by Margaret Kay
“Hey,” Sloan said, poking his head into his office. “I’ll check over all the medical supplies in the office tomorrow and place an order with Ryan. If there is anything you need that won’t be obvious to me, let me know and I’ll get it ordered. What do you think? Will Lassiter have you off a few days to a week?”
Doc frowned. He didn’t want to discuss this. “At least,” he muttered.
“Okay, well, I’m taking off. Have a good few days.”
“Yeah, you too,” Doc acknowledged.
He sat in his chair and stared at absolutely nothing for a long time until his phone chirped, a text message. Lassiter. He closed his eyes for a second and breathed deeply. Yeah, he knew he was due to see him. He glanced at his watch. Correction, he was past due, expected a half hour ago.
He pulled himself out of his thoughts and pulled his butt from the chair. He made his way through the inner office area to the entrance to Lassiter’s office suite. He found Lassiter sipping coffee in his kitchenette. He deposited himself in a chair across the table from Lassiter.
“You don’t want any coffee?”
Doc shook his head no.
Joe sipped his coffee again, his eyes focused on Doc’s. “So, what happened?”
Doc’s lips pulled into a frown. “I need two weeks off to go fishing.”
Joe Lassiter nodded his head. “Two weeks is doable.”
Doc came to his feet.
“Whoa! Not until we talk.”
Doc ran his fingers through his hair. It was getting longer than he liked it. “Joe, can we let it lay for a few weeks?”
“You know that isn’t the way this works.”
Doc wandered over in front of the window and gazed out. “When we arrived at the village to evacuate everyone, Sister Elizabeth wouldn’t leave. She’d just performed spaghetti surgery on two young boys. Moving them would have killed them. I stayed with her, tidied up and strengthened her sutures, and gave the boys painkillers and antibiotics. Then it was a waiting game until they’d be strong enough to be moved.”
Joe eyed him suspiciously as he waited for more that wasn’t coming. “That’s it?”
“Until the General’s people came by for the third time and we got taken.”
“You waited three days, were just about to evac with the boys when you were taken.”
“Yeah. We would have been home free if one of the kids didn’t call out.”
“How’d it go for those three days?”
“It was routine.”
Doc heard Joe snort out a disbelieving snicker. His eyes remained fixed on the mall parking lot. The silence in the room remained for several long minutes. Doc knew that Lassiter would wait him out for more. He didn’t have it in him. Not right now, anyway.
He closed his eyes and saw Elizabeth’s face standing in that hangar. He hadn’t even said a proper goodbye to her. That had been shitty. After everything they’d been through, everything they’d shared, he didn’t give her the words she needed as they parted. He told her what he needed to say to make himself feel better. A strong woman? He’d told her she was a strong woman. What the fuck would that mean to her?
“Joe, I need two weeks, a lake, my fishing gear, quiet that only being out in the middle of nowhere can bring me, then I’ll be ready for this. You’ve known me a long time. I need you to trust me that I know what I need.”
Joe Lassiter considered Doc’s words for a quiet moment. “Answer one question, then I’ll let it lay for two weeks.”
Doc nodded his head, his back still to Joe.
“Did you think and accept that you were going to die?”
A sick feeling washed over Doc. His heart clenched in his chest and he had to force himself to draw in a breath. “Yeah.”
The sound of the chair scooting back from the table resounded loudly through the otherwise quiet room. Doc heard every one of Joe’s footfalls on the tile floor as he closed the distance. Joe’s hand on the back of his shoulder was heavy.
“You’ve got your two weeks. Clear your head and get it back on straight. And you know how to reach me if you need to in the interim.”
“Yeah,” Doc again muttered.
The floatplane landed on the mirror-smooth lake. The sun was high in the noonday sky reflecting off the water and intensifying the brilliant orange and auburn colors that surrounded the large, four-thousand-acre lake. Lac Vieux Desert Lake, up where Wisconsin met Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, was his little slice of heaven. There were more fish than people in this area, just how he liked it.
The boat taxied up to the dock, a rickety wood structure Doc hadn’t set foot on in way too many years but was as familiar to him as an old friend. They were on the side of the lake away from the resorts, an isolated area with only a dozen cabins scattered through the trees and out of each other’s line of sight. The pilot helped him to quickly transfer his half-dozen bags and cases onto the wood dock.
“Your cabin is number four, about a twenty-minute hike up the north trail,” the pilot said, pointing at the footpath that was obvious in the tree line. The sign that was staked there, ‘North Trail, Cabins One through Eight’, was new since the last time he’d been here. It wasn’t necessary. He knew the way.
“Yeah, I know where it is.”
Dave, the pilot, eyed him curiously. “I’ve been the only pilot bringing in fishermen for the last five years. I’ve never brought you in.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve been here, too long.”
