We passed soldiers smoking pipes, or eating hardtack and beans. Some laughed at jokes; others pointed to places along the front and recounted the battle so far. We came to the river and crossed the ford handily. It was a good, solid crossing, used for centuries. A shell sang through the air and exploded fifty yards to our right. Horses ramped and bolted, but the men held them in check and regrouped, with the exception of one volunteer who rode his bucking mount for almost a full minute as the boys cheered him on. Finally, the bronc stumbled and the rider jumped off, but a comrade dashed forward and caught the horse by a rein. The rider gamely remounted, and now the pony seemed to have bucked himself out, and resolved himself to the fate of a war pony. We rode on toward the front.

  There was something of a gap between Captain Selden’s hard-bitten fighters, who had steadily advanced and Duncan’s men, who had held their ground but failed to move. That gap was ours to fill.

  “Kid, see if you can round up Selden and Duncan so we can have a parley.”

  I rode among the ranks shouting for the unit commanders until I found Selden on the left, and Duncan on the right. They met Kit at the head of his column. The uniforms of both men were covered in dirt. Selden’s right cheek was black with powder.

  “Gentlemen,” Kit said, “Colonel Roberts has ordered me to move my boys in between your two commands. Captain Duncan, I’ve been ordered to take command of your unit as well as mine, on
ly because I talk some Spanish, and I know a lot of your boys don’t speak English. When it starts, I’ll give my orders in English and Spanish. My scout, here, Mr. Greenwood, speaks a tolerable good Spanish hisself. He’ll pass my orders to your Mexican volunteers, Captain Duncan, so place those boys on your left, if you would, so they’ll be closer to Mr. Greenwood.”

  “Kid,” Colonel Carson said to me, “you’ll be busy riding between me and Duncan with orders and communications. I’ll use Blue as my courier between me and Captain Selden.

  “That about does it, unless you gentlemen have somethin’ to throw in.”

  “It’s an honor to have you alongside us,” Selden said. “And we need your fresh troops. My boys have maneuvered since last night, and have fought hard. They’re about done in, but they’ve got one more good scrape in ’em.”

  “That’s all we’ll need.” Kit said.

  “Do I have the authority to give orders to my own men?” Duncan said.

  “Sure you do, as long as they don’t go against the grain of what I’ve ordered. I’ll be gittin’ my orders from Colonels Canby and Roberts, but I’ll also have the authority to give good commonsense orders of my own. I’d expect no less of you.”

  “Then I may use your scout, Mr. Greenwood, to translate my orders to my Mexican troops as he moves between us?”

  “I’m sure Mr. Greenwood will cooperate.”

  I nodded. “With pleasure,” I said.

  Duncan breathed a sigh of relief and nodded back. It was plain he had been frustrated all day long by his language difficulties.

  “Now, gentlemen,” Kit said, his voice striking a hard and certain timbre I had scarcely ever heard him use. “We’ve got to hold the middle of this here line together. We must not fail. We’ve got the satisfaction of knowing we are on the right side of this fight, and the honor of knowing our nation will stay free because of our sacrifice, should any of us fall in battle. You can tell your boys to fight like hell. We are here to do our duty, and we are right.”