A Soldier's Pledge

by Nadia Nichols

  “Maybe you could train him to pull a sled, like his son does.”

  Fred shook his head. “You can’t tell a wolf what to do. It’s a funny thing. You get a half wolf, they’re good, the way Mackenzie’s good. That pup Lobo will be good. A full-blood? No good. So this winter, I lost a good dog because that ghost dog lured her away. I trapped for two months at the cabin on the Wolf this past winter. She got loose at the end of the season, slipped her collar and ran off. I set traps to catch her with food she knows. Wolves won’t eat human food, they don’t trust it, but she would eat my leftovers so I baited the traps with them. But I didn’t catch her because she was running with the ghost dog, and he wouldn’t let her come near the traps.

  “Funny thing happened though. I set those traps to catch the leader I lost, and I caught another dog instead.” Fred shook his head, remembering. “I thought it was the ghost dog when I saw it in the trap, but it was too small. Good-looking dog, like an Indian village dog or a Sahtu dog with a lot of wolf in it. Had yellow eyes.”

  Cameron felt her heart skip a few beats. She reached out and gripped Fred’s arm. “What happened to that dog? Where is it now?”

  “It had big scars and it was skinny, nothing but bones,” he said. “It was starved almost to death. So I got my rifle off the sled to put it out of its misery, but when I got closer I saw it had a red collar around its neck. Strange, a wolf dog way out there wearing a red collar. So I didn’t shoot. I took her out of the trap and brought her back to the cabin, and when I came back here, I brought her with me. I thought maybe she belonged to Paul Henry. He traps out of Tulita and runs a string of dogs, but he said it wasn’t his.”

  Cameron felt light-headed, stunned by what Fred was saying. “Where is she now? What happened to her?”

  “I thought maybe when she healed up and put some weight on I could teach her to pull a sled, so I kept her. She’s got a good build and she’s smart, and I need another leader to take the place of the dog I lost. I harness broke her this spring. She did good. She’s tough and strong.” Fred pointed toward the Caterpillar D7 bulldozer. “She sleeps in an empty oil barrel behind the dozer.”

  “Show me.”

  Fred walked around the dozer and pointed at a rusted oil barrel tipped onto its side. “I put grass hay in the barrels—they make good houses in winter,” he said as they walked over to the barrel. Cameron saw a dog’s head peer out warily at their approach. Sharply pointed face, gray fur, golden eyes, faded red collar. She caught only a quick glimpse before the dog ducked back inside the barrel and hid.

  Cameron’s heart was pounding and her mouth was dry. “Fred,” she said, “this has to be Jack’s dog. This is the dog he was looking for. This is Ky, I’m sure of it. She was lost last year right near your cabin. He’s been looking for her for a long time. He’s just about given up on her. I have to go get Jack!”

  She whirled and raced back toward the cabin. Jack was up, standing on the porch watching Lobo sniff hungrily around the cooling pot of fish stew and still working on his mug of coffee. When she rounded the corner and spotted him, she skidded to a stop, breathless with pent up excitement.

  “Jack!” she managed to gasp, pointing behind her. “Come quick! Fred caught a dog in one of his traps five miles above the cabin on the Wolf River this past winter. She’s in a barrel in the field out back, she looks like a coyote and has yellow eyes. It’s Ky. It has to be her. Come see! Hurry!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  WHEN CAMERON REJOINED Fred behind the massive D7, Jack wasn’t far behind. She pointed, cradling Lobo in her other arm.

  “There! She’s inside that barrel.”

  He took a few steps beyond where she and Fred stood, then stopped and studied the barrel lying on its side for a few moments before walking toward it, angling so he could look within without crowding the dog. He saw movement in the darkness of the barrel’s interior. Alert, upright ears. Familiar profile. He knelt. His hands had begun to shake.

  “Ky?” His voice was rough. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Ky?”

  Was it really her? It had been over a year since she’d last seen him. Would she recognize his voice? Would she recognize his scent? Would she remember him at all?

  The morning sun was lifting fog off the meadow grasses and the old machinery. A raven flew over with a loud swish of wings. He heard the rattle of a chain from another tethered dog and the distant sigh of the river. He let his breath out slowly, slowly. His heart was pounding in his ears.

