Free The Walk by Richard Paul Evans Page A

worth. As I looked through them, I came across a dark brown leather journal that I bought on a trip to Italy several years earlier and hadn’t written in yet. The leather was soft, more of a wrap than a book cover, with a single leather thong that wrapped around the entire book. I decided that this would make a suitable road diary.
    I put the rest of the journals in a box and taped it up with a note to Falene to send the box to my father’s house.
    McKale would want her clothes to go to a women’s shelter, so I put her things in big boxes and marked them for Falene to deliver. With one exception. I took one of her silk camisoles. Then I began packing for my walk.

    One of my agency’s former clients was a local retailer called Alpinnacle, a vendor of high-end hiking equipment. It was our smallest account. I didn’t usually pitch accounts their size, but in their case, I made an exception as McKale and I loved to hike, and we were fans of the company’s products.
    Every year we produced a catalog for them, and the product samples we brought in for the photo shoot were left with us to distribute amongst our employees. I always got first choice of the booty and had claimed several backpacks, a portable, one-burner propane stove, a poncho, a down sleeping bag with a self-inflating pad, and a one-man tent. I could use all of it. I selected the best of the packs and filled it with the gear.
    We kept our camping gear in a closet in the basement, and I went downstairs to collect other things I would need: an LED flashlight/radio with a hand crank, fire starter, and a Swiss Army knife. I put it all in the pack.
    While I was rooting through the closet, I came across my favorite hat: an Akubra Coober Pedy, an Australian fur-felt hat with a leather band adorned with a small opal(Coober Pedy is a famed source of Australian opals). I had purchased the hat six years earlier on a business trip to Melbourne. As much as I liked the hat, I rarely wore it, because McKale mocked me when I did. She said I looked like the guy on
The Man from Snowy River
, which I personally thought was a good thing. It had a wide, sturdy brim and was made for the outback weather, sun, sleet, and rain. I put it on. It still fit comfortably.
    I went back upstairs and retrieved my Ray-Ban Wayfarers sunglasses. Also, a roll of toilet paper, six pairs of socks, two pairs of cargo pants, a parka, a canteen, and five pairs of underwear.
    I pulled on my pants, heavy wool socks, a T-shirt, and a Seattle SuperSonics sweatshirt. Fortunately, I had good hiking boots. They were lightweight, sturdy, and broken in. I sat down and laced them up. Then I slung the pack over my shoulder. It wasn’t too heavy, maybe twenty pounds.
    The door locked automatically behind me, and without a single key in my pocket, I stood outside on the front patio. Then, without looking back, I began to walk.

CHAPTER
Twenty-three
    I have decided on a destination; the path is but detail. I have begun my walk.
    Alan Christoffersen’s diary
    Chyan li jr sying, shr yu dzu sya.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
I read that in a Chinese fortune cookie. Technically I suppose, it wasn’t really a fortune—more of a proverb—and probably wasn’t even Chinese. It was likely just some American copywriter churning out yarns for a cookie company. I suppose all those years in advertising had made me cynical.
    Whatever its origin, the proverb was applicable. Mentally and emotionally, I found that a walk as far as Key West was a little hard to wrap my mind around. My ultimate destination might as well have been China. I needed an interim target, a destination that was far enough to motivate me but close enough not to break my will. That place was on the other side of the state. I set my mind on Spokane.
    The drive from Seattle to Spokane along I-90 is about four hours by car. But I wasn’t traveling by car, and 90 is an interstate. The Highway Patrol would definitely have some