Catch Your Death. Lauren Child
shift began. As far as she could judge, he must be on the far side of the ranch house by now. He would linger there and brew himself another pot of coffee in the tin pot that sat on the porch. Then he would pour a cup and slowly sip his coffee before reappearing perhaps eight minutes later. This meant Ruby had precisely seven minutes to select a horse, saddle up and get out of there without being spotted.
She took no time choosing a horse: she picked the one that seemed most trusting, most docile. Her choice of horse was a good deal better than her choice of saddle for, as it turned out, the one she had taken had a broken girth.
‘Nice going buster,’ Ruby muttered to herself. She registered this error in her head.
Mistake one: neglecting to check.
It was too risky to go back to the lean-to where the saddles were kept, select another and hope to make it out of there before the ranch hand reappeared. No, she would just have to ride bareback. Ruby led the horse by the reins, climbed onto the corral fence and mounted. It was agony to have the horse walk so slowly, but the sound of galloping hooves would no doubt alert the guard. Once she was into the trees and far enough away from the buildings, she picked up speed and flew through the night.
It was an exhilarating feeling, not just the ride, but the rustling itself: to get away unnoticed was the big deal. She felt like an agent – she was an agent – she was going to ace this test. Now for the next part of her assignment:
Task three:
Swim the horse across the river.
She gulped a little when she saw how wide it was, but there was no time for nerves; she needed to keep going if she was to make her deadline. The water was cold, but thankfully not fast-flowing and the horse did not object to what it was being asked to do. When they reached the far side, Ruby slid off the animal’s back and felt the water squelching in her boots.
Mistake two: failing to remove one’s footwear before crossing the river.
Bozo, she thought.
Part one of the mission was over and, as far she was concerned, this was the important part, the tough part.
Mistake three: failing to take equally seriously every part of the mission.
SHE TETHERED THE HORSE TO A POST AND PATTED IT GOODBYE. It would not be long before someone would arrive to deliver it home, no doubt drying it down and offering it a nosebag for its trouble.
If only Ruby had thought to give herself this same treatment, things might have worked out quite differently. But Ruby was ambitious; now all she cared about was arriving back at base camp early, really early. She was on a high, feeling pretty good about everything.
Mistake four: getting too confident.
Task four:
Make your way to the second river.
She decided to keep going, ignoring the natural shelter created by a small dip in the hillside, ignoring the perfect tree with its drooping branches that grew from this hollow, ignoring the fact it created a dry and comfortable place to camp out and get dry. Instead she trekked on in her sodden clothes, each step harder than it should have been because of the weight of the water in her boots and the rest of her garments.
Mistake five: failing to take care of one’s physical self.
Ruby trekked for about two and three-quarter hours and the sun was now up and she was all but dry except for her poor feet which still squeaked in her boots. She stopped for a while and ate her last energy bar.
It wasn’t enough.
She walked for another six miles before she heard a distant rumble. She looked up, but there was little to see except cold, dark nothing. A few minutes later, a lightning fork split the sky and the thunder rolled behind it and, as she ran, she heard the wind begin to shake the trees. It would not be long before the storm reached her.
SURVIVAL SUGGESTION #8:
The Elements
In times of crisis, storms, blizzards, hurricanes, it is always a good idea to seek sanctuary, get warm, get dry, conserve energy. Remember: get out of the deluge, hunker down, ride it out.
OK, said Ruby to the handbook imprinted in her mind, that’s all very easy for you to say, but where do you propose I hunker?
It was a good question – there was very little in the way of hunkering-down landscape. As far as the eye could see, it was just flat, rocky terrain.
‘Just keep thinking kid.’ She could hear Hitch’s voice in her head. ‘The ones that keep thinking are the ones that survive.’
She walked across the flat rock slab and searched for any part of it that might overhang the ground beneath. Twenty minutes later, she got lucky. A small overhang, positioned out of the wind, shielded the earth from the slicing rain. She used the micro-chute as a tent, securing it to the overhang and pulling it down in front to create a sort of cave shelter.
This isn’t so bad, she thought. She was careful to remember to pin down all the flapping parts of the chute, aware that it might be torn away by a fierce gust of wind or simply allow cold to circulate inside the shelter. Fire was more difficult because of the gale blowing outside and it was hard to keep the flames alive and the smoke from billowing into her dwelling. She boiled up a root tea and, having drunk as much as she could endure, she worked on getting some shut-eye.
The night didn’t pass without incident; the stones she had found to secure the material were not really heavy enough and as the gale picked up so did her tent. It was ripped from the rock and went spinning off into the night sky, just like Dorothy’s little house. The dawn light took an age to come, but it was a huge relief to see it.
However, the day was about as pleasant as the night before: the only plus – it was light. Ruby trekked on, damp and demoralised, trudging through scrub and bushes. The weather was still terrible and getting worse. She didn’t take shelter under the close-growing trees in the small woodland she glimpsed through the sheeting rain; she gave up checking in regularly with the home-made compass, it just didn’t seem to work well, and then she dropped the needle and that was that. As for trying to read the stars when dark fell, forget it. They were nowhere to be seen.
Mistake six: failing to Stand still, Take stock, Orientate and Plan.
She was alone and things had just not gone as she had expected. The words of Sam Colt came back to her. ‘You can try and predict what might happen next, but don’t imagine it’s gonna come out that way just because you thought you’d like it to.’
As the day arrived once more and became nothing but grey, uncompromising drizzle, Ruby began to feel the cruel pangs of hunger. Bypassing food had been a false economy: it had depleted her of energy and starved her brain of fuel. As a result, her thinking was off and things went from bad to seriously bad. She began to make dumb errors and soon lost her confidence completely.
As luck would have it (and few would call it good luck since it served only to make things worse), Ruby did finally stumble upon the second river.
The next task:
Cross it.
She realised she must be much further downstream than she had planned on being because she could hear the rapids.