Catch Your Death

Chapter 1.

‘THE ONLY THING TO FEAR IS THE BLUE ALASKAN WOLF, which by the way doesn’t exist.’

These words were spoken by Samuel Colt, a former special agent turned environmentalist. Now he had taken up work as a Spectrum survival trainer. He was a tall, well-built man, getting on in years, but still in good shape, the kind of guy you wanted to have on side, the kind of guy you would be relieved to have show up, and the kind of guy you would hope to see standing on the horizon if you found yourself lost – unless, of course, he was the reason you had tried to get lost in the first place. If so, your heart might sink more than a little.

Colt had a large grey moustache and shoulder-length hair. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, and clothes that gave him the look of a trapper – he wouldn’t have looked out of place had he travelled back in time a hundred years. He had seen it all and survived it all and he knew what he was talking about. There was nothing unfriendly about Sam Colt, a little straight talking perhaps, but never cruel.

‘Cruelty has no place in the wilderness. You sometimes need to be single-minded, tough as an old lasso, but you don’t gotta be cruel.’ He believed in that. ‘You don’t kill unless you have to and if you have to you make it quick.’

‘Blue wolves you don’t gotta concern yourselves with,’ he continued, ‘but regular wolves? Be prepared for those fellas. My best advice: avoid them. You don’t seek ’em out, you don’t feed ’em, you don’t pet ’em, you don’t look ’em in the eye. That goes double for bears; bears are a whole lot more trouble than wolves and wolves are trouble enough.’

‘Who’s going to be dumb enough to feed a bear or a wolf?’ whispered trainee Lowe.

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Colt.

Samuel Colt, among all his other fine attributes, had very acute hearing and trainee Lowe was somewhat taken aback.

‘You don’t clean up after a meal, that’s feeding; you’re leaving a trail from him to you and, I assure you, you don’t want to do that.’

‘But what if you do run into a pack of wolves?’ asked trainee Dury. ‘What then?’

Today was a theory day and the trainees were indoors, taking notes and asking questions. There was a lot of studying to do, though Colt’s job was mainly to teach the practical stuff. He preferred that: being outdoors was natural – inside, not so good.

Sam Colt scratched his head and sighed. ‘If you should find yourself in this predicament, then there are a few ways you might handle things.’ He scanned the trainees to see who might know. ‘Redfort? Give me two pieces of good advice.’

Ruby leaned back in her chair. ‘If you’re able to, you wanna get up a tree pretty darned fast, but don’t count on the wolves leaving you to enjoy the view; they’ve been known to sit it out, waiting for people to come down. Crocodiles behave the same way, though if you have a wolf on your tail then you’re unlikely to have a crocodile after you, so I guess you can tick that worry off your list.’ She paused before adding, ‘Only run for it if you’re certain you’re gonna reach that tree before the wolf reaches you. Running gets it all charged up – brings out the hunting instinct.’

Colt nodded. ‘That’s correct.’

Ruby knew all this from the many books she had read over the years. She had written up some of these survival tips, the ones she considered particularly useful, in a pea-green notebook. Most of them she now knew off by heart and, as Colt went through the various dos and don’ts of outdoor survival, Ruby found herself mentally replaying what she had learned.

SURVIVAL SUGGESTION #7:

Dealing with dangerous wildlife

1. WOLVES

SURVIVAL RULE 1:

Keep a clean camp. Wolves have an exceptional sense of smell: they can smell prey from up to 1.75 miles.

SURVIVAL RULE 2:

Keep a fire burning. Wolves don’t like fire.

SURVIVAL RULE 3:

Do not run. Unless you are sure you can run at over thirty miles an hour (no one has yet).

SURVIVAL RULE 4:

Stick with the group. Wolves are less likely to attack if you are in a large group than if you are alone, so don’t wander off by yourself.

‘There are many theories about these creatures,’ Colt continued. ‘Some say, in places where they’ve been aggressively hunted, wolves remain wary of man, preferring to avoid any human interaction at all. Others say that the wolf is a ruthless predator and will attack if it gets any opportunity. Either way, it don’t matter. My advice is the same: keep away from wolves and try to make sure they keep away from you.’

Ruby was thinking back to her own wolf encounter a long time ago on Wolf Paw Mountain: she had not followed any kind of advice, but had done the very worst thing as far as the textbooks were concerned, yet she had lived to tell the tale – how, she had no idea.

Unlike the other trainee agents, Ruby Redfort was not sleeping over at Mountain Ranch Camp. This was due to the fact that, unlike them, she was still attending Junior High. This made her task a little more complicated than anyone else’s: she was still expected to make it to class each school day, get her homework in on time and show up every afternoon for survival school.

To make it more complicated still, no one, not the school, not her family or friends, was aware that she had been recruited by the secret agency known to only a few insiders (and a handful of evil geniuses) as Spectrum.

