A Soldier's Pledge

by Nadia Nichols

  Cameron retrieved Lobo and for a moment thought Jack might not hand her the piece of rope tied to Ky’s collar, but he did. Reluctantly. He helped Walt load his sister into the truck and then climbed in beside her while Walt got behind the wheel. He rolled down his window and caught her eye as Walt put the truck in reverse.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her,” Cameron assured him. “She’ll be fine with me and Lobo.”

  She watched as Walt drove up the ramp, pulled onto the road and accelerated out of sight in a cloud of dust. Ky lunged to follow the truck, and the rope nearly burned through Cameron’s hand. “Easy girl,” she said, shortening the rope and winding it securely around her wrist. “He’ll be back.”

  Hearing those words spoken aloud helped her more than Ky. This wasn’t the clean break. The Big Goodbye. As long as she had Jack’s dog, he’d be back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  LORI TEDLOW WAS rushed into the clinic and delivered into competent hands minutes after their arrival. The nurse practitioner was a calm, middle-aged woman who’d seen it all and had two assistants manning the clinic with her. She whisked Lori into the examining room. Walt didn’t want to stick around. He wanted to go back to the floatplane base. He wasn’t sure he’d tied up the plane properly in all the excitement, and had visions of it floating down the river to the Arctic Ocean. Besides, he couldn’t think what to talk about with the scruffy soldier sitting beside him. He was just about to make his exit when his cell phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket with relief.

  “It’s Cameron,” the familiar voice said. “Is the baby born yet?”

  “We just got here. Give ’er some time.”

  “Is Jack there?”

  “No, I dumped him out beside the road. Course he’s here.” He handed the phone to Jack. “Cameron.”

  Jack took the phone. “Hello...No baby yet, they’re still examining her...Oh, no. You’re kidding me. You’re outside right now?...Okay, I’m on my way.”

  He handed the phone back to Walt. “She said for you to call her on her cell phone when and if the baby gets born. She’s in the parking lot, and I’ll be out waiting in her car. I guess my dog went a little crazy on her, tore up her car.”

  He pushed to his feet. Walt looked up at him. “Maybe you should just bring the dog and Cameron in here,” he suggested. “You could all use a little patching up.” At that moment the door to the examining room swung open, and the nurse poked her head out wearing a reassuring smile.

  “Your sister’s fine,” she told Jack. “She’s not in true labor. She’s just experienced a few strong Braxton-Hicks contractions, probably brought on by all the stress. We’re discharging her, and she should be fine to fly home in the morning. She’ll be out in a few minutes. She’s getting dressed.”

  Walt jumped to his feet. “Cameron can give the both of you a ride. I have to check on my plane.” He fled the clinic with relief and spotted Cameron’s vehicle in the parking lot next to his truck. He peered in her open window, looking for the wild dog. It was cowering on the floorboards of the front seat. “Did you get bit?”

  Cameron shook her head. “No, but look what she did to the inside of my car when Lobo and I were in the store buying groceries and dog food. I was gone less than ten minutes.”

  Walt looked. Cameron’s SUV was always a mess. She stored everything in it. But there was a lot of fresh damage to the upholstery. Chunks of foam and fake leather were now mixed in with all the junk. The front seat on the passenger side had been demolished. He could see springs coiling up through the destruction. “Where’s Jack?”

  “He’ll be out soon. He’s waiting for his sister. Turns out she’s not having the baby. It was false labor.”

  Cameron spied movement over his shoulder. “Oh good, here they come.”

  Jack spotted Walt and escorted Lori over to the SUV. He peered in the passenger window and took note of the destruction. He swore aloud. “Ky did that? All of it?”

  “I’m responsible for all the junk, but she’s responsible for the rest. She missed you,” Cameron said. “Get in quick and love her up.”

  Jack opened the back door for Lori and then climbed into the front seat amid chunks of foam, arranging a few of the larger pieces to cover the springs. Ky crawled into his lap. “Damn, I’m sorry,” he said, surveying the extent of the damage. “I’ll have the seat replaced.”

