The Twelfth Insight - James Redfield [71]
“Don’t worry, I’ll see you when you get back. The feather will see to that.”
She gave me a hug and teasingly pushed me on. “You better hurry. We all have a destiny to complete.”
As I was walking away, Tommy’s mother walked up and seemed to know what I was doing. She described the general route toward the area of the guard station, and wished me well. She added that she was sure everything was all right, and that Tommy would be somewhere in that general location. There seemed to be a good reason in her mind that she was not going herself.
When I passed the last of the giant boulders and was starting up the incline, someone else suddenly called from behind me. I turned to see Coleman running up with his pack on.
“I’m supposed to go with you,” he said.
I reached out to grab his arm, once again tremendously glad for his company. He gave me a determined look, and we locked in the Agape.
“Has anyone been talking about the Ninth in camp?” I asked.
“Not much, but they’re all studying it. Tommy seems to already understand it the most.”
I nodded, and we both walked on without talking, heading east toward the rising spires of rock. After about a half mile, we made our way up a steep ridge that jutted out toward the east, so that we could look out on the ascending waves of ridges and crevices rising up before us. At the top was a crown-shaped summit.
“That’s Mount Sinai,” I said.
“And there’s the guard station right there,” Coleman replied, pointing directly below us to a cement-block building located in a small, flat area in the ridges. Several large antennas rose from its tile roof, and we could hear the faint hum of a gasoline generator. Two soldiers talked and smoked cigarettes outside. We both sat down on some rocks and looked the place over. The building was large enough to house perhaps twenty soldiers.
Just then we heard someone call out from above us. The voice was barely audible. We surveyed the area until we saw someone waving about two hundred feet up the slope. It was Tommy.
We hurried up the hill and soon were looking at his smiling face. He offered us some water from a metal cup, and we took it. The water was wonderfully cool.
“Where did this water come from?” I asked.
“Right over there,” he said. “You can fill up your canteens.”
The crystal-clear water came out of the rocks and then rippled down about twenty feet before disappearing into a crevice.
“I thought there was no water in this desert,” Coleman said.
“They call it the spring of Moses,” Tommy replied.
Coleman and I just looked at each other.
I caught the youth’s eye. “You’re up here for some reason, Tommy. What are you doing?”
He looked toward the guardhouse. “Several months ago, I met one of the officers of the guard station. I believe he thinks I’m a wanderer or a prophet or something. I had run out of water and he told me about the spring. I have talked to him several times on my trips here. He knows about the Document but he has always been very secretive. I also believe he knows Joseph’s brother.”
“What?” I said, glancing over at Coleman. “Joseph said his brother was a high-ranking officer here, a commander.”
“I have seen a big man who looked highly ranked talking to my friend.”
I looked at Coleman. “Where was Joseph this morning?”
“He had already left camp,” Coleman replied. “His tent was next to mine and I woke up as he walked off. It was still dark.”
“Have you seen Joseph up here today?” I asked Tommy.
He shook his head. “No one has been here, except for the two soldiers down below.”
“We could probably sneak past those two,” Coleman said.
“It is not time,” Tommy admonished. “We won’t be allowed up the mountain until we first learn to see.”
For a long time, we stayed where we were. Tommy said we must wait until the sun was in the correct position before trying to open up our perception. When the sun was near setting, he explained, it radiated a light of mystery, and extraordinary events could take place.
Coleman and I spent most of the day