The Search for Snake River

by Jesse Wiley

  OW!

  Once it’s free, the mule kicks you in the stomach and runs off, back toward Fort Bridger. You fall to the ground, clutching your gut. Pa gets kicked, too, except in the leg.

  “I think it’s broken!” Pa says, unable to stand.

  You help Pa as he limps back to the rest of your family. Unfortunately, you’ll have to return to Fort Bridger while Pa gets medical help. You hate the fort and the idea of being there any longer, but for now it’s where your dreams end. Be sure to keep an eye out for snakes!

   THE END

  Return to page 25

  You decide to head to the lake by yourself, planning to surprise everyone with the filled water-skins. Then in the morning, you can take everyone back to see the lake for themselves and refill your water barrels for the rest of the journey through the desert. You imagine Ma’s face lit up with her biggest smile, the one that means she is bursting with happiness. And you wonder if maybe Caleb will agree to let everyone go for a quick swim before you have to head back on the hot dusty Trail. You always feel so dirty on the road, and on this stretch you’ve felt extra sweaty and grimy.

  As you walk toward the lake, you can’t wait to dip your hands into the crystal clear water and wash them clean. Then you’ll drink the cool water to your heart’s content. You know it will be the most refreshing and delicious water you’ve ever tasted.

  You walk a little faster, admiring how the rays of the sun are reflecting on the water. The water sparkles and shimmers and is the deepest color of turquoise. But it’s still so far away. As you stumble over a rock, you notice that you don’t seem to be getting any closer, even though you’ve been walking for a long time now. The lake must be farther away than it seemed. You decide that it must be hard to estimate distance with nothing but sand around you.

  You start to run toward the lake. You’re panting heavily and your legs are tired, but you can’t stop now. But no matter how hard you run, the lake only seems to get farther away. Your head is hurting now, and you start to feel dizzy. For a moment it looks as if there are two lakes instead of one. You stop and blink hard.

  You wonder why you’re feeling so strange. What’s happening to me?

  Soon your legs buckle and you fall to the ground. You can’t move another muscle and your head is pounding. You have severe heat exhaustion. The lake is only a mirage. You think you see something that’s not really there. But what is real is the fact that you’ve been wandering in the hot desert for a while and no one knows where you are. Your chances of being found are extremely low.

   THE END

  Return to page 135

  The snake is looking you straight in the face. Its head keeps swaying from side to side as its pointy tongue flickers. It feels like you have been lying there for hours, but only a few moments have passed. You try to move your arm slowly to the side, but you see the snake’s head follow your motion, as if it can anticipate your next move.

  You’re so terrified that you just can’t take it anymore. You jump up from the floor. “Snake!” you scream at the top of your lungs.

  Before you get very far, you feel an intense pain as fangs pierce the skin on your leg. As quickly as the snake has struck you, it slithers away. You fall to the ground. Everyone else wakes up from your howling.

  “What happened?” Pa asks.

  A warm tingle travels through your body. You can barely speak.

  “S-s-s-nakebite,” you finally say, and point to your leg.

  “What kind? Where did it go?” Pa says, with panic in his voice.

  “It was a rattler,” you manage to whisper.

  Your eyes start to roll back in your head, and the last thing you see is Pa’s stricken face as he cradles you in his arms.

   THE END

  Return to page 63

  Getting off the Trail is too scary to consider, you decide. Who knows what you might find? It’s safer to stick to the road others have traveled before you.

  You continue along the path, but before it gets any better, it gets worse. The conditions become harsher. You enter into an area that is nothing but desert.

  “I’m so hot,” Samuel complains. He takes off his hat and mops his face, which is red and sunburnt.

  You don’t even have the energy to reply, so you just concentrate on moving one foot in front of the next. Your legs feel like lead and all you want to do is sit down with a cold glass of lemonade.

  “I’m thirsty,” Hannah whines.

  Ma and Pa are saving most of the water you have left for the family. The oxen are struggling to keep moving, and you’re afraid that they will eventually collapse and die. You’ve seen piles of animal bones along the Trail, bleached by the hot sun.

  As it gets harder to keep moving, your wagon train starts to travel by night instead of day, to avoid the intense sun. It feels weird and a bit spooky to move in the dark, led by the light of a couple of lanterns, and you are forced to move slowly to avoid stumbling. But your oxen team continues to get weaker. The animals are moving slower and slower every day.

  After a night’s hike, everyone is too hot and tired to even consider building a fire. You eat a cold supper of jerky, cold beans, and cornbread. And your family talks about what to do moving forward.

  “I’m afraid that we can’t continue like this without the oxen dying on us,” Pa says. “If we don’t get them some grass or water soon, we’ll be stranded.”

  “But we don’t know when we’ll find those things,” Ma points out.

  “That’s true,” Pa continues. “So that leaves us with a hard choice.”

  A feeling of dread settles over you.

