Off Limits

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.”