A COWBOY'S PROMISE Page 7

  He set the cooler on the porch and rapped on the back door. At least, he thought it was the back door. It also looked to be where all the activity took place. There were two pairs of boots by the door. Beside an old milk can and a stack of newspapers weighted down by a rock sat a box of veterinary supplies. Alongside them were some cans of motor oil, as if someone had been doing various chores and didn't quite finish.

  Cait?

  He didn't ever remember her expertise extending to car mechanics. But who knew?

  He peered through the curtained glass of the door as best he could, looking for signs of life. It was dinnertime. He figured that was the best time to catch her home. But she didn't seem to be answering, and he hadn't seen her truck when he pulled in.

  Maybe she was teaching a class tonight. Or maybe a baby was being born.

  Or maybe she had another hot date with Cardiology Man.

  Charlie gritted his teeth. He knocked again. Harder. There was no response. He paced a small circle on the porch, jammed his hands into his pockets, glowered at the shut door, then kicked the post by the steps.

  Chase would tell him he was being too impatient, that he was "doing," not "being." But for Charlie, "being" was damned hard work.

  He sighed and started to go back down the steps. He'd reached the bottom when he heard the door rattle open behind him.

  He turned back, a smile and the words he'd planned forming on his lips—and dying there—at the sight of an older man.

  "Help you?" In his jeans and faded plaid shirt he looked like a stereotype of a cowboy. His short, once dark hair was salty with gray now. His lined face was weather-beaten, battered by the elements that doubtless made him appear older than he was. He looked like someone right out of those full-color cigarette ads. Except for the bedroom slippers he wore.

  He looked tired. As if Charlie had woken him up. His eyes were flat and disinterested. They were blue, but they were the same shape as Cait's.

  Charlie hadn't considered her old man. Of course he knew her father lived there, but he'd only been thinking about Cait.

  Now he rethought quickly. What had Cait told him? Had she mentioned his name? And in what context? He couldn't imagine her having said anything positive. And he didn't want the old man having another heart attack on his account.

  "Hi," he said, "I, uh, am a friend of Cait's. I've been staying at McCalls' and I was returning her cooler."

  The old man looked at Charlie, then at the cooler, then said, "You cowboyin' for Otis an' Jed?"

  Otis, Charlie knew, was Brenna McCall's father. He shook his head. "Not … exactly. I'm a photographer. I'm just staying in their cabin."

  The old man frowned. "You an artist?"

  "Sort of. I don't do the same stuff. I do … did—" he corrected himself "—harsher subjects. Wars and urban violence. Inhumanity," he said awkwardly.

  The old man's face lit up. "You're Charlie Seeks Elk?"

  Taken aback by his suddenly beaming face and the quickening interest in his eyes, Charlie could only nod.

  Cait's father, clearly delighted, was coming down the step, holding out a hand. "Caity said she knew you," he said, real animation in his voice for the first time, "but I didn't know she meant you were friends!" He grabbed Charlie's hand and pumped it up and down. "Mighty glad to meet you. Come on in."

  Since he didn't let go of Charlie's hand as he went back up the steps, Charlie didn't have much choice. And since the old man was anything but ready to blow him away, Charlie went along quite happily.

  "I'm Walt Blasingame, Cait's dad," the old man said, ushering Charlie into the kitchen and crushing his hand one last time before waving him toward a seat at the round oak table by the window.

  "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Blasingame."

  "Walt," the old man corrected. "Call me Walt."

  "Walt." Charlie put a chair between himself and Cait's dad. "You say Cait … mentioned me?"

  "She's got your book. Inhumanity. That's how I knew. How 'bout a cup of coffee? You want to stay for supper? Of course you do. Cait'd never forgive me if I let you leave without invitin' you for a meal." He was talking as much to himself as Charlie as he started running the water and filling the coffeemaker.

  "She has my book?"

  "Sure does. Damn fine book." Walt Blasingame thumped the coffeepot down for emphasis. "You make a feller think."

  "Er, thank you." Charlie couldn't help blinking at Cait's father's unexpected enthusiasm. Had he got it from Cait? Somehow Charlie doubted that.

