The Veteran (41 page)

Sheriff Lewis did not like being threatened.

“I hope you and your client are not thinking of taking the law into your own hands. Counsellor? That could be most unwise.”

The lawyer ignored the counter-threat.

“Mr. Braddock is deeply concerned for the safety of his daughter-in-law. He is within his right to search for her.”

“Was the wedding ceremony complete?”

“Was it what?”

“Are your client’s son and Miss. Pickett actually married in law?”

“Well ...”

“In that case she is not your client’s daughter-in-law. She is no relation.”

“Until further information she is still my client’s son’s fiancee. He is acting as a concerned citizen. Now are you going to bring this hooligan in? There is always Helena.”

Sheriff Lewis sighed. He knew how much influence Bill Braddock had with some legislators in the state capital. He was not afraid of that either. But this young man, Ben Craig, had undoubtedly committed offences.

“As soon as he can be traced, I’ll be there,” he said.

As he put the phone down he thought it might be wise for him to get to the lovebirds before Braddock’s men. His helicopter pilot came on the line. It was nearly four, with two hours to go before sundown and the fading of the light.

“Jerry, I want you to find the Bar-T Ranch. Then fly south towards the Pryors. Keep an eye open in front and to both sides.”

“What am I looking for, Paul?”

“A lone rider, heading south, probably for the mountains. There’s a girl mounted up behind him in a white wedding dress.”

“Are you putting me on?”

“Nope. Some saddle-bum just snatched the fiancee of Bill Braddock’s son from the altar.”

“I think I like the guy already,” said the police officer as he left the Billings Airfield area.

“Just find him for me. Jerry.”

“No sweat. If he’s there I’ll find him. Out.”

The pilot was over the Bar-T five minutes later and set his course due south. He maintained one thousand feet, low enough to give him a good view of any moving rider below him and high enough to cover a ten-mile-wide swathe to left and right.

To his right he could see Highway 310 and the rail line running south towards the village of Warren and on into Wyoming via the flat country. Ahead he could see the peaks of the Pryors.

In case the rider had tried to evade detection by veering west across the road. Sheriff Lewis asked the Highway Patrol to cruise down the 310 and keep an eye open on both sides of the road for the torso of a rider above the prairie grass.

Big Bill Braddock had not been idle. Leaving his staff to cope with the anarchy on his lawn, he and his security men had gone straight to his office. Never a man known for his good humour, those around him had still not ever seen him in such a towering rage. For a while he sat at his desk in silence. There were a dozen grouped round him, waiting for orders.

“What do we do, boss?” asked one eventually.

“Think,” snarled the rancher. “Think. He’s a man alone on a horse, heavy-laden. Limited range. Where would he go?”

The former Green Beret, Max, studied a wall map of the county.

“Not north. He’d have to cross the Yellowstone. Too deep. So, south. Back to that replica fort in the hills?”

“Right. I want ten men, mounted and armed. Go south, spread out over a five-mile front. Ride like hell. Overtake him.”

When the ten wranglers were saddled up he addressed them outside.

“You each have radiophones. Stay in touch. If you see him, call for back-up. When you corner him, get the girl back. If he attempts to threaten her, or you, you know what to do. I think you know what I mean. I want the girl back, no-one else. Go.”

The ten riders cantered out the main gate, fanned out and broke into a gallop. The fugitive had a forty-minute start but he was carrying two riders and saddlebags, a rifle and heavy buffalo hide.

Inside the ranch lawyer Valentine reported back.

“The sheriff seems pretty relaxed about it all. But he is going to mount a search. Patrol cars on the roads and probably a helicopter,” he said.

“I don’t want him to get there first,” snapped Braddock. “But I do want to know what information he gets. Max, get to the radio shack. I want a band-sweep of every police channel in the county. Permanent listening watch. Get my own helo up in the air. Get ahead of the riders. Find the bastard. Guide them to him. We’ll need more than one. Rent two more out of the airport. Go. Now.”

They were all wrong. The professor, the sheriff, Braddock.

The frontiersman was not heading for the Pryors. He knew that was too obvious.

