A Soldier's Pledge

by Nadia Nichols

  JACK WAS GLAD Cameron had stayed behind at the cabin. His strength was returning by the moment, and he could travel much faster without her. Being out here in the wilderness was the best medicine in the world for him. The walking gave him time to reexamine his life, the choices he’d made, the paths he’d walked. He was starting to wonder if he wanted to continue in the direction he’d chosen, or if maybe there was something else out there. Something more than the Spartan life of a soldier.

  It was that girl, of course. She’d been nothing but an annoyance at first, but after just three days—or was it four?—he was finding it more and more difficult to dislike her. She was unlike any female he’d ever known. Few women would have been tough enough to survive what she just had. She was covered with bruises, cuts and contusions, one eye almost swollen shut, but not a word of complaint from her. She just soldiered stoically along. She’d made a mistake, almost drowned and lost the canoe, but he doubted she’d ever tangle with a strainer again, no matter how much she cared about retrieving a sexy-looking hat.

  Jack wanted to salvage the canoe for her, which was why he was pushing himself so hard. In his mind’s eye he could envision himself chopping swiftly and effortlessly through the tree trunk. As soon as the tree was free, the force of the river pushing against it would pivot and swing the top downstream, rolling it just enough so that the canoe would be freed from the branches that pinned it to the rocky river bottom. He’d recover the canoe, bail it out, fashion a crude but serviceable pole if there wasn’t a spare paddle lashed inside, and return to the cabin well before dark. When Cameron saw him approaching the trapper’s cabin in the canoe, her smile would light up the Northwest Territories.

  Jack paused for a breather. He found a rock beside the river and braced himself against it, pulled out his water bottle for a drink. He’d called his CO after leaving Water Reed and been granted his full sixteen-and-a-half days of medical “take and leave” to come up here and find his dog. It was more than enough time, but Cameron’s appearance had complicated his plans, and her recent brush with death and the loss of the canoe had changed everything. Now the roles were reversed. She was pretty banged up and afoot, and depending on him to sort things out. Would she still collect her bounty money if he was the one who got her to the Mackenzie?

  It was the money part that bothered him the most, and that damned red Jeep, but she’d lived on the edge of poverty all her life. Why wouldn’t she care about the money? Jack took another swallow of water. He tucked the bottle away, pushed off the rock and shouldered his pack. His mission was to retrieve Cameron’s canoe and her gear. Once he’d accomplished that, maybe she’d start to regard him as more than just a five-thousand-dollar reward and a red Jeep.

  * * *

  CAMERON OPENED HER eyes with a start, not knowing for a few seconds where she was, what had woken her or why she was sleeping in broad daylight. Then the past few days all came back with a rush, and she sat up and let her sore feet dangle over the edge of the bunk. She glanced at her wristwatch: 8:00 p.m. She’d been sleeping since Jack left just after noon. That was one heck of a nap she’d taken. She felt much better. The sharp stomach pains were gone, and if she lay absolutely still and didn’t breathe too deeply, her bruised muscles didn’t hurt that bad. She wondered where he was, if he’d made it back to the canoe, if he’d chopped the big spruce trunk and freed the tree, and the canoe.

  She wondered if he was all right.

  And then she heard a sound that must have woke her. A long, lonely mournful howl filled the river valley. It was a heart-wrenching howl that raised the hair on her nape and at the same time made her feel so lonely that she wanted to cry.

  Maybe it was the same wolf Jack had heard last night. Or maybe...

  Maybe it wasn’t a wolf.

  The sudden thought sprang unbidden into her mind and galvanized her into action. She pushed off the bunk, moaning aloud as her sore muscles protested, wincing when her blistered feet touched the plank floor.

  Maybe what she heard was Jack’s dog. He’d said it was wild and looked like a coyote, and if it was still alive, maybe it howled like a wolf after a year of living in the wilderness. Jack’s sister, Lori, had said that Afghanistan had wolves. Could be Jack’s dog was really a wolf that looked like a coyote but howled like a wolf because it was a wolf, or part wolf, or had run with a pack of wolves all winter. She was crazy to be thinking like this. There was no way that long-lost dog of his was alive. But what if...? She pulled on her boots, rummaged through her kit, took another handful of aspirin, then opened the cooler. She’d cook something that smelled good, just in case a miracle had happened and Jack’s dog or wolf or coyote was alive, and it was howling out there because it had gotten a whiff of Jack’s smelly old socks and thought Jack had returned.

