A Soldier's Pledge

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A Soldier's Pledge Page 17

by Nadia Nichols


  “Mama Dog,” she said as she adjusted the headband, “this might scare you and I’m sorry for that, but I have to look under there to see what’s what.” Cameron kept her tone calm and conversational. “I have two days to convince you that Jack and I are the good guys, and you’ll be safe with us. We’ll take care of you and make sure you get fed, and if you have a pup or two under there with you, we’ll take care of your whole family. Okay? So be a good girl and let me have a quick look. No growling or biting.”

  She lay down on her stomach and proceeded to wriggle into the narrow opening beneath the cabin. Even with the digging she’d done, it was a tight fit. She used her elbows to propel herself into the dirt tunnel that curved under the bottom log. When she’d gotten her entire upper body firmly wedged into the opening, she craned her head to scan the underside of the cabin. The usable area of the den wasn’t very large, maybe five-by-eight feet, and the first thing she saw were the glowing eyes reflected in the light of her headlamp. Four of them. And then she saw the very white teeth of Mama Dog, which were bared in a very menacing way, and heard an accompanying and distinctly unfriendly growl.

  But she barely heeded the warning because the smaller pair of eyes had instantly captivated her. Milky blue with that just-opened mixture of curiosity and bewilderment, and belonging to the most adorable pup she’d ever seen. She forgot all about the snarling dog that was crouched menacingly a mere eight feet from her face.

  “Oh my,” Cameron breathed softly. “Mama Dog, you have a very beautiful pup. What a good mother you’ve been, what a good girl you are. I brought you something.” She reached slowly in the cramped space and produced the last hot dog from her jacket pocket. “Here you go, girl, the last of the natural casing all beef Oscar Mayer. Share with your pup. It looks old enough to be starting on solid food pretty quick. I bet it’s got those little needle-sharp teeth, and I bet they’re starting to hurt when it nurses. That’s a good Mama Dog. No more snarling. I won’t hurt you or your pup, I promise.”

  She placed the hot dog at arm’s reach in front of her, then used her hands and elbows to back out of the tunnel. Or tried to. Her jacket snagged on something, and she managed to move only a few inches back before being brought to a halt. Her partial retreat was enough to stop the defensive growling and teeth baring of the bitch and to trigger the curiosity of the pup, who was now advancing toward her on unsteady legs. Cameron guessed it was maybe three weeks old.

  “Hey,” she said softly. “Hey, puppy.” Much to the mother’s alarm, the pup came right up to her, fearless in the way of the very young. She let it sniff her, blew her breath in its face, breathed puppy breath in return and felt herself melt when the little tongue licked her hand and sharp needle teeth gnawed on her finger. If I can catch this pup, she thought, I can tame the mother. She’ll come to her pup. She might not get in the canoe, but she’ll follow us along the shore to stay with her pup. She won’t abandon it.

  She stroked the puppy very gently with one finger. Then two. Then with her entire hand. The pup liked the stroking and moved closer. Mama Dog growled again, a low, threatening warning. “It’s okay, Mama Dog. I’m not hurting your little one. I won’t hurt either of you.”

  Cameron ran her palm over the pup, let it get her scent and listen to her voice. She blew her breath over it again. “You’re a boy pup,” she said. “I’m going to call you Lobo, after the wild Wolf River, because it didn’t drown us and because it gave us back our canoe, and because you’re the only pup, and you’re going to be the handsomest dog that ever roamed this wild land. You’re not going to leave me like Roy did and like Jack’s going to. You’re going to be my friend and stay with me no matter what, because dogs are loyal and they never run out on you. Isn’t that so?”

  Cameron realized she couldn’t take the pup away from its mother. For one thing, her jacket was caught on something and she couldn’t make a quick escape. For another, it wouldn’t be right to separate them. She had another day to work her magic on both. She’d leave the hot dog and the pup behind, and by doing so Mama Dog would come to trust her. By tomorrow, like Jack said, Mama Dog would be eating out of her hand. And then maybe she would have helped save something beautiful. She wouldn’t be written into the history books like Coyote Walking, but she just might walk her way into Jack’s heart, and that was something. Hell, who was she kidding? That was everything.