  "Sit down. Sit down," Walt Blasingame urged.

  Charlie sat. He looked around the kitchen, feeling oddly as if he'd been here before.

  Then he remembered that Cait had often talked about family meals right here at this table. He rubbed his finger along the edge and felt the tiny ridges that she once told him she'd carved to figure out a tricky math problem.

  "My dad said to figure it out myself," she'd told him. "And when I did and he found out how, he tanned my backside."

  The recollection made Charlie smile. The whole room made him smile. It was a warm, friendly sort of room. Homey. Comfortable. Different in style, but similar in feeling to the kitchen at Chase and Joanna's house.

  Walt grabbed a cookie jar off the counter and dumped a pile of homemade oatmeal cookies on a plate, then stuck them in front of Charlie. "Help yourself. Where'd you come from? How come you're at the cabin? Ain't no wars in Montana. Not at the moment anyhow." He chuckled, then fixed Charlie with an avid look. "So what brung you?"

  I came to marry your daughter.

  Probably not the best place to start.

  Charlie stalled, taking a cookie and biting off a chunk. It was ambrosial. When he'd finished it, he said, "I came from California. I'm just here for a while. A little R&R. Hadn't ever been to Montana before, and I remembered Cait talking about it…"

  Walt beamed. "The last best place, that's what they call it. You like it?"

  "Yeah," Charlie said, surprised at how true it was. "Yeah, I do."

  "Good cookies, aren't they?" Walt poured two mugs full of strong black coffee and carried them to the table. "Cait made 'em. How'd you meet Cait?"

  "I was taking some photos near the hospital where she worked."

  "The one in Abuk?" Walt shook his head and grimaced. "She don't say much about it, but I reckon it was pretty bad." He sat down opposite Charlie and wrapped callused fingers around his coffee mug.

  "It had its moments," Charlie allowed.

  "I was in Vietnam. I know there are things you don't just toss into conversation, but … I'd like to understand a little more. She gets real quiet sometimes. An' I wonder if I can help. Will you tell me?"

  "Er." Charlie swallowed. Tell him what, exactly? "What did you want to know?"

  Walt pushed back his chair. "I'll get the book."

  He came back moments later with an obviously well-read copy of Inhumanity. "Cait said she bought it 'cause of the little girl," he said. "But she don't want to look at it," he said. "Leastways, not when I'm around."

  I wonder why, Charlie thought, mocking himself.

  "Says she knew the little girl." Walt patted the cover picture of Resi with her sad wide eyes.

  "Yeah." And for the first time in months, Charlie made himself look at Resi's picture. If it was possible to feel even more guilty than he did about what had happened between him and Cait, it was what he felt about Resi. He had betrayed her love, her trust, possibly her very life—to protect his own emotions.

  "Lucky little gal," Walt said now.

  "Lucky?"

  "Well, not lucky in the first place," Walt qualified.

  "Losin' her folks. Gettin' hurt like that. But in the end…" He got a sort of sad, wistful smile on his face.

  Charlie felt his heart skip. "In the end? What happened in the end?"

  Walt looked surprised. "You didn't know? Why she got a new home! A new family. Somebody adopted her. One of Cait's friends."

  Charlie stared. "One of— Who?"

&
nbsp; Walt shrugged. "Dunno the name. Cait said it, but I don't recall. Said she was one of the lucky ones." Walt rubbed the side of his thumb over Resi's photo, and his mouth twisted slightly. "Some of 'em ain't. People turn their backs on 'em."

  "Yeah." Charlie felt hollow, and yet reprieved at the same time. Like he'd been acquitted when he knew he was guilty as charged.

  Resi had been adopted? And Cait knew the family?

  He tried to think who it might be.

  Another one of the American medical staff? Her roommate, that girl from Tulsa, Jessie? That eye surgeon who worked miracles on a daily basis? He had a hundred notions. All possible. But none had seemed likely when Cait had suggested they marry and adopt her themselves.

  Was Cait pleased now? She'd loved Resi, had wanted her for her own.

  Had wanted both him and Resi.

  And it was his fault she didn't have her.

