Catch Your Death

  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. As she peered over the edge of the steep, rocky riverbank, she could see how she might get down to the water’s edge, but could not immediately see how she was expected to cross the river. She felt exhausted; she hadn’t eaten in a good while and didn’t want to waste more time walking a mile upriver to find a better crossing place. Far too much time had been lost getting lost.

  No, she would cross here. If she could make it down to the precarious-looking stepping-stone rocks, she would be OK – she would figure it out. It was a dangerous plan by anyone’s reckoning: one slip and the rapids would grab her.

  Mistake seven: taking an unnecessary risk.

  Had she allowed her brain to hook up with her survival instincts, she would have decided it might be wise to stop for a while. It had been raining continuously for five solid hours and the ground was sodden and the rock slippery. Thirty seconds into her descent, Ruby lost her balance, her arms flailed and she caught air as her boots slipped and her feet lost contact with the rock – a nasty collision and then Ruby found herself clinging to the branch of a near-dead tree. It was inevitable that either the tree or Ruby would finally have to let go – Ruby had no intention of losing her grip and so it was the tree that gave up first. She had lost count of the mistakes she had made and all she could think as she felt herself falling was, What kind of duh brain are you Ruby Redfort?

  There was no time to answer this sad question before she plummeted down into the icy-cold water.

  Chapter 7.

  FROM THAT POINT ON, Ruby’s mind was no longer thinking: everything was beyond her control. Her body was wrenched this way and that, sucked under, spat out, dragged round rocks until she was finally tumbled down a short but furious waterfall.

  The pressure was immense and exhausting, impossible to fight. She felt herself pushed to the very bottom of the stony river bed before several seconds later bobbing up into a pool of calm, clear water. She dragged herself onto the bank, spluttering water from her lungs and feeling both fortunate and unfortunate to be alive.

  Unfortunate because she had now lost her entire kit, one boot and her glasses and, without her glasses, well, she couldn’t really see a thing.

  Mistake who-knows-what: losing a vital part of one’s equipment.

  Also unfortunate because Ruby was utterly lost and completely alone. She thought of Hitch’s parting words:

  ‘Something goes wrong out there – you know I’ll find you.’ But would he, could he? She certainly wasn’t feeling optimistic. Would she ever see anyone again?

  What was in some ways worst of all was the thought that if she did survive she would have to explain herself to Spectrum, to admit she had failed. Ruby knew she could never do that. She would have to keep the truth from them and instead fake an injury, an excuse for her failure to get back to base on time. She was busy contemplating what kind of injury it should be when she realised that there would be no need to fake one: her left foot was pouring blood.

  It was the kind of wound that would be dealt with easily any place civilised, but in the wilds of nowhere was actually rather serious. A deep gash to her foot, painful and bothersome. How was she going to make it back now? She was just contemplating this troublesome predicament when she found herself losing consciousness.

  When a person experiences tremendous pain or alarming injury, it is not unusual for the body to go into shock and shut down, resulting in heavy sleep. This is the body’s survival mechanism, there to conserve energy and deal with fear, stress, blood loss etc. In the right situation, this can be a useful state, there to protect against mental trauma, but in some circumstances, the wilds of nowhere, hostile environments and so on, it can put the victim in great peril.

  These words, which she had learned in the comfort of her Twinford home, echoed in Ruby’s mind for a moment before she found herself drifting back in time to Wolf Paw Mountain. Very small and very alone, but for the creature with the pale blue, violet-circled eyes.

  Then nothing.

  Meanwhile,

  unlocking the large

  carved oak door of the

  apartment. . .

  . . .the elegant young woman stepped out of her heels and glanced down to see a pale blue envelope lying there on the black and white floor. It was addressed and stamped, but had been delivered by hand; there was no postmark and no name to indicate who it was for.

  But Lorelei von Leyden knew that it was definitely intended for her.

  Rather than pick it up, she fumbled in her purse and took from it a polythene bag containing a pair of white silk gloves; she shook them out and carefully pulled them on. Only then did she pluck the envelope from the cold marble. She reached for the paperknife that lay on the hall table and, piercing the paper, ran it along the top of the envelope.

  She withdrew a completely blank sheet of white paper, held it between her fingers and wafted it in front of her nose, breathing deeply.

  Then she staggered back as if she had had a terrible shock, as if she had just been given the most dreadful news.

  Chapter 8.

  WHEN RUBY WOKE, the first thing she smelled was woodsmoke. Someone had lit a campfire. She slowly sat up and peered around; it was all rather fuzzy and hard to make out, but then she heard a voice she knew well.

