‘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 luc
ky.
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.’