“Well, not much has changed. You’ve got my phone number for an emergency. Secure your food, there are bears up here. And be ready for pickup by eleven a.m. two weeks from today.”
“Yeah, got it, thanks,” Doc said.
“You may want to check your cell signal before I go, to be sure.”
“I have a satellite phone. It’s good,” Doc assured him. “I’ll see you in two weeks. I’ll be packed and ready at eleven hundred.”
“Okay,” the pilot said, nodding. He turned and got back into his cockpit.
Doc watched the floatplane gain speed as it pulled away from the dock. It pulled into the air, the sun gleaming off the fuselage before it banked south and grew smaller and smaller against the brilliant cobalt sky, finally disappearing from Doc’s view.
Doc gazed up at the beautiful night sky and breathed in the cool air. It was going down to a crisp thirty degrees tonight. It had taken nearly the entire two weeks, but he finally felt at peace. Tomorrow would be his last day to fish and enjoy the solitude, his pickup scheduled for the day after. He added a log to the fire and then sat back in front of the dancing flames. The longer he sat and thought about it, the more decided he became that he would extend his trip by a week. He needed it. He deserved it. And he certainly had plenty of vacation time banked.
As soon as he decided, he called the floatplane pilot to pushout the pickup by a week and authorize a charge of an additional week cabin rental to be billed to his credit card. Then he placed the call to Shepherd, not caring what time it was.
“Shepherd,” he answered on the second ring.
“Hi Shep.” He didn’t need to tell Shepherd he was still at the lake, out in the middle of nowhere. The evening tracker report would already have been given to Shepherd so he would know.
“What can I do for you, Doc?”
“I’m taking an additional week off, put me down for vacation.”
Silence hung on the open line. “Is that a fact?” Shepherd asked after an appropriate wait.
Doc could hear the tone in his voice. Shepherd didn’t like being told. Asking for the time would have been a more proper way of handling it. “It took me this long to get my head on straight. Now I want to enjoy fishing.”
“Did you already reschedule your transportation?”
“Yeah,” he replied.
“I guess that’s decided then. Follow up with Lassiter when you’re supposed to, and I’ll see you when he releases you to return to full duty.”
“Thanks,” Doc said, feeling
anything but thankful.
He knew how he handled it had been shitty. Just as he had handled the goodbye with Elizabeth. He wondered how she was. He knew she had made it to Seattle. The thought of her staying at the Sisters of Mercy shelter bothered him. Her whole life had been a hard-luck story. He wished he could have done more for her.
One thing he had come to in the past two weeks was that he was not responsible for her. Just because he had slept with her and they had nearly died together, that didn’t make him responsible for her nor did it mean they had a relationship. The vows they had said to each other before he made love to her were based on the fact that they were going to die, and she had released him from those vows. It meant nothing.
The other thing he had come to grips with was the fact that he could have died, should have died, was damn lucky he hadn’t died. It wasn’t just this mission, of course. The potential for his death was there on each and every mission he went out on. He knew that but had never had to accept the fact that he was going to be killed, probably tortured in the worse ways possible. That realization and acceptance changed something inside him that he was only now coming to grips with.
The regrets he had about the past, regrets regarding Victoria, so many years ago, bubbled to the surface. He could still picture her in his mind, even though he wished he could banish all traces of her from his soul. That was a long time ago. He thought time healed all wounds. Well, it hadn’t healed this one. He was trying to accept that just maybe, this one would never heal, and that was the reason he would never be in a relationship with any woman ever again, especially not someone as young, naïve, and sweet as Elizabeth. No, someone like him was the last thing she needed in her life.
He sat out enjoying the fire, gazing at the cloudless, dark sky for hours. His demons quieted, and he was able to think about pleasant things, the upcoming week of additional fishing in the fresh air surrounded by nature. He was glad he would take the extra week. The season was winding down. Soon, fall would give way to winter.
Winter. His thoughts jumped to the first stanza of the poem that was burned into his brain…We must live through the weary winter if we would value spring, and the woods must be cold and silent, before the robins sing, by Agnes L. Pratt, the poem that represents the Infants Remembered in Silence Organization. Damn, Victoria for sharing that poem and that organization with him. His thoughts turned dark again with too many memories flooding his consciousness.
Doc heard the floatplane approach but thought nothing of it. Dave was probably just picking up the two men in the cabin nearest his. He had spoken with them the day before and they were packing up and going home today. He hoped another group wasn’t being brought in to occupy that cabin. He liked his quiet evenings alone by the fire. The two men who had been there were quiet themselves.
His line tugged and his thoughts were brought back to his task at hand. He didn’t think any more of it. He enjoyed the remainder of his day on the lake.
