Silver City Massacre by Charles G. West Page A

travelin’ on the north side of the river—better water, grass, and game, too. The south side’s the dry side.” He glanced at Joel. “You’re most likely thinkin’ we could just swim the horses across, but it would be easier on them at Three Island after we pass the falls.”
    â€œWell, that ain’t exactly what I was thinkin’,” Joel said. “I don’t think we need to cross the river a’tall. Best I remember, Boone said Silver City was back in the mountains, south of the Snake. And we’ll be sayin’ good-bye to the trail to Oregon when it crosses over to the other side. So we might as well head the horses on up this side till maybe we find somebody who can tell us how to get to Silver City.”
    Riley’s talk about the spectacular waterfalls farther along their path was sufficient to generate a genuine craving on the part of all four to sample the salmon he bragged about. The weather had been especially cooperative as far as snow was concerned, although the temperatures were dipping lower as each day passed. Since they could now anticipate the end of their journey coming up soon—they were surely no more than a week or more from Silver City—all agreed that they could afford to delay their journey a day to fish.
    They drove the horses along the cliffs that formed the bluffs for the river below them, following a road driven many times before by settlers and their wagons. It was late in the afternoon when they made camp near Shoshoni Falls in a grassy glen with a strong stream running through it. The girls, and Riley as well, were in a festive mood, eager to see the falls. While just as much interested to see them, Joel could not forget that there were still Indians to be concerned with, so he told the others to go on; he would stay and tend to the horses.
    Circumstances had resulted in providing him with a small string of horses, and driving them the past couple of days had started him thinking about possibilities other than gold mining. Knowing Boone as well as he did, he wouldn’t be surprised to find his brother thinking along the same lines. That thought caused him to picture Boone the last time he had seen him. Cheerful, as if riding off to the county fair, he joked that he would have the war won before Joel got around to enlisting. Joel was with General Shelby in Louisiana when Boone came home from the war with a shattered leg. He wondered how much of the boyish spirit remained.
    The war was hard on everybody,
he thought,
but nobody can hold the McAllisters down for long.
He smiled at the thought. It would be good to see Boone again.
I wonder what he’ll think when I show up with a woman and child
. That caused him to chuckle.
    Joel had a fire going and coffee in Elvira’s gray coffeepot sitting in the coals when his little
family
returned, carrying two of the largest fish he had ever seen.
    â€œHope you’re hungry for some fish!” Riley called out when they walked into the camp.
    Joel was amazed. “What in the world did you catch ’em with?”
    â€œCaught ’em with a stick,” Riley replied, grinning from ear to ear.
    â€œThe Indian caught them,” Ruthie said.
    Elvira explained. “There was this feller down there fishin’,” she said. “He said he was a Bannock. They’ve got a village not far from here. He showed us how to catch fish. There are so many of them in that river, and he got ’em with a spear. So he obliged us by spearin’ a couple of big ones for our supper.”
    â€œBannock, huh?” Joel responded. He thought he recalled hearing somewhere that both the Shoshoni and the Bannock in this area had typically been friendly to the wagon trains that passed through. “Well, that was mighty neighborly of him. Was he the only one you saw?”
    â€œThere were some others on the other side,” Ruthie volunteered, “but they were too far away to