Silver City Massacre

by Charles G. West

  “Damn!” Strong spat. “Where the hell is Hadley and the other two?” Not expecting an answer, he issued his orders. “Fetch those two horses.” He pointed toward the trees where they had left them. “And load their bodies. We’re wastin’ too much time. I wanna get the hell off this mountain.”

  They hustled to obey his orders. There was nothing left to do now but ride over to the meadow to see what had happened to the missing three men, so they started out again, their dead lying across their saddles, following behind them.

  • • •

  After climbing straight up the south side of the mountain, Joel crossed over the top, leading his horse down the steep slope toward the stand of trees above the stock pasture. Halfway through the trees, he came to a sudden stop. Below him, he saw the raiders who had brought this murderous hell down upon his brother and his friends. His initial reaction was to attack, but he managed to hold his temper in check while he attempted to think before acting recklessly.

  Where is Red Shirt? Beauchamp’s men were loading the three men he and the Bannock warrior had killed onto their horses, but there was no sign of the Indian.

  He tied his horse to a tree limb and moved carefully down to a position behind a stunted pine near the edge of the meadow where he could see more clearly. So far, no one seemed to take notice of his movements, busy as they were in loading the three bodies of their companions onto their horses. Joel cocked his rifle and brought his sights to bear on the man directing the actions of the others, but he hesitated to pull the trigger while his eyes followed the slope up into the trees where he had carried his wounded partner. It struck him then that the party of raiders had taken no notice of the figure lying motionless under the snow-covered deer hide just inside the tree line. Dead or alive? There was no way he could tell.

  The burning desire to open fire on the murdering rabble was almost overpowering, but he could not risk exposing his wounded friend. For if he opened fire, the natural instinct of the outlaws would be to scurry for cover in the trees, and that would lead them right to Red Shirt. Aching to retaliate for the evil they had inflicted upon his brother and his adopted family, Joel watched helplessly as the raiders loaded the bodies and prepared to ride. All he could do was keep his rifle aimed at the leader of the pack, waiting in case one of the men discovered the Bannock warrior lying no more than sixty feet from where they were working.

  It seemed an eternity to the man with the carbine aimed and cocked, but in reality, it was only a matter of minutes before the bodies of the would-be assassins were loaded on the horses and the intruders were in the saddle. Finally they turned and rode back down the mountain. Joel got up from his position on the ground and stood watching them until they disappeared in the trees below the meadow.

  It struck him hard then, the magnitude of the evil that had changed his life so suddenly, and so drastically. Nothing experienced in the savage battles he had survived in the war just ended could match the wanton and senseless murders of these innocent people. He was not conscious of thinking it, but his life was changed from that moment forward. Lost from his world were all traces of joy and celebration, to be replaced by one relentless crusade to exact the vengeance demanded by the innocent dead.

  Finally he brought his tormented mind back to the business at hand and went back for his horse, then hurried down through the trees to the tangle of bushes where he had left Red Shirt. Even though he had carried the Bannock there himself, still he had to look twice before he spotted the deer hide. There was nothing to indicate a living being under the snow-covered hide, no movement, and no signs that there had been. It appeared that once again he was too late in returning. He started to pull the hide aside to make certain, but something cautioned him to be careful.

  “Red Shirt,” he said, “it’s me, Joel.” Then he reached down and pulled the hide back to be confronted with the muzzle of a Sharps carbine aimed at his chest.

  “Joel,” Red Shirt said with obvious effort. “I wait. I know you come.”

  It was with a great feeling of relief when Joel found his friend still among the living. His one thought now was to get the wounded warrior someplace where he could find help. There was a doctor in Silver City, but Joel felt it was a risk to take him there. Based upon the reception he had received from the sheriff, and the general feeling that Beauchamp owned the whole town, it didn’t seem like a safe place for him or Red Shirt. The second option was to try to tend to Red Shirt’s wound himself. He had seen many men in the war with bullet wounds, but he was not confident in his skills as a doctor.