  “Forget it. I only use the driver’s side anyway. The rest is all just storage space. Lori, I’ll give you a ride to wherever you’re staying.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Lori said. She looked pale and tired but managed a small smile at Cameron, who caught it in the rearview mirror. “I’m staying at the Riverside Lodge. I booked a room there for Jack, as well.”

  “The Riverside?” Walt said. “That place don’t take dogs.”

  Lori’s face fell. “Oh. Well, I didn’t think... I mean, I can call around, try to find someplace else that takes pets.”

  “I’ll camp out in my car,” Jack said. “All I need is a ride back to the floatplane base where I left it.”

  “But we need to talk first, Jack,” Lori said. “It’s important.”

  “You and Ky are welcome to bunk at my place,” Cameron told Jack. “I have a shower with hot running water and a fenced yard for Ky and Lobo. I’ll drop you off so you can visit your sister and pick you up when you call.” Cameron looked past Jack to where Walt peered through the open window. “Thanks for picking us up this morning, Walt. We’ll talk tomorrow about my extended medical leave.”

  “Medical leave?”

  Cameron smiled and gave him a little wave. She started the old SUV and pulled away. Walt watched them out of sight. He shook his head, rounded his shoulders and shoved his hands in his pockets. Things weren’t looking good at all. Extended medical leave? What did she mean by that? And the way those two looked at each other spelled bad news. The future of Walt’s Flying Service had never been more up in the air.

  Walt climbed into his truck and drove slowly back to the floatplane base, brooding. He pulled into his parking spot and cut the engine. He must be getting old. There was no more joy in the sunrise, just aches and pains and the feeling that his life was over. He climbed out, slammed the door. Walked down to the dock to make sure the plane was securely tied. It was. He stared across the river for a while, seeing only the mistakes he’d made over the years, then he sighed and walked back up to the office.

  A car pulled in as he climbed the steps onto the porch. At least it wasn’t Lori Tedlow. She’d be heading back to Montana in the morning, but he didn’t feel the least bit sociable. A very well-built woman got out, dressed as racy as a greyhound, slammed the car door shut, then opened the rear door and reached inside for something, showing off the best looking ass north of the South Pole. Walt stopped in his tracks and stared. He rubbed his face. Was he seeing things?

  “Jeri?” he said.

  She straightened and looked over her shoulder with a toss of her head. “What’s the matter, Walt? Have I been gone so damned long you don’t recognize me anymore? I stopped by earlier but you weren’t here, and the plane was gone so I went and got some lunch, then stopped by the store and picked up some stuff. You were out of everything, even toilet paper.” She held up two grocery sacks. “I could make us a pot of coffee, if you want,” she said, shutting the car door with a seductive swing of her hip.

  Walt rubbed his eyes again to clear his vision, and when he spoke his voice cracked like an adolescent’s. “I doubt I’ve ever wanted anything more than I want that,” he said, and opened the door wide.

  * * *

  JACK CAUGHT BRIEF glimpses of the river between buildings as Cameron drove away from the clinic and headed down the main drag toward the outskirts of town. “Here’s the Riverside Lodge,” she stated as she turned into the parking lot of an industrial looking
building on the riverbank with alternating silver and red steel siding panels.

  “It’s not much to look at, but the food’s not that bad,” Lori said. “We need to talk, Jack. Please. Even if it’s just for a few moments.”

  Cameron pulled the vehicle in front of the entrance and cut the ignition. The awkward silence that followed was all encompassing. “I’ll wait right here and watch Ky,” she finally said. “She’ll be okay as long as I’m sitting in the car with her. Take your time.”

  Jack helped his sister out of the back seat and escorted her into the building. Lori kept one hand pressed into the small of her back and the other on his arm. They walked through the lobby and down the corridor to her room, which looked out on the river. Her suitcase was parked on a luggage rack, and the beige-colored room was neat and clean. She sat down slowly on the edge of one of the two double beds, cradling her immense belly.