  Maybe the smell of food and stinky socks would keep it close until Jack got back. Wouldn’t it be something if she found his dog for him. He’d treat her differently if she managed to pull that off. He wouldn’t look at her as if she were a giant mosquito buzzing around his head. He might even start to like her if she found his long-lost companion.

  She selected a package of burger, still partially frozen in the bottom of the cooler, and smiled. No self-respecting mutt would ever pass up the chance for a piece of hamburger. She’d build a little fire pit down beside the river and cook the burgers there, where the savory smell of meat juices dropping on the coals could perfume the evening breeze. In her mind’s eye she could picture how it would be, the dog creeping ever closer as she grilled the burger. Timid but starving. Drooling for the taste of meat. She’d be patient, mostly just ignore it, avoid making eye contact, act like she didn’t know or care it was there. Let the half-wild animal get used to being around her. Then, just as the shy animal took the first piece from her fingers, Jack would come around the river bend in the canoe to witness the miraculous moment.

  Everyone loved a happy ending.

  * * *

  IT WAS A HOT, humid afternoon and the black flies were thick. By the time Jack had chopped almost all the way through the trunk of the downed spruce tree, he was wringing wet with sweat and being eaten alive by hordes of biting insects. A few more solid whacks and he’d be through. The trunk would drop into the river, the water would push the spruce downstream, and he’d move downriver himself to capture the canoe when it broke free and floated to the surface. Within the hour he’d be taking the easy route back to the cabin, letting the current carry him.

  Three more good whacks of the ax and with a great splintering sound, the butt end dropped three feet from the embankment and crashed into the river, throwing up a big plume of water. The river pushed against the tree trunk, but the current wasn’t strong enough and the water was no longer deep enough to move the tree downstream. The mighty spruce tree stayed right where it was, with the canoe no doubt trapped even more firmly beneath it.

  Jack let the ax slip out of his sweaty hands. For a moment he stood transfixed and exhausted, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. Disappointment and frustration roiled in his gut.

  The only other option was to get a rope on the tree itself and try to shift it using a z-drag, but the size and weight of the tree was formidable. This had to be one of the biggest spruce trees along the river. He’d have to get the rope as close to the tip of the tree as possible, which would be difficult. He looked to where Cameron’s hat still dangled from the tree branch near the very tip. It was completely clear of the water now and moving a little in the slight breeze. Back and forth, back and forth, almost like it was waving to him.

  He decided to rest awhile. It was getting late. It had taken him much longer than he thought it would to make it back to the canoe. His pace had slowed as the miles stretched out, and now the perfect scenario he’d envisioned was vanishing into the waning daylight. He wouldn’t be arriving at the cabin just in time for supper. He’d be spending every hour of daylight trying
to shift the tree off the canoe, and spending the night here again, with that very large grizzly prowling through the dark.

  This time, he didn’t have his Martin classical backpacker’s guitar.

  Jack ate another protein bar along with a few black flies while he rested beside the river. He decided to put up his tent before he got too tired, then once the tent was up, which took longer than he thought because he was moving so slowly, he made the decision to try to shift the tree in the morning, after a good night’s sleep. He was too exhausted to start the project now. His leg was bothering him, and he needed to tend to it, and he was having trouble forming clear thoughts. In the morning, the situation wouldn’t look so dire.

  He washed up at the river’s edge, then stood there, studying the tree and noting how far the water level had dropped from the high levels after the torrential rains. Shifting that heavy tree was going to be a bear. Impossible, really. Retrieving the canoe had been a pipe dream. They were both going to have to walk out to the Mackenzie. He was just about to turn back toward the tent when a raven flew over, croaking. It broke flight, tucked its wings, executed a perfect barrel role, and as it flew downriver, Jack spotted something rippling in the water about twenty feet from shore and thirty feet in length, moving snake-like in the current downriver from the spruce. He moved along the water’s edge, trying to get a better look.

