Once a Warrior

by Fran Baker

  Cat forced her mind to go blank as she followed Cain down the rungs and into the thigh-high water. Refused to think about what it was that brushed against her leg when she began wading toward shore. Ignored the mud that oozed up over the soles of her sandals and squished between her toes.

  At the edge of the jungle, he stopped and looked back at her. “I can’t cut us a path because I don’t want to leave a trail.”

  “I understand,” she said woodenly.

  “Grab hold of my belt and hang on tight.”

  Like a robot, Cat did as he ordered.

  Cain wished there were a better way to do this. “And keep your eyes on my back at all times.”

  She shivered and looked away from him, telling him that she wasn’t quite as immune as she appeared. He reached back, cupped her chin in his hand and brought her head around. Then he kissed her hard and quick for luck before leading her into the jungle. .

  A triple canopy of trees closed out the light, enveloping Cat in the heart of a darkness that utterly terrified her. But she had Cain to hold onto, and that’s exactly what she did. She kept a death grip on his belt loop and her eyes trained on the solid shadow of his back.

  Vines snatched at her hair like living fingers. She shook them off. Creatures stirred and birds squawked, causing her pulse to race and her breath to heave. Something cold slithered past her feet. Gnarled tree roots tried to trip her up. She stumbled, but she didn’t fall. The sharp-bladed undergrowth slashed at her legs. She stayed the course.

  “I made it!” was all she could manage when she saw the light change. She gulped out a sob as it brightened and dropped to her knees in the grass. Real grass, she marveled, soft and shimmering velvety green in the late-day rays of the sun.

  Cain sat down beside her and began unlacing his boots. He yanked them and his socks off. Then he rolled up the legs of his jeans, took the can of mosquito repellent out of her purse and started hosing himself down.

  “Don’t look,” he warned her just a tad too late.

  “Oh, my God!” Cat placed a hand over her mouth to keep from retching when she saw the leeches, big and blue, that were falling off of him in droves.

  “I should have grabbed a pair of your pantyhose for me, I guess.” He got to his feet and unbuckled his belt, then undid the top button of his jeans.

  “You, uh . . .” She stammered a bit when he reached for the second button. “You have leeches in . . . there, too?”

  His silver-and-steel eye twinkled mischievously in the gathering twilight. “And I’m not wearing any underwear.”

  Neither was she. Her bra and panties were still hanging damply in the bathroom on the boat. Cat ducked her head and saw that the front of her black pajama top was clinging to her breasts, outlining their small but firm shape. Her eyes swung back up in time to catch Cain looking at her, and her cheeks turned a warm pink at the realization that his gaze had followed hers down.

  She surged to her feet and turned her back. “Tell me when you’re done.”

  While she waited for him to finish spraying the leeches, Cat studied the two-story white-stucco villa that crowned the small hill they still had to climb. It was, in a word, breathtaking. Pink coralvine splashed its arches and violet bougainvillea climbed its walls. Tamarind trees, their limbs as graceful as those of a ballerina, shaded the terrace and the gardens.

  “All done,” Cain announced.

  She nodded at the house. “Who lives there?”

  “Come on.” He extended his hand. “I’ll introduce you.”

  “An old French planter?” she guessed as she tagged after him.

  “Nope.”

  “A government official?”

  His long legs ate up the ground, forcing her to walk faster than usual. “Wrong again.”

  “Well, it has to belong to somebody important.”

  “It does.”

  “Otherwise,” she concluded breathlessly at the top of the hill, “it would have been bombed by now.”

  Cain crossed the flagstone terrace and rang the bell. A large crucifix fashioned of ivory and wood hung over the door. Nailed to the frame opposite the bell was a small font of holy water.

  A church, Cat decided as she dipped her fingers and made the sign of the cross.

  The diminutive woman in the starched white habit who answered the door told her that she was close. It was a convent. And the way the nun’s little raisin of a face lit up when she saw the man who was standing there also told her that he was no stranger in the night.

