In the 1870s, Williamsport, to the south, became the world’s hardwood center. The demand for wood exploded the region’s population. Capital poured in. Land barons grabbed up huge tracts. Eagles Mere became a fashionable resort, and much of the lumber used for the mansions there was cut from the groves about Mill Creek Falls. After the lower tracts were cut the lumber men moved uphill. Railroads were constructed to transport logs and mill products—lath, barrel staves, wheel spokes, bulk lumber—to Williamsport. In 1888 a branch line reached to Mill Creek where the tannery processed nearly three million pelts each month.
The Endless Mountains region was just moving out of log cabins when in the rest of the country electricity was coming into common use, but business depended upon trees and once the hemlocks were cut they never returned. In the late years of the nineteenth century, with the easy land stripped bare, companies moved to new tracts and pulled most of the people with them.
Then, as the century turned, paved roads and the automobile replaced the railroad. New companies built timber slides to get the highest, the farthest, the last logs. By 1910 more than 95 percent of Heckley County had been deforested. Only on the ridge beyond the gap—a natural steep-sided trough that kept the lumbermen from being able to transport logs across the chasm, the gap that would become the north border of the High Meadow farm—were any virgin eastern hemlocks left standing.
Finally the companies left for good. The people vanished. Clustered shacks rotted, caved in upon themselves during mosquito-infested summers, disappeared beneath the cover of early cycle foliage, plants that would help the earth regenerate in a process that could take 10,000 years.
To this land came Pewel Wapinski. In 1909, at twenty years old, he left his mountain village south of the city of Lwów in Polish Austria, and migrated to the United States. For seven years he wandered the eastern third of America; for seven years he worked at menial tasks, educated himself, dreamed. In 1917 he enlisted in the Army of the United States; was sent to France; fought at Château-Thierry, the first major U.S. combat role of the Great War, where he was wounded. In 1919, after convalescence, he was discharged, still alone, still to wander. On his way from Wilkes-Barre to Williamsport he took a wrong road and found the Loyalsock and Mill Creek Falls. North of the falls he discovered barren, worthless land that could be purchased for next to nothing. In 1922 Pewel Wapinski became a U.S. citizen, met and married Brigita Clewlow. In December of that year, only months after he purchased 143 muddy acres—the top soil washed away in heavy rains, blown away by dry winds, cracked and heaved in freezing temperatures—in that horrible month of that horrible year of mud slides and frozen ruptured scars, Brigita Clewlow Wapinski gave birth to their only child. They named him Pewel for his father but used the English spelling, Paul, for the new country.
For Paul and for Brigita, Pewel first built a small cabin a hundred yards beyond the northeast shore of a muddy swamp. He then tended to the highest pasture spreading clover and alfalfa seed to stop the erosion, then cut drainage ditches across the hills. He dammed the basin’s outlet, built a spillway, planted an apple orchard, set to work on a windbreak along the ridge that in a few years led him to plant seven acres of sugar maple seedlings.
When Paul Wapinski returned from World War II, High Meadow was supporting a small herd of dairy cattle and enough pigs to keep a quarter of Mill Creek in pork chops and bacon. In 1946 Robert Wapinski was born to Paul and Miriam (nee) Cadwalder.
The house Bobby Wapinski moved back into in 1969 was run-down. Perhaps any home in which a man lives alone for fifteen years, alone after his wife’s death, would be run-down. But Pewel Wapinski lost not only his wife in 1954, he lost his grandson whom he and his wife had raised for more than six years as though he were their own son, as though they, late in life, had been given the chance to raise their only son again, a son whose vanishing they did not understand, whose abandonment of his family horrified them. A year later Pewel caught Miriam making the nine-year-old boy eat, without utensils, from an animal bowl on the floor, calling him dog and pig, telling him he would eat there forever until he learned to eat without making noise, eat like his brother and sister who sat respectfully afraid at the table not seeing Rob on his knees, his hands behind his back, licking at his food, trying so hard to be soundless. What else she had done, Pewel did not know, refused to imagine.