  When he recognized it as one of the snub lines from the canoe, a surge of relief washed through him. All he had to do now was retrieve the end of the floating snub line, attach his own rope to it, set up a simple z-drag and pull the canoe out from under the tree. Cameron would get her canoe back after all. He’d get a few hours of sleep and make an early start in the morning. With any luck, he’d be back at the cabin in time for breakfast.

  * * *

  AS SOON AS dusk fell, the temperature began to drop. Cameron was cold. She wrapped her arms around herself and huddled as close as she could to the warmth of the campfire. She’d eaten one burger. The others rested on the edge of the grill. There was still time for Jack to arrive before dark, but with each passing moment, hope faded. It was almost dark. Jack would have pitched camp by now, even if he was on the river in the canoe. There were only so many hours in a day, and she knew his day had been long and difficult. Just the hike back to the canoe was a challenge, and then he had to chop through that big tree. She wouldn’t worry about him. He was okay.

  There had been no sign of the howling wolf that had woken her from her nap. She’d let her gaze wander upriver and down while she cooked and tended the fire. She’d just as casually scanned the woods along the river’s edge and the clearing around the trapper’s cabin, but she’d seen nothing remotely canine. Maybe she’d just imagined the howl. Maybe she’d dreamed it. She heaved a sigh. “I tell you what,” she said aloud, “if anyone ever cared about me the way he cares about that damned dog, my life would be a whole lot less lonely.”

  Cameron’s eyes stung, and it wasn’t from the smoke. She was feeling sorry for herself, which she knew from past experience was very unproductive. She plucked a second hamburger from the grill and started to chew on it.

  “I’m eating this delicious burger that you could be eating if you would just come out and keep me company,” she narrated to Jack’s imaginary dog. “You don’t have to be so shy, Ky. I don’t bite.”

  She finished the burger, set half of another on a fire stone as coyote bait and picked up the grill, using a stick to carry it to the river. She put it in the water and placed a couple of stones on top of it to keep it from washing downstream. Crouched beside the water’s edge, she pulled her toothbrush out of her pocket and finished her routine as the first stars spangled the evening sky.

  “I’m going to bed now, Ky,” she said, the water bucket dangling from her fingers. “You can have that piece of burger. Better grab it before a bear does.”

  She walked up to the cabin, glad she would spend the night within four sturdy log walls. She closed the windows on the chill night air, pulled off her boots, wrapped herself in a wool blanket and within moments was asleep on the bottom bunk. If she’d been counting sheep, it would have been a flock of three.

  * * *

  FOUR HOURS LATER she opened her eyes to the sounds of gray jays and the muted rush of the river, and when she propped herself up on her elbows to look out the window she was startled to see that the ground was white. An unseasonable dusting of snow coated everything and brightened the forest. She moved tentatively, drew a deep breath. Her injuries were healing. Another week or two and she’d be back to normal.

  She drank her first cup of coffee while walking down to the fire pit. The first thing she noticed was the piece of burger was gone. She came to an abrupt stop, and her heartbeat quickened at the site of fresh canid tracks lacing the snow along the river’s edge and circling the pit. Would a wolf behave this way? She didn’t think so. Wolves checked out campsites, but usually well after the humans had moved on. They were wary of humans, and with good reason. The tracks in the powdering of snow were too small to be a full-grown wolf, and they were already vanishing as the day warmed and summer returned.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said out loud. She hadn’t imagined the howl. As impossible as it seemed, Jack’s dog might still be alive.

  She set her coffee cup on a flat spot beside the river and knelt to wash the sleep from her face. The water was ice-cold. She wondered if Jack was already on the river. She figured he’d retrieved the canoe by dark, camped at the same spot and would be back at camp in time for breakfast. At least, that’s how she envisioned the morning.

  She wiped her face on the tail of her flannel shirt and was reaching for her coffee cup when she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head and was looking right into the eyes of an animal that was grayish colored, wolfish looking and very thin. Their eyes met for only a moment, and then it whirled and vanished back into the forest.

