Survive or Die

by Catherine Dilts

  Then Berdie Placer, the elderly receptionist at Bender Clips, hopped off the bus. Jeremiah never expected to see her drop the frilly old lady blouses and put on camo. It was even the right kind of camouflage for summer in the Colorado mountains. Pine needles and scrub oak leaves mingled with plenty of brown. The jacket was broken in, like she wore it often.

  Rowdy Hunter had written in his book that you had to be prepared, because there was no telling what could pop up on you. He was likely thinking of storms, wild animals, and accidents, not shape-shifting receptionists. Here Jeremiah had been doubting anything interesting would happen today. Berdie was a good reminder that he needed to keep on his toes.

  But seriously. Jeremiah shook his head, disgusted. Real survival was not carrying a fake bundle of sticks across a creek.

  He turned his attention from Challenge Number One to scoping out potential marriage prospects. He’d been sniffing around his supervisor Ellen, but she seemed to think he was merely brown-nosing. Madison Wilhelm? Too citified. A couple of the most appealing were already married. Beauties like Veronica Prevost had their noses in the air, like they were too good for the likes of Jeremiah. There was one gal he hadn’t considered. Sotheara Sok.

  The little Cambodian girl did something important in the front office, judging from her tailored suits and nosebleed high heels. He might have believed the teeny-bopper clothes she wore in camp were her off-hours style, except that he’d noticed her hiking in the woods alone, scribbling notes on a map. Sotheara hadn’t just changed her style. She was in disguise.

  There was a streak of loner in her. Perfect for the wilderness lifestyle. She was tough enough to go barefoot despite the danger of rocks, cactus, and broken glass. No telling what you might run across, literally, even in places that didn’t look like they’d ever seen human habitation.

  Bare feet. Jeremiah had found a lone shoe in the brush. Maybe she’d lost it, and going barefoot wasn’t a choice.

  Sotheara followed Aubrey and Madison to the river’s edge, and the very spot at which she’d gathered water samples yesterday. The mud and sand were soon trampled by dozens of boots, sandals and sneakers. She breathed a little sigh of relief as her own prints were obliterated.

  “Outta my way, snowflake.”

  Bud the wrangler pushed past her. He muttered just loud enough for Sotheara to hear. She was no snowflake, melting away in the heat of confrontation. She was a budding ecowarrior.

  Sotheara didn’t want to be a hater, but the stubby wrangler gave her the creeps. Bud formed his own microagression zone, warning people away with a frown that was as effective as a rattlesnake’s audible threat. He glanced at one of her remaining prints in the sand, then at her bare feet. Sotheara sucked in a breath and tried to pretend she didn’t notice him staring at her.

  As a minimalist, she appreciated people who used their clothing until necessity demanded replacement. It wasn’t the old timey cowboy look that put her off, but his threadbare jeans appeared soiled, maybe with the same animal wastes that crusted his worn-out cowboy boots.

  Rowdy Hunter surrounded himself with people who seemed more adept at posing for photographers than doing ranch work, except for the angry cook and the old cowboy. Maybe that was why he was so grouchy. Like at Bender Clips, a few employees carried the weight for the rest of the company. That seemed the way of the world, sadly.

  Sotheara’s boss Shirley rarely spent eight hours in the office. Only one accountant was really needed at the small company. Sotheara could run the whole show, if Shirley wasn’t so protective of supposed confidential files.

  Her ruminations on the tragic unfairness of life ended when the first set of Bender Clips employees lined up in front of six rope and plank bridges. Bud extracted a revolver from a holster strapped to his skinny hips, eliciting startled gasps from the campers. Both the gun and the wrangler looked like they belonged in a museum. Sotheara had been shocked he was allowed to carry a weapon openly, then reminded herself this was the Wild West. Why should she expect anything less?

  Rowdy Hunter calmly babbled something about Challenge Number One, then Bud fired his enormous gun into the morning sky.

  Aubrey winced. Bud wasn’t shooting blanks. The shot rang in her ears, nearly drowning the whooshing sound of birds vacating the trees. She stood in a rare patch of sun peeking through dense foliage competing for prime real estate on the riverbank.

