Dawn's Early Light

by Jessica Scott

  Cam liked Ashley. She’d always tagged along with Hayley and Cam and Ben. The four of them had gotten into that innocent kind of trouble that rural teenagers get into. Nothing serious—though at the time, Cam seemed to recall Steve Arsenault—Hayley and Ashley’s father—threatening Cam and Ben with his .308.

  Hayley had been devastated when her father died. Cam ground his teeth and shoved the memory aside. “When will she be back?”

  “We’re hoping for Christmas.”

  “Is she going to make the Army a career then?” Cam asked, leaning over the handle of the cart and hoping he looked casual. He glanced down at the beer longingly, but then caught himself and looked away.

  Nisa shrugged. “Ash isn’t really sure right now. She hates her commander. Says he’s more worried about his career than actually doing anything to protect his soldiers.”

  Cam could relate to the feeling. His last company commander had made them run combat patrols simply to up the numbers for his lieutenant’s Officer Evaluation Reports. The OERs would have some obscenely high number of combat patrols but they’d never explain what those patrols had actually accomplished. That would have required an actual purpose, something he’d been reasonably certain his last commander couldn’t even bother to make up.

  “Tell her I said hi, would you?”

  “I’ll do that. Seen Hayley yet?”

  Cam smiled his lopsided grin. “Yeah. Ran into her this morning. She’s a vet now, huh? You must be proud.”

  Nisa glowed.

  “I’ll…I’ll see you around,” he said, trying to ease away from the conversation.

  “Come here.” She opened her arms again and Cam sank into the hug. “We’re so proud of you, Cam,” she whispered. “You’re a hero. A real hero.”

  He jerked out of her embrace and shrugged to ease the hurt he saw flicker across her face. “I’m no hero.”

  “You’re going to be in the parade, too.” She continued as if he hadn’t even spoken. “One of Valley Mills’ favored sons, back from war. Back during Vietnam, we didn’t have parades for Steve and the rest of the boys. Damn shame. You’ll let us do for you what we failed to do for them.”

  She bustled off, leaving Cam with a strange taste in his mouth. He gathered the other items on his list and headed to the checkout counter, her words echoing in his skull.

  He wasn’t a hero.

  But no one back home seemed to care.

  Chapter 6

  FOR HAYLEY, SEEING Cam again had ended up starting a trip down memory lane that she hadn’t entirely thought through. It was hard not to beat herself up about her impulsive decision to show up at his house, so she focused on helping Lilly, her very pregnant yellow lab, into her truck. She always took Lilly to work with her, even now, even though the dog was getting ready to whelp.

  Hayley backed the truck up to a hill. This was probably going to be one of Lilly’s last litters of puppies. Maybe she’d keep one of the females and start the next generation of service dogs. Lilly had produced five litters over her lifetime and every single puppy had been accepted into the Prisoners and Puppies program.

  Funny how it was easier to think about Lilly than focus on Cam.

  She really shouldn’t have seen him this morning. She should have avoided him, instead of picking at the wounds that his homecoming had ripped open.

  She tapped the email app on her phone and typed out a message to her sister. She didn’t know when Ash would get it and wasn’t really sure if she’d hear from her this week or next month.

  I’m an idiot, Ash. Cam Warren came home this week and—spoiler alert—I couldn’t stay away. And holy hell, can I comment on how well this particular Warren brother has filled out? He was walking through his house naked. And yes, I mean completely naked. Let’s just say…some things have changed.

  She grinned at the quick note. At least Ash would get a smile out of the email before she called up and ripped Hayley a new one for going to see him like some kind of lovesick puppy.

  Besides, Ash had her own Warren brother history.

  But they weren’t allowed to talk about that.

  Hayley hit SEND on the email and helped Lilly from the truck. The big yellow dog stood for a moment and pressed her head to Hayley’s thigh. Her fur was soft, and the gentle pressure of the dog’s head on her leg offered her solace.

  “Come on, girl. Let’s head to work,” she whispered.

