Opposition was starting to develop concerning my walks, if one could justifiably call them such. The reality of it is that I was gone for at least half the daylight hours and frequently more, starting homeward only when the sun sank past the horizon. I had no fear of the dark, but Mom was frequently frantic by the time I returned, which I couldn't understand. She'd fuss and fret about bears and cougars and coyotes attacking me while I'd sit there rolling my eyes at the melodrama. I never saw any cougars or coyotes, and my sole encounter with a bear was one in which a black bear and I happened to stumble across one another, and both ran as quickly as we could away from one another. I loved the outdoors, and the more time I spent there, the less appeal our habitation had for me. Dennis thundered and glowered and told horror stories of "white slavers" who would catch me and send me to Saudi Arabia, a prospect that seemed even more dubious than Mom's hysterics about wild animals. In truth, the more time I spent alone, outdoors, the more feral I became. If I saw another person, even a vehicle with people in it, I'd dive into the woods and hide from them, peeking out over a dead log through the tree cover until it has passed. I never spoke to anyone, except once or twice, to a Bryan, a Vietnamese boy about my age. I didn't know what to say, so I said hi and ran off into the woods again.

I think they couldn't imagine that my time outdoors could be passed in such a boring (to them) manner, which is to say, in the absence of other people. I was anything but bored, though. I searched out the deer trails, looks for tracks and sign, and used the trails as much as or more than the human roads and paths. I ate the wild foods I found (kinnikinic berries, thimbleberries, serviceberries, wild apples and pears, cattail down, etc) and forgot at times that I was human. I climbed high into trees and spent an hour or two up there, watching everything that went on around and below me. When I was up high like that, all our troubles at home seemed small and insignificant, far away. I took moss, vines, young shoots of shrubs, birch bark, and made baskets and other items, stowing them in hiding places I'd made in my favorite wild spots. I felt myself becoming a feral, solitary thing...and I loved it.

Sometimes the dogs came with me, especially Bruno. I loved his company, but it was harder to see any wildlife when a dog was with me. He fell down quite a bit as his hips would hardly support him. I waited for him, and he dragged his failing back half behind him.....just to be with me, even though I begged him to stay home.

In the fall, someone somewhere does something to regulate or lower the level of Priest Lake. It involves dams and the Pend Oreille river, but I don't know much more than that. What I do know is that when the water recedes, you can find all sorts of stuff along the shoreline. I was looking for pretty stones, newly uncovered, skipping flat ones across the water, when I stumbled about something man made protruding a little from the sand. I unearthed a rusty old knife with a layered leather handle. I was ecstatic even though I was clearly useless. A few more paces, and I found the leather sheath, in sorry shape but still marginally usable. I brought the knife home as though it were a trophy. Mike was clearly jealous at first, and then sneered in derision, saying it was just junk. Dennis' interest was keener and more controlled. He asked to see it, and then it just sort of vanished. In the dinner commotion, I forgot about the knife for a few hours. Later that night, I noticed something in Dennis' hands. It was a knife with a leather handle, but the blade was bright and sharp. He was playing with it with an expression of satisfaction and material pride on his face. I watched him, and the longer I looked at the knife, the more convinced I was that it was the same one I'd found. I asked him. At first, he claimed it was his, one he'd had for a while, or had just bought soemwhere, or some such tale. But I could tell he was lying, he was too defensive, and he was admiring it too much for something he'd had for some time, so I persisted. Finally he laughed and said that yes, it was the same one, he'd cleaned it up, and gave it back. How I loved that knife, how I cared for it and hid it and kept watch over it....and I have it still.