The division Ruby worked for, Spectrum 8, was run by LB, a woman who took no nonsense and no prisoners. She was not someone who tolerated mistakes or stupidity, and mistakes as far as LB was concerned were stupidity. For this reason it was credit to Ruby that, even though she had made more than one or two errors in her short Spectrum life, she was still an agent who had lived to tell the tale (had there been someone she was authorised to tell it to).

It wasn’t easy, but Ruby Redfort wasn’t going to complain about it – all she had ever wanted was to work for a secret agency, not just as a code breaker, but as a field agent, out there facing danger and experiencing adventure. She had a lot of tests to take before this dream would become a reality and she was determined not to blow it.

So, every day, Ruby left school, dropping by her home before heading to a secret location where she would get picked up by a Spectrum agency helicopter and dropped at the mountain camp. Every evening the helicopter would take her home again.

That night, after she had got home and changed back into her regular clothes, jeans and T-shirt (this one bearing the words trust me, I’m a doctor), Ruby went downstairs to the kitchen to grab some dinner.

Her mother frowned a little when she caught sight of the T-shirt, but decided to let it go. ‘Your hair looks nice honey,’ she said.

‘How was school?’ asked her father.

Ruby shrugged. ‘Oh, you know, schooly.’

‘Did the Evening Bark arrive yet?’ asked Brant.

‘I don’t know, I didn’t notice,’ said Ruby.

‘I’ll go see,’ he said. Brant Redfort went to the front step to pick up the evening newspaper, the Twinford Hound (the Redforts always referred to it as the Evening Bark because it tended to be full of loud and sensational news).

Brant walked into the kitchen, reading the paper, his brow a little furrowed.

‘Bad news?’ asked Sabina.

‘Warning of forest fires,’ sighed Brant. ‘The mountains and canyons are tinder dry and unless we get some rain the chances of the forests going up in flames are high.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Sabina, ‘I don’t like the sound of that, not one little bit.’

Brant’s face brightened. ‘Hey honey, you’re going to like the sound of this.’

‘Oh yes?’ said Sabina, sitting up in her chair as if she needed to really concentrate.

‘Melrose Dorff are having a launch.’

‘Oh fabulous!’ exclaimed Sabina. ‘What are they launching?’

‘The Lost Perfume of Marie Antoinette 1770,’ said Brant. ‘It’s French.’

‘Oh, French, I like the sound of that!’

‘Didn’t I tell you that you would? Not that a whole gallon of perfume could smell better than you do,’ he said, sniffing Sabina’s neck.

‘Oh brother!’ muttered Ruby.

Brant continued reading: “Madame Swann, perfumer to the rich and tasteful, famous for her discerning nose, has brought her recreation of Queen Marie Antoinette’s exclusive perfume from Paris to the West Coast. Let Them Smell Roses, the Lost Perfume of Marie Antoinette 1770, will be launched at a fabulous soirée where attendees will also be able to view some of the ill-fated Queen’s most precious jewellery. An exciting announcement will be made on the night – it will be strictly an invitation-only event.”

Sabina looked forlorn and then puzzled. ‘But why haven’t we been invited?’ she said. ‘I mean we usually are.’

This was an understatement: the Redforts always were.

‘Don’t worry sweetheart. I’m sure there’ll be a logical explanation. Maybe they haven’t mailed the invitations yet.’

‘I hope you’re right Brant. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t get invited to this particular launch party.’

Ruby rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

After she had wolfed down her supper, she went back up to her room. She was keen to do more reading before she turned in for the night. She had been studying hard for the past weeks – reading everything she could, absorbing it, digesting it and living by it.

What she didn’t know was that it was precisely this rigid adherence to the facts she had learned and the rules she had made that was going to lead to her downfall.

Chapter 2.

ON DAY SEVEN SAM COLT BEGAN BY TALKING ABOUT BASIC SURVIVAL SKILLS.

He hunkered down and motioned for them to gather round.

‘Anyone want to tell me the two most important things needed in order to survive out in the wild. . . other than water?’

They had spent the first week mastering the skill of locating water, how to ensure the water was safe and how to make water when there was none.

‘Fire and shelter,’ said Ruby.

‘Correct again Redfort. Fire is your friend, except when it gets out of control. You have a responsibility never to let your fire get away from you. Forest fires you can’t always prevent, but you can ensure your campfire doesn’t cause one.’

Ruby didn’t need reminding about this warning.

It was:

SURVIVAL SUGGESTION #1:

Basic Skills

2. FIRE

SURVIVAL RULE 5:

Only build a fire in a place where you can keep it contained.

‘Once you’ve found the right place to build your fire,’ Colt went on, ‘and once you’ve secured the surrounding area, tinder is what you’ll be needing next. Basically, you wanna find stuff that burns real easy and real quick. Tree bark, dried grass, paper – even cotton from your clothing if you’re desperate – all make good tinder. Or you could crush up pine cones or birds’ nests. Next on the list is kindling, then slow-burning fuel, meaning logs. Once you have all your materials lined up ready, all you gotta do is set fire to ’em. . . easier said than done.’