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He started walking out of the shack, tripping on something as he left. “What the—”
He picked up a tiny figurine from the ground. It was a toy solider. Holy shit — it was a collectors’ item, too. It broke his heart that Mabel had been playing with these things. He had so many things just like this at his place, so much more for her to explore.
And there was her crown, too. The gaudy thing she’d worn on her head at their first meeting. He held it tight, overcome with emotion.
“No,” he said aloud to himself. “I won’t lose her.”
Holding the crown so tight his knuckles turned white, he strode out of the messy little shack. He needed to find his queen.
Rip couldn’t find his compass anywhere. He had relied on that thing ever since his old captain in the Marines had humiliated him for heading in the wrong direction while searching for a lost man.
Without his compass, he could easily lose his bearings.
If he lost his bearings, he could make mistakes.
If he made mistakes, he could lose her.
But Rip couldn’t give up. He was just going to have to… let go a little. Operate on instinct. Follow the orders of nothing but his heart.
So, he took a deep breath. Listened to his surroundings. Put himself in Mabel’s shoes and asked himself…What would his Little do?
Images surfaced in his mind. Of Mabel eating pill-bug pancakes and killing rattlesnakes with her bare hands. Sleeping under the stars, exhausted and defiant.
He began walking out in the direction he’d found her last time. Thing is, he knew Mabel. Knew that she didn’t like to be beaten. If she’d headed off anywhere on her own two feet, then chances are she’d gone to finish off what she started last time. Only this time, no doubt, she planned to make it to the ten-mile mark without him having to rescue her.
He walked quickly, without stopping even for water. He hoped to catch a whiff of a campfire or to catch a glimpse of her blond hair among the trees, but it was no use. Central Texas was very, very big, and Mabel was very, very small. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Or a pill-bug in a forest.
But… wait.
He noticed, as he walked, that some of the smaller rocks and logs looked like they’d been lifted out of the earth. Displaced from the ground beneath, as though someone had been searching underneath them for…
Pill-bugs!
It was Mabel! Had to be. He was close to her. He could feel it. His tiny, wonderful, resourceful, grub-eating goblin.
He followed the points where it looked like a log or a rock had been upturned, and then he started noticing more things. Little strips of bark that had been cut from trees, as though someone was collecting pieces of wood for a fire or whittling.
This was Mabel’s trail. He knew it! It took a survivalist to know a survivalist, and he was sure of it now. She would be establishing a hierarchy of priorities about now, seeking running water, shelter, food. Probably, she was heading for higher ground to survey the land for running water. No point building a shelter until she had the water sorted. Problem was, the higher ground was a way off still. It was November, and the days were short. It would be dark in a couple hours, so she’d probably have to build a temporary shelter. Looked like she was getting hungry too if she was already at the bug-eating stage.
Damn it.
What if he couldn’t find her?
What if she had left with Fabian, in a car, like a normal person?
What if he was imagining all these signs that he hoped were leading to her, and in fact he was just a lonesome stupid man heading off into the wilderness to die?
“Ouch!” yelled a voice behind him. “Ouch, ouch, ouch!”
Instantly, his head spun toward the source of her voice, and he saw her, doubled over in pain, with blood on her hands.
“Mabel!” he cried out, racing over to her.
“Leave me alone,” she moaned, rocking as though trying to soothe herself from the pain.
“Sweetheart, what’s happened?”
“I don’t want your help,” she said.
