Читать книгу Off Limits - Lindsay McKenna - Страница 7
CHAPTER THREE
ОглавлениеSmarting beneath Alex’s attack, Jim made her as comfortable as possible. When she lay down, he covered her with the blanket, then crawled over to the other wall of the tunnel. She had closed her eyes, her lips set in an angry line, and was refusing to talk to him.
Jim knew he’d better eat, even though he didn’t feel like it. Glumly picking up the bowl, he dug into his rucksack for more of the poorly cooked rice. His stomach knotted. Only the sound of Alex’s labored breathing filled the tunnel. How could he tell her the gruesome truth? What would she think of him when she knew the horror of the crime he’d committed? The crime was so heinous, so mind-blowing, that he felt as if he were drowning in guilt and shame.
Jim chewed the rice without really tasting it, his gaze fastened on Alex. Her breathing had steadied and softened. When she opened her eyes much later, Jim scrambled inwardly to lessen the tension strung between them. Casting around, he said, “In our part of the country, we don’t have many television sets. My kinfolk—an uncle—had one, but he lived near town. I remember as a kid growin’ up listening to the radio all the time.” He forced a semblance of a smile, his voice low. “You remember the Lone Ranger?”
Alex turned her head and gazed at his shadowed features. There was something vulnerable and hurting about Jim McKenzie. But now his mouth, once a tortured, twisted line of some withheld pain known only to himself, had relaxed. He had a wonderful mouth, a kind mouth, and she had trouble imagining him killing anything, much less another human being. As he lifted his head to meet and hold her stare, Alex felt some of her anger dissolve. His large, intelligent eyes were not those of the killer he professed to be. She saw the faraway look in them and was lulled by his low voice. Wanting to make peace as she’d always tried to do in her own family, controlled by a father who ruled by anger, Alex responded. After all, Jim McKenzie had saved her life.
“Yes, I remember,” she said softly. “I used to sit in front of our radio just waiting for the next weekly serial to come on.”
Relief washed over Jim. He saw Alex struggle to be polite although anger still lurked in her eyes. “I can remember as a ten-year-old kid hardly being able to wait for the next Lone Ranger and Tonto story. I liked them, I liked what they did. They were always saving people who were in trouble.” The corners of Jim’s mouth lifted with the memory. “I used to make believe I was the Lone Ranger. I went out back, found a saplin’ and cut it down. That was Silver, my horse. When I wasn’t doing chores or huntin’ with Pa, I’d be galloping around the hills, pretending I was saving people in trouble.”
Alex shut her eyes. “I—I remember those times...the radio shows. That seems so long ago....”
“We were young ’uns.”
“I was eight years old.”
“Who was your favorite?”
Alex opened her eyes. “I always liked Tonto.”
“He never said much, but then, he was an injun.”
“I liked him because he saved the Lone Ranger when he got into trouble.”
“I guess we both wanted to help people,” Jim whispered. “Nurses definitely do that.” He frowned. “I thought recons helped, too, but, I was wrong....”
“There’s nothing wrong with helping others,” Alex said. “You said recons saved a lot of marine lives. I think that’s positive.”
Jim smiled faintly at Alex. “Maybe.” Her face held such serenity in that moment. She was pretty, and there was a wide streak of goodness in her, too. Desperate to get off the topic, Jim said, “You remind me of Molly Pritchard, a gal whose folks were our closest neighbors.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, Molly was kind of like Tonto, always quiet and something of a shadow. She had five older brothers, so she was kind of pushed aside in favor of them. She had hair like yours, the color of rich, brown earth. The kids at school made fun of her.”
“Why?”
With a shrug, Jim said, “Molly was board-awful ugly. Not that it was her fault. She had buckteeth and she squinted all the time. A lot of city kids picked on her, but I used to stand up for her. Partly because she was hill folk like me. And partly...well, she was like a little brown mouse, so quiet and afraid. I always had a soft place in my heart for underdogs.... So, I kinda became her protector.”
“What happened to Molly?” Alex was touched by Jim’s admission.
