There was a newspaper article, which his mother did not know he had, cut from the Billings Gazette, about the murder of his father, and also the long, celebratory obituary that had been printed in the Marquette County Courier.

The most precious item in the box was a drawing his father had given him, done on a plain sheet of notepad paper, the kind kept by the phone to write messages. It had been created on a good day, Ren recalled, an August day. They’d spent the morning putting a new toilet in one of the cabins, and his father had talked while he worked, offering Ren his understanding about Kitchimanidoo, the Great Spirit, about life, about art. He’d said, as he put the wax ring in the flush hole and settled the porcelain bowl on top, that life was a reflection of the Great Spirit, and that art was a reflection of life. All of them were simpler than people imagined. At lunch in the main cabin, which was called Thor’s Lodge, he’d illustrated his point with a pen-and-ink drawing-two long arcs, a few easy loops. “What is it?” he’d asked Ren. Though nothing connected in a way that completed the image, Ren saw it was a bear. “There aren’t many clear connections in life. God, Kitchimanidoo, they’re pretty sketchy when you come right down to it. But you don’t need everything spelled out for you, son. Here”-and he touched Ren’s chest above his heart-“here is where it all comes together.” A week later, his father was dead.

All the treasures in his box Ren loved and in loving them found the connections simple and unseen that ran from the outside world deep into the world of his heart, just as his father had promised.

That afternoon, fourteen-year-old Ren was at work on something that would eventually find its way into his box. He had no idea at the moment of the enormity of the events that would put it there.

“On your knees with your nose in the dirt. Dude, that’s so lame, but so you.”