  “Ky? Come on out, girl.”

  He heard Fred suggest that he just pull her out of the barrel using the chain, and he heard Cameron reply in a low, urgent voice, “No, let Jack talk to her. Let her come to him. He’s been searching for her for so long. We need to give them some time.”

  He waited. There was more movement within, and the dog approached the mouth of the barrel cautiously. He watched the morning light illuminate her features. He saw the familiar face; the ears, the golden eyes that mirrored her untamed spirit. The feeling that swept over him made him weak. It was Ky. He’d just come to terms with the fact that she was probably dead and now, somehow, she was here in Fred’s dog yard, and she was alive.

  “It’s me, Ky,” he said. “Remember?”

  She took one cautious step out of the barrel, then another. Jack saw the irregular lines of scar tissue on her flank and shoulder where the hair had grown in white. Big scars that mapped the enormity of her wounds and told of the terrible winter she’d passed before being caught in Fred’s leg hold trap, yet the fear, pain, loneliness and hunger of the past year had all somehow been dominated by her fierce will to survive. She wasn’t the young half-grown dog he remembered, the pup that had dogged his heels, posted a silent vigil on his bunk and watched over him protectively while he slept. She was a different dog now, just as he was a different man. The bond she’d forged with him in Afghanistan might have been eroded, erased and forgotten.

  He held out his hand slowly so she could smell it. He watched her taste the air. Her eyes were bright on his face, her expression intense. Her entire body was taut and trembling. It was as if a strong electric current was running between them, connecting them. The experience was surreal.

  “Remember, Ky?” he asked.

  She moved toward him. Hesitant, crouching steps as if ready to spring away at any moment. There was no blind rush forward, no happy barking, no tail wagging, tongue lapping Walt Disney embrace. She felt her way back one wary step at a time, across the long year and the thousands of miles that had separated them since he’d put her crate on that cargo plane in Afghanistan. And then, finally, she was within touching distance of his outstretched hand. A hand that was empty. No food, no offering other than himself. She sniffed carefully and thoroughly and then studied him again for another long, intense moment.

  She remembered.

  His voice and his smell she remembered, and the memories were good. Her trembling became intense. The very tip of her tail moved back and forth. Her expression changed. Her ears flattened back, and her deep golden eyes began to shine. She let him touch her. He ran his hand over her head, down her shoulder, along her side. Felt the scars, the jutting bones, the rough fur. She made a small noise in the back of her throat, pressed closer, pushed her head against his chest, slid her muzzle under his arm and stood like that, pressed against him as close as she could get, trembling all over. He felt his eyes sting. His arms went around her, and he buried his face against her neck.

  “It’s okay, Ky,” he said. “I’ll never leave you behind again.”

  * * *

  FRED WATCHED THE emotional reunion between the dog and the man and nodded thoughtfully. “She never got used to me,” he said to Cameron. “I thought maybe by now she would have come to like me because I fed her, but her heart belonged to someone else. Now I know who.”

  Cameron wiped her we
t cheeks. “Ky saved Jack’s life twice in Afghanistan when he was deployed there. She’s a very special dog. He just walked most of the Wolf River, looking for her. He knew she was still alive, even after all this time. He never gave up on her.”

  “She wouldn’t have survived much longer if I hadn’t caught her.”

  “You saved her life, Fred,” Cameron said. “We can’t thank you enough for doing that.”

  Fred sighed and rubbed his chin, watching the reunion between Jack and Ky. “Last winter was a bad winter. It was no good with the trapping, and I lost my best lead dog.” For the first time his face looked sad. “Now winter’s coming again and the fishing is poor. I don’t know how I’m going to feed my dogs, and I don’t have a leader to run with Mackenzie. I was going to teach that dog to run with the team this fall, see if she’d run up front. She’s smart. She’d probably make a good leader.”

  “But she’s Jack’s dog. You can’t keep her.”

  “I can’t afford to buy another leader.”

  Cameron looked down at the month-old pup she cradled so protectively in her arms and gathered Lobo against her beating heart, wondering how she ever could have thought dogs weren’t that important. She drew a deep breath. “Tell you what, Fred. I’ll buy both dogs from you. Lobo and Ky. How does five thousand dollars sound?”