“We were in the third grade together and this teacher, Missus Olgilvie, used to walk up and down the rows with a three-foot-long ruler in her hands. Anyone not studying got whacked across the shoulders. She always picked on the boys, not the girls, but poor Molly lived in dire fear of Missus Olgilvie smacking her. Molly couldn’t see the blackboard, so the teacher kept moving her closer and closer to the front of the room. Finally, the teacher sent a note home to Molly’s parents to get her eyes checked.”
Jim smiled fondly in remembrance. “Little-brown-mouse Molly got her eyes checked at this fancy eye doctor’s office. I remember the day her folks loaded everyone in their beat-up old Ford pickup and went off to the city. That was a big deal, you know? Hill people are real poor, even today, and we just didn’t have that kind of money around. I remember Ma and Pa loaning Mr. Pritchard forty dollars of money they’d been saving, so that Molly could get this test and a pair of glasses.”
Jim tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “The Pritchards came home late that evening, close to dark. They stopped at our cabin on the way home. I remember coming out and standing by the door. Molly was in her finest dress, a cotton print with yeller buttercups all over it. Her brown hair was tied up in a yeller ribbon, too. My mouth dropped open as I walked out to the pickup where she sat with her brothers. There she was, proudly wearing those black horn-rimmed frames. I stood there for a long moment realizing just how pretty Molly Pritchard really was, ’cause she no longer had to squint her eyes to see. No, she had the most beautiful green eyes I’d ever seen.”
Touched to the point of tears, Alex kept her gaze fixed on Jim’s softened features. “What happened after that?”
Jim chuckled. “Molly went back to school wearing those glasses as proudly as I wore my marine uniform when I first got out of boot camp. The glasses gave her confidence, real confidence, and she no longer was a shadow. When Molly walked, she strutted, her head held high for the first time. She no longer had to sit in the front row to see the blackboard, and her grades started coming up. She turned from an ugly ducklin’ into this purty young girl with huge green eyes. She wasn’t a shy, backward, little brown mouse anymore.”
“I can relate,” Alex whispered.
Jim nodded. “That’s the reason you remind me of Molly—you’re shy and quiet, but underneath, you’ve got real strength.”
“I don’t know about that. It’s funny to hear you describe Molly, though, because in my family, I’m called `mouse’ by my brothers and father.”
Frowning, Jim set the bowl of rice aside. “Your pa ought not to call you that.”
“My father praises aggression, athletic ability and confidence. My brothers have those qualities—I don’t.”
Jim snorted. “Yet, you just survived a helicopter crash in enemy territory when no one else did. Does that sound like a mouse?”
Alex smiled halfheartedly and closed her eyes. His warm tone made her feel more emotionally stable. “You said you were proud to wear the marine uniform. What made you join up, Jim?”
He shook his head wearily. “Lookin’ back on it, I must have been addled, but at the time, it felt like the right thing to do. My pa had been a marine during the big war, and all my life I’d been a weak, sickly child. I was tall and skinny, too.
“In school, when the city kids called me names, ganged up and pushed me around or wouldn’t let me play sports with them, I would daydream, pretending the school was Dodge City, full of desperadoes, and that I was the Lone Ranger. It helped me get through school, I guess. One day, when I was in the eighth grade, these military recruiters came to our school auditorium and gave us a talk about joining the military as a way toward better education. I remember seeing that marine sergeant in his dress blues, how his uniform stood out from the rest, and how proud he was. His back was ramrod straight, his shoulders squared, and you just knew that he was a far better man than any of the others sitting on the stage, waiting their turn to talk to us.
“I went home and told my pa that when I was old enough, I was gonna join the Marine Corps.” Jim’s voice lowered with feeling. “I remember tears came to his eyes. Tears! I’d never seen my pa cry. He didn’t say anything, he just grabbed me and held me so tight I couldn’t breathe. When he finally released me, he took me into their bedroom to an old wooden trunk. I knew of the cedar trunk, but I’d been given strict instructions never to open it. So, when Pa opened it, I was in awe.
“There, inside, was his dress blue Marine Corps uniform, carefully folded in mothballs to stop the moths from eatin’ holes into the fabric. I remember he took my hand and pressed it across all his ribbons and medals from World War II. His voice shook as he told me about each medal—the four purple hearts, the bronze star and the silver star. Pa was a genuine hero, and I’d never known it until that moment. When he’d finished telling me his story, he looked me straight in the eye and told me how proud he was of me wanting to be a marine like he’d been.”