Five miles south of the ranch he had stopped, taken one of his saddle blankets and wrapped it round Whispering Wind. It was bright red but it hid the glaring white of the dress. But he had never heard of helicopters. After the halt he slanted southwest towards where he recalled having crossed a long strip of black rock the previous spring.

At a mile, he could make out a row of upright posts with wires strung between them. They ran across his front as far as the eye could see. They were the phone lines running above the Burlington rail line that paralleled the highway.

At half past three Jerry called in from his hovering Sikorsky.

“Paul, I thought you said there was a lone rider? There’s a goddamn army down here.”

Braddock’s pursuers, thought the sheriff.

“What do you have, exactly. Jerry?”

The voice crackled over the distance.

“I count at least eight riders abreast, galloping south. Ranch hands by the look. And they’re travelling light. Also, there’s another helo, up ahead, hovering over the foothills, close to that replica fort.”

Lewis swore softly. He wished now he were with the helicopter instead of stuck in an office.

“Jerry, if the fugitives are up ahead, try and get to them first. If Braddock’s hoods get to the boy he won’t be worth squat.”

“You got it, Paul. I’ll keep looking.”

In the ranch house the head of the radio operator came round the door.

“Mr. Braddock, sir, the sheriff’s helicopter is right over our own team.”

“That makes an eyewitness,” said Max.

“Tell my boys to keep looking,” snapped Braddock. “We’ll sort out any court case later.”

Sheriff Lewis was glad he had stayed in overall control in his office when a call came through at five minutes before five. An excited voice shouted, “Got ‘em.”

“Speaker, identify.”

“Car Tango One. On the Three-Ten. He just crossed the highway, riding south-west. Caught a glimpse before he went behind some trees.”

“Where on the Three-Ten?”

“Four miles north of Bridger.”

“Confirm the target is now west of the highway,” ordered Lewis.

“That is affirmative. Sheriff.”

“Stay on the highway in case he doubles back.”

“Ten-four.”

Sheriff Lewis studied his wall map. If the rider continued on his track he would come up against another rail line and the much bigger Interstate 212 running right through the mountains to Park County, Wyoming.

There were two Highway Patrol cars cruising the interstate.

He asked them to move further south and keep their eyes open for someone trying to cross from east to west. Then he called up his helicopter pilot.

“Jerry, he’s been seen. Well to your west. He just crossed the Three-Ten riding south-west. Can you get over there? About four miles north of Bridger. He’s back in open country again.”

“OK, Paul, but I’m going to have a fuel problem soon and the light is fading fast.”

The sheriff looked again at the tiny community of Bridger.

“There’s an airstrip at Bridger. Go to the limit of your fuel, then put down there. You may have to spend the night. I’ll tell Janey.”

In the ranch house it had all been heard. Max studied the map.

“He’s not going for the Pryors. Too obvious. He’s heading for the Wilderness and the Beartooth Range. He figures to ride right through the range into Wyoming and lose himself. Clever. That’s what I’d do.”

Braddock’s operator told the ten horsemen to turn due west, cross the highway and resume looking. They agreed to that, but forbore to warn him that they had ridden their mounts so hard for fifteen miles that they were in danger of breaking down.

And darkness was closing in.

“We should get a couple of cars with men in them down the interstate,” said Max. “He’ll have to cross it if he wants to make the Wilderness.”

Two big off-road vehicles were despatched with eight more men in them.

Approaching the interstate, Ben Craig dismounted, climbed a tree on a small knoll and studied the barrier. It was raised above the plain and a train track, another spur of the Burlington line, ran beside it. Occasionally a vehicle would pass, heading north or south. All around him were the badlands, rough country of creeks, rocks and ungrazed prairie grass, belly-high to a horse. He descended and from his saddlebag took his packet of steel and flint.

There was a light breeze from the east, and when the fire took hold it spread to cover a mile-wide front and moved towards the road. Billows of smoke rose into the darkening sky. The breeze bore them west, faster than the advancing fire, and the road disappeared. The patrol car five miles to the north saw the smoke and came south to investigate. As the smoke thickened and darkened the patrolmen stopped, a mite too late. Within seconds they were enveloped in the clouds. There was nothing for it but to back up.