  “James Lee.” She spoke his first and middle names with a lilting French accent.

  Cat, who’d never heard him called anything but Cain, swiveled her head in surprise.

  “Soeur Simone,” he said respectfully.

  “We’ve been waiting all day for you, young man.” Even as the petite nun shook an admonishing finger in his face, her expression said she was more relieved than angry.

  He bent to kiss her on both cheeks. “I was delayed by the coup in Saigon, but I’m here now.”

  “We prayed for safe passage for you when we heard about it on the radio.”

  He straightened and smiled. “Somebody up there must have been listening.”

  Sister Simone reached up and laid a soothing palm on his cheek. “He always listens, my son.”

  Cain opened his mouth as if to argue the point, then closed it with a click of his teeth.

  The nun turned friendly brown eyes to Cat. “And who have you brought with you?”

  She stepped forward and introduced herself in French. “Je m’appelle Catherine Brown.”

  “Mrs. Johnny Brown,” Cain clarified for the nun’s benefit.

  Sister Simone’s eyes went wide with surprise for a second, making Cat wonder if she’d known Johnny. Before she could ask, the nun recovered her equanimity and ushered both Cain and she inside. The tiled entry provided a cool respite from the tropical heat.

  “Welcome to Sacré Coeur,” the nun said formally.

  “Thank you,” Cat said, her gaze drawn to the lovely painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that hung on the wall and for which the convent was named.

  “Where is everyone?” Cain asked.

  “Soeur Françoise and Soeur Marie took the older children fishing, and—”

  “Children?” Cat interrupted.

  The nun looked at her quizzically. “James didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “This is an orphanage.”

  Wondering why he’d kept her in the dark, and what other surprises he might have up his sleeve, Cat pivoted on her heel and arched a quizzical brow at Cain. “No, he didn’t tell me this was an orphanage.”

  Caught between the devil and her demanding hazel eyes, he took the easy way out. “Why don’t we discuss this after we eat?”

  “You would like to wash first, no?” the nun asked.

  “Yes, please.” Cat smiled tiredly and lifted her heavy hair off her neck.

  “You use the bathroom down here,” Cain said. “I’ll use the one upstairs.”

  “Come, mon enfant.” The brown rosary beads cinched at her waist clacking every step of the way, Sister Simone drew Cat along the hall, around a corner and into a thoroughly modern bathroom.

  Cat couldn’t help but smile when she saw the child-sized sink for washing grubby hands and faces that stood beside the adult-sized one. A bathtub with built-in shower fixtures sat along the back wall. Two doors, one with a low knob and the other a high one, guaranteed privacy for the people big and small who were using the commodes. An open window covered with a voile curtain overlooked the back yard.

  “Do I have time to take a quick shower?” Even if she had to put her dirty clothes back on, she was dying to feel clean again.

  “But of course.” Sister Simone opened the linen closet and took out two fluffy white towels. Before she closed the door behind her, she added, “And while you’re doing that, I’ll see if I can find you something else to wear.”

  The water was
cool, the soap ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths percent pure, and the baby shampoo promised no more tears.

  Cat wasn’t sure about that last, but she knew that she would never take the convenience of a real, honest-to-God bathroom for granted again. She used one towel to dry her body and wrapped the other one turban-style around her head. Then she rinsed out the pantyhose that had kept the leeches off of her, resigned to putting them back on wet if she had to.

  Sister Simone knocked politely on the door.

  “Come in,” Cat invited.

  But respectful of her modesty, the nun only cracked the door open and reached in, then remained standing outside. “I found this ao dai and a pair of trousers that one of our girls left behind. She was tall and thin, like you. I brought you some thongs, too, since your sandals are still wet.”

  “Oh, thank you.” Cat accepted the pale green gown, black trousers and thongs as gratefully as if they were haute couture.

  “I pray they fit.”

  “I don’t care if they’re high-waters. Anything’s better than those dirty pajamas.”

