A Soldier's Pledge

by Nadia Nichols

  “Well, you were right,” he commented casually, as if a giant grizzly hadn’t just invaded their camp. “Most bears are all bluff.”

  “Except the ones that aren’t, and I’ve met a few. That’s why I carry a gun.”

  “Speaking of which, where is that big elephant pistol of yours?”

  Cameron peered out into the darkness, watchful. “In the canoe. I lost Walt’s satellite phone, and the canoe wasn’t mine. I borrowed it. It’ll take a bunch of money to pay the owner back.”

  “How much is a bunch of money?”

  “A lot more than I have in my bank account.”

  “What would you do if you had more than a bunch of money, as much money as you could ever want?” he asked.

  Cameron contemplated the question while watching for the bear to return. “I’d buy a brand-new red Jeep instead of Johnny Allen’s scratched-up mud runner. Who knows what he’s done to that transmission?”

  “That’s it?” he prodded. “A new red Jeep is all it’d take to make you happy?”

  The darkness was beginning to ebb as the short northern night slowly gave way to the arctic dawn. Cameron saw no movement on the edges of the campsite. The bear was gone, scared off by Jack’s impressive Elvis impersonation. She rolled onto her back, laid the can of bear spray beside her, laced her fingers over her empty belly and drew a slow breath, letting it out just as slowly. “I worked at a sporting camp a few years before Roy came along. It was a beautiful set of camps over in Yukon. I loved that place, everything about it, including the folks who owned it. Minnie and Marl. It’s for sale right now, and if I had the money I’d buy it, and if there was enough money left in my treasure trove I’d buy a new plane to go with my new red Jeep. I’d run that business like an eco-lodge because I’m sick of ferrying trophy hunters around, and if I was rich I wouldn’t need to cater to them anymore.”

  “And you think that would make you happy?”

  “That would make me self-employed. Self-reliant. Independent. In charge of my own destiny. My own boss. And yes, I’d like that. Who wouldn’t?”

  She heard a soft laugh in the darkness. “You just described the polar opposite of a soldier’s life.”

  “Did you always want to be a soldier?”

  “I wanted a good education, couldn’t afford one. The army was my ticket out of Montana and my path to an engineering degree. But I liked the army, and I’m up for another promotion. That’s why I’m planning to return to active duty, as soon as they’ll have me.”

  “Would you go back to Afghanistan?”

  “If that’s where my unit is, yes.”

  “My father spent fifteen years in the military,” Cameron said. “That’s where he learned to fly and that’s how he met my mother. He was thirty-six when he headed north. He loved the bush pilot’s life. Never cared much for having fancy things or lots of money. He liked to hunt and fish. He’d have been happy living in a tent.”

  “Guess that’s where you get it from.”

  Cameron laughed. “It sure didn’t come from my mother. My father’s only sibling was an older sister who lived in Vancouver, a librarian, never married. Esther Johnson. Just what you’d picture when you think of a spinster librarian, the reading glasses on a chain around her neck, cardigans and skirts in gray wool. Flat-heeled sensible shoes. My father sent me to stay with her when I was twelve so I could attend a hoity-toity private school, courtesy of Aunt Esther, and live in a big city with lots of culture. I lasted about four months before I was expelled.”

  “What crime did you commit?”

  “The spoiled rich girls would pick on me because of my backwoods ways, and I’d beat them up. Anyhow, Aunt Esther was very nice. She really tried to show me the benefits of civilized life. Took me to the theater, operas, art museums, the zoo. Took me to high tea once at a place so formal we had to wear hats and white gloves, and I expect if a lady ever burped or farted inside that teahouse she’d be a social outcast for life.”

  Another low laugh came from the back of the tent. “Was she tough to live with?”

  “Not at all. We got along great. She was quiet and shy, but while I was living with her she’d do things and visit places she’d never have done otherwise. She’d have kept me even after I got expelled, but when she came into my bedroom to ask me to stay, I told her I just really wanted to go back home, and she respected that. She told me my father missed me so much he was glad I’d gotten expelled in time to get home for Christmas.”