  “This won’t be too bad,” Madison said.

  The first challenge at Survive or Die camp involved carrying a dozen plastic sticks wrapped in burlap across the river, and there picking up a blue beach ball as evidence the phoney firewood delivery had been made successfully. Bud’s revolver might have seemed the most dangerous part of the challenge, except that the rope and plank bridges looked like they couldn’t support a squirrel, much less an adult human.

  During the opening credits of the television program, Rowdy threw a dummy into this very river and filmed it tumbling over Thunder Falls. Although Aubrey couldn’t see it from this spot, she could hear the roaring water as it plunged over the cliff and sprayed onto jagged rocks fifty feet below. Slipping off a bridge surely meant death. The dummy had never survived.

  Grant patted her shoulder. “If I’m one of the top six, I’ll be a Buckaroo Crew captain, and I’ll make sure you’re on my team.” He took a place in line next to Frank.

  The winners would be the types who went running on their lunch hour instead of eating. Aubrey was in no hurry to compete, leaving that to the athletes and the optimistic. They scurried over the river like monkeys on the jungle gym at the zoo. Except for Veronica. She leapt down the rope bridge with the grace of a gazelle, flipping her wavy auburn hair behind her.

  Several people fumbled their sticks into the rushing water. Aubrey figured she couldn’t do much worse. She stepped into a line forming in front of a bridge. Madison grabbed Aubrey’s arm, but kept her eyes on her smart phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Using my stopwatch app,” Madison said. “I want to know the times to beat.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I don’t have a chance of winning,” Madison said, “but if I do well, I might get picked by a good team. The teams share the treasure chest keys. You just need to be with the right people.”

  “You don’t think Bender’s really going to fire anyone for a poor performance in Survive or Die camp, do you?” Aubrey asked.

  “Oh, yes,” a woman’s voice said. “Believe it. He will.”

  Aubrey nearly levitated out of her sneakers. Berdie Placer had materialized between them, silent as a deer in the forest, and nearly invisible in woodsy camouflage gear. Quite a change from the elderly receptionist’s outdated skirts and ruffled blouses.

  “What’s your strategy?” Berdie asked.

  “Don’t fall in,” Aubrey said.

  “I’ve been timing everyone,” Madison said. “They’ve all been stupid fast, but look who’s up next. The Old Biddie Brigade.”

  Madison’s face flushed as she seemed to realize she had blurted out her nickname for the female admins and buyers. Shawn was the only guy in the clique, accepted as one of the girls.

  Berdie chuckled. “The last people you’d expect to see in a survivalist camp.”

  Aubrey could have said the same thing about Berdie, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

  “Yvette, you take the bridge next to Shawn,” Shirley said. “Jessie, on this side.”

  Sotheara padded barefoot across the damp riverbank to stand next to Aubrey.

  “They’ve already formed their team,” Sotheara said. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “They’re smart enough to recruit Jessie.” Berdie nodded toward the marathoner.

  Jessie had the leathery skin of a woman who spent serious time in the harsh, high altitude sun, but her body resembled that of a ten-year-old girl who had missed eating
a sandwich or two.

  “What do you think they’ll call their team?” Madison smirked. “The cougars?”

  “More like prickly porcupines if you ask me,” Sotheara blurted, then placed two fingers to her lips, as though to stop any more comments about her boss.

  Shirley waved a hand at people waiting for their turns on the bridges. Sotheara took a step forward, pointed to herself, and nodded. Shirley shook her head.

  “Edna,” Shirley yelled. “Hurry. We’re up.”

  Madison placed her hands on her hips. “Not fair!”

  Edna Hardy, Frank’s sturdy wife, wore stretch jeans and a cute puppy sweatshirt. That puppy didn’t fool Aubrey. Edna was a perfect match for Mr. Outdoors, and tough as nails.

  Bud held a stopwatch in one hand, the revolver in the other. The wiry old cowboy looked to be more gristle than meat. Aubrey winced when he fired.