  “What did you want to talk about?” Jack asked.

  Lori sighed. “I wanted to explain why I didn’t tell you about Ky back when it happened. Mom was going to watch her while we went on our canoe trip, but she got sick and couldn’t, so we took Ky along with us. And then when we came back, I was going to tell you what happened, but Mom made me promise not to.”

  “So now you’re trying to blame this on Mom?”

  Lori shook her head. “No, I’m not. Jack, Mom’s still sick. Really sick.”

  He gave her a skeptical look. “I’ve been calling her all along, and she’s never mentioned anything to me about being sick.”

  “She didn’t want to worry you. She made me promise not to tell you, same as she made me promise not to tell you about Ky. When I visited you in the hospital, I was going to tell you then, but you told me to leave, and when I went back the next day, you were already gone.

  “When you took off like that, Mom was worried you might be suicidal. We both were. That’s why I hired Cameron to go after you. Jack, you have to come back home right away. Mom’s been so worried she’s never going to see you again.”

  Lori’s words hit Jack like a burst of machine-gun fire. He sat down hard in one of the chairs. His head spun. Cameron had tried to tell him about his mother, and he hadn’t believed her. He thought the whole thing was a ploy dreamed up by Lori to get him back to civilization as fast as possible. He stared at his sister.

  “What’s she sick with?”

  “Leukemia. She was diagnosed two years ago, and she’s had multiple treatments since then. That’s why she didn’t come see you at the hospital. It wasn’t because she didn’t want to fly—she was too weak from chemo to make the trip. It goes into remission, and she’s good for a while, then it comes back and she needs more treatments. The doctors say she could live a long time like this, or she might not. The five-year survival rate is around 70 percent. She’s been so stressed about you. Even if you don’t plan to get out of the army, maybe you could tell her you were thinking about it. It would make her feel so much better. You almost died, Jack. She worries about you all the time.”

  He stared down at his hands, too stunned to speak, then raised his head, looked out at the river. Finally he looked at his sister. “Two years? She’s been fighting leukemia for two years, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “She made me promise!” Lori repeated, pleading with him to understand. “She didn’t want you to know about the cancer, she didn’t want me to tell you about Ky. She felt guilty about Ky. She blamed herself for that dog going missing as much as we did. She said there was nothing you could do about any of it, so there was no point in telling you until you were back home.”

  “You should have told me everything. She’s my mother, too. I deserve to know what’s going on.”

  “Dammit, Jack, I wanted to tell you!” Lori burst out. “Don’t you think I wanted to? I didn’t know what to do. It drove me crazy that I couldn’t tell you, but I promised her I wouldn’t. I’m sorry if you think I screwed up. I did the best I could.” She was crying openly now, nose running and tears streaming down her cheeks. Jack stood, got the box of tissues from the desk and handed it to her. She stripped out a wad, blew her nose.

  He stood for a long silent moment beside her, then walked to the window and stared out. Lori looked up at him, wiping her eyes with a fresh tissue. “I told Mom last night that you were okay, but if you could call her and talk to her, tell her you’re coming home?” she said in a wobbly voice.

  He nodded again, staring at the water flowing past. “I will.”

  “She’s feeling pretty good right now. The leukemia’s gone back into remission.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Please don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad. I just wish you’d told me. I could have come home on emergency leave. I could have seen Mom. I could have found Ky a year ago when she went missing. She went through a year of hell.”

  “Yes, I know, and I put her through it and I guess you’ll never forgive me for that, but you put us through hell, too, so let’s just call it even. Please call Mom. And please don’t be mad at Clive.”

  Jack turned to face her. “His bank tried to foreclose on the ranch. How the hell could I not be seriously pissed off at him?”

  “He was only doing his job,” Lori said defensively. “And it might not be a bad idea if she sold the place and moved in with us. The ranch is too much for her.” She blew her nose. “My flight leaves at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. I can reserve a seat for you.”