Satisfied with the day’s catch, Doc packed his gear up and headed towards his cabin. He had three large Walleye in his cooler, his legal limit for the day, enough for dinner, breakfast, and lunch tomorrow. To him, the whole point of the fishing trip was to catch enough for all his meals. The day had been a beautiful and unseasonably warm fifty-eight degrees, sunny, with a light breeze. He had enjoyed being on the lake, alone with his thoughts and at peace. These extra few days were exactly what he needed.
After he docked his boat, he trekked through the woods, on the path back to his cabin. His thoughts were light. He felt happy and content. Until his cabin came into sight, more specifically, Joe Lassiter sitting in front of the lit fire in front of his cabin. Holy. Hell.
“Hi Doc. You’re back earlier than I thought you’d be. Did you have a successful catch?” Joe greeted with a shit-eating grin on his scarred face.
“Joe, what are you doing here?” He demanded, like he didn’t know.
“We had an appointment, that you missed. So, I came to you.”
Doc muttered a few obscenities under his breath. He passed by Lassiter and the fire and brought his gear to the cabin porch. He went inside and put his gear away. Then he slipped on warmer clothes as the temperature would quickly fall once the sun went down. He grabbed his equipment to clean and cook the fish. He noticed a large pack with a sleeping bag attached to it and a heavy winter coat on the old plaid couch. Lassiter’s. He was planning to stay here with him. He let fly a new string of curses.
He went back out and brought the cooler over near the fire. “Looks like you’ve made yourself at home. Since you’ll be eating, you can help clean the fish.” He sat on the stump across from Lassiter.
“I brought eggs and bacon for the morning. Figured since you extended your trip you would have burned through all of your supplies by now.”
“I will gladly enjoy your breakfast. But you’re cooking it,” Doc said.
Lassiter’s lips ticked into a grin. He grabbed two beers from the cooler at his feet. He handed one to Doc. “And just so you know, the sooner you talk, the sooner I’ll leave.”
“I would like the end of my fishing trip to be in solitude,” Doc said. He focused on cleaning the fish and filleting it. Lassiter let him be quiet with his thoughts. When he finished, he held up two of the fillets. “Looks good, doesn’t it?”
Lassiter smiled and nodded towards the pan on Doc’s lap that was filled with fillets. “Looks like enough there for your whole team.”
Doc smirked. Smooth. “I hope to have a haul when I go back, will host a dinner for the team.”
“What about their women?”
“Sure, whatever,” Doc agreed.
“Tell me about Sister Elizabeth, who it turns out wasn’t a Sister.”
Doc clenched his eyes shut. He reopened them and fixed them on the fillets, which he then salted and peppered and wrapped in foil. “She was a child. Looked to be about fifteen.”
“She’s a twenty-four-year-old woman.”
“What else do you know about her?” Doc asked. He laid the foil containing the fish onto the coals in the firepit.
“She’s back in Seattle, doesn’t have much there but an older brother in prison.”
“She’s had a hard-luck life,” Doc paused and shook his head. “But the thing is, she doesn’t seem to know it.”
“Ah, the grateful type.”
“Yeah, and sweet, and hardheaded. She was right those boys couldn’t be moved. It would have killed them. If it wasn’t for her, I would have moved them to get everyone out. That was the mission.”
“So, those boys turned out to be the warlord’s sons,” Lassiter said.
“Yeah, didn’t see that one coming.”
“What happened after you and the boys were taken?” Lassiter asked.
“Do you want the long or short version?”
“I want the version that includes what you’re beating yourself up about.”
“We were sure we were going to be killed, tortured, brutalized, do not pass go, do not collect two-hundred dollars, just two-hundred broken bones or stab wounds.”
Doctor Lassiter waited while Doc turned the tin foil packets. Doc took a drink of the beer and then returned the bottle to the ground by his feet. Lassiter took a drink of his as well, his eyes focused on Doc.
Doc stood and pulled on his flannel jacket. The sun was setting, and the temperature was dropping quickly. “Elizabeth was sure she’d be raped. She was a virgin. She didn’t want to know abuse without ever knowing what it was like to be loved by a man. She begged me to,” his voice trailed off. He lifted his beer and drank the remainder of the bottle in one pull.
“So, you had sex with her?”
“I made love to her,” Doc corrected him. “There was nothing sleezy about it.”
“I apologize,” Lassiter said. “I didn’t mean to imply it was anything less than what it was.”
Doc shook his head. “She’s young enough to be my daughter. Her first time should have been with someone she loved,
was in a relationship with.”
“She didn’t want it to be a brutal rape by a warlord. I’m sure she appreciated you for it.”
