Wind River Protector

by Lindsay McKenna

  “That’s impressive,” he murmured. “Now I know why you gave Eddy that business card.”

  “Yes. My mom has all of us kids carry cards on us wherever we go. She wants to help women around the world, and if we see someone, even a guy like Eddy, she encourages us to give a card to them. We’re not anti-male, but because women aren’t considered for bank loans as men are, we focus on them instead. If he gets fired from his job because of the crash, I know Babs will hire Eddy. One of the many things a woman getting a loan from my grandmother’s bank has to promise is to give healthy paychecks. People have to make a living and be able to pay their bills. I know Babs will help Eddy, if he needs it.”

  “And here I thought you were just a Warthog pilot,” he teased, giving her a grin.

  Laughing, Andy said, “My family taught me to keep most of our financial history and background a secret. My grandparents have thousands of people sending them letters, emails and videos from around the world every year, begging for donations. She has a team who reads every letter, and often they’ll recommend an action for that person. Sometimes, it’s money. Sometimes, it’s legal or business support. My mother, who grew up with this global charity in the household, didn’t want that issue following the four of us kids. She taught all of us how to be discreet in the use of the business cards, and to use our judgment on whether to reach out to help someone or not. Our parents taught us a lot about evaluating a person and now, at my age, I’m grateful for that training.”

  “So,” Dev said, slowing and opening the pickup door for her, “your parents taught you civics, social responsibility and being compassionate. Not a bad combo,” and he stepped aside.

  “Thanks,” Andy murmured, climbing into the truck. “I love having those business cards. It’s like giving a woman or a man, a get-out-of-j ail-free kind of opportunity. And it always feels good when I can do it. It’s human compassion and paying it forward. My mom taught us that from the time we could walk and talk.”

  Dev came around the truck and opened the door. “I won’t say anything to anyone about this, Andy.”

  She strapped in. “Thanks, I appreciate it. That’s why I made Eddy promise he wouldn’t speak a word of what I’d done to help him. We kids and our family would visit my grandparents at their estate in the Hamptons, usually in the summertime. Growing up, we saw how overwhelmed they were sometimes, helping people who didn’t have much.”

  “There are very few people who can help the world like your grandparents are doing,” he said, putting the truck in gear and moving slowly out of the parking lot. “And I imagine there are stresses and pressures we can’t even guess on them.”

  “Right,” Andy said. “My parents never asked anything of them. With my mom’s vision coupled with her MBA, they’ve taken the ranch from being barely in the black to being supersuccessful. They don’t need my grandparents’ money. They’ve made it on their own with pure hard work.”

  “And that’s good,” Dev said.

  “What about your parents? Are they okay financially speaking?”

  “Yes, they are. They’re middle class, but coming from Ireland to the US when they did, at eighteen? They were poor as church mice. They were immigrants fleeing to America and then carving out a home and a business with decades of hard work. It put them at a level where they felt rich, very well off. I know they aren’t wealthy by your grandmother’s standards, but they’re comfortable where they are, and that’s what’s most important.”

  “Money can’t buy you happiness,” Andy murmured. “But it sure can help folks who are economically deprived and stressed out because of having too little. My mom and dad took us on vacations every year to different countries around the world. My grandparents did the same for my mom. They took her to third-world countries and showed her the poverty, the horrible living conditions, the lack of so many things we take for granted here in America. It made a powerful impression on Mom. By the time we kids were in middle school, we knew just how lucky we were to be in this country. We never took money for granted again.” “Smart of Maud and Steve to give you all that travel opportunity. I know from my own globe-trotting how lucky we are to live in the US.”

  She snorted. “I’ll tell you, deployed to Afghanistan? It’s one of the worst-off countries in the world. My grandma really got involved. She connected with Delos Charities, who were in Central Asia already, delivering shoes, clothing, medicine and donated huge amounts of goods to try to make a difference in those people’s poor, hard lives.”