Taking a deep, unsteady breath, Jim whispered, “At that moment, I didn’t want anything else in the world but to become a marine. I wanted Pa to always be proud of me that way. I worked real hard at school. I brought up my grades, and I tried to better myself. At graduation, Pa gave me a gift—his silver star medal. He told me to live up to it. When I joined the Marine Corps and put that uniform on for the first time, I felt like the Lone Ranger. I believed my drill instructors when they said marines were there to help the underdogs, to fight Communism and to free people. My folks came to Camp Lejune, North Carolina, for my graduation. They never traveled anywhere, but they came all the way from Missouri to see me. It was the proudest day of my life as I stood there at attention. My pa cried. He just threw his arms around me and cried.”
Tears stung Alex’s eyes. “Wh-what did you do, Jim?”
He shook his head. “Marines don’t cry. I just stood there, a head taller than him, feeling strong and good while I held him in my arms. I’d graduated at the head of my recon class, and I was given my private-first-class stripe right then and there. Pa was never prouder.”
Quiet reigned in the tunnel as Alex absorbed his story. In many ways Jim was like her: an outcast of sorts, someone who’d been viewed as a loser who didn’t measure up in society’s or, in her case, her family’s eyes. “At least,” Alex said, “you were noticed and praised for your efforts. I never was. My father named me after Alexander the Great. Can you believe that? He wanted three sons, not two sons and a daughter. Mom said he was really disappointed to find out I was a girl. He already had the name picked out, so they just put Alexandra on the birth certificate.”
Jim heard the pain in Alex’s voice. “Any family would be proud to have you as their daughter. You’ve survived when most wouldn’t.”
“My father’s probably raging and ranting right now that it’s just like me to cause him a problem. I’ve always been a problem to him. He wanted me to finish nursing school and join the navy and I told him no. I know he’s ashamed of me,” Alex admitted, “because I’ve never lived up to what he wanted me to be.”
“What did he want?”
“A tomboy, I guess. I liked dolls, playing house and learning to cook, but Father doesn’t value those things. He wanted me to excel in math and sciences, but I loved painting and ceramics instead.” Alex held Jim’s softened gaze with her own. “I’m the mouse, remember? Father could brag about Case and Buck because they were football heroes. Both my brothers went on to get naval academy appointments and then became marines. Father’s real proud of them.”
“Well,” Jim offered, “your pa is blind, then. You’re a purty gal with a lot of common sense. There aren’t many who would’ve kept their head after that crash, hiding and not getting captured. I’m proud of you, if that means anything.”
Alex felt heat suffuse her neck and cheeks under Jim’s praise. “I...thanks.”
“You’re shy. Worse than Molly Pritchard was at one time, I think,” he teased.
“Mice are always shy,” Alex muttered, refusing to look up at him.
With a smile, Jim added, “Well, in my book, any man would be proud to have you on his arm.”
There was such an incredible gentleness about him, and Alex forced herself to meet his hooded stare. “Listen,” she said urgently, “if I don’t get this shrapnel out of my shoulder, I’m not going to live. At least dig it out for me, Jim. I can’t do it on my own. If the foreign object isn’t removed, it will create infection and blood poisoning.” She looked around at the meager supplies positioned along the wall. “Can you do it? Will you?”
Jim’s stomach knotted. Alex was right: if he didn’t do something, she would worsen—could even die. And more than anything, he didn’t want that to happen. “I wish,” he rasped, “that none of this had happened, Alex. You don’t deserve to be in this situation, to be stuck with me.”
“It’s a little late for regrets, isn’t it?”
With a shake of his head, Jim slowly got to his hands and knees. “Yeah, it is. All I’ve got is my Ka-bar knife and a clean compress—plus soap and water.” He glanced over at her. “I’m all thumbs when it comes to delicate work.”
“I don’t believe that,” Alex said. She tried to sound confident and in charge. “Sterilize your knife the best you can. And get the compress, soap and water ready to use after you dig out the shrapnel.” Her heart was pounding, and she was scared—scared of the pain she couldn’t avoid. But there was no choice: if the shrapnel didn’t come out, she was as good as dead. And suddenly, Alex didn’t want to die. Surprised at the depth of her survival instinct, Alex found a startling determination flowing through her for the first time in her life. Maybe it was that backbone that Jim had talked about earlier. What did he see in her that she didn’t see in herself?