  The Old Biddie Brigade jumped onto the bridges, sending them swaying. Yvette clung to the rope railings like she was hanging onto the arms of a walker, inching her way along. Aubrey hadn’t seen a velour sweatsuit since the eighties, but Yvette sported one in chartreuse. Her silver hair spiked up in an elegant hairdo. Jessie the marathoner faded into nothingness in a baggy long-sleeved running shirt over shorts. Shawn, thin and stylish, looked like a model out of a men’s clothing catalog. He was the only one with any grace, but Jessie had the speed, while Edna moved with grim determination.

  Madison clucked her tongue as Yvette wobbled back with her blue beach ball.

  “She was three minutes slower than any one else. But Jessie was one of the fastest.”

  As Madison and Aubrey discussed strategy with Berdie Placer, they seemed to forget Sotheara was still hovering at the edges of the conversation. The story of her life. No one paid much attention to the quiet, plain girls. During her adolescence, that anonymity had been painful, but now Sotheara realized it for a great gift, one that she could put to use protecting the environment.

  Only the factory worker Jeremiah Jones seemed to notice her. He probably thought the brim of his cowboy hat disguised his blatant stare, but Sotheara could tell he was looking right at her. Sage would counsel her to confront her problems head on, so she boldly walked up to the grizzly bear-sized man with the thick mustache.

  “Are you having fun?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Well.

  “I would think survivalist camp would be your cup of tea,” Sotheara said.

  “It would,” Jeremiah said. “This isn’t survival. It’s a party game.”

  “The competitions will get more challenging.” Sotheara waved a hand at the river. “This one may have been easy for you, but some people fell in.”

  “Nobody’s gone over the falls yet.”

  The way he spoke gave Sotheara the impression he would like to see someone get hurt. She backed away slowly, the way she would if avoiding confrontation with a pitbull.

  “Hey,” Jeremiah said, “did you lose a shoe?”

  Sotheara looked down at her bare feet. “A shoe?”

  “Naw, it couldn’t have been yours. Too big. You have delicate little feet.”

  That’s right. She’d seen him digging a shoe out of the bushes yesterday. He stared at her feet, then met her eyes. He smiled, which frightened her worse than Bud’s frown.

  “I’d better get in line,” Sotheara said.

  “Yeah.” Jeremiah tugged at his droopy mustache. “Don’t fall in the creek.”

  Was that a joke? Sotheara couldn’t tell. She didn’t know any of the blue-collar workers well. There was an unwritten code of separation between them and the office people, which seemed enforced more stringently by folks on the factory floor, in a kind of reverse snobbery.

  Sotheara joined the final cluster of contestants. Aubrey and Madison had already teamed up. Now Berdie was with them, dressed like a hunter, or maybe a commando. Little old lady Chuck Norris.

  “There you are.” Madison waved at Sotheara. “Come on. We’re last in line.”

  We. That sounded nice.

  There was no more delaying. Aubrey approached a rope bridge. Next to her, Sotheara stretched like she was prepping for an Olympic sprint. She had strung her black ponytail through the back of a pink and white baseball cap.

  Bud fired the gun, and the women scrambled onto the bridges. Aubrey’s tilted sideways the instant she set foot on it. She slipped and nearly fell into the shallow water near the shore. Maintaining balance was the key. She tried to ignore the foaming white water raging beneath the rickety bridge.

  Berdie was already making the return trip before Aubrey reached the other side. The receptionist had shoved a beach ball under the back of her forest camo jacket, the bulge making her look like a hunchbacked squirrel.

  Aubrey hopped off the bridge, her sneakers sliding in the mud and wet grass, and ran to the cache of balls. She dropped her bundle of plastic sticks into a bin, then shoved a blue ball inside her windbreaker. She tightened the drawstring bottom to keep it from falling out. The ball jounced from side to side as she trotted to her bridge.

  The wind churned the frothy waters, sending spray into the air. Aubrey’s sneakers slipped on the wet boards. She gripped tight to the rope railing. Half way. She was half way there. Keep moving. But she couldn’t. Images of the Survive or Die dummy plummeting down Thunder Falls filled her head.

  “Aubrey!” Madison yelled from her bridge. “Something’s wrong with Berdie.”