  “I remember Delos jets flying into Bagram,” he said. “Me and some of the other pilots, when we had a layover there, would volunteer our muscles to help offload and get the boxes to nearby warehouses.”

  She gave him a warm look. “That was so nice of you.”

  “Blame it on my parents’ telling me their stories of near starvation and shoes being passed down to the next kid in their family, new soles being put on and worn until they fell apart.”

  “That’s why you’re the way you are.”

  Dev smiled a little, turning out into Highway 89, heading toward the airport. “I guess so. I don’t like to see suffering. I don’t have any friends who do either.”

  “Compassion,” she said pensively, looking out the window, “can be learned, but basically, I think your heart either has it or it doesn’t. I’ve seen plenty of hard-hearted men who don’t.”

  “Not all men are that way,” Dev countered.

  “I realize that. But you see the brutality toward women and children in Afghanistan and it’s horrifying. They consider women less valuable than a damned goat. And female children are seen as disposable if there is a boy in the household.”

  “Can’t argue that,” he admitted. “Glad we’re out of there.”

  “Makes two of us.”

  There was silence for a moment, then Andy changed the subject.

  “Any chance of us doing some hiking the day after we get off our forty-eight hours of duty?” she asked. “You might have other plans, but I’m free that day. I’d really like to break out in a sweat, do some serious trail work and get back to nature.”

  “I’m free on Thursday. Let’s do it. Any place in particular you want to go?”

  “Prater Canyon, up in the Salt River Range. It’s one of my favorite places to hike.”

  “That was fast,” and he grinned, meeting her sparkling gaze. “This will be good for both of us.”

  “Yes, I need a time-out, some relaxation from the push we’ve done since I got home.”

  “Agreed,” Dev said.

  “I wonder what adventures await us in Prater?” she mused, leaning back on the headrest, her eyes closed.

  July 12

  Thursday

  The scent of pine was almost an aphrodisiac to Andy as she took the steeper trail out of Prater Canyon, a valley favorite. It was nine a.m., a weekday, but school was out, so there were a number of older teenagers who could drive flying their drones down below them. To her right was the river, which would eventually flow into the mighty Snake River, farther away and to the west of the canyon. It was a perfect place to fly drones, plus hikers who wanted the quiet of nature around them could find it as they hiked out of the canyon and headed toward the waterfalls, a good mile farther up at seven thousand feet.

  Andy smiled to herself as Dev came up as the trail widened to walk at her side. She could feel and see his appreciation for the mighty Douglas firs that covered the Salt Range like a green cloak.

  “I’ve really missed this,” she confessed, gesturing around her.

  “What? The forest?”

  “Yes, and giving myself permission to take time off. I’ve always been so driven. I think the smartest decision I made this year was to come home.”

  Nodding, Dev wiped the sweat from his brow and settled the red baseball cap Maud had given him before he left on their adventure back on his head. Maud was well known to wear the Wind River Ranch red baseball cap around the valley. In fact, Steve had joked once that Maud wa
nted it buried with her; it was that much a part of her identity, much as his black Stetson was his. Andy also wore one that had a lot of time and wrinkles to it, the bill well molded and narrowed. Dev wondered if she’d flown with it when she was in California.

  “No place like home,” he agreed.

  “Tell me more about your upbringing?” she asked, keeping contact with his gaze for a moment. She saw his face soften with thought at her question.

  “I grew up with sandy beaches, pine trees that flourish growing there and flying kites and, later, drones on the beach. My father loved surf fishing off the beach, catching some nice ones for our dinner. My mother always liked bringing a picnic basket to the beach while he fished, setting up a big umbrella to hide her fair Irish skin from the hot sun, knitting in her beach chair. They were born on the ocean, so the ocean is in their makeup.”

  “Is it in yours, too?”

  “Yeah, in a sense,” Dev murmured, sliding his hands under the shoulder straps of his knapsack. “I enjoy swimming. Most of all, I guess I was like my parents in that the sounds of the waves crashing into the beach, the cry of the gulls overhead, fed my Irish soul.”