  It wasn’t going to be an easy day. She figured that out the moment she walked into the office and her assistant, Poppy, briefed her on the emergency situation in room four.

  The other vet tech, Connie, had tears in her eyes. “I was just calling you. Horace Stockwell brought his dog in ten minutes ago. Thinks he got into some antifreeze.”

  Hayley went into action, throwing on her lab coat. “Get him hooked up to an IV. We’ll need to induce vomiting to get as much of the poison out of his system as fast as we can.” She glanced at her watch. “Does Mr. Stockwell have any idea how long it’s been?”

  Connie shook her head.

  Hayley had known Horace Stockwell since he’d been a young man just over sixty. Now he was eighty and had lived in the valley for as long as anyone could remember. He’d been a teacher at the high school for several generations of Warrens and Arsenaults. His wife had long ago passed away and his children had joined the mass exodus that was still affecting their part of rural New York.

  Mr. Stockwell was alone, except for his ancient beagle Cooper.

  And Cooper was going to survive the morning, damn it. There was no way Hayley was breaking Horace’s heart with bad news.

  That was the worst part of her job. She’d actually taken grief counseling as part of her work toward her degree. She’d discovered very early in her career that being sympathetic and understanding to people’s loss of their pets made it easier on them. She wasn’t hardwired to be totally clinical anyway, especially when it came to a person’s relationship with an animal.

  An hour flew by in the exam room. Cooper stabilized and his breathing slowed back to normal. They weren’t out of the woods yet, but Hayley was hopeful for his recovery.

  She drew in a deep breath and pushed through the swinging door to the waiting area. When it slapped behind her, Mr. Stockwell looked up, clutching his plaid beret in hands that had lost their ability to remain steady. His eyes were huge and desperate.

  Hayley swallowed and sat next to him, their shoulders nearly touching. He smelled like Old Spice and betadine. She reached over and took one wrinkled, age-spotted hand in hers. “Cooper is one tough puppy, Mr. Stockwell.”

  “Is he…?”

  “I think we got to him fast enough. We pumped his stomach and hopefully got as much of the antifreeze out of his system as possible.”

  Mr. Stockwell sat, stoic and brave, even as his eyes filled behind his thick bifocals. He didn’t wipe at the tears of relief rolling freely down his cheeks. “Can I sit with him?”

  Hayley nodded, willing the lump in her throat to ease back. It was a happy lump, but it still made it difficult to breathe. “I think he’d like that very much.”

  She helped the old man to his feet and led him to the treatment room where Cooper was lying in a kennel, still hooked up to the IV.

  Half an hour later, she sent Mr. Stockwell out of the clinic to get coffee and breakfast. Poppy would take care of the paperwork.

  She’d cut Mr. Stockwell a break. It was an emergency that she knew he probably couldn’t pay for but he had too much pride to take charity. She’d bill him a nominal amount and let him set up payments.

  It wasn’t good business. But it was the right thing to do.

  Chapter 7

  MAN CANNOT LIVE on water and beer alone. Cam had actually managed to acquire some food, but he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to start cooking yet. He definitely didn’t want to eat out of a can or a box any longer—not after surviving on the MREs that kept soldiers alive…and constipated.

  Surveying the town for a bite to eat, he co
uldn’t get over how much it had changed. When he’d graduated, most of the buildings on the main street through town had been run down and boarded up. The old Burnside Tavern had been a haven for potheads and deadbeats. Now? Now it was completely transformed. There were new shingles on the roof and the rickety old stairs had been replaced with brick ones. Fresh flowers from the Pot and Kettle Flower Shoppe decorated the windowsills. When had his town become the kind of place that spelled shop with two ps and an e?

  To make matters worse, there was a small hobby store where the old donut shop had been. The donut shop had moved to the corner building across the street, and now offered artisanal flavors like rose petal and hibiscus.

  Their town had gotten more than a fresh coat of paint. It had experienced a resurrection when so many other rural communities in the country were crumbling.

