Travelin’ Rick's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Travelin' Rick knelt in the dirt and spread his folded map across a flat rock. He had come to the foothills to chart every hidden trail and publish the one guide travelers could trust. But the map in his hands showed only the main roads. The trail he had just walked, a narrow deer path climbing into the pines, wasn't on it anywhere. He tried to sketch it in the margin. Without a fixed point, his pencil line drifted. If he guessed wrong, every reader who followed his book would end up lost. A small hand grabbed the map's corner and tugged. "Not yet, buddy," Rick said. He caught the paper before it tore. Baby Patrick sat back on his heels. The three-year-old wore a striped shirt and red sneakers, both dusty from the climb. He was Rick's travel companion, and he asked questions all day long. "Why the line crooked?" he said, pointing. "Because I don't know where we are," Rick admitted. "The map only knows the big roads. It doesn't know this little one." Patrick frowned at that, as if a map that didn't know things was a broken toy. Rick sat back and thought. He needed two facts to place the trail right. First, which direction it ran. Second, how far it stretched from the last known road. He dug through his pack. His fingers closed on cold metal. He pulled out a small pocket compass and flipped open the clear cover. The needle swung, settled, and pointed north. The deer path ran northeast. He wrote it down, and this time the number was true. "What's that?" Patrick asked. "It always knows which way is north," Rick said. "So now I know which way the trail goes." Direction alone wasn't enough. He still needed the distance back to the gravel road. Rick unwound a long brass chain from his pack, link by link, until it stretched out gleaming in the grass. Each length measured the same. He handed one end to Patrick. "Hold this here. Don't move." "I hold it," Patrick said, gripping it with both hands. Rick walked the chain out to its full length, marked the spot, then carried the far end forward and laid it down again. Patrick trotted after him, counting out loud, missing numbers, laughing. Together they measured the path in even steps down to the road. Rick tallied the count. The trail ran four hundred paces, northeast. Back at the rock, he redrew the line. This time it started at a real road, ran the right direction, and ended at the right distance. It was correct. Anyone with his guide could walk it and not get lost. "Straight now," Patrick said, patting the map. "Straight now," Rick agreed. He folded the map and smiled. But as he tucked it away, he saw the problem ahead. One trail was charted. Dozens more waited in the hills, each hidden, each unmarked. And the light was already sliding low behind the pines.