  “I love when you wax poetic,” she teased. His cheeks turned ruddy and his mouth flexed in a boyish grin. “It’s nice to see a man able to reveal his emotional side to a woman. Refreshing, as a matter of fact.”

  “I don’t imagine you had anyone in the military who waxed poetic,” he said, trading a glance with Andy.

  Snorting, she said, “Oh, no. It was all business, as it should have been. You can’t be emotional in the cockpit, as you well know. It’s all mental and logic.”

  “It’s a place a pilot has to be at all times,” he agreed. “But out here? It’s nice to be able to let down, relax and just sort of let the day, the weather, the fragrances in the air feed us something so utterly necessary to every living thing. It nurses my soul, too.”

  “I’ve always heard the Irish are great storytellers and masters of word pictures,” she said, smiling over at him. “You sure you aren’t a poet? I’ve never seen you so relaxed, and you’ve unveiled your muse side here in the mountains.”

  Giving her an embarrassed chuckle, Dev said, “My mother speaks in wonderful word picture and I think I got a little of that ability through her. My father is a master storyteller. As a kid, I used to love sitting at his feet at night as he read the newspaper, weaving a story from some of the articles he’d read. I loved those times with him.”

  “Gosh, that sounds wonderful.”

  “I feel really lucky to have decent parents. So many of my friends were raised by single mothers, in broken families or dysfunctional ones. I didn’t have any of that.”

  “And it’s made you the man you are, Dev. Don’t change. You’re special, and there aren’t many of your type around.”

  He moved his fingers up and down the straps, seeing a blue jay winging past them, crying out the alarm that there were two humans in its territorial vicinity. He held her smile with one of his own. “Don’t go putting me up on a pedestal, Andy. I have feet of clay just like any other guy.”

  Laughing, she said, “Oh! No worries about that. I know that at my age and experience, both genders have feet of clay. Still, it’s nice to see a guy allow his softer, vulnerable side to show and be shared. Women love that in a man.”

  He became sober. “That’s funny . . . well, not ha-ha-ha funny, but ironic you said that.”

  “What did I say?”

  “My wife, Sophie, said those very same words when we were planning our wedding. She was so mature for her age of eighteen . . . I never forgot those words. It made a lasting impact on me.”

  “I’m so sorry you lost her when you were both so young. That’s tragic.”

  Shrugging, he managed, “Tragedy is in everyone’s life.”

  Andy looked around, absorbing the silence broken by the blue jay and the soft wind singing through the pine far above them. Inhaling the camphorlike scent, believing it was truly feeding her soul, she whispered, “No question.”

  “There’s a lot in life to deal with,” Dev agreed quietly, avoiding a huge boulder in the middle of the well-used trail. Walking around it and meeting Andy on the other side, he said, “There are days when I think living on this planet of suffering is just that. I don’t see much happiness in it, to tell you the truth. All I see is poverty, pain and suffering, and wish everyone could be lifted up to what I have. There are moments of happiness woven into it, of course, but by and large, we all, to a person, suffer, whether it’s family- or career-related.”

  “Or a combination of both,” she added gently. “My choices of men have been unmitigated disasters. I made a lot of mistakes.”

  “I think in our twenties we all make a ton of them,” and he raised a brow, giving her a glance, seeing the unhappiness in her eyes.

  “Well, I didn’t do well in college either. Boys are idiots at that age, and so was I. And then, when I went into the Air Force, I met a slicker, more refined version of the idiots from college. I kept making bad choices. I called my mom more than once to ask what was wrong with me. I couldn’t seem to find a guy who fit what I needed.”

  “And now, at this age?”

  “Looking back on all the busted-up relationships, the pain it caused me, I feel more settled now, more secure. Mom told me once that men mature far more slowly than women do. A woman’s brain is fully developed at age eighteen, whereas a man’s brain isn’t completely developed until he’s around twenty-five or so.” Her lips twisted. “She was right about a lack of maturity. I hit that wall many times with my choices. All I wanted was a man who didn’t see me as a bed partner for his whims. I wanted a man who enjoyed all of me, and it wasn’t always about sex. It was about one human getting to know another. Two people enjoying life in all its aspects, not just in bed.”