  “Do you keep in touch with her?”

  “Yes. I think a lot of Aunt Esther. She came to my father’s funeral, which was more of a big backwoods drunken potlatch than a funeral, but she showed up, all proper in her dark wool skirt and cardigan, and she even got a little tipsy. Her being there meant a lot to me.” Cameron’s empty stomach let out a growl. “I could eat a moose,” she said.

  “Get some more sleep. That bear’s not coming back. He’s not an Elvis fan. If we’re going to retrieve that canoe, we’ll have to get that ax at the cabin, come back here and make good time doing it. The river’s dropping fast, and we need every inch of water we can get to move that tree.”

  Cameron knew he was right, but she couldn’t sleep. She lay awake until the sun rose, waiting for the bear to return and listening to Jack’s measured breathing. It made her feel safer than she’d felt in a very long time.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY was the hardest of all. Cameron hurt all over and was so lame she could barely exit the tent. Jack had long since risen. She could smell coffee, and it was the only thing that got her moving. She crawled out on her hands and knees, and stifled a moan as she pushed to her feet.

  “I feel like I’ve been run over by an 18-wheeler,” she said, taking the cup of coffee he offered her.

  “And dragged behind it, too, by the looks of you,” Jack said.

  “Thanks.” She fished four mosquitoes out of her cup before taking the first sip. The whine of mosquitoes drove her back inside the tent, where she sat in misery, wishing she had some aspirin, good horse liniment or strong liquor, anything to help with the pain. She wondered how she’d ever be able to hike four hours to the trapper’s cabin, then turn around and walk four hours back here with the ax.

  “Maybe we could leave our gear here,” she suggested through the tent door. “Haul it up in a tree so the bear can’t get it. We’d make better time walking.”

  “I thought about that, but what if something happened and we needed it?”

  Cameron sighed. He was right, and she knew it. Her father always told her that there was no room for mistakes in the wilderness. He’d promoted a belt and suspenders philosophy, and always had numerous contingency plans for when things went wrong, but in spite of all that, fate had doomed him in the end.

  “We’ll eat a big breakfast—that’ll lighten your pack considerably,” Jack said. “You packed ten pounds of food on your hike yesterday. Did you hear that wolf last night?”

  “I was too busy listening to you snore. You must have just dreamed you heard a wolf.”

  “You’re the one who was snoring, and I definitely heard a wolf howl downriver.”

  “I didn’t sleep a wink after that bear came, so I know for a fact I didn’t snore.”

  “You were sound asleep when I got up to make the coffee and snoring like a lumberjack.”

  She took another sip of the strong brew. It was true she didn’t remember him leaving the tent, and he practically had to crawl over her to get out. “I was snoring?” The thought disturbed her almost as much as that great big bear returning to ravage their camp. Snoring wasn’t sexy.

  “Like a lumberjack,” he repeated. She gazed at him over the rim of the cup. Had he been this handsome all along and she just hadn’t noticed? Had she been too intent on finding him and then turning him over to his sister when she got him to the
Mackenzie? Had she been focused only on the money, completely blinded by the five thousand dollars and a red Jeep?

  She took another swallow of coffee. “Nobody’s perfect,” she said. “Sorry if I kept you awake.”

  “Nothing kept me awake. I slept like a rock. Why don’t you stay here and rest. I’ll go back to the cabin and get the ax. No point in both of us going.”

  Cameron shook her head. “You’re not leaving me here with that monster bear,” she said. “I don’t know how to play a guitar, and I can’t sing like Elvis.”

  * * *

  THEY ATE A big breakfast. Huge. The bear had ripped a hole in Cameron’s dry sack but hadn’t made off with any of the chow. Jack cooked. He fried half a pound of bacon, cooked up the entire container of a dozen eggs and made toast, all on his tiny stove with one frying pan. He piled her plate into a tall pyramid and handed it to her through the tent door.

