It was a beautiful Fall day. Aspens turning gold on the Colorado mountain sides were enchanting, but it had been too many years since he had driven in the hills of Vermont on a road lined with the bright gold, orange, and red fall foliage of his home state.
He was headed to a dairy farm with a post office address in a small town near Montpelier -- the last address where he had been able to reach Merry Joliat.
Probably Merry was no longer there, but someone in that town would know where to find the farm where she had worked as a Land Girl. If he could not find the farm or she was not there, he would head to Barre where she had written him that her family lived on the outskirts of town. Her father was a stone carver and a teacher of stone carving. Someone in Barre would know how to find the Joliat family.
Pete's home -- where his Mother and Father were waiting for him was further North near Jay Peak, but finding Merry was the most important thing on his mind. Anything could have happened. Merry oould have met someone else, someone not carrying the unshakeable memories of war. In his heart he believed that she would wait for him, but, he repeated to himself, anything could have happened.
Remembering the train station that was the first and last time he had seen Merry Joliat, he parked near the post office where her box number -- ever since he had carried it in his pocket on his way to Camp Hale - was imprinted in his memory.