“But how did you know about the silver?” Sandy insisted.
“Before they were wiped out,” Joe explained, “the Mormons hid the silver in the cave that you two found earlier today. Each man in the party was given a map, just in case there were any survivors.”
“But there weren’t?”
Joe shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “Every last one of them was wiped out. My great-great-and-so-forth-grandfather found a copy of the map. He kept it as a souvenir of the victory. In the years that went by, it was lost. I happened to find it in among my father’s possessions about six months ago. I knew about the story of the massacre and I’d heard about the map. When I actually saw it, I got pretty excited.”
“I can imagine,” Mr. Cook said.
“I’m afraid I talked about it too much. Other people heard about it.”
“Including our friends, the Crows,” Hank said.
Joe nodded. “To make a long story short, they stole my copy of the map. Luckily, I had it memorized. I knew I had to get out here before they did, and when you offered me a job to come to Mormon Crossing, I thought everything was going to be all right.”
“But you hadn’t counted on their moving so fast,” Mr. Cook put in.
“Even then,” Joe said grimly, “I didn’t think they’d actually try to kill me.” He paused and stared into the fire. “I knew better after my ‘accident’ on Mr. Henderson’s dock in Salmon.”