He couldn’t help but admire what she’d done, even if it was crazy. No girl he knew would sneak out to track down a mountain lion. Except Lil. “If it’d found you, maybe you’d be breakfast.”

“You can’t tell.”

“I said I wouldn’t, but you can’t sneak out and go looking for it again either.”

“I think it would’ve come back by now if it was going to. I wonder where it went.” She looked off again, into the hills. “We could go camping. Dad really likes to. We take like a nature hike and camp overnight. Your grandparents would let you.”

“Like in a tent? In the mountains?” The idea was both terrifying and compelling.

“Yeah. We’d catch fish for supper and see the falls, and buffalo and all kinds of wildlife. Maybe even the cougar. When you get all the way to the peak, you can see clear to Montana.” She shifted to look back as the dinner bell rang. “Time to eat. We’ll go camping. I’ll ask my dad. It’ll be fun.”

HE WENT CAMPING and learned how to bait a hook. He knew the rush-up-the-spine thrill of sitting by a campfire and listening to the echoing howl of a wolf, and the shock of watching a fish he’d caught more through luck than design flash silver in the sunlight at the end of his rod.

His body toughened; his hands hardened. He knew an elk from a mule deer and how to care for tack.

He could ride at a gallop, and that was the biggest thrill of his life.

He earned a guest spot on Lil’s baseball team, and brought in a run with a strong double.

Years later, he’d look back and realize his life had turned that summer, and would never be the same again. But all Coop knew at the age of eleven was he was happy.

His grandfather taught him to carve and whittle, and to Coop’s utter joy, presented him with a pocketknife-to keep. His grandmother showed him how to groom a horse, top to bottom, how to check for injury or illness.