  ‘You look in pretty bad shape Redfort.’ Sam Colt was silhouetted against the light sky, a sky now clear of rain.

  ‘How did you find me?’ Ruby croaked.

  ‘I’m a tracker, wasn’t difficult,’ he replied.

  ‘How much time do I have?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘Depends how you look at it,’ he said. ‘You might consider time to be up or you might say you got all the time in the world.’

  Ruby slumped back. ‘What happened?’

  ‘My guess?’ said Colt in a slow drawl. ‘You lost focus – set about trying to beat the elements. Sometimes you can be lucky with that approach.’ He peered at her from under the brim of his hat. ‘Sometimes not.’

  ‘What do I do now?’ said Ruby.

  ‘Now we got a stitch that wound on your foot, clean it up before it goes septic and then I’ll get you to base camp.’

  He made neat work of the stitchin
g and although it wasn’t exactly pain-free Ruby was grateful that he was able to take care of it without drama. He found her a spare pair of boots from his kit, a little too big but certainly better than no boots.

  She drank a cup of something hot and sweet-tasting, but she was unable to eat – the pain had made her nauseous.

  ‘You’re gonna have to ride in back,’ Samuel Colt said, saddling up. He helped Ruby onto the back of his horse and together they galloped across the plains.

  When they reached the edge of a high bank on the edge of the woods, Sam pulled the horse up and helped Ruby down.

  ‘I’ll let you make your own way from here,’ he said. ‘That way it won’t show on your test score.’

  ‘I guess I flunked,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Depends how you define failure,’ said Sam.

  ‘Depends how Spectrum define failure,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Survival don’t sound like failure to me,’ he replied. He tipped his hat at her, turned and rode off, like he was the Lone Ranger himself.

  Just below her, Ruby could make out a small wooden cabin sitting in a clearing edged by pine trees. A figure was chopping logs and stacking them against the house. At least she thought that’s what he must be doing, but it was the sound that told her so. The figure was a blur, her eyes unable to see any detail now she was parted from her glasses. If she had still had them, she would have been able to see how every once in a while the man looked at his wristwatch, then at the dimming sky, pausing before continuing on with his work.

  She had no idea who this blurry figure was, but she was hopeful it might be Hitch.

  Ruby limped into base camp by sundown, just. She punched in her time – she was about thirteen hours overdue. The man was sitting on a stool fashioned from an old tree stump and he was drinking a hot beverage, book in hand. He looked up.

  ‘Better late than never Redfort.’

  It wasn’t Hitch.

  Ruby slumped down on the grass. It was a nice enough night, not raining at least, but she was tired, really, really tired. She looked around her.

  ‘Everyone else has been and gone,’ said the Spectrum agent. It was the same agent who had doled out the mission briefing the day of the drop. His name was Emerson.

  She sighed. Did anyone else fail? she wondered.

  ‘Hungry?’ asked Agent Emerson.

  Ruby nodded.

  ‘Didn’t do so well finding food, huh?’

  Ruby shook her head.

  Emerson helped Ruby hobble to the tiny log cabin.

  Inside was a fire and there were a couple of chairs set round a small wooden table. Two bowls, two plates, a couple of forks and a couple of spoons. A large metal pot dangled over the fire and a very good smell wafted out. Ruby suddenly felt a lot more awake. Emerson didn’t seem like such a hard nut after all – he could cook at least.

  For the first ten minutes she said nothing at all as she slurped the stew.

  ‘Wow, you are wolfing that down Redfort. When did you last eat?’

  She looked up. ‘It’s good,’ was all she said.

  Later, after Emerson had got her to the light aircraft and flown her back to the outskirts of Twinford, Ruby finally clapped eyes on Hitch. He was waiting there in the darkness like some kind of guardian angel.

  The first thing Ruby did was to ease her left boot off. She had been dying to remove it, but she hadn’t wanted Emerson to see the injury; she didn’t need it to become some sort of big deal – not yet anyway.

  ‘Sam bring you in?’ Hitch asked.

  ‘How dya know?’

  ‘I recognise his bandage work,’ said Hitch, glancing at Ruby’s foot.

  ‘How come he was tracking me?’

  ‘I put in a request.’

  They got into the car and drove into the night.

  ‘So what happened out there kid, what took you?’

  ‘I fell,’ said Ruby. ‘Hurt my foot.’

  ‘That’s a consequence,’ said Hitch, ‘not the reason.’

  ‘I lost my glasses – they fell in the river.’

  ‘So?’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean, so?’

  ‘What I mean,’ said Hitch, ‘is why should that be a problem?’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ said Ruby. ‘I can’t manage without them.’