  “I’ll drive back. My car’s here, and Ky can ride with me. I have to go. I’ll call you later tonight after I talk to Mom. My cell phone’s in my rental car.”

  “Okay, thanks. And Jack?” She pulled an envelope out of her coat pocket and handed it to him. “This is for Cameron, for bringing you back to us. I’m really glad you found Ky. And I’m sorry about all of it. I really am. I love you. You know you’ve always been my hero.”

  He nodded, suddenly unable to speak. He tucked the envelope inside his pocket, gave her shoulder a squeeze and left her sitting on the edge of the bed, holding the box of tissues in her lap.

  * * *

  CAMERON GAVE HIM a searching look when he climbed back into the SUV. “Everything okay?”

  He nodded as Ky dove into his lap. Cameron didn’t ask any more questions, and he was glad. She started the car and put it into drive. “The Riverside’s a nice hotel, but this other place I’m taking you to has a lot more character,” she said as she pulled away. “You’ll really like it. Has hot and cold running water and a shower, like I said, and a fenced yard for dogs, courtesy of the former tenant who had a couple of toddlers.”

  She turned down a side lane about a mile farther along, beyond the airstrip and in a residential area. At the end of the dirt lane, she stopped in front of a small pale green house trailer with a pitched roof, patches of rust along the skirting and a small porch off the side. A six-foot-high industrial chain-link fence surrounded the backyard. She cut the ignition and gave him a sidelong glance.

  “Nice color,” he said.

  “Restroom green,” Cameron said. “I remember that color from high school days.” She opened her door. “C’mon, I’ll give you the grand tour. You can let Ky check out the backyard. I don’t think she can jump that fence, and even if she did, the only thing she’d do is try to find you.”

  The first thing that struck him when he stepped inside the house trailer carrying the box of groceries was the smell of mold. The second thing was a soggy ceiling tile that dropped from above when she closed the trailer door.

  “Sorry about that. I should’ve warned you,” she apologized, brushing pieces of tile off his shoulder. “The ceiling tiles fall down all the time, usually after a heavy rain. The roof leaks pretty bad, and that awful smell is the mold in the tiles and carpet. The landlord promised he’d fix the roof and ceiling this summer, but I get the feeling this project isn’t h
igh on his list of priorities. You can let Ky out that door there. She must have to pee. I’ll fix them both something to eat. The bathroom’s through there, clean towels are on the shelf.” She stopped with an apologetic expression. “I’m babbling. Sorry. If you don’t want to stay in this dump, just say so. It won’t hurt my feelings. You could leave Ky here with me tonight. I don’t mind watching her if you’d rather stay at the Riverside.”

  “I wouldn’t.” He set the box of groceries on the kitchen counter.

  “Okay.”

  They stared at each other for a long awkward moment.

  “I hope you aren’t still mad at your sister.”

  “No.”

  “Good. Because it’s my fault she’s not already home with her husband and her regular doctor. I promised I’d have you to the Mackenzie in four days, but you turned out to be a lot more difficult to corral than I thought you’d be.” Lobo stuck his head out of the front of her jacket and yawned widely, showing pink gums studded with sharp little puppy teeth. “He’s getting hungry. I better feed him.”

  She started to turn toward the box of groceries on the counter and then turned back. “You know, Jack, I’ve been thinking. About Ky, about you. If you’re really set on going back to Afghanistan, I’ll take care of her for you. Your sister’s about to have a baby, she’s got her hands full, but I can watch her. I have the perfect place here for dogs, the big fenced yard and all, and this trailer is such a dump my landlord can’t possibly refuse pets. I’ll take her for walks, and she’ll get to know me and like me. I know she will. And she’ll be good company for Lobo when I’m not home, and I’ll take really good care of her and...and I’m babbling again. I’m sorry. I just wanted you to know that if you really want to go back on active duty, you don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen to Ky.”