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comes home with new force.
    She takes in the same scene—the yelling trainers, the unhappy horses—but now a beautiful thought comes shining through.
    I am better than them.
    The girl pilots her horse out of the arena to where her mother is waiting, a giant smile on her face. Guilt stings the girl. She shouldn’t have hidden from her mom the way she did.
    â€œThat was so good!”
    â€œThanks, Mom.” She mumbles the words, ashamed.
    â€œAnd it was smart of you to find your own space away from me. That’s thinking like a competitor. You needed your own quiet area to work in and you made it happen. That’s exactly how I want you to think, because that’s how you become a winner.”
    Her chest expands; her spine straightens. “Really?”
    â€œYes, really. Winners are ruthless, Ruth. Ha, that’s funny. Anyway, point is, in order to be a winner you have to be tough and not worry about other people’s feelings. I’m proud of you for being more concerned about getting in a good practice than you were about what I had to say.”
    â€œHuh,” she says, letting the unexpected words seep into her bones.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    MY HOPE IS TO REACH the cabin by dawn, but I have no idea if that’s possible. I’m colder than I think is good for me. Sometimes half an idea flirts around the edges of my thinking.
    I should be in more pain .
    But whenever it pops up, I push it away, worried if the idea gets too much attention the pain will come to the surface. My feet are chewed up; both arms are injured. There’s been too much blood lost from the cut on my head and the bullet slice to the arm. Only two and a half apples have made their way into my stomach.
    But at least I’m hydrated.
    That’s huge.
    And maybe why I seem to be thinking pretty well.
    The deer bolted in a westerly direction, leading Wolfmanfurther west. Of course he won’t find me there, and at a certain point he will give up and go back to the cabin.
    The odds are against me. I know that. Wolfman knows these woods; I don’t. The chances that I can do anything like retrace my steps are low to nil. I’ve had a feeling that civilization would be found by going down in elevation, by going west. But that’s nothing but a feeling. I could just as easily run into a hunting cabin going east.
    If I can just get to the truck, it would be game over.
    And it would be such a satisfying way to win, too. To take something of his out from under his nose. I imagine him returning to the cabin to find the truck missing. Would he feel fear? Apprehension? Even if he did, he wouldn’t feel even 1 percent of the terror he’s put into others. But I’ll take what I can get.
    Thinking back to the last time I was in the cabin, I can’t remember if I saw the keys hanging on the nail by the door. But those keys weren’t in his pants pockets, of that I’m pretty sure, and that’s what’s important. Those keys are somewhere in that cabin.
    As I make my way, I take in everything. Searching for landmarks and sometimes finding them. This dead oak. I remember this dead oak! And looking for signs of either myself or Wolfman. My footprint, in a bit of sand. I’m headed the right way.
    It’s slow going, and time and time again things look wrong and I retrace and start over. I need patience now, but patience is something I have. When you’re starting a young horse, you’ve sometimes got to go at a glacial pace. Practicing a new skill takes repetition, repetition, and more repetition. This is something I know how to do. I know how to work a problem.
    Frustration is the enemy. It makes you do stupid things. So you don’t let it beat you. Instead you search for landmarks, look for signs, search for landmarks, look for signs. The task takes every single bit of me I have left.
    It’s good, this task, because it keeps my mind focused.
    Things are going well. But then