  Yet she’d just as much as told him that last night hadn’t meant anything to her, that she wasn’t interested in a relationship, that she wanted to keep things simple. Uncomplicated. Why? What was the point of telling him that when it wasn’t true? If they just had two more days together, shouldn’t they make the most of them? What if two days was all she’d ever have of that good man’s heart? Why was she running away?

  She knew the answer. She was a coward. She was afraid of being hurt. Of being abandoned. Of being alone again when for the past week she’d been happier than she’d ever been in spite of the miserable conditions she’d endured. She’d been happy because she was with Jack, but he was going back to army life. And now she was trying to tame this wild dog so they could climb into the canoe, leave this place, return to civilization and never see each other again.

  Cameron eyed the hot dog. It was within arm’s reach. She inched forward and repossessed it. “I changed my mind, Mama Dog,” she said. “Maybe wanting something really bad is better than having it.” She broke off a small piece and extended it to the pup, who took it from her fingers and dropped it in the dirt, then picked it up and chewed it with sharp little puppy teeth. She gave it a second piece, and this time the pup consumed it without hesitating. “Good, isn’t it? It’s all those unhealthy nitrates. Go tell your mama what she’s missing.”

  She stroked the pup again and then tried to wriggle backward out of the hole. Again her jacket caught and held fast to the lower log. “Damn it!” she said. She tried to peel out of her jacket, but the tunnel was too cramped to move her arms. If she squirmed forward, she might gain enough room. Mama Dog had dug quite a deep depression for her den, but she’d also made it plain she wouldn’t like it much if Cameron came any closer, and those teeth of hers were very sharp and strong looking.

  Dilemma. What to do? It seemed she had no recourse but to wait for Jack, and it could be a long wait given the fact he was mending the canoe and it was a big job. Her one consolation was she was wearing her headlamp. At least she didn’t have to wait in the dark. To appease the growling bitch, she tossed the last of the hot dog toward the back of the den. It seemed prudent to try to make friends.

  * * *

  JACK SAT FOR a long time after finishing the canoe, just watching the river and letting his thoughts flow like the water. He sat and thought about his life, about the paths he’d chosen, the things he’d done, the things he hadn’t done and regretted not doing, the things he would do if he could and the things he could never do even if he wanted. Every thought came back around to Cameron.

  She’d as much as told him they had no future, and he could see where she was coming from. Her life was here in the north country, flying planes, and he’d been in the army for so long he didn’t know anything else.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t learn something else. He’d just never given it all that much thought. He was career army, on track to climb through the ranks until he lost his leg, but even then, the thought of leaving the army had never occurred to him. He was going to learn to use the prosthetic leg, and he was going to go back to his unit and do what he’d been trained to do. And up until a week ago, that had been his plan.

  Now he felt all adrift, the same way Cameron had felt that morning at breakfast when she said, “I don’t know what I think anymore.” Neither did he, but one thing was certain. If he was feeling so blue about parting with her when they reached the Mackenzie, maybe he ought to talk to her about how he felt. But nothing he said would change the fact that he only had one leg, and she could
just as easily fall for a man who had two. Didn’t every beautiful girl dream of walking on a beach hand in hand with her man? Did that dream ever include a prosthetic leg attached to a soldier suffering from PTSD?

  Jack rode an emotional roller coaster as he watched the river flow past. He brooded until he couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to go talk to her or go crazy. He stood, picked up his plate and mug and returned to the cabin, surprised to find that Cameron wasn’t inside. He set his tea mug on the table and then heard her muffled voice coming from beneath the floor.

  “Jack? Can you hear me? I’m stuck under the cabin and I can’t get out!”