  * * *

  WALT PACED THE float plane dock not far from where he’d gassed up the Beaver for the return trip to Fort Simpson. He checked his wristwatch: 11:15 a.m. He’d arrived early, and Cameron was late. This disturbed him because she was never late. It was a sparkling clear morning, perfect for flying right now, but more bad weather was predicted for that afternoon. High winds and rain. He stared first upriver, then down. Then back up again. Then paced some more. The waitress at the hotel where he’d gone for breakfast confirmed that Cameron and Jack had left the evening before with Fred Andrew, that Fred took guests in sometimes when the hotels were full and he lived just a few miles upriver, not far below where the Wolf River came into the Mackenzie. But if Fred lived so close, where were they? Why weren’t they here?

  He paced and muttered under his breath and thought about Lori Tedlow, who was already waiting at his office. Maybe she was in labor now, having the baby on his office floor. She’d cried yesterday when he called her at her hotel to tell her about Cameron’s phone call. She’d sobbed with relief when she learned her brother was okay.

  “Didn’t I say it’d all turn out fine?” Walt had said when she showed up at eight o’clock that morning.

  Now he was beginning to worry that he’d spoken too soon and jinxed himself. He glanced at his watch again. And then, finally, he heard the drone of an outboard motor over the light wind, and an aluminum skiff came around the bend in the river and headed toward the floatplane dock. Walt saw Cameron wave when she spotted him, and he returned the gesture with a grin of relief that faded rapidly as the boat drew near enough for him to see the occupants clearly. Cameron’s appearance shocked him. He helped tie off the boat and steady it while she got out, followed by the now-bearded Jack, who was attached to a scrawny, skittish looking feral dog by a piece of rope. He was followed by Fred Andrew, a wiry, dark-skinned Dene wearing a perpetual smile in the deep creases of his face and a well-worn Red Sox ball cap over long dark hair.

  Cameron introduced him to Fred, and he shook Fred’s hand while looking between Jack and Cameron. His presumption that the two had shared a leisurely romantic tryst down the Wolf River had been shattered by their appearance, especially Cameron’s. They both looked half-starved, and Cameron had a black eye and cuts and bruises all over her face. He gave her a careful bear hug, gave Jack his best steely-eyed stare and said to Cameron, “Maybe you should’ve brought them handcuffs along after all.”

  “Relax, Walt,” she said. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Jack’s help.”

  “Rough trip?” Walt asked.

  “Yes, but successful. Jack found his dog. She was at Fred’s kennel, and look what else we found.” She pulled a fat squirming pup from inside her jacket. Walt stared.

  “A wolf pup,” he said, recalling all the wolves he’d shot in his younger years.

  “Lobo’s mother was one of Fred’s best sled dogs, but she was killed by a grizzly.”

  “Is that right,” Walt said. He knew a wolf pup when he saw one.

  “So, Fred and I made a deal. I’ll keep the pup, because it’s too young and Fred can’t take care of it, and he’ll get a breeding to one of his bitches when Lobo’s a yearling, because as it turns out, Lobo has really good bloodlines.”

  “Huh,” Walt said, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “Well, you named him right, that’s the truth.” His eyes narrowed as he tried to envision a future for Cameron that included a one-legged soldier, a scrawny dog that looked like an underfed coyote and an orphaned wolf pup. He was having trouble trying to figure out how Cameron would be able to fly full-time again when she’d taken on so much other stuff.

  He looked at Jack, not feeling the least bit friendly toward this bearded, silent warrior with the haunted eyes who looked as beat-up as his dog but who still stood soldier straight, and had somehow captured the heart of his best pilot. “Your sister’s waiting back at the floatplane base, and she could have her baby at any moment,” he growled. “We better get a move on.”

  * * *

  WALT FLEW BACK to the base, which was a good thing because Cameron fell asleep half an hour into the flight and didn’t wake up until he landed. She sat up, wiped the sleep from her eyes and wondered why she felt so sick. There was a dull pain in her stomach. Or was it her heart? Matter of fact, she hurt all over. She felt awful and wondered if she was dying. As Walt taxied up to the dock, she saw a woman standing there, wearing a shapeless tan-colored coat that came to her knees and a bright red fleece hat pulled over shoulder-length dark hair. This had to be Jack’s sister, Lori Tedlow.

