It didn’t matter though, did it? The war was over. Truman said so on the radio. You and me heard his voice on the loudspeaker while we stood on the fantail, two nobodies from the boonies, waving good-bye to the dead. Now John, here is how I remember the rest of it: We get discharged at the navy receiving station in San Diego and ride a bus all the way home, but when we crossed the Montana line the only thing you said was, “Looks better with a few hills,” and when I asked if I’d see you again, you said, “Yes.” I got to my ranch and there was nothing there, cows gone, machinery rusted into the ground, saddle horses stolen or eaten. But fifty years comes and goes and you wait for a time like this. The Gazette ran a picture of a battleship graveyard around Mobile, Alabama, and I seen our little cruiser in the pack of wrecked ships but I ain’t seen you.
Well here I am, said Red Wolf, and I followed him into the canyon where the sky was upside down and we could walk straight into the stars.
A Note About the Author
Thomas McGuane lives in Sweet Grass County, Montana. He is the author of eight previous novels—The Sporting Club, The Bushwacked Piano, Ninety-two in the Shade, Panama, Nobody’s Angel, Something to Be Desired, Keep the Change, and Nothing but Blue Skies—and a collection of stories, To Skin a Cat, as well as two collections of essays, Some Horses and The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing.