As Merry stared, he unbuttoned his shirt and withdrew the compass that hung around his neck. His unfolded map lay on the flat surface of the pack behind his saddle and he turned to lay his compass upon it.
“There!” he said. “You see that bend of the river just beyond those trees about five miles off. Now that’s got to be, according to this map, part of Cross River, and let’s see, the azimuth on that would be… about thirty-seven degrees off of magnetic north and figure about five miles on a back azimuth and that would put us right about here.”
He used the base plate of the compass to draw another line on the map and then made a small dot.
“Now the road we’re after is here… ” He laid the compass on the map once more and rotated the capsule that housed the needle. “About sixty-eight degrees and I’d figure less than two miles before the river takes a bend and runs away from us.”
He folded up the map, put it away, and put the compass—it was a Finnish Suunto on its cord—back around his neck and inside his shirt. He tucked the map away and turned to Merry, who had been watching him intently all this time.
“We go that way,” he said. “It shouldn’t take us much time at all.”
She was still staring at him.
“It’s called orienteering, in simple form,” he said. “If you draw lines on your map parallel to magnetic north, you don’t need to bother with all the fussy little calculations that adjust for the difference between true north and magnetic north. You just use the compass to measure angles—like a protractor.”
He mounted and led off. He did not look back, but he could hear her moving after him, along with the packhorses, as he rode down the hill and off in the direction he had indicated. A pleasant glow of accomplishment encompassed him, but he was too wise by this time to show it to her in any obvious manner.
“Was that,” Merry asked, moving her horse up to ride level with him, “the reason you didn’t object when I first suggested going up there?”
“Partly,” said Jeebee. “We might just have sighted the road, of course.”
“But you hoped we wouldn’t,” said Merry, “so you could show off this orienteering business.”
It was true, of course, but he was not about to admit it. Not when he had at last found something he could do better than she could. “It always pays to check the general area occasionally,” he answered.
Nothing more was said until they were among the trees of a patch of woods along the road they had been seeking.
Meanwhile, Jeebee had been busy thinking. It would not only be quicker but safer to cut straight across to their destination; or at least to the area of their destination, since Jeebee knew only the general location of the former seed farm. It would save them at least a day’s travel time if they went directly. On the other hand, he was hesitant about trying to force his point of view on Merry.
All his weeks of working westward alone, using orienteering as a check to make sure he was traveling in the right direction, had him uneasy now at having to depend on her way of finding their destination. At the same time, he did not want to challenge her methods without strong reason.
She had taken for granted from the start that she would be in command of the expedition. All Jeebee was supposed to supply were directions. This had also been taken for granted by her father and Nick. None of them thought too highly of him as someone who could take care of himself, let alone one other person and a string of valuable horses, while traveling through territory that was unknown and could well contain at least some hostile people.
He had been a little surprised at first that Merry should be the one Paul had chosen to go with him; particularly after Paul’s earlier objections to her going up into the trees by the highway, alone. But this was plainly a decision that required that some risks be taken. In the end, the decision had been obvious. The wagon remained the anchor point for father, daughter, and Nick. Paul himself could not quit it any more easily than a ship captain could abandon his vessel to go off on a side trip or a venture.
Also, if Paul should be lost, Nick and Merry would not be able to carry on the peddling route as well without him. He was the man that the customers along the way were used to dealing with. Even though they might know Merry and Nick, they would not have as much faith in them and some might even try to take advantage of them— which might end in a shoot-out.
No, Paul had to stay with the wagon. Nick was not a good choice for Jeebee’s companion, being a follower by nature. That left Merry. Merry was not only capable of command, she was used to it; since in all things but the overall direction of the wagon, she controlled a great many matters. The horses, the dogs, and apparently a good deal of the internal management of the wagon, aside from most of their personal supply of foodstuffs, were her daily responsibilities.
Jeebee had realized from the first planning of the trip that his orienteering skills, and any suggestion that he plot a straight line course for them to the area that was their destination, would probably be unwelcome—to Paul and Nick as much as to Merry. They had little understanding of his knowledge and skills. His suggestions could only raise suspicions that he was proposing that he lead instead of her. Merry was too valuable to the other two men to be entrusted to the care of a latecomer to the wagon’s people. Only the belief that she would be firmly in command had made her going with Jeebee practical in the eyes of Paul and Nick.
That was why, for a long time, Jeebee had avoided even producing the compass and map. But time was as critical for him as it was for them; and her methods of hunting for roadways to point their route involved too much daylight lost in guesswork and an unnecessary waste of hours in blind searchings for landmarks.
He and Merry rode along now, therefore, in mutual silence, with Jeebee not knowing quite what to do about it. He had not seen any sign of Wolf, but he had a feeling that Wolf was with them, or at least traveling in the same direction and keeping in touch with them. He had been tempted to howl and see if Wolf answered. But since Merry would know why he was howling, he was afraid that that, too, might offend her. He had found himself trapped by a singular feeling of helplessness.
Unexpectedly, Merry spoke.
“How did you happen to learn this orienteering?” Her tone was as calmly conversational as if they had been merely making idle conversation, all along.
“Oh, that,” Jeebee answered, a little embarrassed, “actually, I learned it in the Boy Scouts. I always wanted to do some exploring; but I never really seemed to have time. Also, what I was doing usually didn’t give me the freedom to take off and go hunting around unknown territory.”
He hesitated, uncomfortable talking so much about himself. He made an effort and went on.
“I told myself that anyone—” He broke off. “What I mean is, I thought that I ought to be able, at least, to fly a light plane, and navigate a small, but ocean-going boat by myself. In fact, I tried to take lessons in both things, several times, but other matters always seemed to interrupt. I did get some flying lessons on three separate occasions, but something always seemed to come up each time, and I had to go back and start all over again. After doing that several times, I gave up. The same thing with handling a sailing boat on the ocean. I wasn’t anywhere near the ocean. But orienteering you can do anywhere.”
“Is your family alive? I mean are your parents alive?” Merry asked.
Jeebee shook his head.
“Only my brother,” he said, “and, as I maybe said, he’s eighteen years older than I am. I was an unexpected baby when my mother was in her midforties; and by that time my father had become an architect. You see, my grandfather had the ranch my older brother has now. But Dad and he never got together. I don’t mean they fought. I just mean they saw things differently.”
He paused. “So my father went off to Vietnam. Afterwards he went back to school on the GI Bill and became an architect. He never wanted the ranch, and my brother and grandfather got along real well. So my brother got it when my grandfather died.”
He hesitated again, not sure but what he was saying too much. “My father was killed in a construction accident,” he said, “while I was in college. My mother had died of pneumonia when I was sixteen.”
They rode along in silence for a moment or two.
“It must have been hard for you,” Merry murmured at last. It was hard for Jeebee to tell whether the words were really addressed to him, or only to herself.
“Not really,” said Jeebee. “We were a family of individuals. The three of us all went our own way more or less. My father was wrapped up in his architecture and my mother taught at a number of colleges. Her life was the academic world she was in.”
