y--my wife--glanced through the kitchen doorway. After a cursory
look at the boy, she smiled at him and went back to work.

"Sit down, son, you look pretty done-in. Come far today?"

He nodded. "Guess it shows, huh?" he said, brushing the road dust from
his trousers.

"Uh-huh. Where you from? Not around here, I know."

"Far back as I can remember, Oregon has been home."

It wasn't hard to guess why he was almost a thousand miles from home.
During the war, over ten million American families had been separated,
their way of life destroyed by the hell of atomic bombings. Ever since
its end, people had been seeking their loved ones; many, only to find
them dead or dying. Sometimes the searches stretched across continents
or oceans. In that respect the boy sitting opposite me was no different
from hundreds of others I've seen in the past ten years. The only
difference was in his face.

"Looking for your family," I said, making it a statement.

"Yessir." He smiled, as though the sentence had double meaning.

After he had eaten, he went down to the town store to look through its
records. They all do. They turn the pages of the big stopover book,
hoping a relative or friend had passed through the same town. Then they
sign the book, put down the date and where they're headed, and set out
once more. Almost all towns have stopover books nowadays, and a good
thing, too. They helped me find Marty back in '63, when the truce was
finally signed. In fact, I found her right here in this town. We got
married, settled down, and haven't been more than a hundred miles away
since then.

Martha called me into the kitchen almost as soon as he was gone. "He's a
nice boy."

"That he is," I agreed. "You know, I've been thinking; we could use a
young fella around here to help with the work."

"If he'll stay. There was something in his eyes; a sort of longing for
someone very close to him. That kind usually takes off after a night's
rest."

"I know. Guess I'll drop by the store; see if I can talk him into
staying."

By the time I reached the store, school was out, and a group of kids
were gathered around him, listening to his description of the Rocky
Mountains, which he had crossed during the summer. The kids weren't the
only ones listening. Even the adults were standing around in the store,
remembering the places they had once seen themselves, and getting such
bits of news as he dropped about the other towns he had passed through.