To follow up on Ray's excellent advice, in case you don't find the short in the gauge cluster, you can check the wires coming into the cluster the same way. The wires are connected to the cluster plug at pins 1 and 12, The wires are usually a solid black and a black with white stripe.
If you get low resistance on either of these wires, it indicates a short to ground. You'll have to check these pins to a good ground on the dash or the engine block that leads back to the battery negative post. If your wiring was intact you could check between the negative battery terminal and the small black wire on the fender terminal on the passenger fender where the positive lead goes from the battery shown here.
Here's the one on the other side by the left headlight.
These two wires should go into the firewall plug by the master cylinder and if they are shorted to ground then the small fuses will be blown. be sure to check both sides of the wires at the fuses for low resistance to ground. you should expect wires to be shorted on the firewall side and not the battery side of the fuse. Most likely the wire on the battery side of the fuse will be burnt to a crisp if it were shorted.
Here's a diagram of the dash plug and the wires to the battery gauge.