The Veteran

by Frederick Forsyth

  The scout shook his head.

  ‘No,’ said Charlie with resignation, ‘you just hunt your own. Without a licence. Well, Ben, the father is very rich indeed. He lives on a big spread up north of here, near the Yellowstone. Do you know the river?’

  Craig nodded. He had ridden down every inch of the southern bank with General Gibbon, from Fort Ellis to the junction with the Tongue, far east of Rosebud Creek, where they turned back.

  ‘Could you find out when the wedding will be, Charlie?’

  ‘You remember your promise?’

  ‘I do. No Linda Pickett.’

  ‘That’s right. So what do you have in mind? A little surprise?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Charlie made another phone call. September slipped into October. The weather remained fine and mild. The long-range forecast suggested a real Indian summer, with fine sunny weather until the end of the month.

  On the 10th a copy of the Billings Gazette arrived with the tour bus. With the school term well under way, the flow of visitors was easing fast.

  In the paper from her friend Charlie found an entire column from the writer of the social diary. She read it out to Craig.

  In breathless prose the diarist described the forthcoming nuptials of Kevin Braddock and Linda Pickett. The ceremony would be at the magnificent Bar-T Ranch south of Laurel Town on 20 October. Given the continuing clement weather, the ceremony would take place on the expansive lawns of the estate at 2 p.m. before an invited thousand guests who would include the social cream and business elite of the state of Montana. She went on like this to the bottom of the page. Ben Craig nodded and memorized.

  The next day the post commander addressed them all on the parade ground. The Fort Heritage summer experience would close for the winter months on 21 October, he said. It had been an outstanding success and messages of congratulations had flowed from educators and legislators across the state.

  ‘There will be much hard work to do in the four days prior to closure,’ Professor Ingles told his young team. ‘Salaries and wages will be paid out on the day before. We have to get the facility cleaned, stored and ready for the hard winter before we go.’

  Afterwards Charlie took Ben Craig aside.

  ‘Well, Ben, we’re coming to the end,’ she said. ‘When it’s over we can all go back to wearing our normal clothes. Oh, I suppose those are your normal clothes. Well, you have a wad of dollars coming. We can go into Billings and get you some sneakers, jeans, a selection of sports shirts and a couple of warm jackets for the winter.

  ‘Then I want you to come back to Bozeman with me. I’ll find you nice lodgings and then introduce you to some people who can help you.’

  ‘Very well, Charlie,’ he said.

  That evening he tapped on the professor’s door. John Ingles was sitting at his desk. A wood-burning pot-bellied stove glowed in the corner to take the chill off the evening air. The professor welcomed his buckskin-clad visitor warmly. He had been impressed by the lad, by his knowledge of the wild and the old frontier and the fact that never once had he slipped out of character. With his knowledge and a college degree, the professor could have found him a post on campus.

  ‘Ben, my boy, how can I help you?’

  He expected to be able to dispense some fatherly advice for the future.

  ‘Would you have a map, Major?’

  ‘A map? Well, good Lord. Yes, I suppose I do. Which area?’

  ‘Here at the fort, and north to the Yellowstone, please, sir.’

  ‘Good idea. Always useful to know where one is, and the surrounding country. Here.’

  He spread the map out on the desk and explained. Craig had seen campaign maps before, but they were mostly blank except for landmarks noted by a few trappers and scouts. This one was covered with lines and blobs.

  ‘Here is the fort, on the north side of West Pryor Mountain, facing north to the Yellowstone and south to the Pryors. Here is Billings, and here is where I come from, Bozeman.’

  Craig ran his finger the hundred miles between the two towns.

  ‘The Bozeman Trail?’ he asked.

  ‘Quite right, that’s what it used to be called. A blacktop highway now, of course.’

  Craig did not know what a blacktop highway was, but thought it might be the long strip of black rock he had seen in the moonlight. There were dozens of smaller towns shown on the large-scale map and, on the southern bank of the Yellowstone, at the confluence with Clark’s Creek, an estate marked Bar-T Ranch. He reckoned it to be a tad to the west of a line due north from the fort and, cross-country, twenty miles. He thanked the major and handed back the map.