Pewel Wapinski had attempted to gain custody but Miriam fought him and the court sided without question with the mother who owned a Victorian in the Lutzburgh section over the old man from the hills, sided with her without even hearing the old man’s story much less what the boy might say. In Pewel’s loss there was despondency. When that passed he could no longer live in the house except to eat and sleep. He rose early each day, spent the day in the barn, in a loft office he built with such intricate precision the woodwork rivaled that in the best homes along River Front Drive or indeed even those in the mansions at Eagles Mere.
The exterior of the house had been neglected. Where the grass around the barn was neatly cut, that around the house grew to its self-limiting height. Where the tree limbs at the barn were meticulously trimmed so that in the strongest storm winds the branches barely reached the roof with the tickle of a leaf, the trees around the house had grown first to brush the sides, then to jam against the roof and windows. And where the barn trim was repainted yearly, even in his eightieth year though he only did the lower sections now and hired various boys from other hill farms to do the second story and gable peaks, the house had not been painted since 1953.
The man Bobby Wapinski returned to was small, wiry, shrunken to five foot seven, only 135 pounds. Yet Grandpa Pewel was still strong, and except for when the arthritis in his shoulders, hips and especially his hands flared, he was spry. And he was happy. Perhaps that was the foundation of his spell.
For ten days Robert Wapinski and his grandfather spoke little, mostly just vague stammerings in the kitchen at the table where Robert had learned to talk.
“Bob,” his grandfather said. He did not call him Rob or Robbie. It was the first evening of July. The house was hot, humid, smelled of mildew even though the old man had cleaned harder than he had in fifteen years. “I imagine, if I’d just returned from a war, if I’d just come back here, I imagine I’d feel a bit of a stranger here. And I imagine I’d be mighty restless, too.”
Robert Wapinski leaned forward on his elbows, wrapped both hands around his coffee. He hadn’t verbalized those thoughts to himself but as Grandpa talked he realized that he did feel like a stranger, not at High Meadow, but in town and at Nittany Mountain. And he was restless. He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for.
“Well,” Grandpa continued, “don’t expect to feel all right overnight. It takes time. Nothing grows overnight. It takes time to grow new skin.”
Robert said nothing. Conversations between grandfather and grandson were slow, unrushed. Earlier he had told his grandfather about Stacy, about the fight at the frat house, what he could remember about the ride and the crash. He had relayed these things as if he had been a briefing officer delivering an afteraction report. He had said little about Viet Nam except on the third night at High Meadow, half intoxicated, he had raged, “With all their talk, with all the words, it’s like nobody here has the vaguest idea what’s happening over there. They don’t know. They don’t want to know. They don’t want to know about our soldiers. They don’t give a shit about the people. I was going to go back to school. I can’t go back to that place.”
Grandpa had answered, “Your father felt like that some when he came back from World War Two. Your grandma and me, we pushed him back to your ma’s cause we thought that was right. He sure as hell couldn’t live with your ma. Well, you know, you can stay up here. Do whatever you want. Alone or bring whoever you want. Door’s always open. The place is yours.”
Again the fourth night Robert had drunk too much. He’d talked, raged, spewed forth indignation, but he refused to hear. And Grandpa had not repeated Bobby’s comments,
had not tried to reason with his grandson. He had simply sat there, listened, let the young man discharge his anger.
Grandpa finished his coffee. He rose and carried his plate to the sink. “I don’t know if you know this,” he said running hot water into the dishpan, “but I felt like a stranger, too, after the Great War. But, ha, I was a stranger. It was okay for me. Do you want to give Josh the bones?”
“Just one.” Robert brought his plate to the sink. He picked out a bone with some meat left on it. “I don’t think his digestive tract is mature enough for much more but it’ll be good for his teeth.” He made a chicking sound. “Come on, Boy.” He opened the back door, tossed the bone into the yard. Josh scampered out.
