At least I’m getting faster at loading, I think, as I gather the bolts and go back to my starting position. But I’m still not a sharpshooter like Juneau. Sometimes I’m good, sometimes I’m way off. I have no consistency, and don’t understand what’s tripping me up.

Too bad it’s not a video game, I muse, and suddenly an idea comes to mind. I’m good at video games. Really good. Shooting in real life must be mainly a matter of hand-eye coordination, after you’ve gotten used to the weight and feel of the weapon. What if I just pretend I’m in a video game? Forget that I’m in the woods, out of my element, and pretend I’m in the comfort of my living room, all conditions under my control.

I let everything melt away, the sounds of the woods, the smell of dirt and pine. It’s just me, the tree, and the crossbow. I breathe out slowly and squeeze the trigger. The bolt flies across the clearing and lodges firmly into the knot.

I whoop and dance around a bit before calming down and trying again. I put myself in the zone, aim, and fire. Another bull’s-eye.

This is what I needed. If I make the environment my own, I can manipulate it with confidence. It makes perfect sense.

After practicing another half hour, I’ve gained a renewed sense of purpose. I’m no longer lost and out of my element. I’m in control. I look at the campsite with new eyes.

In gaming terms I would say this is a two-day mission with the goal of infiltrating an enemy camp. What supplies do I have at my disposal? I go through the bag and measure the food into small portions. Since I’ll be on the go, I won’t have time to stop and eat. Plus constant eating to keep my strength up is smarter than slowing my metabolism with three large meals. Bread, soup, canned beans . . . I’ll be eating it all cold. No cooking supplies means a lighter pack.

Juneau left me a bottle of water, plus one empty bottle I can refill from the stream. I’ll have to be careful with that—it won’t be easy to find another water source in the desert.

The plastic shopping bag won’t do the trick if I’m going to be hiking. I need something that will give my hands freedom. I look around at the scattered supplies. The nylon bag that the tent came in is just big enough to hold the bottles of water and the food, with a little space left over. I slip the lighter and the flashlight that Juneau left me into the tent bag and, remembering the lifesaving advice from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, add one of the purple towels that Juneau’s been dragging along since Seattle.

I take one last look around the clearing and, seeing the piece of wadded-up paper, I grab it and stuff it into the tent bag with the rest of my supplies. It seems masochistic to keep it, but it’ll serve as my motivation to prove Juneau wrong.

29

JUNEAU

THE SUN IS DIRECTLY OVERHEAD WHEN I DECIDE to stop. I’m not tired, but I’ve spotted a group of trees far off on the horizon, and am heading directly for them. I know I should eat something and give my body time to rest. I might not find shelter again.

I jog for another twenty minutes before reaching the motley group of dried-out trees. Swinging my pack to the ground, I throw myself down in a patch of shade cast by the anemic tree branches. I close my eyes and after a few seconds I doze off.

I awake in alarm—there’s something scratching at my chest. Sitting up abruptly, I send Poe flapping off me and onto the ground nearby. “Poe, you scared me to death,” I scold.

He cocks his head to one side and lets out three loud caws. Fair enough, I think, I scared him, too. I check the sun. I couldn’t have been asleep for more than an hour. Wiping caked-on dirt from the side of my mouth, I fumble with my bag and take a long swig of water from the canteen.

Then, unfolding the pouch on Poe’s back, I draw out a small bundle of papers and shuffle through them. Three printed sheets. Tallie’s done her work.

I pull out a rabbit leg and, handing Poe a small piece, eat as I read. The first sheet is an area map that is similar to the one I left with Miles. “It’s all I could find” is written at the bottom of the page in red ink. “Hunting range isn’t advertised on the internet. I only found it mentioned in a couple of articles on wild-game hunting. Both referred to it as a ‘well-kept secret.’”

The second page reads “Forbes 1000” at the top, and shows a photo of a man wearing a suit with cowboy boots and a hat. The name under the picture is Randall Bradford “Hunt” Avery III, and the article beneath talks about how he transferred his father’s Texas-based oil business into an offshore drilling outfit, more than tripling his father’s fortune. It mentions a couple of ex-wives with children, and refers to him as a “playboy.”

On the last sheet, Tallie has written “from Wikipedia” across the top. Several paragraphs follow, starting with this:

Amrita (Sanskrit: IAST: amta) is a Sanskrit word that literally means “immortality,” and is often referred to in texts as nectar. The word’s earliest occurrence is in the Rigveda as the drink that confers immortality upon the gods.

Well, that confirms why Whit and my parents named the elixir what they did. I scan down the page for anything else of interest, and my attention is caught by this:

A Vajrayana text describes the origin of amrita . . . In this version, the monster Rahu steals the amrita and is blasted by Vajrapani’s thunderbolt. As Rahu has already drunk the amrita he cannot die but his blood, dripping onto the surface of this earth, causes all kinds of medicinal plants to grow. At the behest of all the Buddhas, Vajrapani reassembles Rahu who eventually becomes a protector of Buddhism.