  On the night of the 19th Ben Craig turned in early, just after chow time. No-one thought it odd. All the young men had spent the day cleaning up, greasing metal parts against the winter frosts, storing tools in secure cabins for next spring. The others in the bunkhouse came to bed around ten and quickly fell asleep. None noticed that their companion, beneath his blanket, was fully clothed.

  He rose at midnight, slipped his fox hat on his head, folded two blankets and left without making a sound. No-one saw him cross to the stable, let himself in, and start to saddle Rosebud. He had made sure she had a double ration of oats for the extra strength she would need.

  When she was ready he left her there, let himself into the smith’s forge and took the items he had noted the previous day: a hand-axe with belt sheath, a jemmy and metal cutters.

  The jemmy took the hasp and padlock off the armoury door, and once inside the cutters made short work of the chain threaded through the trigger guards of the rifles. They were all replicas but one. He took his Sharps ’52 model back and left.

  He led Rosebud to the small rear door by the chapel, unbarred it and walked out. His two blankets were under his saddle, the buffalo robe rolled and tied behind. The rifle in its sheath hung forward of his left knee and by his right knee hung a rawhide quiver with four arrows. His bow swung from his back. When he had walked his horse half a mile from the fort in silence he mounted up.

  In this manner Ben Craig, frontiersman and scout, the only man to survive the massacre at the Little Bighorn, rode out of the year of grace 1877 and into the last quarter of the twentieth century.

  By the setting of the moon he reckoned it was two in the morning. He had time to walk the twenty miles to the Bar-T Ranch and save Rosebud’s energy. He found the pole star and headed a few degrees to the west of the due-north path it indicated.

  The prairie gave way to farmland and here and there he found posts in his way, with wire strung between them. He used the cutters and walked on. He crossed the line from Bighorn into Yellowstone County, but he knew nothing of that. At dawn he found the banks of Clark’s Creek and followed the curving stream north. As the sun tipped the hills to the east he spied a long stretch of bright white post-and-rail fencing and a sign announcing: ‘Bar-T Ranch. Private Property. Keep out.’ He deciphered the letters and walked on until he found the private road leading to the main gate.

  At half a mile he could see the gate, and beyond it an enormous house surrounded by magnificent barns and stables. At the gate there was a striped pole across the road and a guardhouse. In the window was a low night light. He withdrew another half-mile to a stand of trees, unsaddled Rosebud and let her rest and crop the autumn grass. He rested through the morning but did not sleep, remaining alert like a wild animal.

  In truth the newspaper diarist had underestimated the splendour Big Bill Braddock planned for his son’s wedding.

  He had insisted that his son’s fiancée undergo a thorough examination at the hands of his family doctor, and the humiliated girl had had no choice but to concede. When he read the full report, his eyebrows rose.

  ‘She’s what?’ he asked the doctor. The medical man followed where the sausage finger pointed.

  ‘Oh yes, no question about it. Completely intacta.’

  Braddock leered.

  ‘Well, lucky young Kevin. And the rest?’

  ‘F
lawless. A very beautiful and healthy young woman.’

  The mansion had been transformed by the most fashionable interior designers money could hire into a fairy-tale castle. Out on the acre-sized lawn the altar had been set up twenty yards from the rail fence, facing the prairie. In front of the altar were row upon row of comfortable chairs for his guests, with an aisle down the centre for the loving couple to walk, Kevin first, attended by his best man, she and her nincompoop father to join them to the strains of the Bridal March.

  The buffet banquet was to be laid out on trestle tables behind the chairs. No expense had been spared. There were pyramids of champagne glasses in Stuart crystal, oceans of French champagne of an eyebrow-raising marque and all vintage. He was determined his most sophisticated guest would not find a single detail amiss.

  From Seattle arctic lobster, crab and oysters had been flown on ice. For those who preferred something stronger than champagne there was Chivas Regal by the crate. As he clambered into his four-poster the night before the wedding, Big Bill was worried only about his son. The boy had been drunk again and would need an hour in the shower to shape up in the morning.