  * * *

  IT SEEMED AS if she’d been trapped for hours in the near darkness, listening to the rumbling growls of Mama Dog and being chewed on by the curious pup. When she heard Jack’s voice and felt his hands close around her ankles, Cameron felt a rush of relief. The darkness had become suffocating.

  “You okay?” he said.

  “Never better,” she replied. “I’ve got a wild dog snarling in my face, a puppy with very sharp teeth chewing on my nose, my headlamp’s dead and my jacket is caught on something. I’m stuck and in the dark.”

  “You sure there’s just one puppy?”

  “Just one, and I only have one nose, so please hurry.”

  She felt his hand sliding along her back. “Your jacket’s caught on a nail,” he said. “Make that two nails...bet this was set up for a porcupine snare, but I don’t feel any wire, so the snare wasn’t set. I’m going to try to drag you out, but I might end up ripping your jacket. I can’t reach the nails to bend them.”

  “Rip away. I’m getting claustrophobic. I just want out of here.”

  She felt him jerk hard once on her jacket, heard a loud ripping noise, and then he was grasping the waistband of her pants. He dragged her out of the hole facedown. Dirt slid up under her T-shirt. She didn’t care. She wriggled free as soon as Jack had pulled her far enough out, rose to her feet and pulled her T-shirt back down and stripped out of her jacket.

  “Thank you,” she said, brushing dirt off her and examining the ripped jacket.

  “No problem. I’m getting used to rescuing you. Makes me feel useful. If we were going to be traveling together much longer, I’d suggest walkie-talkies. That way I could respond sooner the next time you got into trouble.”

  Cameron scowled, bent and picked up the empty dog dish. “The pup’s old enough to be chewing on things. He ate the pieces of hot dog I gave him.”

  “He?”

  She nodded. “He’s very cute. Did you fix the canoe?”

  “I did. It should get us out to the Mackenzie without sinking. All that’s left to do here is tame the wild dog, cut some firewood to replace what we’ve used and clean the camp.”

  “Right. On that note, I’ll feed Mama Dog again.” She started to step around him, and he blocked her.

  “Cameron, we need to talk.” He took the dog dish out of her hand.

  She took the dog dish back and shook her head. “I can’t talk about last night, Jack, I just can’t.”

  He regarded her steadily, then nodded. “All right, you don’t have to talk, but you need to listen to what I have to say. We need to talk about the future. We can’t pretend we don’t have one, not after all we’ve been through together. I saw one last bottle of wine in your gourmet food stash. Let’s take it down to the fire pit and polish it off. We need to work things out between us if we’re going to survive the next couple of days together.”

  * * *

  AN HOUR LATER, Jack raised his glass of wine in a salute. “You really know your wines, Cameron Johnson.”

  Two glasses of wine had relaxed her. The late-afternoon sunlight had illuminated the most beautiful wilderness setting Cameron had ever seen. The sound of the river was soothing, the smell of woodsmoke from the fire pit was comforting, the breeze kept the bugs away. The trepidation she’d felt when Jack announced that he needed to talk to her had faded. The dreaded conversation about their future hadn’t happened. In fact, Jack hadn’t said much of anything. He’d just sat there enjoying an afternoon of doing nothing, same as she was doing. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He’d been working on the canoe pole, shaving it down with the freshly sharpened ax. She smiled at him as she raised her own glass in response to his salute.

  “Hap’s Place only carries the best,” Cameron said. “It’s actually the only wine he sells because his wife drinks it, and she told him if he didn’t keep it in stock she’d divorce him and head back to Whitehorse.”

  “Smart woman.”

  “Smart man.” Cameron regarded him over the rim of her glass, then took the plunge. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

  “I wanted to talk about what’s going to happen when we reach the Mackenzie.”

  Cameron’s fingers tightened on the wineglass. “Do we really have to talk about that?”

  “You don’t, but I do, because it’s been bothering me. You’re going to collect your money from my sister and buy that red Jeep. Fair enough. That’s what you signed up for. But we’ve been through a lot together, and wherever I end up, I’d like for us to keep in touch. If you want to, that is.”