  Thinking he had little choice, he said, “I reckon I can try to see if I can dig that bullet outta you.” Red Shirt nodded his understanding. “First, I think I’d better move you to a better place where I can build a fire to keep you from freezin’ to death before I get it out. Are you up to bein’ moved?” Again, Red Shirt nodded. “All right,” Joel said. “I’ll try to be as easy as I can on you.”

  He left his patient for a little longer while he moved up the slope, looking for a better place. About thirty-five yards higher up in the band of trees that extended halfway around the mountain, he found a tiny clearing that would be suitable. Shelter with room for a fire was important, but he also was wary of the possible return of the raiders, even though it had seemed apparent to him that they were in a hurry to retreat from the mountain.

  It was with a great deal of effort that Joel managed to carry Red Shirt up to the campsite he had selected. Although the Indian made few sounds of suffering, Joel could see the pain he was feeling by the determined grimace in his expression. If he could have, he would have used his horse to carry the injured man up the slope, but it would have been difficult to lead the horse through the thick forest without Red Shirt getting bumped off on the ground. Joel was strong, but Red Shirt was a sizable man, so it would have taken no small measure of strength to lift him up onto the horse anyway. So once he got him up piggyback, he decided to forget the horse, and just climb on up the slope with him.

  When finally he had made Red Shirt as comfortable as he could, and had a fire built, he set about taking care of the wound. Upon close examination, he was dismayed to find it an ugly wound where the bullet had entered his chest. It looked as though the angle of the shot sent the slug deep in the muscle of his shoulder, where it was not readily seen. With total trust in his doctor, Red Shirt made no protests of pain—in fact, no sound at all—as Joel probed deeper and deeper with his knife. At last, he felt the tick of the knife point against the rifle slug, which led to a lengthy, torturous procedure of loosening the bullet until it was finally free enough to be extracted. Only then did the tormented warrior comment.

  “Gott damn,” he muttered when Joel held the slug up for him to see.

  “I’m afraid I made a mess of that wound,” Joel told him. “I’ll try to clean it up as best I can.”

  In the absence of a stream nearby, it was necessary to melt snow in a coffee cup for water to clean the wound. He took a close look at his patient then and decided that he didn’t look too well. He needed a better place to recover. Joel couldn’t think of a place where that might be, but he also knew they couldn’t stay there. It was not a suitable campsite for any lengthy stay, and they needed to be close to a stream. To add to their problems, they had only one horse. Beauchamp’s men had evidently driven the stock down the mountain when they left, for there wasn’t one horse in the meadow.

  The raiders had gone for now. That much was true, but Joel also knew they would be sent back when Beauchamp found out that he and Red Shirt had somehow escaped the massacre. It was his assumption that they would most likely return before daylight in an attempt to silence the only two witnesses to the cowardly attack. With that in mind, he told Red Shirt what he was going to do.

  “We can’t stay here. We’ve got to find a place to give you a chance to recover, somewhere I can defend if they come after us. So I’m afraid you’re gonna be in for
a rough ride, but I’ve got to put you on my horse. I don’t see hide nor hair of your horse. I reckon they musta drove him off with the rest of our horses.”

  “You right,” Red Shirt replied painfully. “Can’t stay here.”

  Chapter 10

  Following the trail left in the snow by the raiders, his mind numb from the sudden catastrophic night of terror, Joel led the gray, with Red Shirt slumped over the horse’s neck. Down through the random patches of spruce and pine, toward the valley below, he walked carefully through the outcroppings of jagged rocks, now covered with a cloak of snow.

  He thought about the bodies of his brother and Riley, lying, unburied, on the cold open ground, exposed to the elements and discovery by scavengers of the wild. It agonized him to think of leaving them, and he knew he would probably blame himself forever for not being able to help them. But he promised himself that he would avenge their deaths, no matter how long it took him. Running away now was not what he wanted to do, but he knew that he had no choice if he stood a chance of taking every life that had a hand in this senseless bloodbath.