  Cameron rose slowly to her feet, dumbfounded. “Ky?” she said. “Good girl, Ky. Don’t be scared. Jack’s here, he’s coming.”

  She kindled a small fire in the pit, fished the grill out of the river and put it over the heat to burn off the remains of last night’s hamburgers. She then walked up to the cabin to bring down the frying pan and bacon, and a container inside of which, cushioned by oatmeal, she’d nestled six eggs. Within minutes she was frying bacon in the pan and drinking her second cup of coffee. She moved the frying pan to the very edge of the fire, and while the bacon slowly cooked, she washed her laundry in the river and hung it over bushes to dry. Then she took a quick, chilly cat bath, put on clean underthings and donned her warm clothing. The bacon had rendered down to perfection, and she broke two eggs into the fat. She could’ve eaten all six, but she wanted to give Jack a good feed when he arrived.

  After breakfast, she laid a piece of bacon in the same place she’d put the burger the night before. She left the bacon fat in the pan and returned it to the cabin, put out the fire in the pit, gathered more driftwood for the cook fire that night, swept and cleaned inside the camp and then began to wonder what was taking Jack so long. She occupied herself with domestic chores, wiping down shelves and washing the cabin windows, but she was worried. Jack should have arrived by now. Had everything gone smoothly, he would have arrived last night, so she knew he’d run into problems. By 11:00 a.m. she was really anxious. Having risen at dawn, she felt like she’d been waiting for him for ages.

  The wolf dog hadn’t reappeared, and the bacon had been stolen by a camp jay, something she should have anticipated in broad daylight. There were still four strips all cooked for Jack. At noon she took more aspirin, ate a quick sandwich, made four more sandwiches, packed them in her dry bag along with the bacon and more lightweight food, a thermos of tea and her water bottle. She left a note on the table telling Jack when she left and that if she missed him on the river, she’d be back before dark. A
nd then, donning her orange whistle necklace and mosquito netting, she set off to hike the four hours upriver to the submerged canoe.

  * * *

  JACK WAS UP before dawn. His breakfast consisted of two protein bars and more water. Rigging the z-drag required two carabiners, a short section of rope to tie around the anchoring tree with one carabiner, another short section to attach a second carabiner to the main line with a prusik knot, and the fifty-foot-long piece of rope, which, when spliced to the snub line from the canoe, would barely be enough to do the job. He found a long pole with a forked end and figured he’d use it to snag the snub line. The spruce trunk was branchless for at least ten feet. If he straddled the trunk and scooted out as far as he could, then used the pole to snag the snub line, he’d avoid wading in the river completely. If everything went according to plan he’d barely get his feet wet.

  But he also knew that sometimes the best made plans went south really fast, so before he tackled the job, he gathered dry kindling and made a fire pit in the river gravel, using strips of birch bark under the kindling and piling a good-sized stack of dry driftwood nearby. He laid his fire starter on top of his pack inside the tent. It was cold, there was a dusting of snow on the ground, and if he took an unexpected swim, he’d need to warm up quickly.

  He might have delayed longer, long enough for the sun to work its way over the ridge line to the east and warm the morning, but he wanted to make it back to the cabin as quickly as possible. He was afraid that if he didn’t show up soon, Cameron would come looking for him, and she was too beat-up and sore to make that arduous hike again.

  So he made sure his prosthesis was securely socketed, took up the pole and used it to steady himself as he slid down the riverbank next to the big spruce and then hoisted himself onto the trunk, sliding the pole ahead of him.

  He pulled himself along the trunk, securing the pole in the branches ahead of him. When he had gone as far as he could before running into tree branches, he was about eight feet from the floating snub line. His pole was eight feet long. By holding on to the first branch and leaning out over the water, he could just barely reach the line with the end of the pole. It took him several tries to get the tip of the pole underneath the floating line and raise it so the line slid back down the pole toward him. His free hand caught the line, and he laid the pole on the trunk until he’d pulled all the slack in and secured the end of the line around his waist.