  "Cait can tell you who, I reckon," Walt said. "Here, now. Let me dish up dinner. Cait made stew an' it's keepin' warm. Don't usually feel much like eatin', myself. But long as you're here…"

  "Is Cait … teaching tonight? Or delivering a baby?"

  "Don't think so," Walt said. He got out plates and put half a loaf of bread on the table. "To mop up with," he said. "She an' that doc were goin' out."

  "That doc? Her … fiancé?"

  "Yep. Steve. Nice feller. Busier'n a one-armed paper-hanger. My Lord, he didn't hardly stop to say hello when he was doin' his rounds in the hospital. But he's a good doc. An' I reckon it's like that when so many folks are dependin' on you."

  "I guess," Charlie said slowly. He'd wanted Walt to say Steve was a jerk.

  "'Bout time they got a night to themselves," Walt said instead. "Too busy, the two of 'em, takin' care of everybody else." He eyed Charlie over the plate of stew he'd just put in front of him. "Reckon she went up last night and took care of you."

  Charlie felt a faint heat in his face. "I got shot a few months back. Tore me up pretty bad. I fell yesterday. Ran into Cait afterward, and next thing I knew she was bringing me ice."

  Walt smiled. "That's Caity. Wes, my boy, always used to call her Caity the Bandage Lady. She was forever patchin' him up when they were kids. Caity patches everybody up."

  Charlie didn't want to hear that, either. He wanted to think she had done it because it was him.

  "Eat up now," Walt said. "Then maybe you could tell me some about those pictures."

  They ate in companionable silence. Cait's stew was wonderful—far better than anything he would have cooked for himself. When they finished eating they did up the dishes together and then he followed Walt into the pine-paneled living room to talk about the pictures.

  Once more he had the sense of having been here before. Cait had talked about this room, too—about sprawling on the braided rug on the floor and watching cartoons on television, about building cabins with Lincoln logs by the fireplace, about the bookcases against the wall that her grandfather had built.

  "My books were on the bottom shelf," she said. "And on winter days I used to sit in the chair by the fire and read them."

  He could just imagine her there—a smaller, more freckled version of Cait curled in the leather armchair, deep in a book, her long dark hair in a braid that she nibbled on the end of during the exciting parts of the book.

  Walt sat down on the sofa and Charlie took a seat next to him. He never minded talking about his photos, making his point. But this was different.

  Walt opened the book to a photo of the devastation wrought by a grenade. "I saw buildings tore up like that," he said. His expression grew distant, his gaze far away.

  This wasn't about Abuk, Charlie realized. The inhumanity was universal. It was Walt's way of dealing with all that he had seen.

  They looked. They talked. Not so much in words, but in silences.

  "There were children in Vietnam, too," Walt said. "Hurt same as that little girl you knew. Babies. Some of them soldiers weren't more than kids themselves."

  Charlie stared at pictures he'd taken of soldiers who weren't more than kids. He hadn't been a whole lot more than a kid himself.

  "Didn't know no more than kids," Walt was saying quietly. He stared unseeing out into the twilight. "Fella's scared he does some stupid things."

  Yes. Yes, he sure as hell did. Charlie stared at Resi's sad, reproachful eyes and made himself confront the child and the reality he'd left behind.

  In fact she, like Cait, had been in his heart ever since. He hadn't left her behind at all.

  Then, in Walt's silence, he began to speak. Slowly. "The first time I saw her," he said, swallowing past the sudden ache in his throat, "she wouldn't talk. She would only stare. And Cait brought me to see her because she thought I could do something. She thought I could help, that even if I couldn't help Resi, I could tell the world."

  It all came back as he spoke—all the emotions, all the pain. Not just Resi's; everyone's. Abuk had been full of pain in those days. People lost. People hurting. People dying.

  And yet, in midst of that pain, for a few isolated moments, there had been joy. Not just the joy of knowing Cait.

  There had been joy with Resi, too.

  No, there had been no words. But there had been growth. Eye contact. Her first wavering smile. Her tentative touch. And finally, the morning he found that tiny stuffed bear and brought it to her, the first words that broke a silence of God knew how long.

  He could still feel her small trusting fingers curving around his. He could remember the light in her eyes when he walked into the room.