The tractor-trailer heading south for Wyoming tried really hard to avoid the tail lights when the driver saw them. The brakes worked perfectly and the semi stopped. The one behind it was not so lucky.

Tractor-trailers are very adaptable, until they jackknife. The second rig hit the first and both performed that manoeuvre, slewing across the centre line and blocking the highway in both directions. Given the escarpments on both sides, driving around the blockage was not an option.

The patrol officers were able to make one radio call before they had to quit their vehicle and join the truck drivers further up the road, out of the smoke pall.

The message was enough. Fire trucks and heavy lifting gear soon headed south to cope with the emergency. It took all night but they had the road open again by dawn. Messages flashed to Wyoming halted all traffic south of the mountains. Only those already on the road were marooned for the night.

In the confusion, invisible in the smoke, a single rider trotted across the highway and into the wild country to the west. The man had a kerchief across his face and the girl who rode behind him was shielded by a blanket.

West of the highway the rider dismounted. The muscles beneath Rosebud’s gleaming coat were trembling with exhaustion and there were ten miles yet to the cover of the timber.

Whispering Wind eased herself forward into the saddle but she was half her lover’s weight.

She slipped the blanket from her shoulders and sat shimmering white in the dusk, her unleashed hair flowing to her waist.

“Ben, where are we going?”

For answer he pointed to the south. In the last rays of the setting sun the peaks of the Beartooth Range rose like flames above the forest line, sentinels of another and better life.

“Through the mountains, into Wyoming. No-one will find us there. I will build you a cabin and hunt and fish for you. We will be free and live for ever.”

Then she smiled, for she loved him very much, and believed his promise, and was happy again.

Braddock’s personal pilot had had no choice but to turn back. His fuel was low and the ground below was too dark to make out details. He landed at the ranch on the last of his reserve.

The ten riders limped into the little community of Bridger on their exhausted horses and asked for lodgings. They ate at the diner and made beds in their own saddle blankets.

Jerry put the sheriff’s helicopter down at Bridger airstrip and was offered a bed for the night by the manager.

At the ranch it was the former Green Beret who took over the planning. Ten of the private army were stranded at Bridger with exhausted horses; eight more were marooned in their vehicles upstream of the blockage on the interstate. Both sets would be there all night. Max faced Bill Braddock and the remaining twelve. He was in his element, planning a campaign, just like in Vietnam. A large map of the county adorned the wall.

“Plan One,” he said. “Cut off the pass—literally. Right here there is a deep cleft or defile running right through the range into Wyoming. It is called Rock Creek. Beside it runs the highway, twisting and winding until it emerges on the south side.

“He may try to ride along the grass edging the highway to avoid the high country on either side. As soon as the blockage on the interstate is clear, our boys need to race down here, overtaking everything in their path, and stake out the road at the state line. If he appears, they know what to do.”

“Agreed,” growled Braddock. “Supposing he tries to ride through during the night?”

“He can’t, sir. That horse of his must be on its last legs. I figure he crossed the road because he is heading for the forest, then the mountains. As you see, he has to penetrate the expanse of the Custer National Forest, climbing all the way, crossing the defile called West Fork and then more climbing to emerge on this plateau, the Silver Run. Hence Plan Two.

“We use the two rented helicopters to overfly him, picking up the ten men at Bridger on their way. These men are set down in a skirmish line across this plateau. When he emerges from the forest onto the rock, he’ll be a sitting target for men crouching behind boulders halfway across.”

“Order it,” said Braddock. “What else?”

“Plan Three, sir. The rest of us enter the forest on horses at dawn behind him and flush him upwards to the plateau at the top. Either way, we’ll hunt him down like game.”

“And if he turns on us in the forest?”

Max smiled with pleasure.

“Why, sir, I am a jungle-trained fighter. There are three or four others who did time in ‘Nam. I want them all with us. If he tries to make a stand in the timber, he’s mine.”

“How do we get the horses down there with the road blocked?” asked one of the others.