  To entertain his guests further, as the married couple changed for their departure on honeymoon to a private island in the Bahamas, Braddock had planned a Wild West rodeo right next to the gardens. These troupers, like the caterers and their staff, were all hired. The only people Braddock did not hire were the security detail.

  Obsessive about his personal security, he maintained his own private army. Apart from three or four who stayed close to him at all times, the rest worked as wranglers on the ranch, but they were trained in firearms, had combat experience and would follow orders to the letter. They were paid to do so.

  For the wedding he had brought all thirty of them into close proximity to the house. Two manned the guard post on the main gate. His personal protection detail, headed by an ex-Green Beret, would be near him. The rest posed as stewards and ushers.

  Throughout the morning a stream of limousines and luxury coaches detailed to pick up guests from the airport at Billings cruised up to the main gate, were checked and passed through. Craig watched from deep cover. Just after midday the preacher arrived, followed by the musicians.

  Another column of catering vans and the rodeo performers came through a different gate, but they were out of sight. Shortly after one, the musicians began tuning up. Craig heard the sound and saddled up.

  He turned Rosebud’s head towards the open prairie and rode round the perimeter fence until the guardhouse dropped out of sight. Then he headed for the white rails, moving from a trot to a canter. Rosebud saw the rails approaching, adjusted her stride and sailed over. The scout found himself in a large paddock, a quarter-mile from the outlying barns. A herd of prize longhorn steers grazed.

  At the far side of the field Craig found the gate to the barn complex, opened it and left it that way. As he moved through the barns and across flagstoned courtyards two patrolling guards hailed him.

  ‘You must be part of the cabaret?’

  Craig stared and nodded.

  ‘You’re in the wrong place. Go down there and you’ll see the rest of them at the back of the house.’

  Craig headed down the alley, waited till they had moved on, then turned back. He headed for the music. He could not recognize the Bridal March.

  At the altar Kevin Braddock stood with his best man, immaculate in white tuxedo. Eight inches shorter than his father and fifty pounds lighter, he had narrow shoulders and wide hips. Several zits, to which he was prone, adorned his cheeks, partly masked by dabs of his mother’s face powder.

  Mrs Pickett and the Braddock parents sat in the front row, separated by the aisle. At the far end of that aisle Linda Pickett appeared on the arm of her father. She was ethereally beautiful in a white silk wedding gown flown from Balenciaga in Paris. Her face was pale and set. She stared ahead with no smile.

  A thousand heads turned to look as she began the walk down the aisle to the altar. Behind the rows of guests serried ranks of waiters and waitresses stood watching. Behind them appeared a lone rider.

  Michael Pickett delivered his daughter to stand beside Kevin Braddock, then seated himself beside his wife. She was dabbing her eyes. The preacher raised his eyes and voice.

  ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here this day to join this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony,’ he said when the music of the march had faded. If he saw the rider facing him fifty yards down the aisle he may have been puzzled but gave no sign. A dozen waiters were nudged aside as the horse moved forward several paces. Even the dozen bodyguards round the perimeter of the lawn were staring at the couple facing the preacher.

  The preacher went on.

  ‘. . . into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined.’

  Mrs Pickett was sobbing openly. Braddock glared across at her. The preacher was surprised to see a slow tear well from each of the bride’s eyes and flow down her cheeks. He presumed she too was overcome with joy.

  ‘Therefore, if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.’

  He raised his eyes from the text and beamed at his congregation.

  ‘I so speak. She is betrothed to me.’

  The voice was young and strong, and it carried to every corner of the lawn as the horse surged forward. Waiters were knocked flying. Two bodyguards launched themselves at the horseman. Each took a flying kick in the face and went backwards among the last two rows of guests. Men shouted, women screamed, the preacher’s mouth was a perfect O.

