Bittersweet Promises

by Patricia Watters

  Zak eyed the nest. "I was afraid of that."

  "There was other stuff in the nest too," Ralph said. "Looked like bottles."

  Zak laughed. "Eagles are packrats. We've found bottles, light bulbs, old shoes, even a framed picture in one." He eyed the nest. "From the size of that eyrie, I'd say it was twenty-five to thirty years old, so there could be just about anything in it. Since we have a little time before the plane from the airpark comes, I'd like to hike up the ridge and look into it if you can show me the trail."

  "Sure. It's not far."

  Zak turned to Tess. "You coming?"

  Tess shook her head. "I want to be here when the hose arrives."

  "They told me it would be an hour before anyone can get here," Ralph said, "but it's only about fifteen minutes up the trail to where you can look into the nest. You have plenty of time."

  Tess reluctantly agreed, and Zak grabbed his binoculars from the plane.

  As they followed Ralph toward the trailhead, Tess eyed the gathering of clouds over the mountain, hoping they wouldn't keep building, knowing if they did, she and Zak could be trapped for the night. The thought of having to explain to her father the reason she didn't show up at camp the following morning brought a sinking feeling in her stomach, though she reassured herself that her father didn't have to know that Zak was along, only that she took the plane up and had to make an emergency landing.

  At the trailhead, Ralph pointed the way. "The overlook's not more than a couple hundred feet up the trail. There's a wide flat area where you can look down. Meanwhile, I'll go back in case the airpark calls." He turned and headed for the house.

  Tess and Zak started up the trail, following several switchbacks, and before long they found themselves high on the ridge. At a level spot, Zak stopped and looked through the binoculars. While peering into the nest, he said, "Ralph's right. One chick. I can't tell what else is in the nest, but it looks like a couple of bottles. Here, take a look." He handed Tess the binoculars.

  Tess turned the focusing ring until a woolly gray eaglet came into view. "I thought it would be brown," she mused.

  "That's postnatal down. The chick's only a couple of weeks old."

  As Tess watched the young bird through the glasses, an adult swooped into view and perched on the edge of the nest, a fish dangling from its hooked beak.

  "That's probably the mother," Zak said. "For the first few weeks the father hunts and turns the kill over to the mother, who feeds. Keep watching and you'll see her show her chick how to rip the kill into pieces."

  While the mother tore off strips of meat and fed her chick, a series of chortling cries came from high above and another eagle swooped down and glided in a wide circle. The mother bird dropped the prey into the nest and flew up to join her mate. Together, the pair circled in a wide arc, then suddenly they joined talons and plunged toward the earth, rolling and tumbling as they spiraled downward until it seemed certain they'd crash. At the last moment, in perfect control, they broke apart and pulled out of their plunge, then soared swiftly and silently together on a current of wind.

  "That was amazing," Tess said while continuing to watch as the eagles circled above.

  Zak stood behind her, face tipped upward. "When they're courting, their aerobatics can be pretty spectacular. Locking talons and cartwheeling toward the ground is a love ritual."

  Tess glanced at Zak, who was no longer looking upward, but was focused on her. While holding her gaze, he said, "They mate for life, sometimes staying together as long as twenty-five years. When one dies the other begins a lonely journey, roaming the skies." He leaned down and curved a finger beneath her chin.

  Tess tipped her face away from his touch. "We'd better get back." Turning abruptly she headed down the trail at a quick pace. It bothered her that the short contact sent her heart pounding and her breath catching and her mind reeling between wanting to put her arms around him and kiss him, or push him away and demand an explanation for his disappearance from her life and his quick marriage, yet knowing she'd do neither.

  She refused to be further humiliated by listening to an explanation about how they were young and impulsive and didn't know their own minds.

  When they returned to the house, Ralph met them on the porch, his face glum. "The airpark called and said the ceiling's too low and they can't get here until morning."

  "I have to get back today," Tess said, anxious. "There's got to be another way out."

