To Thine Own Self

It took her less than ten minutes to saddle Ed and ride him out of the corral. Skirting around the guest house, she put Ed to a run until they reached the tree line. Ed climbed the hill and sure-footed it through the switchbacks to the point where she had to continue on foot. Thunder was rumbling in the distance as she grabbed her phone off the headstone and started back to Ed. Things were going as she had planned. She would be back at the house in another 45 minutes, ahead of the storm and with no one the wiser.

Ed started back down the trail slowly, carefully picking his way. When he stopped and reached for a tasty looking batch of grass, she pulled his head away and nudged him forward with her knees. Any other time she probably would have let him grab a mouthful to munch on his way down, but the storm was getting closer faster than she anticipated.

Ed continued down the trail, walking faster. Lightning flashed and Ed's head came up, his eyes showing white. Several things passed through Carmen's mind at that moment. One was the fact that Ed had never been afraid of lightning before. The second impression was the large Copperhead beside the trail. In a nanosecond she realized that the snake was going to strike Ed. Even so, she was ill-prepared for Ed's response. His sudden leap to the side unseated her, sending her out of the saddle and rolling off the trail. As her body flew over it, she saw the snake's fangs sink into Ed's upper leg - and then she was tumbling down the hill, grabbing at anything available and hoping it wasn't a snake. She slid, bounced and screamed her way to the edge of the cliff, finally stopping her descent by grabbing the base of a bush. The angle was too steep, though and the roots of the bush too shallow. With a sickening sound, the bush ripped from the ground, allowing her to slide again. She released the bush and clawed at the ground as she slid over the cliff. She screamed as weightlessness gripped her body, making a final grab at a limb. The limb held, but her shoulder didn't. She screamed again in agony as pain seared through her shoulder. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was a rock ledge coming at her.

Carmen woke to the feel of water pounding on her legs. She was soaking wet and shivering, yet somehow alive. How long had she been unconscious? Above her, water shot over the edge of the bluff, falling maybe ten feet before bouncing off her legs and onto a rock ledge. She squinted up through the rain drops. The bluff must be lower right here. She tried to sit up, but the motion created a nauseating pain in her shoulder. She squeezed her eyes shut and suppressed a scream. Obviously she couldn't climb up, but maybe she could slide down. She opened her eyes to investigate the land on the other side. She caught her breath, drawing back. It was a good 15 feet to the bottom from the ledge she was on.