I go directly to the bathroom, and when I come back out, Mimi is already in bed, wrapped up in a fortress of blankets and pillows.

I sit in the chair and watch Czech television shows with the mute button engaged. That’s the beauty of television and life in general. You don’t need sound to understand what’s happening.

I’m still in the chair the next morning. I check my watch. The breakfast room has just opened. I could wake her, but I leave Mimi sleeping and head downstairs. She’ll find me soon enough. After Budapest, it’s probably best if we begin the day in public and on neutral ground.

The table in the corner is free. I sit with my back to the wall and do a slow review of my life and what I’ve accomplished.

Photojournalist.

That’s about it.

The Indian expert. My great claim to fame. The man who covered all the major contemporary events. Alcatraz, 1969. Trail of Broken Treaties, 1972. Wounded Knee, 1973. The Seminoles and Native gaming controversy, 1979. Oka, 1990. Ipperwash, 1995. Idle No More, 2012. Elsipogtog fracking protest, 2014. Dakota Access Pipeline protest, 2017.

If it had feathers and a drum, I was there.

For over forty years, I took the pictures, wrote the stories. And then I walked away.

Mark Twain said, “It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart, the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you,” but I know better.

I don’t need any help. I can do the job all by myself.

One day I was covering major news events with my own byline, and the next I was sitting at home watching Murder, She Wrote reruns and Murdoch Mysteries.

I didn’t use the word “quit” when I told Mimi.

“Retiring? From what?”

“Work.”

“Thought you wanted to save the world?”

“Can’t save it from people,” I told her.

“That sounds like despair.”

“And I’m tired.”

“And that sounds like depression.”

WRITING-ON-STONE PROVINCIAL PARK.

Just north of the Alberta-Montana border. Sunday, July 10, 2016. A makeshift camp had materialized on the Milk River. Four tipis, seven men, six women, five children. They had been there for about two weeks when a group of tourists hiking through the park noticed the smoke from the cooking fire and reported it.

The camp was the idea of Annie Littlechild, a Cree from Wetaskiwin. She had left a clerical job with Shell Canada and decided to try to live as her ancestors had lived. The rest of the encampment consisted of a mismatched assortment of Natives from Rocky Boy and Wetaskiwin, Siksika and Bella Coola, along with a German university professor who had written a book on Karl May.