  Common sense told him that he could not defend Red Shirt and himself against another attack by Beauchamp’s hired assassins, given the present circumstances. There was a very good chance that they might come back to look for Red Shirt and him. He knew, in that event, he would account for two or three of the assassins before they gunned him down. And that was not good enough. His promise to Boone and the others was to make each participant pay.

  His mind was so absorbed in his feelings of regret that he was suddenly startled by a snort and a whinny close behind him. Clutching his rifle, he whirled around to discover Red Shirt’s bay pony following along behind his horse.

  “Thank you, Lord,” he muttered in appreciation.

  Somehow the Bannock’s horse had managed to avoid Beauchamp’s men when they were rounding up the rest of the stock. Joel immediately stopped and went back to take the reins of the bay. His intention was to climb aboard the horse and lead the gray, but the bay was having none of it. Each time Joel tried to get his foot in the stirrup, the horse would sidestep away.

  After a few unsuccessful attempts to mount the cantankerous horse, it jerked its head away, causing Joel to lose his hold on the reins. Fighting an urge to shoot the stubborn horse, Joel stood exasperated while he and the horse gazed at each other from a distance of several yards. Then an idea occurred to him. It was not likely, and would mean a hell of a lot of trouble, but Joel was desperate to try anything at this point.

  “You’re gonna have to bear with me, Red Shirt,” he said. “I’m gonna pull you onto my shoulder. Then I’m gonna try to put you on your horse. I know it’ll hurt like hell, but it might be the only way we’re ever gonna get started again.” Red Shirt made no response beyond a painful grunt.

  The strange actions of the man must have fascinated the stubborn bay horse. It fixed a suspicious eye on him, but made no move to bolt when Joel staggered toward it with Red Shirt on his shoulder. The bay took a couple of steps to the side as Joel approached, but settled down and snorted a couple of times, possibly recognizing Red Shirt’s scent. It held steady then while the Indian managed to get a leg over and settle down in the saddle.

  With a long sigh of relief, Joel stepped back and asked, “Are you all right?”

  “All right,” he said. “Horse don’t like nobody but Red Shirt.”

  “Reckon not,” Joel said.

  Then, back in the saddle on his gray, he took Red Shirt’s reins and led him down through the rocks. When they reached the valley floor, the trail the raiders had taken pointed toward Blackjack Mountain, as Joel anticipated.

  He turned north, following the watercourse the white men called Reynolds Creek. His intention was to follow the shallow stream along the valley to put as much distance as possible between them and Blackjack Mountain before daylight. The rugged terrain offered little in the way of a safe camp site, with high, rocky bluffs on either side of the narrow valley. But he knew he could not continue to ride much longer without giving Red Shirt a rest. With no food other than some deer jerky wrapped in a cloth in his saddlebag, he began to worry about finding some kind of game to kill.

  Walking the horses up the middle of the creek, scanning the sides for a campsite, he happened to look back in time to see Red Shirt leaning to one side, precariously close to dropping from the saddle.

  Well, I guess this is where we camp, Joel thought, and quickly pulled his horse around to catch Red Shirt by the shoulder and straighten him up in the saddle. He looked quickly from side to side then before selecting a gully framed by berry bushes.

  “Hang on tight for just a few minutes,” he told Red Shirt, “and we’ll ride up to the back of that gully and make camp.”

  After getting Red Shirt off the horse, he spread the deer hide they had used for a shelter and let him sit on it while he cleared the snow from a small area of the gully. Once the Indian was settled on the hide, he left him to unsaddle the horses, in order to use the saddle blankets and the saddles to make a bed.

  “It ain’t as good as the bedrolls we had back at the house, but I reckon it’s the best we’ve got, so it’ll have to do. And I think I can find enough branches from these bushes to make us a little fire.”

  He checked his pockets then to make sure he still had his flint and steel, and gave a silent word of thanks when he found them.

