His legs felt heavy and even though the sun was hanging close to the Berkshires, his back was tender and he wished he’d worn a T-shirt. On the way back he ran as fast as he could. He tried to hold the pace, and he imagined doing this with a rifle in his hand and a pack on his back, boots on his feet. Sweat burned his eyes and his ribs started to hurt. At his mailbox, he stopped and walked down Saunders Hill Road under the trees. He could see his father standing down at the bank. Leo took long deep breaths as he walked. He wiped his forehead with the back of his arm but both were wet.

Jim glanced back at his son, then flicked his cigarette out into the water. The river had gone down another foot overnight and was almost out of the hardwoods, back where it belonged. At the opposite bank was a line of yellow foam from the mill. Leo leaned over and rested both hands on his knees. He was a little behind Jim and to the side, and he heard the clink of ice as his father drank from his coffee. Leo swatted a mosquito at his neck. Jim lit another cigarette and Leo waited. Two more mostuitoes began working on his leg. He was breathing close to normal now. He killed both bugs and turned to go back up the hill.

“When do you leave?” Jim said it without turning around. You’d have thought he was talking to the river.

“Saturday morning.” Leo crossed his arms. He felt the eyelash kiss of a mosquito on his spine, but he didn’t move. Neither did Jim. Leo didn’t like looking at his back, but if he went around to the other side of him he’d be standing in water. “A captain swore me in.”

Smoke blew out in front of Jim. The back of his head looked so big and square, his hair still so black. Leo wondered who the hell he thought he was, keeping his back to him like that.

“He said if the sergeant said I’m going to Germany, then I’m going to Germany.”

Jim nodded, his attention still on the river. Then he turned around. “I joined up in Texas. Did you know that?”

Leo shook his head.

“I was hitching a ride to a night picnic in Chicopee. This man in a LaSalle was going to Hartford, said he’d drop me right off, but when he slowed down at the line I asked him if he wouldn’t mind taking me to Connecticut instead. He was happy for the company, bought me a dinner in the city.” Jim finished his Lucky Strike and lit up another. He looked very tired, his nose a little wider than normal, his eyes deeper set, an ash-colored band beneath each one. “That was my last full meal till I got to Kentucky and found work on a horse farm for a month. I would’ve stayed if the owner hadn’t sold two mares to a Texan from San Antonio.”