and a horse called Straton

Chapter 11

Caitlyn woke to her leg throbbing with pain. She looked down to see it had swollen and changed colour overnight. She panicked and took the herbs she had lay out to dry a couple of days ago and boiled them with river water in the small pot she had made, she hoped and prayed it would boil properly.

Straton walked over to her, a swing in his stride as he passed the bones she had placed out the night before. Remembering them, Caitlyn leaned on Straton to walk over to the bones. She collapsed rather than at down to look at them.

She gathered them in her hand and leaned on Straton again to get back to her fire. Lucky I got firewood and a good meal yesterday. She thought to herself.

She hummed as she weaved more mats, mostly just to keep her fingers busy as she waited for the slightly larger than mug sized pot to boil.

"Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleep my little baby..."  She whispered the words to the song her Mum used to sing to her to get the little Caitlyn to sleep. "All the pretty little ponies, blacks and bays, dapples and buckskins."  She tried to fit Straton's coat in but it didn't really work.

Finally the tea boiled with her pain relieving herbs inside. She quietly sipped on it, hoping the mud/clay she used was suitable for food and drinking from. Guess I'll find out.

She hopped, rather unbalanced to the billy goats weed. She carefully picked come of the leaves and crushed it up in her hand before applying it to her leg. She hissed in pain but then signed in relief as the mild anaesthetic started to work.

She hoped the lemongrass flavoured with a little tea tree tea would help ease the pain in her arm and leg, it had helped her mother when she had been killed - Caitltn cut off that memory.

Caitlyn had felt the cold air last night and decided to collect some fire wood for an hour to help keep her warm through the winter.  She collected twigs, leaves, branches and small logs to keep away. Her pile of wood was quite substantial now. Along enough to last her a winter. She was still afraid it was to be a long winter. Oh how she missed their small, warm farm house! 

Once she had collected some firewood, with much struggling, she started to attach some mats together for a thick quilt. It was two thick and large enough to wrap around her entire body. She hummed as she worked, thankful that she could still come what use her hand though she wasn't sure how.

The lemon grass tea had greatly helped her arm and she was feeling slightly less pain from everywhere. She sang cheerfully as she finished her blanket. She was very proud of her work and said so out loud.  It was just midday by then so she decided to go and forage for some food.

She found her way by the snapped twigs to the thicket of blackberries and picked as many as she could hold. I should have brought my shirt. She thought with annoyance. She took her berries back to the camp to lay out in the sun on a rock near her food storage. There was very little in there.

At camp, she picked up her shirt to carry more berries back. She managed to completely fill her shirt with ripe wild berries. They were so good!

Once she was back again, she put those berries out to dry as well with the others. When she was back, she noticed to bones again. She saw how sharp some were. Almost enough for a small spear.

Her mind quickly went into overdrive, mud to secure the grass to secure the bone to a stick. She would use it for fishing, she didn't have enough talent to throw and kill on land. In the water, it was just jabbing, how hard could it be?

After smearing the bone and stick with mud, Caitlyn tied some of the very dead and bruised grass around it to secure it. One top of that she put more mud for safe keeping. Once this was done, she put the tips in the fire to both sanitise and fire the mud.

It was around 3 in the afternoon by then. Caitlyn was hungry, all she had eaten that day was a couple berries. She needed more.  She pulled the spears out of the fire and inspected them. Three got through the process out of five. Not bad.

She looked into the cool water at the few fish that were there. Caitlyn aimed her spear at one, just above it and plunged it in. But she came up empty handed. She was puzzled. She tried again, the same thing happened. Again, again and again the same thing happened until she remembered that year 8 science class about how water distorts light.

She aimed slightly skewed to the fish and plunged her thin spear into it. She had caught her first fish!!

She was so excited she hardly wanted to cook it. But she couldn't remember what fish could be eaten raw so instead she cooked it like a marshmallow over the fire, the tender smell reaching her nose and making her moan in delight.

Once it was cooked, Caitlyn decided to spoil herself and she rubbed some berries into the fish. It was divine!  It felt like it melted in her mouth. She needed the meat so badly for winter that her body made her like it more than you usually would.

By nightfall, she had finished the fish, bones licked clean. Her berries were still out, drying for the winter while her strong hands worked the willow to form mats to sleep on. These would be more of a mattress. In the morning, she would gather heather and bracken to incorporate to make it softer and more insulated from the frozen ground.

While her fingers were working, the pain started to settle again and she winced, putting aside the mattress she had finished and looked up at the stars. They were so beautiful. She was struck with an idea as her twisted hand found the mat. She could make a house of these!  She would use thick logs or branches in the ground then tie tight mats to the branches. She would also attach the saddle blankets to these to make it even thicker.

She also thought about making more willow mats smeared with mud to secure the walls even more. She resolved that in the morning, she would spend just two or three hours collecting food and wood before she began to weave and weave for the rest of the day to get a house before the first frost.