  Cameron glanced over her shoulder at Jack in the rear seat. Ky sat on floor between his knees, sphinxlike and unmoving. She forced a smile at him and faced front. The pain in her chest grew worse. Was she having a heart attack? She hoped so. Being dead would be better than feeling like this for the rest of her life.

  She peeked inside her parka at Lobo. Sound asleep. Most laid-back pup, best traveler. Best buddy. She couldn’t die of a broken heart. She had to take care of Lobo. Walt cut the engine when the float bumped the pilings, and looked across at her with a grim expression.

  “Well, I suppose you’ll be wanting a few days off to recover,” he said.

  “Jack!”

  Lori Tedlow’s shrill cry interrupted Cameron’s attempt to tell Walt she wanted at least a week off so she could go back and pay Fred the money she’d promised him, then go see Minnie over in Yukon.

  “Jack!” Lori was waving frantically, moving under the wing of the plane.

  Cameron crawled into the back and popped the side door open. “Hold on,” she called down to Lori. “Your brother’s fine. Just give us a minute to tie the plane up.” She avoided looking at Jack again because she felt very close to tears. This was it. This was the clean break. The Big Goodbye, and she hated goodbyes. Better to avoid them. She climbed out of the plane, pup still tucked inside her jacket, and her sore feet thumped onto the dock. She gave Lori as much of a smile as she could manage under the circumstances.

  “Hi, Lori. I’m Cameron Johnson,” she said, sticking out her hand.

  Lori took her hand, dark eyes brimming with tears. “Thank you so much for getting my brother back here safely. What happened to your face?”

  Before Cameron could respond, Lori’s gaze shifted. Her expression changed when she saw her brother framed in the plane’s side door. She dropped Cameron’s hand, visibly stunned by Jack’s appearance. When she spotted the lean, skittish dog standing beside him, her eyes went blank and she would have collapsed if Cameron hadn’t grabbed
her arm to keep her on her feet.

  “Ky’s alive,” Lori said, dazed. “I don’t believe it. She’s alive!”

  “Walt, I sure could use a hand over here,” Cameron said, struggling to prop up the very pregnant woman and hold on to Lobo at the same time. Walt finished tying off the plane and came to Cameron’s aid as Jack climbed out of the plane, one arm hooked around Ky in a hip carry. He set his dog on the dock and looked at his sister.

  “Hello, Lori.”

  “Jack,” Lori said in a faint voice. “Please don’t hate me. We thought she was dead, or we never would have left her there. I swear that’s the truth.”

  “I know,” Jack said.

  Tears were running down Lori’s face. “Oh, thank God you’re safe.”

  “Where’s that rich banker husband of yours? He owes this girl some money for putting her through hell.”

  “Clive’s working. He couldn’t leave the bank for so long. But don’t worry, I brought the money and...” Her eyes widened, and even as Walt and Cameron steadied her, both hands went to her stomach.

  “Oh!” she said. “That was a big one.”

  “A contraction?” Cameron asked.

  “Yes. The biggest one yet.”

  “How many big ones have you had?”

  “I don’t know. I think maybe four or five.”

  “How far apart?”

  Lori shook her head. “I haven’t really kept count. I’ve been standing here waiting for Jack...”

  “Is she in labor?” Walt looked like he’d rather be anyplace else.

  Cameron shook her head. “How should I know? You’re the one who knows everything about everything.”

  “I know CPR. I don’t know anything about labor pains or delivering babies.”

  “If she’s having that baby, we better get her to the clinic. I’ll get your truck. You stay with her.”

  Cameron handed Lobo to Jack, wheeled and sprinted toward the office, climbed into Walt’s truck and drove it down to the dock. She jumped out and helped Walt maneuver Lori toward the passenger side. “I’ll call the clinic and let them know you’re coming,” she told Walt. She looked at Jack, who was still standing in the same spot. “You might want to help. She’s your sister, after all, and this baby’s going to be your niece or nephew. I’ll watch Ky for you. They don’t allow dogs at the clinic.”