Nadia Nichols - A Soldier's Pledge

Was the Lone Ranger signaling for help?

She balanced herself carefully, released her grip on the alders, pushed up her mosquito netting and returned the finger whistle with a high-pitched, shrill one of her own. She thrashed through the alders and moved away from the riverbank where the walking was easier and the sound of the rushing river not so loud. She took off the mosquito netting and stuffed it into her jacket pocket, rearranged her hat, smoothed her wet hair. Then she whistled again, just in case he hadn’t heard the first signal. In this whistle she tried to convey a calm reassuring signal that she’d soon be there. No need to panic. Help is on its way.

There was no response to her second whistle, which was odd.

Cameron waited a few moments, then pushed onward. It wasn’t long before she spotted him working his way slowly along with his backpack and rifle case, and wearing a veil of mosquito netting pulled over his hat. She had to get pretty close before she could read his expression behind the netting. He didn’t seem too pleased to see her, but she was getting used to that. He most certainly didn’t look panicked.

“I heard your whistle, and I thought you might be in trouble,” she said.

“I’m not.”

“Do you always whistle when you walk?”

“Isn’t there someplace else you’d rather be?” he asked.

“Not particularly. I haven’t had a vacation in years. It’s a beautiful day, and I’m enjoying myself. It’s nice to get out of the canoe and walk a bit.”

“Then maybe you should turn around and walk back to your canoe.”

Cameron blew out her breath. “Look, all I’m trying to do is help you out. You’re looking for the dog, I’m looking for the dog. If we both look, that’s twice the search power.”

“The only thing you’re looking for is to make some money.”

She started to voice her indignation and inhaled a mosquito instead. By the time she’d coughed the insect out of her lung, he’d walked past her and continued on his journey. She turned and followed after him, fumbling her mosquito netting back out of her jacket pocket and spitting out pieces of wings and proboscis.

“I’ve set up camp about a mile downstream from here,” she said, pulling the netting over her head. She was past the point of trying to look sexy. “It’s a real nice spot, good breeze, no bugs, high and dry. I’ve got a couple steaks marinating and a nice bottle of wine ready to go.”

“They must be paying you a lot of money.” He didn’t turn around when he spoke, just kept moving forward at that slow steady pace.

“Your sister’s worried you might be suicidal.”

“If I was going to commit suicide, would I torture myself first by trying to walk down this river?”

“How should I know? I’ve never been able to figure out why men do the things they do,” Cameron said, adjusting the netting over the brim of her hat. “My ex-husband was a complete mystery to me.”

He paused and half turned toward her. “I came out here to find out what happened to my dog. That’s all.”

“What if you don’t find him?”

“Her. I plan to keep looking until I do. She’s out here somewhere. She wasn’t killed by that bear. Hurt, maybe, but not killed. She was wild when I found her in Afghanistan, and she knows how to survive. She’s a fighter. She’s smart and she’s tough. I came out here to find her and bring her home, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

He resumed walking with his stiff, awkward limp. She matched his pace, keeping three steps behind. “Where’s home?”

“Northern Montana. A place near Bear Butte, on the Flathead Reservation.”

“Aha! No wonder you’re so tough. You’re not only the Lone Ranger, you’re Tonto.”

“Just because you live on the rez doesn’t make you an Indian. Whites can own land there. The Allotment Act of 1904 gave every Flathead Indian a certain amount of land on the reservation. The rest of the reservation land was sold off to whites in a typical government scam, half a million acres. One of the settlers who bought a holding was my great-grandfather. He married a Kootenai girl and had a bunch of kids. My mother has the place now, but it’s falling down around her. She should just give it back to the Indians. It rightfully belongs to them.”

“But you’re part Kootenai, so that makes it your home, too.”

“I only call it home because I was born and raised there.”

“You said when you find your dog you’re going to bring her back there, so it’s more than just the place you were born. You must want to go back.”

He kept walking and didn’t respond.

“What about your army career?” Cameron asked after a respectful interlude of silence. “Don’t you have to go back and finish that up first? How many years have you been a ranger in the army?”

“How many years were you married?” came his curt reply.

“Too many,” Cameron said, ignoring the jab. “Getting married to Roy was a big mistake. He liked women. All women. He said he liked me best, but I got sick of sharing him with all the others about a year after saying ‘I do.’ I didn’t know what I was agreeing to when I said my vows. How could I cherish and honor someone who was screwing around with every willing female north of 60?”

Each step was a study of caution, navigating the tangle of underbrush, fallen branches and mossy logs.

“Anyhow,” she continued, “Roy was a real sweet talker. He could charm the pelt off an ermine. My father raised me while working in a string of backcountry sporting camps, so I was brought up among men, but those men were all too respectful to be anything but polite to me.

“Then along came Roy. He was hired by the same big outfitter me and my daddy were working for at the time, so that’s how I met him. He was flying trophy hunters and fishermen into the bush, same as we were. Roy was dashing and handsome, and he was the first man who made me feel pretty. He told me I had a smile that could light up New York City. I think I fell in love with Roy on our very first date. He took me to the village dump so we could watch the bears pawing through garbage, but that was just an excuse to get me alone in his pickup truck. He was the first man who ever kissed me, and holy boys, could Roy ever kiss.”

“How would you know?”

“How would I know what?”

“How would you know Roy could really kiss if he was the first man who ever kissed you?”

Cameron laughed at the silly question. “Either a man can kiss or he can’t, and any female worth her salt can tell the difference between a good kisser and a bad one right off the bat. She doesn’t have to kiss a thousand men to know something as simple as that. Anyhow, I finally figured out how Roy got so good at kissing, and when he wouldn’t give up his philandering ways after we got married, I divorced him. I suppose we’ll run into each other from time to time, we’re both still bush pilots flying in the north country, but I won’t be kissing him, that’s for sure. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Where’s your father now?”

Cameron focused hard on the ground at her feet. “Oh, Daddy flew his plane into a mountainside about a month after I got married. He was a real good pilot, careful. It was an unexpected turn of real bad weather, rotten luck and mechanical failure that killed him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” she said. It still twisted her up inside to talk about it. She guessed it always would. “Were you ever married?”

“Nope.”

“Smart.”

He was having more and more trouble getting his leg over obstacles. Finally he stopped. “You go on ahead. I’m just slowing you down.”

“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll go start the cook fire. You can’t miss the camp. Just follow the river. It’s not much farther. We’re almost there.”