Van’s shame and despair had left him. In this huge American sky and these mountains, he found himself light-headed with a golden sense of the world’s possibilities. He did like it up here, being with Dottie. It was great. If the stupid war would only end, and if he blew off a few personal bad habits, yeah, he could make a go of it, living up here. The mountains of the West would become his home. He could go native. He’d get barrel-chested, and tanned, with boot calluses on his soft hacker feet.