Maybe it was the Native American in me that I got from my mom’s side, but I felt closer to God out in nature than I ever did in church. Mom was Catholic and dad was Protestant, so I spent a lot of time at church growing up. Church didn’t stick, but the faith did. Call it superstition, or just wishful thinking, but I’d always felt a deep and abiding Presence in the wilderness that I’d never felt anywhere else. Bottom line was that out in the sticks was the only place I ever really felt at peace. Well, there and hunting terrorists. I suppose that’s why when I first came home, I spent six months living between my family’s hunting cabin and several primitive camps I’d set up on our ranch in the Texas Hill Country. The land had been in my family for generations, and included several thousand acres along the Frio River north of Leakey, Texas. It was worth a bundle now, what with all the rich folks from Austin and San Antone wanting to come out here and settle, but my dad was stubborn and refused to sell.