  Cam paused in front of the Pot and Kettle, where someone had artfully arranged tea tins beneath wisteria and lilac plants.

  “Admiring the new downtown?”

  Cam stiffened at the sound of a voice that hadn’t changed nearly enough in the decade that he’d been gone. His cousin Milo had never been one of his favorite people. When they’d all been kids, Milo was always correcting their grammar and quoting the New York Times when anyone disagreed with him. He’d been constantly trying to convince the world he was smarter than everyone else.

  Milo had grown up, but he still looked like the pretentious dickbag he’d always been. Now he was sporting a goatee and a ponytail like a bad cliché of a Starbucks commercial.

  Cam wasn’t going to pick a fight. He was going to try to avoid arguing with family for at least a week. There was some kind of moratorium required by law, right?

  “Things have changed a whole lot.”

  He couldn’t avoid the awkward man-hug that he found himself ensconced in. His cousin smelled like weed and body odor. It was a strange assault on his senses.

  He extracted himself as quickly as he could and opened his mouth to offer a polite platitude, but a thin black metal band around Milo’s wrist caught his attention.

  It was a bracelet worn by soldiers to commemorate a friend or peer lost to the war.

  It struck Cam as violently out of place on his cousin’s wrist.

  “New jewelry?”

  Milo preened and held it up proudly. “Melanie West. She died in Najaf on a convoy in 2010.”

  Cam fought the revulsion crawling across his skin like something sticky and moist. “How did you know her?” He kept his tone even, fighting the urge to ask Milo if he knew anything real about her. That bracelet represented a person, a sister in arms, not a list of stats that Milo parroted back to him.

  Milo opted to avoid the question. “She’s being commemorated at the parade on the Fourth.”

  Just like that, a shadow of the war slipped into the cracks in the wall Cam had tried to build around his heart since returning home.

  “Were you close to her?” Soldiers wore those bracelets for brothers and sisters in arms who died. They meant something. They weren’t virtue-signaling status symbols. It was suddenly very important for him to believe that Milo gave a shit about the person listed on that bracelet.

  Milo shrugged. “I didn’t even know her. But she’s a symbol of everything that’s wrong with our country.”

  So much for that no-fighting plan. The rage rose suddenly from the depths of his soul. Melanie West had been a person. She wasn’t a symbol.

  He looked up to find Milo watching him, waiting. For what? Cam’s approval?

  Hell would freeze over first.

  Besides, what could he say? He barely remembered anyone from high school. He didn’t know Melanie West, even though she’d probably gone to the same school he’d attended.

  But he knew he didn’t want to talk about the war. And it took everything he had not to lash out and knock Milo’s teeth out in the middle of Main Street.

  But there was that moratorium.

  “We’re protesting at the dedication next week,” Milo continued.

  “That’s nice.” Cam suddenly needed someplace quiet.

  “This is just like Vietnam.” Milo’s voice filled with venom. “We went in without any semblance of a plan. What’s the point of all this? George Bush should be tried as a war criminal.

  “The protesters are the real heroes.” Milo continued, his eyes flashing with a little too much passion. “They’ve got the courage to stand up to a corrupt government that started a war to enrich the corporate war machine.”

  Cam sighed and looked longingly down the street to the Burnside Tavern. He needed that crisp taste of beer on his tongue to wash away the bitter taste of his cousin’s false devotion.

  “Yeah, well, everyone has different ideas about courage.” He turned away from Milo. He needed to escape. Cam had met one too many people like his cousin in his life.

  Old habits die hard, he thought as he turned the corner and leaned back against the wall. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the antiwar tirade that was echoing in his head now, thanks to his idiot cousin.

  Cam didn’t care about politics or agendas. He’d done his duty, which was more than most Americans could say. Milo could take his bullshit about protesters being patriots and shove it where the sun didn’t shine.

  Milo hadn’t served. Milo hadn’t walked the streets of Mosul in ’09.

  Milo had watched the goddamned war on TV.