“Granpa.”
“Um-hmm.”
“What makes her so cold?”
“Who?”
“My mother. Why’s she like that?”
“She’s a hard woman to ... Her ma, she was a lot like that too. Them Cadwalders is like that.”
“God! I wish I knew what made her that way.”
“Well, she is cold,” Pewel Wapinski said. “I haven’t hardly talked to her since the day she—she chased ...”
“I know,” Robert said. “It’s okay with me.”
“It’s not with me,” the old man said simply. “That’s not the way families are supposed to be. She broke up more’n just her own family. She broke up my family, too.”
“What was my Pa like?” Robert asked. He had been told stories about his father when he was young, and he had read the letters, but he had a need to hear again, maybe to read again, in light of his own past few years.
“He was a good boy. A fine boy. When he came back from the Pacific, though, he needed time. I don’t know what he saw there. He was in a field artillery unit. Okinawa late in the war. He went late. Not with the first force. He was a replacement soldier pretty late in ’42. But then he went on to the Solomons and the Marianas. And he was with the first guns on Okinawa in ’45. I cut articles for him, just like I did for you. When he got back your brother was three years old and your dad couldn’t touch im. We didn’t give him time. And she sure as hell didn’t. She got pregnant. That’s when you were born.”
“She’s always saying I’m just like him.”
“You are like him. You are. You’re Wapinski through and through. That’s what she couldn’t stand. She wanted to turn him into a Cadwalder, like she done to the fella she’s got with her now.”
“Doug?”
“Sorriest excuse for a man I ever seen.”
“He’s okay, I guess.”
“He’s nothin compared to your Pa.”
“You know, every time she’d get worked up and start smacking me around she’d always yell, ‘Yer just like him. Just like yer f-ah-ther.’ I mean, I think I knew way back, even at nine or ten, she was a bitch. I think I knew that’s why he left.”
“That’s why he left. If she hadn’t been like that I’d of had a son and a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren. Your grandma and I gave your father five thousand dollars when they got married so he could buy her a house in town. That was a lot of money back then. But she turned everything she could against the Wapinski name. Only one she wasn’t able to get to is you. And that’s because you’ve got that Wapinski stubborn streak. Your father had it but she got to him at his low point. And we didn’t help because we didn’t know.”
“Do you think he’s still alive?”
“Nope. I think he died because if he was still alive he would have come back for you after he’d sorted hisself out. He loved you. He didn’t know Brian. She’d already turned him into a Cadwalder by the time he come back. And, of course, he left before Joanne was born.”
“Is she my full sister?”
“Maybe.”
“Like Ma might have been a whore, huh?”
“She was goin with a man when your father was away.”
“And me? Am I maybe a bastard too?”
“No. Your Ma wasn’t playing around just when your Pa came home. You were conceived probably that week he come back. And there was a good year there. Least that’s what we always believed. But then she started playin around. As I heard it.”
“So my mother was a whore.”
“No. Not a whore. Just she weren’t your father’s exclusively. She liked a few other men and that drove him crazy. But—but I think he would of put up with even that if she weren’t like she was to him. And he couldn’t tell me or his ma because we didn’t want to know. You didn’t talk about those things then.”
“Great family.”
“Bob, Wapinski is a great family. It’s a shame you don’t know more. A shame I don’t remember more. But Wapinskis have always been strong. Back in our village, my father was looked up to by everyone. And my brothers were strong. And Wapinskis have always been brave and truthful. When I first come to this country I worked in every kind of job. I am always the best. But I never found in a city what I found here and that’s why I stayed. Wapinskis are better than most. We serve others. But we know, you can lead others by your service. When you have children, Bob, that’s something you teach. You always teach your children that Wapinski is special. That it’s a thing to be honored. That way, they carry that with them and they’ll always be good.”
Bobby squinted. The Wapinski stuff was hard to take. “What about Pa?”