  The light had flickered out early on that morning when he'd come to tell her that he had to leave.

  Had to leave!

  He stopped talking and just sat staring into space. He thought of all the things he'd done wrong. All the ways he'd tried so desperately to protect himself, to assure himself he was doing the right thing for all of them.

  What a liar he'd been.

  He didn't notice the tear that streaked his cheek. Or feel the muscle tick in his temple. Or hear Walt's quiet words.

  Or wonder what they meant when the old man said, "I know. I know."

  * * *

  Five

  « ^ »

  Steve was thrilled at the news. "Well," he'd said. "Finally."

  "It's all right?" Cait twisted her napkin nervously in her hands as she looked at him over the table at Sage's. "The date, I mean?"

  Steve said, "Sure, fine." He grinned. "I'll shut off my beeper all day. Just kidding." He consulted his small day planner and did some mental figuring. "Perfect, as a matter of fact. I'll tell them I'll be gone a week. That way we can go on a quick honeymoon and I'll be back in time to fly out to Johannesburg for the conference on the twenty-sixth. Couldn't have planned it better myself. What inspired you?"

  Somehow telling him about Charlie didn't seem like a particularly good idea.

  "It was time," Cait said. "I mean, if we're going to do it, we ought to just do it. Right?" She gave him a brilliant smile.

  "Absolutely." Steve reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze. "That's great. You can come with me down to Denver the weekend after next and we can find a place to live."

  Cait blinked. "What?"

  "You come with me," Steve said. "For the weekend. Since we're actually going to do it this fall, wherever I am is going to be your place, too. No sense in me renting something for a couple of months and then us moving. You'd better come along, too."

  Cait hadn't thought that far ahead. She also wasn't at all sure she should leave her father for a weekend. "We'll see," she said.

  "Come on. Start planning now," Steve cajoled her, "and we can probably pull it off."

  "I'll have to talk to my dad. Maybe we could take him with us?"

  Steve didn't look extraordinarily thrilled at the idea, but he nodded. And the notion of taking her father along actually pleased Cait a great deal.

  He needed something to cheer him up. Too many nights recently she had come home to
find him sitting in his chair staring into space or, worse, looking through Charlie's book, dinner still slow-cooking away.

  "Not hungry," he'd say when she remonstrated with him. "I'm not all that interested in eatin', Caity."

  He wasn't interested in much these days.

  "It would be great to take my dad along," she said eagerly now, and glanced at her watch. "I really ought to get going. I wasn't home last night, either. And I won't be tomorrow because of my birthing class. I should be there to eat with him more often."

  "He's got to learn to cope sometime, Cait," Steve said. "He won't do things for himself if he knows you'll do them for him."

  "It isn't a matter of doing it for him," Cait said, because she'd already done that, though Steve didn't know it. "It's a matter of keeping him company. He's all alone."

  "Then he needs to invite people over. Get out. See his friends."

  "Yes." Cait agreed completely. But agreeing and convincing her father to do it were two different things.

  Brenna and Jed had invited him over several times. Unless Cait was there to go with him, he'd declined. Gus and Mary had invited him, too, but he hadn't gone. And he wouldn't invite anyone in.

  Just last night she'd suggested he call Otis Jamison to come over and play cribbage while she was hauling the ice up to Charlie.

  But Walt had said he was too tired. "Maybe another night," he'd said vaguely.

  Cait lived in hope, but not much.

  So she was surprised to drive into the yard that night and see Otis Jamison's old Suburban parked near the barn.

  "Well, finally," she said, relieved. Maybe her going out last night and tonight was actually doing some good by forcing her father to seek out his friends if he wanted any companionship at all.

  She opened the back door and went into the kitchen. A look around made her smile widen. Obviously he'd eaten. And had company for dinner, too. She could see that the slow cooker had been washed out and there were two sets of silverware and plates drying in the rack by the sink.

  There were voices in the living room. She pushed open the door and breezed in. "Hi! You're still up! I'm so glad Ot—"

  She stopped dead at the sight of Charlie. Her father thumped his book down on the coffee table and looked up beaming. "Ah, Caity, look who's here!"