  "There's a road, but from here to Baker's Creek it's almost eighty miles since the road has to go around the mountain to connect with the road over the pass. I told them at the airpark you wanted to leave as early as possible in the morning, and they said they'd get here as soon as they could."

  "Did the person you talked to know who I was?" Tess asked in a tentative voice.

  "Oh sure. He said he'd let your father know that you and Zak got down safely and would be staying here tonight." He offered a smile of reassurance, and added, "I have a spare bedroom and a couch. Staying overnight won't be a problem."

  Tess barely caught what he said after the words, 'let your father know you and Zak are fine.' As her father's livid face emerged in her mind's eye, her heart started racing. Flying off by herself and getting stranded was one thing. Being stranded because she'd taken Zak up in her father's plane was entirely another.

  They spent the evening gathered around Ralph and his radio, trying to make contact with Ezzie, or Curt Broderick, or anyone at Timber West. But by eleven o'clock, no one answered the phone in the trailer that served as an office, which had the only phone there, so she knew she could do nothing more. With luck, the hose would be there by eight the following morning and she'd be back at camp by nine. The men would just have to hang around the cook shack after breakfast and wait and wonder.

  After signing off, Ralph tossed a pillow and blanket onto the couch for Zak, took Tess to the spare bedroom, and retired for the night. Later, when Tess was walking from the bath to the bedroom, Zak intercepted her in the hallway, and said, "I'm sorry about all of this."

  "So am I," she clipped. "I should never have agreed to take you up. My father will be furious. After this you need to stay away from me even if we're only a few hundred feet through the woods."

  Zak peered down at her, brows drawn. "Is that want you want?"

  Tess was on the verge of making a snide comment about his odd behavior as a grieving widower but caught herself. "Yes, that's exactly what I want. When I get back from this fiasco my father will be in no mood to listen to my convoluted reason for taking you up in his plane. I can't even explain it to myself. And I want you to keep your distance. My father's health is far more important than anything you have to offer." She turned into the bedroom and shut the door.

  ***

  The following morning, it was almost nine o'clock before the plane arrived. Tess immediately went about replacing the oil line, and as soon as they arrived at the airpark she called her father, only to learn from Aunt Ella that he'd been in a state of anxiety and agitation ever since he got the call from the ranger about the plane, knowing Zak was somehow involved, then stormed out of the house at first light.

  Tess was so upset she immediately took it out on Zak. "Taking you up in my father's plane was the biggest mistake I've ever made. Well, maybe the second biggest," she corrected. "Getting involved with you in the first place was the biggest. Now my father's out there trying to run the camp, and he's got to be royally pissed that this happened because of you, and with your father about to start breathing fire down his back about a few damn trees—"

  "Look, I'm sorry," Zak cut in. "I admit it was a big mistake, but I can't imagine your father being anything but relieved that you got the plane down safely. I'll square things away with him. As long as he's convinced there's nothing going on between us he should listen to reason."

  "That shouldn't be hard to do because there is nothing between us and never will be again. But I don't want you to intervene in any way. My father's mad enough as it
is."

  "Yeah, well, I got you into this and I'm not going to walk away from it."

  Tess glared at him. "And just what, exactly, do you intend to say to him?"

  "I'll tell it as it is. I hired you to take me up because the park plane's out of commission. I'll give you a check written to Timber West right now to pass on to him. That should square things away."

  "Fine, give me a check, but I still want to talk to him alone. The doctor said he shouldn't even be at camp, and I don't want him losing his temper, which will happen if you're around." She got in the Jeep and slammed the door.

  Zak climbed into the passenger seat. "I have to talk to him eventually. We still have the property line to settle."

  "I told you I'd pay for the trees," Tess snapped, as she turned out of the parking lot.

  "You'd still better square your father away about the location of the property line because if it isn't settled he'll be right back cutting trees, and my father will slap him with a lawsuit."