  The camo-clad receptionist’s knife scabbard had tangled with the rope railing. She was stuck. Madison slipped, letting out a loud “whoop” as she fell. She managed to stay on her bridge, clinging to the boards like a koala cub clinging to its mother’s back. She hung there for a moment, then rose to her hands and knees and inched her way forward.

  Sotheara’s bare feet seemed to give her an advantage on the slippery surfaces. She hit the riverbank running, then scrambled onto Madison’s bridge.

  “No helping,” someone yelled, but Sotheara ignored them.

  Aubrey started moving again, planning to help Berdie since no one else seemed inclined to break the rules in order to save a coworker from death by waterfall.

  The wind gusted, inflating her windbreaker like the sail on a clipper ship. The bridge went one direction while she went the other. Aubrey grasped for the coarse rope railing. Her legs slipped into water cold with mountain snow meltoff.

  “Help.” Her voice was pathetically weak against the roaring of Thunder Falls. “Help.”

  The bridge bounced and swayed as Grant trotted toward her. Mr. Help Everybody was coming to her rescue.

  Aubrey grasped the rope tight with her left hand, the fibers scraping against her palm. Grant was so close. Just a few more feet. Raging water pulled at her feet, relentless. Her fingers went numb. Aubrey screamed as her hand tore loose from the rope railing.

  She plunged the rest of the way into the river. Water closed over her head. Drowning was a more immediate threat than careening over Thunder Falls, until the ball secured inside her windbreaker bobbed to the surface, with Aubrey attached. She gasped for breath, inhaling water in the process. Coughing, her lungs burning, she struggled to keep her face above water. She wrapped her arms around the ball and kicked her feet, desperate to make her way to the shore.

  The current dragged her faster. The riverbank melted into a green blur. The roaring of the falls pushed all rational thought from her mind, replaced by sheer terror. One comfort was that she would die of heart failure before hitting the rocks below.

  As suddenly as her journey had begun, Aubrey jolted to a halt. The river continued raging toward Thunder Falls, but she had come to an abrupt stop midstream. For a long moment, she couldn’t make sense of it, until she realized her progress had been interrupted by a huge net. Caught like a trout, Aubrey felt herself being reeled to shore.

  A hand grabbed her arm.
Grant extricated Aubrey from the net.

  Wet, muddy, and humiliated, Aubrey tried to ignore the circle of gawkers. She should have been at their honeymoon bed and breakfast, enjoying chocolate-covered strawberries and mimosas. Aubrey dropped onto the riverbank, then curled up, arms circling around the ball. Her teeth chattered with cold and terror. She closed her eyes, trying to imagine she was at the Winsome instead of the nightmare that was Survive or Die camp.

  “Are you okay, Honey?” Grant grasped her shoulder and gave a little shake.

  Aubrey sat up, yanked the blue beach ball out of her drenched windbreaker and flung it away. Grant backed up. Along with several of the gawkers.

  Veronica crouched beside Aubrey, her running shorts displaying long tanned legs. Her Steamboat Springs Marathon shirt was clean and dry. She spoke softly so just Aubrey could hear.

  “You’d be doing Grant a favor if you stayed off his team.”

  ROWDY HUNTER’S

  SURVIVAL TIPS

  The landmarks don’t match your memory of the trail. The batteries in your headlamp die. You didn’t notice your trail mix spill out of your pack three miles back. Sometimes, no matter how well prepared you are, crap happens. Part of survival is rolling with the punches. Be ready to change your plan to match the situation. When things go wrong, you’ve got to be flexible as a diamond back rattler, and just as mean.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sotheara tapped a message onto her phone, glad they had strong signal on the bumpy bus ride back to camp.

  Survived first challenge. One lady almost didn’t.

  Any progress on Operation Clean Sweep? Sage texted back, totally ignoring Sotheara’s allusion to Aubrey’s near fatal fall into the river.

  No evidence yet, she tapped. Gathered water samples last night. Hope I can explore this afternoon. The challenge after lunch is in a different part of camp.

  Try talking to the locals. They’ll know the history of the area.