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He’d spread a carpet over <strong>the</strong> magaz<strong>in</strong>es, which served as <strong>the</strong> floor of his <strong>in</strong>terior liv<strong>in</strong>g area. <strong>The</strong> walls<br />
of his home, <strong>the</strong> police photos showed, were constructed of brown and green plastic tarps and several large<br />
black garbage bags. <strong>The</strong>se were all <strong>in</strong>tricately overlaid, like roof tiles, anchored <strong>in</strong> place with guyl<strong>in</strong>es tied<br />
to tree branches and car batteries, form<strong>in</strong>g an A-frame structure a good ten feet tall and twelve feet long,<br />
wide open at both ends like a tra<strong>in</strong> tunnel. It was an aes<strong>the</strong>tically pleas<strong>in</strong>g creation, almost churchlike <strong>in</strong><br />
appearance, that blended <strong>in</strong>to <strong>the</strong> color palette of <strong>the</strong> forest. It’d be hard to make someth<strong>in</strong>g nicer solely of<br />
tarps and garbage bags.<br />
<strong>The</strong> entrance to his structure closest to <strong>the</strong> elephant rocks brought you <strong>in</strong>to Knight’s kitchen: a Coleman<br />
two-burner camp stove atop a couple of milk crates, with a green five-gallon bucket as a seat. A garden<br />
hose, repurposed as a gas l<strong>in</strong>e, was attached to <strong>the</strong> stove and snaked out <strong>the</strong> shelter to a propane tank. <strong>The</strong><br />
stove ventilated through <strong>the</strong> shelter’s open ends. Cook<strong>in</strong>g supplies were hung from ropes along <strong>the</strong> kitchen<br />
walls—a fry<strong>in</strong>g pan, a mug, a roll of paper towels, a spatula, a stra<strong>in</strong>er, a pot. Each item had its own hook.<br />
A couple of mousetraps guarded <strong>the</strong> floor; a bottle of Purell stood beside a portable cooler. His pantry was<br />
a rodent-proof plastic storage conta<strong>in</strong>er.<br />
Beh<strong>in</strong>d <strong>the</strong> kitchen, toward <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r end of <strong>the</strong> shelter, was Knight’s bedroom—a dome-shaped nylon<br />
camp<strong>in</strong>g tent set up with<strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> A-frame, for added protection from ra<strong>in</strong> and camouflage for <strong>the</strong> brightly<br />
colored tent. Inside <strong>the</strong> nylon tent, more plastic b<strong>in</strong>s served as closet space. Knight said that he had been<br />
embarrassed to show Hughes and Vance his site, not because it was filled with stolen merchandise but<br />
because it wasn’t clean enough. His tent walls had started to rot and dis<strong>in</strong>tegrate, someth<strong>in</strong>g that happened<br />
over time. “It was like someone com<strong>in</strong>g over to your mo<strong>the</strong>r’s house before she’d had a chance to clean,”<br />
said Knight. He had already taken a new tent, but he hadn’t yet set it up. Like any home owner, Knight was<br />
forever toy<strong>in</strong>g with ideas for improvements and renovations. He had planned, before he’d been arrested, to<br />
add a layer of gravel between <strong>the</strong> carpet and <strong>the</strong> magaz<strong>in</strong>e bricks, to fur<strong>the</strong>r prevent ra<strong>in</strong>water from pool<strong>in</strong>g<br />
beneath <strong>the</strong> floor of his A-frame.<br />
An artificial-grass doormat sat before <strong>the</strong> tent’s door. Knight lived an unspeakably rugged existence but<br />
slept ra<strong>the</strong>r royally. His bed was composed of a tw<strong>in</strong>-sized mattress and box spr<strong>in</strong>g on a metal bed frame,<br />
its legs propped on blocks of wood to prevent <strong>the</strong>m from punch<strong>in</strong>g holes <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> tent floor. <strong>The</strong>re were fitted<br />
sheets and real pillows—at <strong>the</strong> time of his arrest, he was us<strong>in</strong>g Tommy Hilfiger pillowcases—and sleep<strong>in</strong>g<br />
bags piled up for warmth.<br />
Milk crates worked as nightstands, heaped with books and magaz<strong>in</strong>es. He had dozens of wristwatches,<br />
flashlights, and portable radios. He had taken extra boots, sleep<strong>in</strong>g bags, and jackets. “I like backup<br />
systems, redundancies, and options,” he expla<strong>in</strong>ed. He’d also set up a wea<strong>the</strong>r station, a digital receiver<br />
wired to an outside temperature gauge, so he knew how cold it was without gett<strong>in</strong>g out of bed. His structure<br />
was so well designed that his tent never got wet.<br />
On <strong>the</strong> perimeter of his site, beside <strong>the</strong> kitchen entry to <strong>the</strong> tarp structure, a low, flat-topped rock served<br />
as Knight’s wash area, for himself and his clo<strong>the</strong>s. Here he stored laundry detergent and soap, shampoo and<br />
razors. <strong>The</strong>re was, as he’d <strong>in</strong>sisted, no mirror. He liked to steal Axe brand deodorant. He never had a warm<br />
shower <strong>in</strong> twenty-seven years, but he did dump buckets of cold water over his head.<br />
Near <strong>the</strong> wash area, he’d lashed a tarp, flat but at a downward angle, to four trees. This acted as a giant<br />
funnel for ra<strong>in</strong>water, which he collected <strong>in</strong> plastic thirty-gallon garbage cans. He generally stored sixty to<br />
n<strong>in</strong>ety gallons, enough to get through most dry spells. Dur<strong>in</strong>g severe drought years, he hiked to <strong>the</strong> shore to<br />
fetch lake water, which was clean enough to dr<strong>in</strong>k. When <strong>the</strong> water <strong>in</strong> his garbage b<strong>in</strong>s became soiled with