A Soldier's Pledge. Nadia Nichols
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been too busy prepping the plane. He straightened, turned to look at her and took off his sunglasses. Good-looking man. Well built. Short military-style haircut. Squint lines at the corners of clear hazel eyes that had seen too much, maybe. Strong features. Early to mid-thirties. But there was something about him that made her uneasy. Not many chose to be dropped off alone in such a remote spot, with so little gear.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” Cameron replied, hiding behind her shades. “My boss says you’re planning to follow this river out to the Mackenzie?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s rough going through there. Wild country. Going solo’s pretty risky, and what you’re carrying for gear isn’t much.”
“It’ll get me there.”
“Did you hurt your leg jumping out of the plane?”
“No,” he said.
The wind gusted, and the plane tugged at the tether rope like a balky horse. Cameron tugged back. “This is grizzly country. They can hang along the rivers like brown bears this time of year, and they can be territorial.”
He leaned against the rock, half sitting, and folded his arms across his chest.
“We’re the intruders here,” she continued. “A brown or grizzly will bluff charge. If you get into a Mexican standoff and the bear charges, wait until he crosses the point of no return. Chances are if you stand your ground he’ll stop twenty, thirty feet out or better. No need to shoot him. Of course, if it’s a sow with cubs, all bets are off.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
She felt a twinge of annoyance. Most guys enjoyed talking to her. Most guys actually came on to her. Something about young women pilots really got them all hot and horny. This one spoke politely, but she had the definite impression he just wanted her to go away. “Most people who get flown into this lake want to fish for char or canoe down the Wolf, or both. It’s a beautiful stretch of river. Not too many people know about it.” Why was she trying to make conversation with a man who didn’t want to talk? He’d brought a weapon. Clearly he understood about the bears. “What’s your contingency plan if you get into trouble, say you break your leg or something?”
“I have a GPS transmitter. When I reach the Mackenzie, I’ll request your flying service to pick me up.”
“You really think you can make that distance in eight days?”
“Yes.”
“Well, in case you don’t, we fly year-round. If you signal us six months from now, we’ll pick you up, and if you get into any trouble, I guess you know how to hit an SOS button.” Cameron flushed from the effort of anchoring the plane and making awkward conversation. “Well, it’s your party. I’ll leave you to it. Have a nice hike.”
She unfastened the tether from the pontoon, wrapped it neatly, climbed back into the cockpit, slammed her door harder than necessary, put on her safety harness and fired up the old Beaver. She taxied slowly back out into the lake, taking her time and casting frequent frowns toward the shore, where the man still leaned against the large smooth rock, watching her depart. This remote lake was large and deep enough to make a good place for floatplanes to drop clients, though not many came up here. Most wanted to be flown to the Nahanni, or to Norman Wells. Cameron had never been to this lake before, though she’d dropped adventurers at other lakes with their gear and canoes. Cheerful adventurers, too. Totally the opposite of the taciturn Lone Ranger.
His name was Jack Parker, and he hailed from a place called Bear Butte, Montana, according to the contact information left at the plane base. After the Beaver lifted off the surface of the lake, she banked around for one last glimpse of him sitting on the rock beside his rifle and pack. He lifted his arm in a slow wave, and she dipped one wing in reply. She felt uneasy leaving him there, a loner with an untold story, and wondered if the world would ever see him again.
* * *
THE FLIGHT TO Frazier Lake was uneventful, and the provisions were off-loaded enthusiastically by the crew there. They were glad to get the supplies. She lifted off immediately afterward, declining an invitation to lunch because she didn’t like the look of the weather rolling in from the south. “Gotta go, boys, I’m flying right into that stuff.”
Ten minutes later she changed her flight plan, radioing Walt. “I’d be home napping in my rusty house trailer by now if you hadn’t sent me to Frazier,” she said. “Ceiling’s dropping like a rock, and I’m heading back to Kawaydin Lake. I’ll wait there till conditions improve.”
“Roger that,” Walt said.
“You owe me two weeks’ paid vacation,” she said. He squelched the radio twice, and she laughed aloud. “Cheap bastard.”
Thirty minutes later Cameron was back at the lake, and it was just starting to rain. She landed the plane and taxied to the place where she’d dropped off the Lone Ranger, who was predictably nowhere to be seen. She waded ashore with the tether rope after pivoting the plane, and tied off to the nearest stalwart spruce at the edge of the lake. If the lake got rough, she’d have to taxi back out into deep water and drop anchor to protect the floats from damage, but right now it was fairly calm and she was curious to see how far the limping Lone Ranger had walked. She pulled off her waders and laced on her leather hiking boots while sitting on the same rock her passenger had used, then folded over the tops of her waders to keep them dry. She strapped a holstered .44 pistol around her waist, shrugged into her rain gear, switched her ball cap for her broad-brimmed Snowy River hat and shouldered a small backpack she always carried in the plane with her own emergency gear.
It was raining hard now, big drops hammering like bullets onto the lake’s surface, each impact creating a small explosion. The sound was deafening. She’d reached the lake just in the nick of time to set the plane down ahead of the bad weather, so she was feeling pretty good about things. This heavy, soaking rain would drown that forest fire once and for all. If it rained hard for two days, all the better. It had been a dry summer.
The Lone Ranger’s tracks were quickly being erased by the rain, but they were still easy enough to follow along the shoreline. They made a beeline for the wooded shore on the north side of the headwaters of the Wolf River. She followed them, intending to walk a few miles or until the wind came up and she had to return to the plane. With his pronounced limp and the rough terrain, she figured she’d catch up to him before too long.
When she saw the tent set up on a small bluff, set back from the edge of the river and not one hundred yards from the headwaters, she came to a surprised halt. For a man whose agenda was to hike nearly eighty miles in eight days, he’d set up camp a good twelve hours early. He could have covered five miles, easy, ten if he pushed hard. It was a blue tent with a darker blue fly, made all the gloomier by the rain, which created such a racket bouncing off the fly she could walk right up to the tent without being heard, so that’s what she did.
“Hello the camp!” she said outside the tent’s door, which was zipped up tight. There was no response from within. Her sense of uneasiness built. Why had he come out here all by himself? Perhaps he had no intention of walking to the Mackenzie. Maybe this whole trip had been a suicide mission. Had he already done himself in? Was he lying inside the tent, dead? “Hello the camp!” she shouted.
“Hold your horses,” a man’s voice said, rough with sleep. The door unzipped. He looked out at her, fatigue shadowing his face, and motioned for her to enter. It was a small tent, hardly big enough for the both of them, but she shrugged off her pack, left it in the vestibule created by the fly, and crawled inside on her hands and knees. It was more than a little odd making her way into the Lone Ranger’s tent, but it beat conversing in the pouring rain.
His pack and rifle case took up the rear wall. His sleeping bag was laid out. He doubled it onto itself and sat on it, one leg straight out, the other drawn up to his chest. She sat down cross-legged on the sleeping mat. The door of the tent was open, and the dark blur of river tumbling past the door made