  Once he got Red Shirt as comfortable as he could under the circumstances, with a warm fire burning, he tried to get him to eat some of the jerky from his saddlebag, but Red Shirt did not feel like eating, so Joel let him rest. Tired himself, after the night just past, Joel determined he had better stay awake while his Indian partner slept. When the morning sun finally reached a height that permitted it to send its warming rays down into the narrow valley, however, it found both men sleeping.

  Something nudged his brain in its sleep, causing him to reluctantly return to consciousness. With a flicker of his weary eyelids, he opened his eyes to find himself gazing into a round black eye that he realized too late was the muzzle of a rifle.

  Although startled, he remained still as his gaze dropped to focus on a pair of Indian moccasins. He raised his eyes again to see the deerskin leggings and shirt of a young Indian man as he stared down at him in curious wonder. Showing no aggression in his tone, the young man spoke, asking a question in his native tongue as he gestured toward Red Shirt, who was now also awake. The question was directed at Joel, but Red Shirt answered in the same dialect. The Indian nodded in understanding.

  “What did he say?” Joel asked softly, lest the Indian take offense.

  Red Shirt grimaced in pain when he spoke. “He is Shoshoni. He ask if you did this to me. I tell him no. You are my friend—try to help me. I tell him bad men shoot me. I am Agai-deka Bannock, friend of Shoshoni.”

  The young Shoshoni spoke again, and Red Shirt translated. “He say his name is Cold Wind. He take us to village. They help me there.”

  “Tell him we are grateful for his help,” Joel said, still feeling more than a little perturbed at himself for having been caught sleeping.

  If not for just plain stupid luck, he and Red Shirt would both be dead. He could blame it on the past few nights of little sleep, because of the necessity to stand guard against Beauchamp’s men, and the night just passed with no sleep at all except these one or two hours just before dawn. But he knew he could not be so careless again and expect to live to tell about it.

  He got to his feet then while Red Shirt explained to Cold Wind the circumstances that had brought them to this makeshift camp. The Shoshoni warrior nodded his understanding frequently, occasionally turning to look at Joel, and nodding again.

  “I’ll saddle the horses,” Joel said. “Did he say how far his village is?”

  “Beyond bend in creek,” Red Shirt replied, now supporting himself on one elbow. He pointed to the bend some o
ne hundred yards ahead. “Then through pass. Not far.”

  Joel saddled the horses while the two Indians continued to talk. When he was ready, he helped Red Shirt get on his feet. The Bannock warrior tried to hide his pain, but it was obvious that his wound was serious. Their Good Samaritan helped support him, and between the two of them, they got Red Shirt in the saddle again.

  Cold Wind jumped on the back of the paint pony he had left standing beside the other two horses, made a motion with his hand for Joel to follow, and then led them down the wide stream toward the bend.

  • • •

  The Shoshoni warrior led them through a narrow pass between two mountains that took them to another mountain. This mountain, however, was in sharp contrast to those Joel and Red Shirt had seen while following Reynolds Creek the night before. More like the hills that surrounded Silver City, it was sparingly covered with stunted pine trees and broad meadows.

  Following a trail around to the north side of the mountain, they came upon a village of sixty tipis beside a busy stream that came down from the peak above. Joel was amazed. It was like the little valley and the stream had been placed by a giant hand among the more inhospitable peaks around it. A sizable herd of horses grazed in the snow-covered grassy meadow on the other side of the stream.

  The trio of riders was spotted by some children playing near the edge of the stream, and upon seeing the two strangers riding behind Cold Wind, the kids ran to alert the village. Soon a small crowd of children and adults gathered to meet the visitors, only realizing that one of them was hurt after they had ridden into the center of the village.

  Sliding deftly from his pony, Cold Wind sent one of the young boys to get the medicine man. Joel dismounted and went at once to help Red Shirt off his horse. Half a dozen willing hands were immediately around him to help. They walked him over beside a large campfire in the middle of the village, and lowered him gently down upon the deer hide that Joel spread there.