Sitting in his sleeping bag that night, Webb snapped a nylon string on his guitar as he was quietly strumming inside the tent. He hadn’t been focused on any particular riff. Instead, he’d just been humming to the notes, thinking through what he had to do early in the morning to fulfill the quest that he’d been sent to accomplish.
The snapped guitar string didn’t irritate him. He’d brought extra nylon and steel strings. He removed the broken string. But force of habit wouldn’t let him discard it. Instead, he reached for his pants, which were folded neatly beside the bed. Sleeping in clothes inside a sleeping bag wasn’t a good idea. Clothes were never completely dry and the dampness would chill him. Webb wound the length of nylon string into a circle and slipped it into the front pocket of his pants, then folded them again and set them nearby for when he woke up in the morning. Later, he’d burn the nylon in a campfire. He’d done that once already on this trip, feeding the nylon slowly into it like a snake, watching the flame burn the nylon like it was the wick of a candle.
He took another drink of water from the bottle beside him, knowing what it would do to him. Then he rested on his side, waiting to fall asleep.
Sure enough, he woke up a couple of hours earlier than usual. The water had worked as well as any alarm clock.
He slid out of his sleeping bag, wishing he could enjoy the warmth and go back to sleep. But he didn’t know if there would be a better chance to do what he had to do, before everyone else woke up.
Inside the small tent, he fumbled as he pulled on his pants, then his boots. He slipped into his shirt and jacket, and he pushed outside and looked up at a pale blue sky, still amazed at the fact that it was not dark. No clouds either. The edge of the sun’s brightness hung over the horizon, like it always did up here this early in the morning at this time of year.
He checked his watch: 4:00 AM. Light enough to see where he was going. And early enough that everyone else was still snoring in their tents. He’d be back long before anyone woke up, so it was safe to leave his guitar and pack behind.
He tiptoed through the campsite and then sprinted around a corner in the trail, where he stopped to empty his bladder.
Then he headed toward Mile 112.
About fifty meters past Mile 112, there was a natural ravine, with rivulets in the mud from the rain that had fallen in the previous days.
Webb saw it and realized it was exactly what he needed.
He stepped into the mud and walked into the ravine. He looked back and saw with satisfaction that his boot prints were very obvious. He continued to the bottom of the ravine, and as the sides came closer together and the bushes grew denser, he deliberately snapped branches as he pushed his way forward.
He was leaving a clear path.
And for a simple reason.
At the fire the other morning, when George discussed the phone conversation he’d had with Webb’s grandfather, George had mentioned that he knew Webb had been sent to find something. The phone conversation had taken place long before Webb had gone to the storage unit in Phoenix, long before Webb had read the letter from Jake Rundell.
Webb wasn’t sure if his grandfather knew what Jake had requested, or if his grandfather had sent Webb to Jake simply because Jake needed help. Either way, Webb suspected that what he’d been sent to find was something that needed to stay secret. Since George knew that Webb had been sent to find something, and since there was so little time left before they were to be picked up by helicopter, George could guess that Webb was very close to completing his grandfather’s task.
If what he’d been sent to find was something that should remain secret, Webb didn’t want to take any chances. His real destination was Mile 112, and he’d be careful not to leave any tracks there when he left the Canol Trail there.
Here, however, it was going to look like he’d gone a long way into the bush, and it would be easy to follow his tracks.
Webb kept snapping branches and leaving heavy footprints where possible, until he reached a stream with a rocky bed. He crossed it and walked another twenty paces, then walked backward in his footprints to the stream.
He washed his boots thoroughly of mud, watching the silt leave trails in the clear water. When he was satisfied there was nothing left on the soles of his boots, he began hopping from rock to rock, going upstream for about fifty meters. Occasionally, he would look back and satisfy himself that he’d left no traces. Finally, he slipped away from the stream, and as carefully as possible, climbed back up to the trail about a hundred meters short of Mile 112. He followed his footprints to the mile marker and saw his earlier tracks continue toward the ravine.
From there, he cut south to follow the instructions in the letter from Jake Rundell.