  “We can unload as much as possible from our wagons to make the load lighter for the oxen,” Pa says. “That means dumping everything that isn’t essential.”

  “What’s the other option?” Ma asks.

  “We can abandon the wagon and carry as much as we can on our backs. A wagon might not be able to cross the mountains that are up ahead anyway. This way, we load up the oxen with some supplies, but it will be easier for them than pulling the wagon.”

  Everyone in your family falls quiet as you think about what makes the most sense. What do you decide?

  If you unload your wagon, turn to page 95

  If you abandon the wagon, turn to page 90

  Return to page 122

  You decide that traveling by night will be too dangerous, since it will be hard to see where you are going. Plus you would hate to run into bandits or coyotes roaming the desert. Instead, you form a wide line, leaving plenty of space between each wagon, and start to move forward that way. It helps some, and you find that you cough less with fewer dust clouds in the air.

  But even with this adjustment, you’re still drinking too much of the water you’ve brought. At this pace, you will run out really soon. Everyone starts to cut down on the amount of water the animals get, to save more for the people, but that just makes the oxen weaker. You see them struggling.

  “We need to find a water source, quickly,” Caleb says, “before the animals start to die.”

  “But we can’t! That will mean going off the Trail,” Ma protests.

  “And we don’t know where or when we will find anything,” another man says. “We could just end up wandering around longer in the desert heat.”

  “What if we send out a search party for water while the rest of the group rests and stays camped?” someone suggests.

  “That could be dangerous,” Pa says. “We should stick together.”

  “We have to do something,” Caleb says. “What will it be?”

  If you send out a search party, turn to page 74

  If you stick together, turn to page 92

  Return to page 106

  You reluctantly break off a little piece of the root cake and nibble on it. Not bad! Pa was right. It does taste a lot like a sweet potato. You hungrily eat a big piece.

  “How is the stew?” you ask Joseph. He is licking his fingers, satisfied.

  “It�
�s really good,” he says with a big grin.

  You take a small bite and realize he’s right. In the end, you have a pretty tasty meal, although you stay away from the bear root bread.

  After everyone has eaten, your hosts serve you some berries and nuts for dessert along with a fragrant hot tea. Then a young man, wearing beaded moccasins and leather pants with fringe on the sides, gets up and everyone hushes.

  A moment later, someone starts to bang on a drum while others chant and the man starts to dance in a way that you have never seen. His body bends and he stomps gracefully in a pattern, making circles on the ground. His hair is long and sleek and he is holding a feathered bow. It looks like he is using his body to tell a story of hunting, and the drumming and chanting gets louder and softer as he moves faster and slower.

  When the dancer is done, another gets up and tells a different story. You can’t take your eyes off of the performers, each one more graceful than the last. Everyone else is completely fascinated, too. And so the night continues until Samuel starts to nod off and Ma motions that it is time to head back to camp.

  * * *

  The next morning, it’s time to part with Roaring Cloud, Bright Sky, and the rest of the people you have met. You feel a lump in your throat as Roaring Cloud looks you in the eye and nods slowly.

  “Goodbye,” you say, wondering if you’ll ever see him again. Hannah runs to give him a hug. Roaring Cloud looks surprised at first, but then you see him hold her tight for a few seconds.

  You spend the day traveling to Fort Bridger. Everyone is looking forward to getting there in order to replenish much-needed supplies and make repairs to their wagons. Plus, it’s been awhile since you were at a place with buildings and traders. But when you arrive at the well-known Fort Bridger, it’s not what you expect at all.

  “That’s it?” Eliza grumbles. “Those hardly look like log cabins!”

  You can’t believe your eyes, either. Fort Bridger is a collection of a few rickety wooden buildings belonging to the fur trappers who live here with their Native American wives. They don’t have much to trade—mostly furs, skins, moccasins, and blankets.

  Ma is the most disappointed of all; she was hoping to send letters back home and buy some more molasses. But at least there is a blacksmith shop, where Pa gladly gets shoes for the oxen and replaces your cow.

  That night, when you’re sleeping in one of the wooden huts instead of your tent, Archie curls up by your feet as usual. But then, suddenly, he growls.

  “Shush, Archie,” you say, and start to roll over. But then you freeze. On your feather mat, staring right at you, is a big rattlesnake! You hear the rattling sound, and it makes your heart stop. Do you jump up and run away from the snake as fast as you can, or lie still and hope that it leaves you alone?

  If you run away, turn to page 56

  If you lie still, turn to page 143

  Return to page 108

  You’re too afraid of the quick-moving current to let go of the rope you’re holding on to, even though you’re a good swimmer. Instead, you scream as loudly as you can. “Somebody, grab that wheel!”

  You see a man from your wagon train try to reach for it, but he misses. Joseph then attempts to catch the wheel with a rope, but he isn’t successful, either. The wheel continues to float down the river, and your heart sinks as you watch it disappear out of sight.

