In any event, this letter marks the first unambiguous expression of the longing for a soul mate that would plague Everett throughout his short life. He never acknowledged the kind of terrible loneliness that the extraordinary solo journeys he was undertaking would have inflicted on a normal seventeen-year-old. But he would return now and again to the lament that he could not find that “true companion”—whether or not he meant lover, mentor, or partner in the wilderness.