  Rosebud moved from trot to canter to gallop in seconds. Her rider reined her back in and hauled the bridle to his left. With his right arm he reached down, encircled the slim, silk-clad waist and pulled the girl up. For a second she swung across the front of his body, then slipped behind, threw a leg over the buffalo roll, clamped her arms around him and hung on.

  The horse charged past the front row, cleared the white rail fence and galloped away through the belly-high grass of the prairie beyond. The scene on the lawn degenerated into utter chaos.

  The guests were all upright, screaming and shouting. The longhorn herd trotted round the corner and onto the trim grass. One of Braddock’s four men, seated far down the row from his master, ran past the preacher, drew a handgun and took careful aim at the disappearing horse. Michael Pickett let out a shout of ‘No-o-o-o’, threw himself at the gunman, seized his arm and jerked it upwards. The gun fired three shots as they wrestled.

  That was enough for the congregation, and the steers. All stampeded. Chairs crumbled, salvers of lobster and crab were tossed aside to spill on the lawn. A local mayor was thrown through a pyramid of Stuart crystal and went down in an expensive shower of trash. The preacher dived under the altar, where he met the bridegroom.

  Out on the main driveway two patrol cars from the local sheriff’s office were parked, with four troopers. They were there to guide traffic and had been invited in for a snack lunch. They heard the shots, glanced at each other, threw their burgers away and ran for the lawn.

  At the edge of the lawn one of them cannoned into a fleeing waiter. He jerked the man upright by his white jacket.

  ‘What the hell just happened here?’ he demanded. The other three stared open-mouthed at the bedlam. The senior deputy listened to the waiter and told one of his colleagues: ‘Get back to the car and tell the sheriff we have a problem here.’

  Sheriff Paul Lewis would not normally have been in his office on a Saturday afternoon, but he had paperwork he wanted to clear before starting the new week. It was twenty after two when the head of the duty deputy came round the office door.

  ‘There’s a problem out at the Bar-T.’

  He was holding a phone in his hand.

  ‘You know, the Braddock wedding? Ed is on the line. Says the bride’s just been kidnapped.’

  ‘Been WHAT? Put him on my line.’

  T
he red light flashed as the transfer came through. He snatched the handset.

  ‘Ed, Paul. What the hell are you talking about?’

  He listened while his man at the ranch reported. Like all peace officers, he loathed the idea of kidnapping. For one thing it was a filthy crime, usually directed at the wives and children of the rich; for another it was a federal offence and that meant the Bureau would be all over him like a rash. In thirty years of service to Carbon County, ten of them as sheriff, he had known three takings of hostages, all resolved without fatalities, but never yet a kidnapping. He presumed a team of gangsters with fast cars, even a helicopter, were involved.

  ‘A lone horseman? Are you out of your mind? Where did he go? . . . Over the fence and away across the prairie. OK, he must have hidden a car somewhere. I’ll call in some out-of-county help and block the main roads. Look, Ed, get statements from everyone who saw anything: how he got in, what he did, how he subdued the girl, how he got away. Call me back.’

  He spent half an hour calling in reserves and arranging patrol cars on the main highways out of Carbon County, north, south, east and west. The Highway Patrol troopers were told to check every vehicle and every trunk. They were looking for a beautiful brunette in a white silk dress. It was just after three when Ed called back from his car at the Bar-T.

  ‘This is getting very weird, chief. We have near twenty statements from eyewitnesses. The rider got in because everyone thought he was part of the Wild West rodeo show. He was dressed in buckskin, riding a big chestnut mare. He had a fur-trapper’s hat, a feather hanging from the back of his head and a bow.’

  ‘A bow? What kind of a bow? Pink ribbon?’

  ‘Not that kind of a bow, chief. A bow as in bow and arrow. It gets stranger.’

  ‘It can’t. But go on.’

  ‘All the witnesses say when he charged up to the altar and reached down for the girl, she reached up to him. They say she seemed to know him and wrapped her arms round him as they went over the fence. If she hadn’t she’d have fallen off and be here now.’

  A huge weight lifted off the sheriff. With a bit of luck he did not have a kidnap, he had an elopement. He began to grin.