  Tears of anger and frustration burned Tess's eyes. "I wish they'd get off each other's backs."

  "So do I, but it's not going to happen."

  Twenty minutes later, Tess pulled up to her cabin. Zak took a moment to write a check for her to pass on to her father, then he said, while handing the check to her, "For whatever it's worth, thanks for taking me up, but I wish you'd let me explain to your father. I feel responsible for what happened."

  "Actually, you're not," Tess conceded, as she took the check. "If my father had been servicing the plane regularly we wouldn't have had a broken hose, so he'll have some explaining to do too."

  "Just don't forget to square him away about the property line." Zak climbed out of the jeep and headed up the road to his cabin. And Tess went into her cabin and changed her clothes, then grabbed her hard hat and climbed back into the jeep and headed for the compound.

  There, she learned that her father had taken a couple of men to where the four trees had been cut, so she immediately went to find out what was going on.

  In the clearing near the property line, she spotted her father standing near Sean Herring, who was limbing a downed tree. When she looked beyond the men, her heart thumped in dismay. Stacked in a pile were the four logs he'd cut the week before, but now, four more had been dragged into the clearing.

  "Damn!" she said in an exasperated voice. Jumping from the Jeep, she rushed over to her father, and said, "What are you doing, Dad? This is not Timber West land!"

  "The hell it isn't. I know my own land."

  Realizing it was pointless to argue with him about the trees, Tess turned the focus on his health. "You're not supposed to be here. You know what the doctor told you."

  Leveling angry eyes on her, he said, "Somebody's got to run the camp."

  "Didn't Swenson show up?"

  "I'm surprised you'd ask."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because you're pretty quick to go flying off with that damn Basque and leave the whole operation to run itself!"

  "It was a business arrangement," Tess said in a restrained voice.

  Gib's eyes narrowed. "I wasn't aware you operated a flying service."

  Tess drew in a long breath. "Zak paid me to fly him over some eagle nests."

  "So you fly because he says fly, then ditch the plane and spend the night with—"

  "Not with Zak, if that's what you're implying. We stayed with Ralph Tolsted, and the plane's back at the airpark."

  Pinning her with irate eyes, Gib said, "Why the hell is he back anyway?"

  "He's working at the wildlife park," Tess replied.

  "Or maybe he just likes the young girls around here better."

  Tess's heart pounded hard, as she cried, "I was seventeen!"

  Gib flailed a hand in the air. "Seventeen's too young to know what you wanted so you let that no-count sheepherder crawl in bed with you by promising to make legal what never should have happened in the first place." He drew in a shaky breath and closed his eyes.

  Tess reached for his arm. "Dad? You okay?"

  Gib opened his eyes and continued in a low voice, "A lot of years have separated us, and if I could I'd give my soul to have those years back, but if it came down to letting my daughter go off with a man whose only goal was to get her in bed, and I had it within my power to prevent it, I'd do the same thing again, so help me God, I would."

  As Tess looked into her father's tired eyes, she felt the pain he must have suffered because of her, and for the first time in years, she put her arms around him and buried her face against his chest, and said, "Can we start over, try to recover what we once had?"

  "How?" Gib asked.

  "By discussing Zak objectively."

  Gib mumbled his disapproval.

  Tess released him and backed away so she could look at him. "That's part of the problem, Dad. When you're angry you don't talk. You mumble or walk away. We need to talk about this."

  "I can't pretend I'm glad Zak de Neuville's back."

  "I know, but he is, and you'll have to get used to it."

  "I'm not sure I can."

  "Can you at least try, for us, you and me, not Zak and me?"

  Gib gave a weary sigh. "It's really important to you, isn't it?"

  "Yes," Tess said, "and the only way we can put the past behind is to stop tippy-toeing around the subject of Zak. We've never discussed him in an objective way."

  "Okay then, start by answering one question. Do you still love him?"

