A Soldier's Pledge. Nadia Nichols

money we were going to put toward our baby’s college fund, but we’d spend all of it to get Jack back safe and sound. I’ll pay you five thousand for getting him off that river and back to a town where we can pick him up, and a generous bonus if you can find him fast enough so we can get him back to Montana just in case my mother takes a turn for the worse. She’s holding her own right now, but that could change. What do you say? Do we have a deal?”

      Cameron glanced out the window at her rusting eighteen-year-old SUV with its bald tires, badly cracked windshield and crumpled front bumper, thought about the leaks in her rusting house trailer rental, the carpet and furniture that reeked of old cigarette smoke and the moldy ceiling tiles that dropped onto the floor when it rained, and wondered how far into the future five grand would carry her. She thought about Johnny Allen’s sexy red Jeep that he’d just listed for sale. She didn’t have to think on it for long. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

      After she hung up the phone, she met Walt’s questioning expression with a thoughtful frown. “Looks like our Lone Ranger really is a ranger, an army ranger, and I just went from being a bush pilot to a bounty hunter.”

CHAPTER THREE

      THE FOLLOWING MORNING she and Walt were flying the old red-and-white Beaver through a moderate rainfall back to Kawaydin Lake. Strapped to one of the Beaver’s struts was an eighteen-foot beat-up canoe they’d borrowed from one of the villagers. Behind her in the cargo compartment were provisions enough to feed an army for a week. She’d hashed out a reasonable plan for getting the Lone Ranger out to the Mackenzie River where the plane could pick him up. Walt would drop her off at the lake. Cameron would take the canoe down the Wolf River, stopping periodically to check for his tracks, and when she caught up with the wounded soldier, she’d seduce him with the idea of traveling by canoe. She figured he’d be easy to persuade after two days of bushwhacking along the river’s edge in the cold rain. By the time she found him, he’d be all over his depressing search for that long dead dog and be ready to head back to soft beds and civilization.

      “They’re a critical part of my strategy,” Cameron explained when Walt questioned the amount of high end foods, including several bottles of decent red wine and three pounds of freshly ground Colombian joe.

      “You must’ve shelled out a small fortune on all this fancy food and wine.”

      “I only spent what I won last night at the pool hall, after shoring up that rotten section of flooring from underneath. Wish you could’ve seen those two pool sharks trying to make the floor sag and the pool table tilt without being too obvious about it. I skunked ’em in six straight games, made enough for all these groceries and then some.

      “This is going to be the easiest money I ever earned,” she told Walt. “In four days, I’ll have this soldier roped, tied and delivered to his sister and that five grand will be in my bank account.”

      “Better not spend it all before you earn it,” Walt advised her at the lake while helping her load the heavy cooler into the canoe in a cold dreary rain. “You might not find him, and even if you do, he might not want to come out with you.”

      “Oh, I’ll find him, and I’m pretty sure he’ll jump at the chance to travel with me.” She held up two bottles of wine. “In my experience, men only care about two things. Food and sex, and wine goes good with both.”

      “Did you bring handcuffs in case your strategy doesn’t work?” Walt asked.

      “Duct tape,” Cameron said, stashing one bottle inside her tent bag, the other inside her sleeping bag duffel, then tucking both into the tight folds to protect them from the river’s tossing. “Duct tape works for everything. There’s a lot of money riding on this, Walt. You can count on hearing from me in four days.”

      * * *

      WITHIN THE HOUR the tethered canoe was loaded, and she was ready to set off. She helped Walt push the plane away from shore, waited while he taxied out onto the lake and then watched him take off and head south into a wet overcast. It was 4:00 p.m. If she started paddling now, she might overshoot the Lone Ranger before dark. Her travel time would be much faster than his, just drifting with the current down the river. The smartest thing might be to spend the night where he had first pitched his tent, then get on the river by dawn before he had a chance to break camp. He’d be easy to spot that way. His tent fly was blue and highly visible, assuming he was camped right at the river’s edge. But setting up camp right away would mean just sitting there for hours while the rain came down, waiting for the bears to find her cooler full of goodies and rip it apart.

      Maybe she should just plan on deliberately overshooting the Lone Ranger and wait for him to catch up to her. If she spotted him stumbling along the shore while she was drifting effortlessly by, all the better; she’d put ashore slightly downriver of his position to give herself enough time to tidy up, get pretty and pry the cork out of one of the bottles of wine.

      Then again, she’d spent a late night at the pool hall, fleecing those cheats Hank and Slouch out of all the money they’d taken from her. Hitting the sack early and drifting off to the soothing sounds of the rushing river and the rain pattering on her tent had a certain appeal. She could always haul her food up into a tree to keep it from the bears.

      Whatever she decided to do, the Lone Ranger would eventually drag his bruised and battered body into her cozy comfortable camp, and she’d have him. That much was certain.

      * * *

      WAKING UP WAS the hardest thing; those first few moments between sleep and full consciousness, when reality came back with a sickening rush. Mornings meant remembering over and over again, on a daily basis, all the bad things that had ever happened to him. Mornings meant losing his friends all over again. Mornings meant losing his leg all over again. Mornings meant looking at that alien contraption that now substituted for his lower left leg, lying within arm’s reach on the damp tent floor. Mornings meant fitting the socket carefully over the liner and socks covering the stump of his left leg, those eight inches remaining below the knee. Mornings meant pain. The stump was raw and inflamed from yesterday’s long struggle, and even after adjusting the number of socks over the liner, the suspension socket went on hard. It was a routine he’d never once imagined would be a part of every morning for the rest of his life, but he knew he was one of the lucky ones. He’d seen plenty of soldiers less fortunate.

      He could hear the river rushing past, the light drumming of rain on the tent’s fly. He could smell the damp earth and the resiny tang of spruce, the wetness of his gear. The rain would keep the insects down, but a few more days of it and his gear would be moldering. He lay back on his sleeping bag until his breathing and heart rate had steadied. Then he did sit-ups. Fifty of them. Numbering each one under his breath. He used to do one hundred effortlessly. Now he could barely manage fifty. He needed to get fit because he was going back to Afghanistan, and he was going back as a fully functioning soldier. When he was done with the sit-ups, he rolled over and did push-ups.

      The pain was everywhere. There was no place he didn’t hurt, but he had learned to ignore it, to live with it. They’d given him drugs for the pain at Walter Reed, but the drugs had messed up his head. He preferred the pain. It kept him focused. He needed to stay focused on his mission.

      He had to find Ky because he knew she was alive. He knew this as surely as he knew that he was alive, even though by all rights they should both be dead. He’d allotted himself eight days to find her, but he’d take twice that if he had to. He wasn’t going to leave here without her.

      He rolled over, sat up, reached for his pack and dragged it toward him. Inside were his provisions, and they were minimal. Dried food, first aid and personal supplies, spare clothing, tool kit, his four-pound spare prosthesis. He pulled out a protein bar and ate it, drank the water he’d purified last night. Shifted enough to open the tent door so he could see the river. Yesterday’s progress had been slow. The water levels were high from the rain, and any shoreline he might have been able to walk on was underwater. He’d had to bushwhack inland, away from the choking tangle of alder and willow that grew along the river. Each step was a