Book Three, Characters in Nature: The River Writes, Neighbors and The Warble of the Water Owl Summary

Gus awakes the next day and only has the desire to look at things and not fish. He is so consumed by the beauty of the Outdoors that he dresses, throws some fruit in a rucksack, and goes outside. He hikes to the top of the hill in the same spot that he and Bill Bob had been to earlier. It is on this trip that he sees what Bill Bob had seen—the shape of the river forming the word "why?". There it is, in Gus's favorite element, a continual questioning of why.

The question unsettles Gus, making him question his murderous actions of killing fish just to make a note...