  Tess shrugged. "I don't know him anymore. It's been seven years, we've both been married, and Zak has a son. Even if I did love him, I'm not sure I'm up to being an instant mother. Besides, Zak's family still expects him to marry a Basque woman."

  "But you care enough to take him up in the plane."

  "Only because he offered me enough money to fix the skidder tire. He's head of the wildlife park and he's working with eagles. That's why he asked me to fly him over nest sites. If the oil line hadn't broken or if there'd been a spare hose in the tool box we would've been back yesterday. When that hose broke it sent oil all over the windscreen and we came a heartbeat away from crashing. I don't know why you even keep the plane. Timber West is operating in the red and it just seems like it's time to sell it."

  "I'm not ready to sell," Gib said in a firm voice.

  Tess knew the discussion was over, but at least Zak's return was out in the open. "Now, about those trees," she said, motioning toward the logs. "They were cut on Zak's father's land."

  "Like hell they were. Our land runs forty feet beyond where the trees were cut."

  "The survey map shows clearly that—"

  "Enough about the trees! They're on Timber West land and I intend to keep cutting."

  Tess knew it was pointless to argue with her father, and it would take a court order to stop him, which was out of her hands. But running the camp wasn't. Dropping the subject of the trees she said, "You didn't say if Swenson showed up today. Did he?"

  "Yes, just before I left camp to come here. He said he would've come earlier but had some personal business to tend to."

  "Personal business?" Tess stared at her dad. "I can't run a logging operation with a woods boss who refuses to work for me."

  Gib shrugged. "He worked fine for me. I suggest you give him the benefit of the doubt and see what he has to say."

  Tess took in a long breath through flared nostrils. "I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, then I'll give him his last paycheck."

  "Suit yourself, but I hope you have someone in mind to replace him."

  "I'll figure out something. Now, please go home. I'll stop by in a few days so we can go over the books and do the monthly report."

  Gib looked toward the downed trees, but before he could start into that again, Tess took him by the arm, turned him away and walked with him back to his truck. After giving him a kiss on the cheek, she said, "I've got the chess board set up."

  Gib's face broke into a smile. "Is that a challenge?"

  Tess
couldn't help smiling back. "Sure, if you think you're ready to take me on again."

  "I can take you on anytime, kiddo," Gib said. "There's one thing an old chess player never does and that's to give his prize student all the plays." He turned and climbed into the truck.

  Tess laughed. "I may have a few plays of my own tucked away."

  When his truck turned out of the clearing and disappeared, Tess yelled to Herring over the buzz of a chain saw, "Pass the word around, Herring. Absolutely no more cutting around here, even if my father gives the order. Is that clear?" Herring nodded and turned off the saw. And Tess returned to her Jeep and headed for the compound and Jed Swenson.

  It was time to assert her authority.

  CHAPTER 5

  "Come on you bucks," Curt Broderick called out, "put your money here. Who'll step down, Swenson, or TJ?"

  "She's one tough cookie, that TJ," yelled Mac Royer, a solid hulk of a man who closely resembled a smiling bulldog.

  "But she's no match for Swenson," Curt fired back. "I don't think it's who, but how long till TJ steps down."

  A voice blared from across the room as a coin clanked to the floor and spun at Curt's feet. "A quarter says she'll last one more day."

  Curt crouched over the coin. "A lousy quarter? Come on men, ante-up, make it worthwhile. Let's see some greeeeen!" A dollar bill floated down. "That the best you can do Pryor? How 'bout a five." Pryor switched a one for a five. "That's more like it. Place your bets, boys. Five dollars gets you in and winner takes all."

  Another five drifted down. "One day," a voice called out.

  "I hear a ‘one day’," Curt said. "Take this down Royer."

  Hands tossed crumpled bills into the circle.

  "I'll give her five days."

  "Five days for Dempsey."

  "Two days!"

  "Two days for Royer. Anyone for a week? One whole week? Come on you guys."