With every movement, her horse is with her. More than with her, he is a part of her. All that is required is a thought, and then that thought comes to life in the form of perfect motion. She knows it’s her nervous system carry-ing those thoughts through her body, creating tiny movements her horse is reading. Knowing this doesn’t make it any less magic. Her horse is happy and she is happy and this is the one place in all the world where everything makes sense, everything is as it should be. She is in perfect control, and it is so pleasing to her, that sense of control, that sense of power.
Satisfied with the practice, she asks her horse to halt. She gives him a pat and murmurs words of praise. Her focus released, she is now free to absorb what is around her, truly and completely. There is conflict. Conflict everywhere. Trainers riding horses too roughly. Trainers yelling at their clients. Horses pinning their ears in anger. It’s all wrong. Suffocatingly wrong. She’s seen plenty of bad riding in her life, but she thought here, at Worlds, it would be different. Instead, she is the one who is different from the rest. A sensation of disconnect and inadequacy weighs her down.
The girl looks to the corner, to her mother, who gives her a double thumbs-up. She feels a swell of gratitude. Her mother may not bring in the big-money clients, but she’s a real horsewoman. Her mother has taught her right. The girl is proud she rides the way she does. It’s occurred to her before that this is what should be rewarded at horse shows, that her mother’s methods deserve recognition. Now the old thought comes home with new force.
She takes in the same scene—the yelling trainers, the unhappy horses—but now a beautiful thought comes shining through.
I am better than them.
The girl pilots her horse out of the arena to where her mother is waiting, a giant smile on her face. Guilt stings the girl. She shouldn’t have hidden from her mom the way she did.
“That was so good!”
“Thanks, Mom.” She mumbles the words, ashamed.
“And it was smart of you to find your own space away from me. That’s thinking like a competitor. You needed your own quiet area to work in and you made it happen. That’s exactly how I want you to think, because that’s how you become a winner.”
Her chest expands; her spine straightens. “Really?”
“Yes, really. Winners are ruthless, Ruth. Ha, that’s funny. Anyway, point is, in order to be a winner you have to be tough and not worry about other people’s feelings. I’m proud of you for being more concerned about getting in a good practice than you were about what I had to say.”
“Huh,” she says, letting the unexpected words seep into her bones.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MY HOPE IS TO REACH the cabin by dawn, but I have no idea if that’s possible. I’m colder than I think is good for me. Sometimes half an idea flirts around the edges of my thinking.
I should be in more pain.
But whenever it pops up, I push it away, worried if the idea gets too much attention the pain will come to the surface. My feet are chewed up; both arms are injured. There’s been too much blood lost from the cut on my head and the bullet slice to the arm. Only two and a half apples have made their way into my stomach.
But at least I’m hydrated.
That’s huge.
And maybe why I seem to be thinking pretty well.
The deer bolted in a westerly direction, leading Wolfman further west. Of course he won’t find me there, and at a certain point he will give up and go back to the cabin.
The odds are against me. I know that. Wolfman knows these woods; I don’t. The chances that I can do anything like retrace my steps are low to nil. I’ve had a feeling that civilization would be found by going down in elevation, by going west. But that’s nothing but a feeling. I could just as easily run into a hunting cabin going east.
If I can just get to the truck, it would be game over.
And it would be such a satisfying way to win, too. To take something of his out from under his nose. I imagine him returning to the cabin to find the truck missing. Would he feel fear? Apprehension? Even if he did, he wouldn’t feel even 1 percent of the terror he’s put into others. But I’ll take what I can get.
Thinking back to the last time I was in the cabin, I can’t remember if I saw the keys hanging on the nail by the door. But those keys weren’t in his pants pockets, of that I’m pretty sure, and that’s what’s important. Those keys are somewhere in that cabin.
As I make my way, I take in everything. Searching for landmarks and sometimes finding them. This dead oak. I remember this dead oak! And looking for signs of either myself or Wolfman. My footprint, in a bit of sand. I’m headed the right way.
It’s slow going, and time and time again things look wrong and I retrace and start over. I need patience now, but patience is something I have. When you’re starting a young horse, you’ve sometimes got to go at a glacial pace. Practicing a new skill takes repetition, repetition, and more repetition. This is something I know how to do. I know how to work a problem.
Frustration is the enemy. It makes you do stupid things. So you don’t let it beat you. Instead you search for landmarks, look for signs, search for landmarks, look for signs. The task takes every single bit of me I have left.
It’s good, this task, because it keeps my mind focused.