PORT ANGELES — When he saw Lance Hering’s photograph in the Peninsula Daily News last Monday, Ken Nattinger of Port Angeles didn’t recognize him.

The short-haired, clean-shaven Hering featured in a photograph from 2006 that his father was holding had little resemblance to the man who lived and worked on Nattinger’s 120-acre tree farm on Deer Park Road for several months last year.

It wasn’t until a friend showed him the photograph of Hering, sporting a scraggly beard and long, blond hair, that the face become familiar.

“‘Hey, I think that’s Nine, the guy that stayed at your place,'” the friend told Nattinger.

Hering, who referred to himself only as Nine — or perhaps Nein, the German word for no — showed up at the tree farm in spring or early summer 2007 looking for work and a place to stay.

Joined by his girlfriend, Kimberly Pace, who Nattinger said is from Port Angeles, Hering spent the next few months working off his rent on the tree farm before leaving with Pace to the Sequim area sometime around the fall.

Matter of principle

Nattinger, 52, said that, as a “moral principle,” he and his wife, who are members of the Society of Friends — or Quakers — have always provided shelter and work for those needing a placing to stay since they acquired the farm in 1980.

The couple likely found out about the tree farm through word of mouth, he said.

“How people arrive here is always a mystery to me,” he added.

They frequently come and go, and Nattinger said him and his wife don’t ask them about their past or where they come from.

But Hering’s demeanor, which made him appear distant at times, made sense to Nattinger after he read in the PDN that he had served as a Marine in Iraq.

“He was a good worker, but he could disappear without being noticed,” he said.

“I could tell he had an ego at some time, but it was gone.

“Obviously in hindsight, I can make some guesses.”

That guess: post traumatic stress disorder.

“PTSD does that. I see it in my friends from Vietnam,” Nattinger said.

Hering and Pace — who paid rent — had a good relationship, he said.

Nattinger said they would go to coffee shops and socialize with other people when they weren’t at the farm.

A lot of the young people who come to his farm have family-related issues, and need some sort of counseling to fit into the “family structure” that exists on the farm, Nattinger said.

“But they didn’t need it,” he said.

“I’m guessing they had a decent upbringing.”

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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.