‘So who raised you?’
‘Mr Donaldson, sir.’
‘Ah, and he lives . . .?’
‘Also dead. A bear got him.’
The professor put down his pen. He had heard of no fatalities due to a bear attack, though some tourists could be remarkably careless with their picnic garbage. It was all a question of knowing the wild. Anyway, this handsome young man was clearly without family.
‘No next of kin?’
‘Sir?’
‘Who should we contact in the event of . . . anything happening to you?’
‘No-one, sir. No-one to tell.’
‘I see. Date of birth?’
‘’Fifty-two. End of December, I think.’
‘So you would be nearly twenty-five years old?’
‘Yessir.’
‘Right. Social Security number?’
Craig stared. The professor sighed.
‘My, you do seem to have slipped through the net. Very well. Sign here.’
He turned the form around, pushed it across the desk and offered the pen. Craig took it. He could not read the words ‘signature of applicant’ but the space was clear enough. He stooped and made his mark. The professor retrieved the paper and stared in disbelief.
‘My dear boy, my dear d
ear boy . . .’ He turned the paper so Charlie could see it. She looked at the inky cross in the space.
‘Charlie, as an educator I think you have a small extra task this summer.’
She flashed her wide grin.
‘Yes, Major, I think I do.’
She was thirty-five years old, had been married once, not well, and had never had babies. She thought the young man from the wilderness was like a boy-child, naïve, innocent, vulnerable. He would need her protection.
‘Right,’ said Professor Ingles, ‘Ben, go and get yourself settled in, if you are not already, and join us all at the trestle tables for the evening meal.’
It was good food, the scout thought, and plenty of it. It came on enamelled tin plates. He ate with the help of his bowie knife, a spoon and a wad of bread. There were several half-hidden grins around the table, but he missed them.
Theyoung menheshared thebunkhouse with were friendly. They all seemed to be from towns and cities he had not heard of and presumed to be back east. But it had been a tiring day, and there was no light save candles to read by, so these were quickly blown out and they fell asleep.
Ben Craig had never been taught to be curious about his fellow man but he noticed the young men around him were strange in many ways. They purported to be scouts, horse-breakers and trappers, but seemed to know very little about their skills. But he recalled the raw recruits led by Custer and how little they too had known of horses, guns and the Indians of the Great Plains. He supposed nothing much had changed in the year he had lived with the Cheyenne or alone.
There were to be two weeks of settling in and rehearsals in the schedule before the visitor parties began to arrive, and this time was dedicated to getting the fort in perfect order, practising routines and lectures by Major Ingles, mainly held in the open air.
Craig knew none of this and prepared to go out hunting again. He was crossing the parade ground, heading for the main gate which stood wide open each day, when a young wrangler called Brad hailed him.
‘What you got there, Ben?’ He pointed to the sheepskin sheath hanging forward of Craig’s left knee in front of the saddle.