  “You mean, like writing letters to each other? Talking on the phone?” Cameron stared at him. “That’s what you wanted to talk about? Exchanging addresses and phone numbers?”

  “I think that’d be better than just saying goodbye and going our own ways. I know you don’t want things to get too complicated, but a letter or a phone call is uncomplicated and simple, isn’t it?”

  Cameron stiffened. She set down her glass very carefully on a flat rock beside her chair and stood. “I’ll go get a pad of paper and a pen. I think I have both in my duffel. We’ll exchange information, including birthdays, because I sure wouldn’t want you to miss sending me a birthday card from Afghanistan. I bet the postage stamp would be really different. Maybe even collectible.”

  “Look, I’m not trying to upset you. I’m just trying to figure things out. After what happened between us last night... I know we have different lives. I don’t blame you for wanting to stay up here, and I know you love flying. I’d never expect you to give it up, and I don’t know what’s going to happen in my future. I’m saying just because we go our separate ways when we reach the big river doesn’t mean we can’t stay in touch.”

  Cameron’s heart rate surged off the charts in spite of the relaxing wine. “You know what your problem is, Jack Parker? You can’t see that maybe I care about you, and that’s what last night was about. How could I not care about you? I saved your life, so now it belongs to me. Isn’t that how it goes? There’s nothing simple about that. It’s as tangled up as anything could ever get between two people. And last night? You want to talk about last night? I’ll talk about last night. Last night was incredible. It was the most incredible night of my life, and now you want to exchange addresses and telephone numbers? You want to be my pen pal? Call me up once in a while?”

  Jack stared at her, wearing the same confounded expression he’d worn that very morning. “What do you want, Cameron?”

  She flushed. “I don’t know.”

  “You said you cared about me.”

  “I do.”

  “Okay, we care about each other. At least that’s out in the open. Then let’s move on.” He set down his glass as carefully as she had. He unzipped his pant leg, released the socket, removed his prosthetic and stripped the lower pant leg off the artificial limb. He held it up as an object of interest. “This is another one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Your leg?” Cameron said.

  “My prosthesis,” Jack corrected. “If you care about me, you need to understand everything about it because it’s a part of me now, a part of my life, and you need to visualize certain things. Like how romantic a walk on
the beach would be with a man wearing an artificial limb. That’s the physical reality, and that’s just part of it. Then there’s the psychological reality. Like lying in bed and wondering if you’re going to be tackled if you move the wrong way. You’ve already experienced that. Like dealing with moods that turn black without warning. Phantom pain. Flashbacks. Nightmares. I’ve seen the worst side of humanity. I’ve seen things nobody should have to see, and I’ve done things I can never talk about. I was changed by it, physically and mentally, and somehow I have to learn to live with it, and it isn’t easy.”

  Cameron felt herself twisting up inside. She’d been chastising him when she didn’t have a clue what he’d been through. All the horrors he’d seen and experienced. “I’m sorry,” she said, humbled.

  “Don’t be. I’m glad you don’t know what I’ve experienced. Nobody should. This is a temporary prosthesis,” he said, brandishing the artificial limb to refocus the conversation. “It weighs about four pounds. I was fitted with it after the surgeries when I got stateside, and I’ll be using it for about six months, until I heal up completely. My residual limb, that’s what they call what’s left of an arm or leg, a ‘residual limb,’ my residual limb will gradually reduce in size as the swelling goes down, which was starting to happen until I checked myself out of the hospital. That meant the stump was healing. That was good.

  “A prosthetic sock goes over the neoprene sleeve that fits over the end of my residual limb, just like this.” He set the limb aside and pulled off the sock to expose the neoprene sleeve. “As the swelling continues to go down, more socks can be added so the socket on the prosthesis fits snugly over my residual limb. The air valve on the prosthetic socket creates a vacuum that holds the leg on securely. That’s why it doesn’t fall off when I’m walking. Are you following me?”

 

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