  “Pa!” you shout again, breathlessly. “We lost our wagon wheel!”

  Pa turns around to see what is happening. As he checks to make sure everything else in the wagon is secure, one of your oxen loses his footing on the soft sand of the river bottom. The ox stumbles and falls over, pulling down the animal attached to him. Soon the two oxen are tangled in their yokes, and are suddenly swept underwater.

  “Get up!” Pa yells, as he desperately tries to pull them up onto their feet. But they are just too big and difficult to handle. You try to help, but the oxen are thrashing so wildly you’re afraid one kick from their powerful legs will knock you out.

  Finally Pa gives up. “We have to keep moving,” he shouts, with a grim expression. Slowly you make it to the first island.

  Your family assesses the damages. The two oxen have drowned, and your wheel is gone. You may be able to get to the other side of the river, but after that, your wagon isn’t going anywhere. Many other families in the wagon train have also lost animals, items from their wagons, and in one case, an entire wagon that flipped over.

  Everyone huddles on the island, afraid to cross the next part of the river and dreading what’s ahead Even if you make it back to solid land, you’ll have to make some hard choices about what to do next. Getting to Oregon City seems impossible now.

   THE END

  Return to page 82

  You walk over to where your father is talking to a group of men.

  “Excuse me, Pa?” you say, hesitant to interrupt.

  “What is it?” Pa asks.

  “I have something to tell you,” you continue, motioning that you want him to step aside with you.

  Pa walks away from the Shoshone to listen to you privately. You tell him about Joseph’s plan to spy on the other camp and the Indian settlement to look for the missing animals. He looks at you with concern.

  “That is a terrible idea!” he says. “He could get lost, or be accused of stealing himself. It’s a good thing you told me.”

  Pa rushes over to Caleb and tells him what happened. They team up with another two men and head out to track down Joseph.

  “Where did he go first?” Caleb asks.

  “To the other camp we passed, I think,” you say, not wanting to meet Caleb’s eye. What if he blames you for letting Joseph go?

  You wait anxiously with Ma, pacing until everyone returns. Finally, after what seems like hours, you see them walking back. Phew! Joseph is with them and you breathe a big sigh of relief.

  Joseph walks right by without even looking at you. You know he’s really upset. But Pa tells you that the other wagon train didn’t have your animals, and they were actually in really bad shape themselves.

  “They said they had been through enough and were ready to go back,” he explains. “They weren’t interested in anything other than the fastest route home.”

  “Then what about the stolen animals?” Ma asks.

  “We just have to forget about them,” Pa says. “Anyone could have taken them. We may never find them and we don’t have time to waste trying to track them down.”

  “We’ll just have to be extra careful from now on,” Caleb adds. He pats you on the shoulder, giving you a look that means that everything will be okay.

  Over the next couple days, every time you try to talk to Joseph, he turns away and ignores you. But finally, he starts to speak to you again.

  “I guess it was a bad idea for me to go off like that,” he says. “And you were only looking out for me.” You just nod, and the matter is over. You’re back to being friends. It’s too lonely on the Trail to let small arguments ruin a friendship.

  The next day, you arrive at the infamous Green River Crossing. The river is known to be difficult to cross, especially in the spring, when the winter snows melt and raise the water levels, creating strong currents. This time of year, in July, the water is a little lower, but you still have to walk across the river on narrow gravel bars. Another option is to use the ferry that some mountain men have created, but they charge a fee.

  When you arrive at the crossing, the area around it has been transformed into a big camping site. You see lots of other travelers, and rut marks of other wagons that have come before you. As you make camp, Caleb goes to find out how much the ferry will cost you.

  A bit later he returns, slowly shaking his head with disappointment.

  “The ferry is being repaired,” he says. “It will take at least four days to get it running again.”

  Four days! That is a long time to wait and it will delay you. There is a line of wagons already ahead of you. At the same time, the ferry might be the
safer option, even if it is the more expensive one. Everyone debates the two choices: crossing the river yourselves or waiting for the ferry. What do you decide?

  If you wait for the ferry, turn to page 100

  If you cross the river, turn to page 133

  Return to page 126

  Caleb organizes a small group of men to leave with him to search for water.

  “How much water do you have left?” Caleb asks.

  “If we ration what we have, we should be okay for about three days,” Pa replies.

  As the search party leaves, everyone is silent.

  “I think it’s a mistake for us to split up,” Ma says firmly.

  “I agree, but I hope they come back with water soon,” Pa replies.

  Everyone’s patience is running low from being thirsty and overheated, so you organize a game for Samuel, Hannah, Eliza, and Joseph. You climb under your wagon where it’s shady and take turns making shadow puppets and guessing what the shapes are. For a few moments everyone forgets how hot it is.

  After two more days, you are running drastically low on water. Pa says that if the search party does not return soon you will have to move ahead without them and look for water yourselves. You look at Eliza’s and Joseph’s sad faces and imagine how worried they must be about their father.