  “‘High-waters’?” Sister Simone repeated in a low voice.

  “Oh, it’s an American expression.” Cat stepped into the trousers and was delighted that they were long enough to cover her ankles. The ao dai was a perfect fit, as were the thongs. “It means too short.”

  “You studied French in school?”

  “My mother is French.” Cat found a plain black comb in the medicine cabinet and ran it through her hair. “She met my father during World War Two.”

  “I met an American boy during the First World War.” The partially closed door lent almost a confessional quality to the nun’s quiet admission.

  “You loved him?”

  “Very much.”

  “Why didn’t you marry him?”

  “He died at the battle of Verdun, and I became a Bride of Christ.”

  “My husband died here, in Vietnam.” It was the first time Cat had uttered the agonizing word that she’d turned her mind from these past five weeks.

  “He was a pilot, no?”

  “Yes.” Almost dizzy with relief now that she’d gotten out the anguishing acknowledgment, Cat grabbed the edge of the sink with both hands. The grief, she knew, would come later. And after that, she prayed, there would be peace.

  “I heard one of your officers say once that a good soldier is just a klick away from God.”

  Because the nun had pronounced it “kleek,” it took Cat a second to get it. When she did, she smiled wanly. “Johnny loved to fly.”

  “And you loved him?”

  “All my life, and with all my heart.”

  “But you never conceived a child.”

  “Johnny wanted to wait.”

  Sister Simone sighed wistfully. “I wanted children.”

  Cat’s smile was equally wistful. “You have the orphans.”

  “And James.”

  “James?” Cat echoed, frowning. “Oh, you mean Cain.”

  “Every month he brings food and clothing for the children from Saigon on his boat,” the nun explained.

  Food and clothing he’d probably stolen, Cat thought uncharitably. “That’s kind of him.”

  “He bought us this house, too, after our orphanage in Saigon was bombed during Tet.”

  What was he trying to do—buy his way into heaven? Cat wondered scornfully. “Who owned it previously?”

  “A distant cousin of the former President.”

  “He was fleeing the country?”

  “Actually, James traded airplane tickets to Thailand for him and his family in exchange for the house.”

  “So he really wasn’t out any money?”

  “Which is more valuable—money or life?”

  “Cain’s done well by you,” Cat conceded as her vile sentiments gave way to a wave of guilt.

  “He remembers how it feels to be an orphan.”

  Cat hadn’t thought anything could surprise her anymore. She was wrong. “Cain was an orphan?”

  “His father died in the Korean War, and his mother shortly thereafter.”

  “Another war, another tragedy.”

  “When men lose the ability to converse with one another,” the nun returned gravely, “they start killing each other.”

  Bitterness clogged Cat’s throat. “And women are left to wonder what happened to the lives they had planned.”

  “God has a plan for you, as he does for us all.”

  A teary-eyed Cat touched the trembling lips reflected in the mirror. “I feel so lost.”

  “He’ll show you the way, if you’ll only let him.”

  “He’d better hurry,” the woman in the mirror muttered. “Because I’m drowning here.”

  Beads clicked in the silence following her statement. Glad shouts drifted in through the open window from the back yard. The nun sighed again then.

  “It’s sad, n’est-ce pas?”

  Her ears ringing with the high-pitched giggles that were coming closer every second, Cat shook her head in confusion. “Sad?”

  “How many children those young warriors leave behind to be raised by strangers.”

  It hit Cat then like a fist, almost doubling her over. Her temples were pounding and her palms were sweating. She rubbed at her eyes, scrubbing away at a truth she didn’t want to face, fighting to hold back a sob.

  “Soup’s on!” Cain hollered down the hall.

  “But you’re having shrimp, not soup.”

  “He . . .” Cat sucked in a deep breath, as if oxygen could wash out the hurt. But it still hurt. Hurt so badly, she wanted to cry. “He means dinner is ready.”

  “You Americans have such strange expressions,” Sister Simone tsked.

