Page 80 of The Veteran

Craig had no need to use the sun for guidance. He could see his target in the far distance, glittering in the morning sun beneath a cold blue sky. He was heading for the Absaroka Wilderness, which he had hunted as a boy with old Donaldson. This was terrible country, a wilderness of forest and rocky plateaus where few could follow, and it ran upwards into the Beartooth Range.

Even from that distance he could see the icy sentinels of the range, Thunder, Sacred, Medicine and Beartooth Mountains. There a man with a good rifle could hold off an army. At a creek he paused to give the sweating mounts a few gulps of water, then pressed on towards the peaks that seemed to nail the land to the sky.

Twenty miles behind, the six warriors, eyes scanning the ground for the telltale marks of steel-shod hoofs, kept up a fast trot that saved their ponies’ energy and could be maintained for mile after mile.

Thirty miles to the north the cavalry patrol pressed south to pick up the trail. They found it at noon just west of West Pryor Peak. The Crow scouts suddenly reined in and circled, staring at a patch of sun-hardened earth. They pointed down to the marks of steel horseshoes and the spoor of an unshod pony close behind. A short distance away were the traces of other ponies, five or six in all.

‘So,’ murmured the lieutenant, ‘we have competition. No matter.’

He gave the order to continue westward, though the horses were beginning to tire. Half an hour later, cresting a rise in the plain, he took his telescope and scanned the horizon ahead. Of the fugitives there was no sign, but he saw a puff of dust and beneath it six tiny figures on pinto ponies trotting towards the mountains.

The Cheyenne ponies were also tiring but so, they knew, must be the mounts of the fugitives up ahead. The warriors gave their horses water at Bridger Creek, just below the modern village of Bridger, and half an hour’s rest. One, ear pressed to the ground, heard the drumming of hoofs coming from behind, so they mounted up and rode on. After a mile their leader pulled away to one side, hid them all behind a knoll and climbed to the top to look.

At three miles he saw the cavalry. The Cheyenne knew nothing of any papers on a hillside, nor of any reward for the runaway wasichu. They presumed the bluecoats must be hunting them, for being off-reservation. So they watched and waited.

When the cavalry patrol reached the parting of the tracks it stopped while the Crow scouts dismounted and studied the ground. The Cheyenne saw the Crows point ever westward and the cavalry patrol continued in that direction.

The Cheyenne kept up with them on a parallel track, shadowing the bluecoats as Little Wolf had shadowed Custer up the Rosebud. But in mid-afternoon the Crow spotted them.

‘Cheyenne,’ said the Crow scout. The lieutenant shrugged.

‘No matter, let them hunt. We have our own quarry.’

The two parties of pursuers pressed on till nightfall. The Crow followed the trail and the Cheyenne shadowed the patrol. As the sun tipped the mountain peaks both groups knew they had to rest the horses. If they tried to go on their mounts would simply collapse beneath them. Besides, the ground was becoming harder and the trail more difficult to follow. In darkness, without lanterns, which they did not have, it would be impossible.

Ten miles ahead Ben Craig knew the same. Rosebud was a big, strong mare, but she had covered fifty miles carrying a man and equipment over broken ground. Whispering Wind was not a skilled rider and she too was at the end of her tether. They camped by Bear Creek, just east of the modern township of Red Lodge, but lit no fire for fear it might be seen.

As darkness fell the temperature plunged. They rolled themselves in the buffalo robe and in seconds the girl was fast asleep. Craig did not sleep. He could do that later. He crawled out of the robe, wrapped himself in the red trade blanket and kept watch over the girl he loved.

No-one came, but before dawn he was up. They ate, quickly, some dried antelope meat and a quantity of corn bread she had taken from her teepee, washed down with creek water. Then they left. The pursuers were also up as the first light revealed the trail. They were nine miles behind and closing. Craig knew the Cheyenne would be there; what he had done co

uld not be forgiven. But he knew nothing of the cavalry.

The land was harder, the going slower. He knew his pursuers would be catching up and he needed to slow them by disguising his trail. After two hours in the saddle the fugitives came to the confluence of two creeks. To the left, tumbling out of the mountains, was Rock Creek, which he judged to be impassable as a way into the real wilderness. Straight ahead lay West Creek, shallower and less rocky. He dismounted, tied the pony’s tethering rein to the horse’s saddle and led Rosebud by the bridle.

He led the small convoy off the bank at an angle towards Rock Creek, into the water, then doubled back and took the other waterway. The freezing water numbed his feet, but he pressed on for two miles over the gravel and pebbles. Then he turned to the mountains on his left and led the mounts out of the water into the dense forest.

The land now rose steeply beneath the trees and with the sun shut out it was chill. Whispering Wind was shrouded in her blanket, riding bareback at a walking pace.

Three miles behind, the cavalry had reached the water and stopped. The Crows pointed out the tracks seeming to lead up Rock Creek and after conferring with his sergeant the lieutenant ordered his patrol up the false trail. As they disappeared, the Cheyenne reached the two creeks. They did not need to enter the water to hide their tracks. But they chose the right creek and trotted up the bank, scanning the far side for signs of horses coming out of the water and heading for the high country.

After two miles they found the signs in a patch of soft earth across the creek. They splashed over and entered the forest.

At midday Craig arrived at what he thought he remembered from his hunting trip years before, a great open plateau of rock, the Silver Run Plateau, which headed straight to the mountains. Although they did not know it, they were now over 11,000 feet high.

From the edge of the rocks he could look down towards the creek he had followed and then quit. To his right, there were figures down there, where the two creeks split. He had no telescope but in the thin air visibility was extraordinary. At half a mile these were not Cheyenne; they were ten soldiers with four Crow scouts. They were an army patrol coming back down Rock Creek, having realized their error. That was when Ben Craig understood the army was still after him for liberating the girl.

He took his Sharps rifle from its sheath, inserted a single cartridge, found a rock to rest it on, set the sights at maximum elevation and squinted down into the valley.

‘Take the horse,’ old Donaldson had always said. ‘In this country a man with no horse has to turn back.’

He aimed for the forehead of the officer’s mount. The crash, when it came, echoed through the mountains, backward and forward like rolling thunder. The bullet took the lieutenant’s horse just to the side of the head, high in the right shoulder. It went down like a sack, the officer with it. He twisted an ankle as he fell.

The troopers scattered into the forest, save the sergeant, who threw himself behind the downed horse and tried to help the lieutenant. The horse was finished but not dead. The sergeant used his pistol to put it out of its misery. Then he dragged his officer to the trees. No more shots came.

In the forest on the slope the Cheyenne dropped from their ponies to the carpet of pine needles and stayed there. Four of them had Springfields looted from the Seventh, but they also had the Plains Indian’s lack of marksmanship. They knew what the young wasichu could do with that Sharps, and at what range. They began to crawl upwards. It slowed them down. One of the six stayed in the rear, leading all six ponies.

Craig cut the blanket into four pieces and tied one quarter round each of Rosebud’s hoofs. The material would not last long between steel shoe and rock but it would hide scratch marks for 500 yards. Then he trotted south-west across the plateau towards the peaks.

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