  She devoured every morsel hungrily and felt warmth and strength flow back into her. She drank another cup of coffee.

  “How was that?” he asked when he’d cleaned his own plate.

  “Best breakfast ever,” she told him with genuine gratitude. “I’ll fix lunch when we reach the cabin.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he said.

  Half an hour later they had broken camp and were on the march. It was another bright and shining day. The food had helped enormously to boost her morale, and Cameron felt better as moving warmed her muscles. But less than an hour into the hike she began to feel worse and worse. Was it possible that Jack Parker, the wounded warrior with only one good leg, was walking faster than her? That he was waiting for her to catch up? Was it possible that she was actually falling behind?

  “You okay?” he asked in a patronizing way after one of his patient waits.

  “I’m just a little lamed up, that’s all. I’ll be all right.”

  “If you think there’s any possibility you have internal injuries, we should stop.”

  “I’m fine. I’m probably getting my monthly, that’s all,” she said.

  That shut him right up, like she knew it would. Men usually avoided conversations about a woman’s monthly. She wasn’t sure that’s what it was and hoped it wasn’t. All her “monthly” gear was now in her emergency pack in the front of the canoe, which was submerged in the Wolf River, pinned beneath a giant spruce tree that they might not be able to shift even after they chopped through the trunk. She was suffering from bad stomach cramps, but she was like clockwork, and it was two weeks early for her period. The pain was probably due to the terrible struggle and bad bruising from yesterday.

  Cameron stumbled after Jack, trying to keep up. Three more hours remained until they reached the cabin. She could make it. She had no choice. What she really wanted to do was fall to the ground and curl up in a whimpering ball, but she kept walking. She was sure there was a bottle of aspirin in the kitchen kit at the cabin, which was a strong incentive for her to push on.

  Jack was always waiting for her just out of sight.

  “Okay?” he asked as she came into view.

  “Fine,” she replied through an olive green veil of mosquito netting, which at the moment was thwarting a cloud of hungry black flies. Someday this would all be a very funny memory, but right now she was too miserable to manage a smile.

  “How many days has it been?” she asked as she trudged along on his heels, struggling to keep up. “I’ve lost track. Seems like carrying a heavy pack and bushwhacking along this river is all I’ve ever done, when I wasn’t busy capsizing canoes.”

  “This is day three...no, it’s day four,” Jack said, half turning his head so she could hear. “Or maybe it’s day five. Either way I have a few more days to make the Mackenzie River on schedule.”

  And to think she’d laughed when Walt had told her Jack’s plans for an eight-day hike down the Wolf. She’d scoffed at the idea, and told Walt she’d have him waiting at the Mackenzie River in four days in her canoe. Four days, and she’d have him roped and tied, ready for his sister to pick up. Ready for the generous bounty that she’d be paid for his safe delivery.

  Walt would get worried when she didn’t call on the sat phone. He’d come looking for her on day five or six. He’d fly over, low and slow, searching the Wolf River for a wrecked canoe and floating bodies. She’d listen for the plane and signal him that they were alive but in trouble because she’d screwed up royally.

  Jack was waiting for her again. She caught up. “You don’t have to stop for me,” she said. “I know the way.”

  His only response was to whistle again for a dog that was long dead. Which was why he had stopped. Not to wait for her, but to whistle for a dead dog. Then he kept walking.

  “Do you really believe your dog could still be alive?” Cameron asked, overwhelmed with a kind of sick despair as the pain doubled her over. “I mean, do you honestly think she could have survived the bear attack and the winter?”

  He didn’t respond. Just kept walking. His limp was becoming less pronounced, no doubt about it. He was getting the hang of the prosthetic leg. He was getting stronger, she was getting weaker and he was leaving her behind.

