and a horse called Straton

Chapter 4

Caitlyn sobbed as she felt his chest no longer rise. 'He loved me?' She thought. 'No, he must have been about to say something else.' But what? It had never occurred to her before. But in hindsight, it did made sense. Hindsight, the way everything made sense and you always made the right decisions.

She tried to come to terms with it all. She decided to try and block out the love part until she had come to terms with everything else.

"I-it n-never happened." She told herself firmly- there was only so much she could deal with.

Pain twisted in her chest as she curled up against Luke. Normal people would chastise her for this but she didn't care, she wanted to spend as much time as possible with him - her secret lover.

The storm lasted for another hour. Once the rain stopped and the thunder passed, Caitlyn sat up with shaking limbs and blue lips. She looked at her blood stained shirt, jeans and hands. But she no longer felt the twisting pain - just numbness. There were trees down everywhere. One was blocking the gate she would have gone through to get out of the bush land. Her Dad put had put it there because they kept losing cattle in the trees.

Caitlyn tried to hold herself together. She did not know the back way in which Luke was going to take them. She didn't normally come to this part of the farm and she couldn't get into the paddock. Straton blew warm air on her neck. She turned around and threw her arms around him. "Oh Straton!" She exclaimed, still in shock and unsure of what else to do but his breath helped her come back to the world.

Caitlyn tried to think her way out of the situation. She scaled at the fence. "Straton could jump that..." She looked up at Straton in hope but then noticed a 12 inch gash from his shoulder to a little above his knee. It looked deep and there was splinters of wood in it. He was putting no weight on the leg so Caitlyn knew it was bad. She stood as if she could shatter at any time. "Oh Straton." She whimpered.

She tried to snap herself out of it. Crying would not save her, no one would have noticed their absence yet. She and Luke had braced storms before her mother... She blocked that thought off quickly. She never thought about that.

She shook her head to try and figure out how long it would be until someone found her. She looked at her watch. Smashed. She clenched her jaw in frustration. How could such an enjoyable ride turn into a catastrophe so fast?! Her sandy blonde hair was blown into her face by the wind which only annoyed her more.

She roughly guessed it would be at least 3 hours until someone came to find her. It was never unusual for her to ride for up to 5 hours with Luke. She would need to find shelter and set up for a while. She first looked to Straton - she would need to patch him up first.

She looked at the wound. "It will need stitches!" She cursed, angry at their circumstances. "I only have these clothes and they're wet. I haven't got any food." She listed, making herself feel worse. She sighed and glanced awkwardly around her. 'Looks like I'm going nude.' She thought.

She took her shirt and jeans off, they would need to dry or else she would get hypothermia. She shivered in the bright sun and moved to the first aid kit strapped to the saddle. There was antiseptic/local anaesthetic cream suitable for animals and people, 2 metres of sticky bandage, 20 band-aids, 5 gauze pads and 4 sachets of salt. She groaned, she had only taken the small kit and of course she was allergic to local anaesthetics.

She looked to her shirt and inspected the thread. She had her knife so if she had a sewing needle she would be able to keep Straton's wound together for a while at least. But of course she had no needle. She pulled out her knife and looked at what was in it.

Pliers, a short blade for finger nails 'what?!' She thought in frustration , 'who the hell needs a fingernail knife! This is a survival knife, not a pedicure set!' She opened up the other blade. It was quite a bit longer, possibly long enough to kill a small rabbit should she need to. The handle was wrapped with para-cord so she had rope at least. There was also a fire lighter and a couple screwdrivers. Not much to work with but it was all she had.

She got out a flat screwdriver and began to gently pry out splinters of wood. She winced as she touched it because she didn't want to hurt Straton. She tried to do it quickly and painlessly. Straton jumped away from her. "I'm sorry boy," she whispered. She held his bridle and began again. It took her quite a while to get all of the wood out to her standards.

She patted Straton as she gently applied the cold cream to his wound. "Shhhh, I'm sorry boy, I'm sorry." She whispered. She couldn't risk it getting infected. He jumped at the cool cream, twitching at the sharp pain of her gentle touch. But he sighed in contentment once the local anaesthetic began to work.

She got the longest gauze pad, it only just didn't fit. She screamed into her teeth and slumped to the ground, head on her knees in anger. After a while of feeling angry; she stood up and put the gauze on the wide wound. She apologised to Straton as she put the sticky bandage on part of his wound.

The two stood for a bit. Caitlyn's hands were still an awful crimson colour. She tried to forget where it came from but she couldn't. "Come on Straton." She whispered. She stood beside Straton, on his injured side so he could lean on her a little.

Caitlyn turned to leave but couldn't she stopped and looked at Luke. 'You can't just leave him here!' Yelled her conscious. 'Well he is already dead and you will be too if you don't leave him!' Argued her level head.

She looked between Luke and the sound of a running creek. She suddenly had an idea, it wasn't going to be pleasant but there was nothing for it. She walked over to Luke and put her arm under his shoulder, she felt his cold stiffness and then ran to the bushes to throw up.

She remembered the time when she was little and had thrown up, Luke had held her long hair out of the way for her and then- She tried to stop the flow of memories. Luke had always been there for her, even when her Dad closed Caitlyn off after his wife's death.

'That's going to help your survival.' She thought sarcastically to herself. She walked back and tried again. She managed to get him on top of the enormous trunk in front of her. She felt awful but she had to push him up there, maybe someone would see him and find her.

'Well now I'll be able to find him once I'm found.' She reasoned, trying to appease her conscious. But deep down she knew it would still be just as hard, but in her state of shock it felt good to do something, no matter how useless.

Straton stood there, still putting no weight on his front right. She walked back to him and started the painful journey towards the creek.

Stratons gait was so uneven that Caitlyn thought he was jumping with every step. He almost was to try and avoid using his injured leg at all. If it weren't for the circumstances, his gait would have been quite comical.

Once they got to the clearing around a deep part of the creek, Caitlyn grabbed her bloody clothes off of Straton's saddle and washed them in the icy water. The blood flowed down the stream, tainting the water red and it was only then that it hit her.

A/N
*bawls* this was painful...
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-Ze ausor of zis book