  Cam felt rage grip his chest, squeezing his lungs. It wasn’t Milo’s fault that Cam had lost men—friends—since this war began.

  Milo hadn’t served. But so what? Lots of folks hadn’t.

  It didn’t make them the bad guys.

  He headed away from downtown, taking the worn path that ran along the riverbank.

  The woods smelled ripe and moist with the familiar scent of rain. It was a comforting smell, reminding him of life before the war.

  Cam walked until he couldn’t remember how far he’d gone. Until he was sure he could be around people again without wanting to hit someone.

  Okay, maybe just a specific someone.

  The river was peaceful, raging quietly over its massive boulders. He stood there for a long moment, letting the sound wash over him.

  And then he heard it.

  A tiny mew.

  He closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the woods and reasonably certain he might be on the edge of losing his mind.

  Then he heard it again.

  He followed the sound until he found the source.

  Nestled next to a big rock in the shade of an old oak tree was a tiny little tortoiseshell-colored kitten that couldn’t have been more than a couple weeks old.

  The moment he touched it, the thing hissed at him. But then he picked her up and tucked her close to his chest, letting her feel the beat of his heart. He stroked her little head, but her pitiful mews continued.

  And the wall around Cam’s heart cracked a little more.

  Chapter 8

  THERE WAS SOMETHING furry and warm on his face. Cam lay there for a moment, trying to remember what the hell…

  Then two things happened at once. Something warm trickled down his neck and a piercing mew penetrated his eardrum.

  The kitten.

  The little ingrate had peed on him. He lifted her by her scruff and, despite the peeing incident, couldn’t help but smile as she tucked her paws in and prepared to be carted wherever he took her.

  Which was directly to the sink to wash her and clean his neck.

  He turned the water on and discovered this kitten most decidedly did not like baths. After one moment under the faucet, she looked like a partially drowned hamster and was seriously disgruntled.

  Cam washed her quickly and scrubbed his neck fast, then bundled her in a warm towel. It was only a halfway decent substitution for her mama’s tongue, but it was going to have to do.

  Then he fed her with the kitten formula he’d gotten at the pet store last night. Once her tummy was nicely bloated, the kitten was no lon
ger angry at him. She fell asleep, her little white paws curled over the edge of the pillow.

  She was so stinking tiny. He rubbed her head and she surprised him when she started to purr.

  He smiled faintly. If the guys could see him now. Sitting on his couch, petting a kitten curled up on his neck. Nah, they wouldn’t be surprised. He had always accepted the guys in his formation that no one else wanted.

  But he couldn’t keep her. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do for work and he didn’t know what the hell someone did with a kitten anyway. Do you put it in a box? What would it do all day in an empty house? Assuming he’d actually get a job, of course.

  Figuring he might as well help the kitten while he had the chance, he put her in a box and headed toward Hayley’s clinic. It was a fifteen-minute drive from his house, down one of the old logging roads.

  Hayley was clearly doing well for herself. The building was a new single-story ranch with a sign reading WOODVILLE ANIMAL HOSPITAL in bold white letters above the front door.

  It was strange, thinking of Hayley as a business owner, and a successful one at that. He walked through the door marked CATS and waited for the receptionist to finish with an elderly couple checking out with their equally elderly Maine coon.

  It took Cam a minute to connect the receptionist’s name to her face. “Holy crap, Poppy?”

  She offered him a lopsided half grin that made him think that maybe Hayley hadn’t always brought his name up in a good context. “Heard you were back,” she said by way of greeting. “Whatcha got there?”

  “Baby wolverine.”

  She laughed and he remembered that she’d been a happy kid about five years behind them in school. She was Ford Durban’s cousin, and he’d played third base on the baseball team senior year.

  The minute the kitten stuck her head out of the box, Poppy melted. “Oh my goodness! She’s the cutest thing ever.”

  “You’d think working in a vet’s office would make you more selective about the level of cute required to be the cutest thing ever,” he said dryly.