Wapinski woke. His head snapped up. How much had been a dream, how much did he control, he did not know. “f**k it!” he said aloud. “f**k em all! Drive on!”
Winter arrived at High Meadow in mid-December. The temperature dropped thirty degrees on the night of the 10th and on the morning of the 11th it barely warmed at all. That night the temperature dropped to single digits. On the 13th a low front swept in and precipitation fell as frigid rain, then froze into a layer of ice. By noon the ice was half an inch thick.
It was transition time. At the back of Bobby’s mind were Viet Nam, his father’s letters, Red. Viet Nam, he thought, had become a hook to his past, a momentary identity penetrating into some deep layer of self-definition.
Grandpa had heated up a pan of chicken broth and the two