  Abandonment. She knew the feeling well. She’d grown up wondering why her mother had abandoned her. Why her mother never wrote, never called, never wondered what had become of her own daughter. Never cared enough to send a card at Christmas or remember her on her birthday. Her father had never said a bad word about her, even though she’d abandoned him, too, and run off with another man. “She loves you, Cam,” he would tell her, “she just doesn’t know how to show it. But she’s your mother and she loves you, and she’ll always love you.”

  It was easier for Cameron to believe her mother was dead than to think she just didn’t care, that she was out there somewhere, dressed up in furs and jewels like a fashion model, living in a big city and drinking champagne every night, never ever telling anyone that she had a daughter named Cameron Johnson who lived in the Northwest Territories and worked as a bush pilot, guide and camp cook.

  She was on the verge of collapse by the time they reached the cabin. She stood weaving with exhaustion while Jack went inside and came out with the ax in his hand a few moments later.

  “Nice camp,” he said. “You stay put and get some rest. Eat something. If I’m not back before dark, don’t worry. I have everything I need with me to spend the night out. It might take me longer than I think to free the canoe. Okay?”

  Cameron nodded. She wanted to argue that she should go back with him, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even speak, much less walk all the way back to where she’d lost the canoe and help chop through the trunk of a giant spruce tree with an ax. She felt her eyes prickle with the shame of her weakness. Before he left, he carried her dry sack into the cabin, unlatched the bear shutters over the windows and opened the sash for a nice cross breeze through screened openings.

  “No bear will bother you, not with my smelly socks hanging out there,” he told her. “Climb into a bunk and get some sleep.”

  She watched him leave, and a peculiar feeling gripped her. He closed the cabin door behind him, and she heard his footsteps descending the cabin steps. She crossed to the door and opened it. He paused and looked back questioningly.

  “Jack, why did you carry that guitar with you?”

  “I used to play it every night when Ky was with me, back in Afghanistan. I thought if she heard me playing...” He shrugged. “So I brought it along. Haven’t played it once, except to that bear, but it doesn’t weigh much. It’s no bother to carry.”

  “Maybe you could play it for me when you get back.”

  “I will, if you want,” he said.

  “What about some lunch before you go?”

  “No time. I’ll eat one of my energy bars.”

  “What if cutting the tree doesn’t work?”

 
; “I’ll try to haul the canoe out from under the tree. I have a couple carabiners and some haul rope in my pack. If I’m not back by dark, it just means I’m waiting till tomorrow to head back.”

  “Be careful, Jack,” she said in a voice that wavered.

  He nodded and was gone, disappearing into the woods for the long hike back to the submerged canoe.

  * * *

  CAMERON WASN’T HUNGRY. She rummaged through the gear and found the bottle of aspirin, took four with a lot of water and hoped the awful pains would ebb. Her legs were like rubber. She sat on the edge of the lower bunk and gazed around the interior of the cabin. It was so neat and orderly she could almost imagine the personality of the trapper who wintered here. He was a craftsman for sure, laying the cabin logs up with dovetail notches, which was unusual and required far greater skill with an ax than the more common saddle notch.

  The cabin dimensions were small, and all the furnishings handmade. The eaves were low and deep, and firewood was stacked beneath them on both sides. The only things he’d brought in were the woodstove and stovepipe, glass sash and roofing materials. Her father had built a cabin similar to this when he got out of the military. He’d built it on crown land, at the edge of a remote fly-in lake, and some of her earliest and best memories were of that camp and the times spent there with him.

  She lay back on the bunk and closed her eyes. She never took afternoon naps and had no intention of doing so now. She was just going to rest until the aspirin took effect. The guilt of lying here motionless while Jack struggled back to the canoe weighed heavily on her, but she was so exhausted. If she’d gone back with him, she’d have held him up. The irony of this was not lost on her.

  Cameron listened to the rush of the river, a soothing sound that eased her as she rested her palms on her lower belly, feeling their warmth through her flannel shirt. A hot-water bottle would be nice. A soak in a hot tub would be even nicer. She’d just lie here for a few minutes with her eyes closed, and rest.

  CHAPTER NINE