“Your pa, he ... between your ma and what he saw on Okinawa ...”
“What’d he see on Okinawa? I thought he never talked about it.”
“He told me ... well ... there was terrible mayhem there. People, farmers, gettin between the armies and bein slaughtered. Maybe somewhere near 60,000 natives. Seems I read that. Fifty, sixty, seventy thousand noncombatants in just a few months. Then after ... after the fighting was finished, he was there, then too, part of the occupation force but just a short time. He couldn’t stand it. They carried so much anger, American soldiers, anger from having seen so many of their friends die. When they’d be on guard, at night, if they saw a native, they’d shoot im.”
“Shoot ...”
“Shoot em. After the war ended there.”
“Um. I’m not surprised.”
“Well, your father was! He didn’t like it. He wanted to have some men tried. It affected him a long time.”
“Yeah. I guess it could. We were very strict about that kind of thing.”
“I’m glad to know that.”
“Some stuff like that happened. I know some units where guys went crazy and maybe killed people they didn’t have to during a fight. It never happened with my unit.”
“Good. Then you don’t need that.”
“What? The scotch?”
“Yep.”
“It ... ah, it just helps me sleep.”
“Bob, I’m only going to say this once. You don’t need me harpin at you. But you’re not goina find the answer in that bottle. Be careful of that. It won’t do you much good and you haven’t finished what you begun.”
“Finished what?”
“You’re here for a reason, Bob. Here, on earth. I don’t know the reason but there’s not a soul born without reason. You ask yourself this like you were somebody else, like He was askin you. You say, ‘What have you done that you want to show me? What have you done you’re proud of?’ Maybe your reason is to right them folks you think are wrong.”
“Folks?”
“Them newspeople you cuss at.”
“About Viet Nam! Uhn-uh, Granpa, I did my part. And those people ... they don’t want to hear.”
“Then you might just as well give it up.”
“Give it up? Give what up?”
“Your anger. If you’re not going to set them straight, you just might as well agree with them. Let them have your mind.”
“My mind. My—” Bobby put his head into his hands, closed his eyes, mumbled, “Never let em get to your ...”
“Eh?” Grandpa said.
“Oh. Nothin.” Bobby looked up. “I was just thinking of somet
hing else.”
“Your part, eh? Well Bob, to me, I think your part’s not finished until you’re finished. Unfinished business, Bob, unfinished business has a way of haunting you. Take care of business, first. You’ve got to plant before you play.”
“Yeah. You’re right Granpa. But not—”
“I know. Not yet. It’s okay. You’ll work it out. I know you will. I know you’ll do it right. You’re Wapinski.”
“Yeah. Thanks Granpa.”
Robert Wapinski began his third week at High Meadow by drawing up a plan for refurbishing the house, and by taking Josh on his first hike into the deep woods. His perspective changed dramatically. He gave up his morning shots of whiskey. He rose at five, made coffee, watched the sunrise. Then he skimmed the newspaper or the newsweekly for Viet Nam–related articles, which he cut and saved but barely read more than the headlines, telling himself he’d study them later. And he made a phone call.
“Bea Hollands, please.”
“This is Bea.”
“Oh.” She had a pleasant telephone voice. He tried to picture her. “I’m Bob Wapinski. I’m a friend of Stacy—”
“Oh yes, Bob. Hi.”
“Hi. I was—”
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
“Uh ...” Blew this one, he thought.
“Bob, we met about three years ago. At a party. I’m the short girl with the red hair. You and Stacy were going pretty hot and heavy then. I guess you didn’t notice much else.”
“Oh, I’m ... yeah. I think I do remember you,” he lied. “Bright red hair?”
“That’s right. That’s why most of my friends call me Red. You can call me Red.”
“Okay. Red.” The phone conversation was easier than he’d expected and he knew it was not because of himself. He already enjoyed talking to her. “Hey, can we get together?”
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