  It’s about a relationship,” he agreed. “Sophie and I were close from the first grade onward. We were buddies and, over the years, became fast friends. It was only when we were seventeen that we got serious in other ways.”

  “But your bedrock was your friendship. Right?”

  “Right. And in my mind and heart, it’s the best of all worlds when you want a long-term relationship. We worked out the kinks, the eccentricities, and found out who the other person was as friends.”

  “That takes time,” she said, frowning. “I always thought I knew the guy and rushed in. I didn’t give it a chance to mature, I guess.”

  He reached out, squeezing her left shoulder. “You’re too hard on yourself, Andy. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t gone through a spotty past in their twenties. My mother once said that the twenties were our emotional-mistake years, learning what our parents didn’t teach us or tell us about.”

  “Your mom is like the Delphi oracle,” Andy teased with a grin. “She’s got a lot of wisdom.”

  Chuckling, Dev said, “She told me when I hit my fifties, I’ll be a little wiser, too.”

  “I can’t even think in those numbers. I guess I just live the day as it unfolds before me.”

  “That’s not a bad way to be,” he said, looking up ahead, seeing a curve to the left between the thick woods.

  “Hey,” Andy said, halting. “Do you hear that? The waterfalls?” and she pointed toward the curve.

  “Faintly,” he said, halting and looking around. They were surrounded by trees, the ground covered with dead pine needles for a carpet, with black rocks covered with lichen, peeking up here and there. “How far are we from it?”

  Looking at the Fitbit on her wrist, Andy said, “Half a mile. We’ve made good time.”

  “It’s a great way to stay in shape,” and he wiped sweat off his upper lip.

  Andy frowned, tilting her head toward the curve in the trail ahead of them. “Did you hear that, Dev?”

  “No. What did you hear?” He saw consternation in her features as she turned slightly, lifting her head, one ear cocked toward the trail.

  “There . . . there it is ag
ain. It’s so faint. I’d swear I hear a woman calling for help.” She scowled. “Do you hear anything?”

  Dev listened intently. “No . . . sorry, I don’t.”

  “It’s my wolf-ear hearing,” Andy muttered, walking around him. “Come on; I need to find out if I’m hearing things or there’s someone in trouble.”

  Following quickly on her booted heels, the curve was long and then led steeply upward on a rocky patch of the trail. For a moment, Dev felt like the proverbial bighorn mountain sheep. Huffing, at the top, Andy halted, again tilting her head, listening intently, eyes closed. Breathing hard, he waited, hoping to hear what she heard.

  “. . . help . . . help me . . .”

  Andy’s eyes widened. She jerked a look up at Dev. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yeah, I did.” He pointed to the trail. “The sound is coming from that direction.”

  “Yes, it’s a woman calling for help. Come on!” Andy dug the toes of her boots into the soft pine needles and soil, leaping forward, running full bore.

  Dev ran easily behind her, the trail narrowing. They were on a somewhat level area, still a slope but not a steep one. The trail twisted again and again. They must have run nearly a quarter of a mile when he heard the woman’s thin, reedy voice again. This time, much closer.

  Andy slowed and shouted, “This way! There’s a platform over the glacier river where tourists take photos. That’s where it sounds like it’s coming from. About three hundred yards. Let’s hoof it!”

  Nodding, Dev followed. He could smell the river now, more humidity in the air and the scent of water surrounding them. The trees were thick and he couldn’t see beyond them, but he knew Andy had good knowledge of the terrain and area. She was running at a fast pace, her breath short and hard. This was a real climb. His mind moved forward. There was no question it was a woman. And in medical terms, he wondered how old she was. Was she out here alone? What had happened to her? Dev didn’t know the terrain, but it was becoming rockier, even the path littered with rocks that could trip someone up, maybe break an ankle or leg.