  “Don’t we, though?” Cat turned away from her stunned reflection in the mirror and crossed to the door.

  Cain, who had showered and shaved himself, was blown away when she entered the dining room. Her red hair flowed to her shoulders, the gossamer ao dai was split to her slender waist, and the plain black trousers made the most of her from-here-to-eternity legs. The thongs showed off the high arch of her foot and her peach-frosted toenails.

  But on closer inspection, conducted by the light of the chandelier, he saw that she appeared to be upset about something. Her color was too high and her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. She was biting her lip, which he’d already learned was a sign that there was a storm brewing inside her.

  He pulled out a chair. “Sit down before you fall down.”

  She remained standing. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You need to eat.”

  “I said I’m not—”

  “Then sit here while I—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this was an orphanage?” Her legs began to tremble, and she groped with frantic fingers for the back of the chair he still held out for her.

  “Cat, honey . . .” Unaware of the endearment that had sprung so naturally to his lips, Cain reached over with a stabilizing hand.

  “Don’t touch me!” She lurched away from him angrily.

  He immediately lowered both his hand and his voice. “All right.”

  “And don’t call me ‘honey’.”

  “I hear you.”

  He heard the children now, too. The older ones were coming in the back door, laughing and shouting and bragging about the frogs and small fish they’d caught in the pond behind the house. And the freshly bathed babies upstairs were starting to fuss for their bedtime bottles.

  Seized suddenly by a rage so fierce that she was afraid she might hit him, she backed up another step. “What does this damned orphanage have to do with Johnny, anyway?”

  Cain ignored the shocked look that crossed Sister Simone’s face as she set a bowl of fried rice next to the platter of grilled shrimp already on the table and concentrated solely on Cat.

  “I can’t tell you.” Cautiously, he moved closer.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you have to see it to believe it.”


  “See it?” Cat was vibrating—with fury, with foreboding—yet her voice was remarkably tranquil. “See what?”

  Cain took the last step to close the distance between them and drew her into his arms. She didn’t fight him, as he’d feared she would. Neither did she lean on him, as he’d hoped she would.

  She just stood there rigidly as Sister Simone slipped out of the dining room. Refused to soften when the older children—many of them the same age as the students she hoped to teach someday—ran in crying his name and clamoring to show him what they’d caught in their small fishing baskets. She didn’t even acknowledge the greetings of the two nuns in muddy habits who rushed in after them to try and calm things down.

  “Look, Cat,” Cain said when Sister Simone stepped back into the room carrying a fussing, fidgeting bundle wrapped in a lightweight white blanket. He relieved the nun of her burden, which was barely big enough to fill the crook of his arm from elbow to wrist, and turned so it could be easily seen. Then, because he couldn’t think of a way to break the news to her gently, he did it bluntly. “It’s Johnny’s son.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Cat pressed her fingertips to her lips as a tiny fist flailed up out of the blanket and cuffed Cain on the chin. She couldn’t believe that this was really happening. But it was. She prayed it was just some bizarre dream from which she would soon awaken. But it wasn’t. It was a wife’s worst nightmare come true.

  “No!” She shouted the denial.

  “Yes.” He extended the baby to her.

  She dropped her arms to her sides and said fiercely, “I don’t want it.”

  Sister Simone clapped her hands. “It’s time for your baths, mes enfants.”

  But the children were much more interested in what was going on between the two adults at the moment than they were in getting clean.

  “It’s not mine!” Cat’s voice teetered on the brink of hysteria.

  “Calm down,” Cain ordered as the baby began wailing at the top of his lungs.

  “Vite, vite!” Sister Simone said briskly, shooing the children into two reluctant lines. “Soeur Françoise will supervise the boys, Soeur Marie the girls.”

  “You’d better take the baby, Soeur Simone.” Cain passed the now-squirming, squalling bundle back to the nun, then grabbed Cat’s hand and pulled. “We’re going outside.”