“Okay, gal, I’ll get the supplies together. You just lie there and try to relax.”
“Yeah...sure. I’m scared to death, Jim. I’m afraid of the pain—of maybe bleeding to death once you take out the shrapnel....”
Leaning over, Jim pressed his hand to her good shoulder. “Hush, gal, you’re gonna get through this just fine. I’ve got a good sense about it.”
With a whisper, Alex said, “I’m glad you do. I’m just so scared—”
“Don’t let the fear make you freeze, Alex, make it your friend. That’s what I always do.”
Alex tried to do as he counseled. She watched him light a small, oblong piece of metal, a magnesium tab. It flared to life, its white flame making the entire tunnel bright as daylight. A shiver of anticipation threaded through Alex as she watched Jim slowly and carefully pass the point of the evil-looking Ka-bar knife through the flame.
“If I remember my anatomy,” Alex said, her voice strained, “there’s an artery somewhere in the vicinity of the shrapnel. If it’s cut, I’ll bleed to death.”
Jim looked up sharply. “I’ll be careful.” His heart twinged. Alex was too brave, too good, to die—especially at his hands. He’d already killed—Again Jim slammed the door shut on the haunting memory. Still, his hand shook in remembrance, and he released a long, unsteady breath.
“Just think that I’m Tonto, and you’re the Lone Ranger come to help,” Alex joked weakly, feeling sweat form on her brow and run down her temple.
“Right now, I wish I could be a doctor,” Jim muttered. The knife point was sterilized. Jim picked up a small piece of wood. “Here, put this between your teeth like before.”
With a nod, Alex took the wood. Her heartbeat rose to a furious rate, and she tensed. As Jim carefully removed the bandage and dressing, Alex shut her eyes and bit down hard on the wood. Oh, God, it was going to hurt. She tried to think of another time—when she’d broken her arm trying to emulate her two brothers by jumping from the roof of the house to a nearby oak limb. They had derided her, called her a mouse, a coward, until finally, out of hurt and anger, she’d jumped. It hadn’t worked, and Alex had fallen twenty feet to the ground below.
Alex remembered screaming with the pain that had reared up her arm from the broken bone. Her mother had run out of the house to her rescue. Alex recalled sitting on the ground as a ten-year-old, holding her right arm, seeing her mother’s distraught features. Her two brothers had gathered around her, frantic and unable to help. More than anything, Alex remembered her mother wrapping her arm in a towel. Then, when Alex had tried to stand, she’d fainted from the pain. If only she would faint from the pain this time. If only...
* * *
Jim sat tensely in the aftermath of digging the shrapnel from Alex’s shoulder. She’d fainted seconds into the cruel procedure, and he was grateful for that. It had made his job easier. Still, there was no way he could shield his own raw emotions from the pain she’d endured so bravely. Looking at the fresh compress and bandage on her shoulder, Jim wondered if he’d done well enough. The wound looked nasty, red around the torn edges of her flesh. Gently, he touched Alex’s slack features. Easing the wrinkles from her brow, Jim absorbed her quiet beauty into his heart. Even her lips were colorless.
“Little brown mouse,” he murmured, and he continued to gently stroke her cap of sable hair as a mother might soothe a hurt and frightened child. Somehow he couldn’t seem to distance himself from Alex, or the problems he saw ahead. She hadn’t asked to be shot down, or to be here with him. The decision he’d made after—He shut his eyes and groaned. Well, at any rate, Alex was the innocent in this whole mess.
Jim knew his leg was healing, although he was in constant pain. But pain was something he’d learned to live with a long time ago. He looked down at Alex and knew his heart had no defenses against her. What could he do? He couldn’t allow her to die. He certainly couldn’t sentence her to the life he’d chosen to live. His hand rested on her blanketed right shoulder, and he shut his eyes. What was he going to do?
* * *
Alex groaned. The sound of her own voice pulled her out of her unconscious state. She felt a man’s hand on her hair, stroking it slowly, and the sensation eased her pain momentarily.
“Alex?”