  ‘What I’m suggesting,’ said Hitch, his voice calm and steady, ‘is if you’re saying your being thirteen hours late is really because you can’t manage without eyewear then what are you doing trying to train as an agent?’

  Ruby just looked at him. Then she said, ‘You gonna tell LB?’

  ‘No kid, I’m not going to tell LB, at least not if you tell me what’s really the problem here.’

  Hitch pulled the car over to the side of the road and let the engine quietly idle.

  ‘I don’t really get it myself,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Come on kid, give me a straight answer. You can flannel all of them – you can even get me to cover for you – but you can’t pretend like I don’t know something went wrong, something more than losing one geeky pair of glasses.’

  ‘Colt didn’t tell you?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘No, what Colt says to you is your business,’ replied Hitch.

  Ruby took a deep breath. ‘If you really wanna know, Colt seems to think I rely on what I know instead of using my instincts. He says I got a throw away the rules and react to what’s happening out there.’ She gestured to the darkness beyond them.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘I don’t think I know how to do that,’ said Ruby. ‘So, when I go and lose my stupid glasses, I might as well throw in the towel.’

  Hitch thought for a moment before saying, ‘I think I might be able to help you there kid.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Ruby hopefully.

  ‘Might take a while; she’s not the easiest person to track down.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I’ll let you know if I find her.’

  ‘So you’re not gonna tell LB about my eye trouble?’

  ‘Why would I tell her?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ shrugged Ruby.

  ‘Because kid, I can see that there’s a whole lot more to you than your bad eyesight.’

  She sighed, relieved. ‘So you’re not gonna tell LB I flunked?’

  Hitch didn’t answer immediately. He checked his mirror and made to swing back out onto the road and then he said, ‘No need. LB already knows you flunked kid. She knew before you did.’

  Chapter 9.

  HITCH AND RUBY ARRIVED BACK HOME at Cedarwood Drive soon after midnight. They walked up the steps in silence and once in the front door Hitch whispered, ‘Sleep like the dead kid,’ before making his way down to his small stylish apartment at the bottom of the house.

  Hitch had been with the Redforts for approximately four months and he had turned their lives around. He was there in the guise of household manager (or ‘butler’ as Sabina Redfort liked to brag) and he was good at it; no one would doubt his cover story.

  But his real posting was as protector of Ruby; he was there both to keep an eye on her and work with her. If Hitch made a good butler, he made a whole lot better bodyguard and Ruby never once took it for granted. She had known him since March and already owed him her life twice over.

  Now alone, she hobbled on up the two flights of stairs to her own private floor. Her room was much as she’d left it. A selection of her dirty mugs, cereal bowls and banana milk glasses had been collected up and removed, but generally her room was an unchanged scene of devastation. On the floor was a trail of clothes that led to or spread from the walk-in wardrobe. Record sleeves stacked one on top of the other next to the still turning turntable; piles of magazines and journals on all subjects fanned out across the rugs, and on top of these were pens, papers, telephones – all sculpted in various ridiculous shapes, some comical, some unlikely, a squirrel in a tux, a bar of soap, a corncob, a dog bone; and these four were not even the most eccentric.

  The only place in any
way orderly in her room was the bed; this was neatly made with the clean sheets pulled tight over the mattress and the quilt on top.

  ‘Good old Mrs Digby,’ sighed Ruby.

  Because Mrs Digby had been the Redforts’ housekeeper since always, she knew Ruby as well as she knew every cooking pot in her kitchen (as she was fond of saying). She might not interfere with the general appearance of Ruby’s space, but she was insightful enough to know that just about anyone would rather come home to a clean, made bed.

  Ruby for one was sincerely grateful. She eyed the bed longingly, then, before she lost all will to do anything but fall on top of it, she dragged herself to the bathroom and examined her face in the mirror. She was looking unusually pale; her complexion, normally olive-oil brown and healthy, seemed to have faded to a sickly grey. Her green eyes were a little bloodshot and her long dark hair was tangled and without shine. Ordinarily, Ruby was very particular about her appearance, styling her hair into a side-parting so one eye was almost obscured by a heavy curtain of glossy black-brown and fastened with a barrette; tonight she barely recognised herself.

  Is this the face of failure? she wondered.

  She set the shower running and had a good hot soak. Once just about all the mud and leaf was washed away, she got dry and dressed. She dabbed a little Wild Rose perfume on her neck and wrists. Boy, it was good to smell of something other than mulch and river sludge. She chose the warmest pyjamas she could find, long striped socks that stretched from her toes to her knee tops and – swamping her tiny frame – an outsized sweatshirt.

  Even so she still felt cold.