It was Jim’s voice, low and next to her ear. She forced her eyes open to slits. He was leaning over her, his face shadowed, sweaty and tense. He placed his finger to her lips and she slowly realized she heard other noises...voices.
Jim gripped Alex’s hand and looked up toward the tunnel’s concealed opening. He recognized the voices as belonging to the VC who owned this territory. It was nearly dark, and they probably were aware of this abandoned tunnel. Alex had been unconscious, moaning off and on for an hour. He’d kept his hand over her mouth, fearing someone would hear them. Now, the VC were very close. Too close.
Sweat trickled down the sides of Alex’s temples. She felt Jim’s grip tighten on her hand. VC were nearby! Her already uneven heartbeat sped up with new terror. In Jim’s hand was the Ka-bar. The dull ache in her shoulder seemed nothing compared to the fear surging through her. She saw the shadow of a man above the concealed entrance. Her breath lodged in her throat. Jim turned, tense and ready to meet any VC coming down the camouflaged access.
How long Alex lay dripping in her own fearful sweat, her heart thundering in her breast, she didn’t know. The shadow disappeared. Gradually, the VC voices drifted off. Closing her eyes, Alex sank back against the hard ground. She felt Jim’s reassuring squeeze on her hand, as if to reward her for remaining utterly silent. Opening her eyes, Alex stared up into his tense, harsh features. The changes that took place in him never ceased to amaze her. One moment, Jim was a country boy with a soft, Missouri drawl telling stories about his growing-up years, the next he was a tiger, ready to strike and kill without any sign of remorse. The change was frightening, but it also made Alex feel protected. She knew Jim would fight to save her life if the VC came down that tunnel entrance.
The danger was past—for now. Jim sat down and gave Alex his undivided attention. He took two pain pills from his first-aid kit and held them up for her to see.
“Take these,” he rasped hoarsely, then slid his arms beneath her shoulders and lifted her upward.
Alex took the pills in her mouth. Grateful for the water, she swallowed them. As he laid her back down, she whispered, “Thank you....”
Awkwardly, Jim drew the blanket across her again. “How do you feel?”
“Like hell.”
“Your eyes look better.”
She nodded. “There’s not as much pain in my shoulder now.”
Jim held up the piece of twisted shrapnel. “If you were a marine, you’d get a purple heart for this.”
Alex stared up at the piece of metal that had been lodged in her shoulder. “No wonder I fainted.”
“Right after I started,” Jim said. “I’m glad. It saved you a lot of suffering.” He placed the shrapnel in her right hand. “A souvenir from the war.”
She shook her head slowly from side to side. “What an awful reminder.”
Jim couldn’t argue. “Most of the wounds our guys carry around aren’t the kind you can see, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“My pa carried a lot of invisible wounds. I recall him screaming and waking us up at night years after the war. Ma said they were just bad dreams. But after Pa had one, he’d be in a dark mood for at least a week. Now,” Jim admitted, “I understand why....”
Alex desperately wanted to know more about Jim, what had made him run, but the pills were already beginning to work. She began to feel light-headed, some of the pain receding from her shoulder. “My father was a navy pilot in World War II. I remember him telling me about some of his flights,” she began, her voice slurring. “I never heard him scream or have nightmares.”
“The air war’s clean in comparison to being a grunt on the ground,” Jim said. He wiped Alex’s forehead and cheeks with a damp cloth. She was beginning to sweat heavily, and that bothered him. “Pa was on the ground, at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and other islands. He never spoke to us of those times, but I remember seeing the haunted look in his eyes.” With a shake of his head, Jim added, “Don’t look too closely at mine. I’m afraid they’ve seen worse than Pa’s.”
There was such anguish in Jim’s eyes at that moment that Alex wanted to cry for him, for whatever terrible trauma he’d survived. “I—I’m sorry.”
He smiled gently and bathed her neck. “You have nothing to be sorry for, gal. You’re innocent.” He added painfully, “It’s always the innocent women and children who get caught in the crossfire of war....”
Alex wanted to pursue the utter sadness she saw in his eyes, but without warning, her eyelids closed and she felt a deep, spiraling sensation. On the edge of exhaustion and sleep, Alex dreamed of the Lone Ranger and Tonto riding together.