The small ranch in Reno's foothills was as patched and scarred as the man who lived there. The gritty soil, the sagebrush and bits of pasture, all dung brown. Little rain that summer of '65 and scarce relief in the cloudless sky above. Yet I loved the place.

I drove through the open gates of the Bar W, stopping when I reached the corral. I walked past some cacti to a prefab log cabin.

He greeted me from a high-roofed, screened-in porch where he reclined on a redwood chaise. Legs askew, he looked as deflated as my college duffle.

"Welcome, Pete. The beer's cold." He waved a tumbler I knew was filled with gin. "Grab one."

After taking a Hamm's from a small fridge nearby, I sat facing him in an Adirondack.

He gave me a long probing look as I sipped my beer. Puckered raw skin like tendrils of long-cooled lava snaked across his forehead and down both cheeks. His mouth twisted upwards at the left corner into a ghoulish grin. But his eyes were as blue and clear as the sky.

"Your father send you?"

I smiled. "Nope. I came willingly, Mr. Wojna."

"We're friends long time now, Pete. Call me Rich."

A Warsaw survivor who'd made a fortune in Chicago, he'd come six months earlier for a quickie divorce, bought the ranch and stayed. After hiring Dad as his lawyer, he quickly became a family friend.

"You know what's happening? Why I need you?" he asked.

"Another operation."

"Yes. This time the liver. It's no good. Doctor says I drink too much. Bah!"

He studied me with those clear eyes.

"That shoulder you hurt in car you smash. Operation?"

"Yup. Got torn out of the socket. It's still tender, but I'm fully functional . . . almost."

His lips tightened. "Show me your scar, Pete."

I pulled off my t-shirt.

"Not much to see. Good," he said while snapping loose the buttons of his cowboy shirt. He yanked it wide, exposing his skinny chest. "See this one?" He touched an ugly ridge of scar tissue above his right nipple.

I could only nod.

"Shrapnel. Shoulda killed me, but I'm like cat. Many lives."

Resilient, I thought. He'd told us about fighting during the Warsaw
Uprising, but would say nothing about Treblinka after he was captured.

"Too much about my scars!" he grunted. "I tell what I need from you. Okay?"

I grinned. "That's why I'm here."

He reached for a notebook on the end table to his right.

"Small ranch. No horses or cattle. A neighbor baled the hay and took it. Just this house needs watching. Wrote down what you do." He handed me his notes.

It took a moment to interpret his scrawl. I nodded.

"New furniture and appliances I wish not to lose. Can you stay daytime, Pete? Sleep here, too? Or college soon starting?"

"I've two weeks of freedom . . . then who knows."

"Last year, yes?"

"Yep."

He cocked his head and studied my face. "Why not happy, Pete?"

I didn't lie. "More courses at U of N I won't like . . . then law school somewhere which I'll like even less."

"Schooling ends, and you have dreams, yes?"

"No. My father orchestrates my life. My so-called dreams are all his."

Rich raised his torso a bit, relaxed, and showed me teeth. "Larry, your father, is a good man. Wise, too, or he would not be my . . . uh . . . counselor."

I said nothing, just slurped beer.

Rich emptied his glass quickly and pointed at the fridge. "Get bottle, please."

I did, and watched him refill the tumbler to the brim.

"Let no one dictate your life, Pete." He took a sip. "Not fathers." He took another. "Or doctors." He laughed and slugged down the rest.

"Forty operations since the War, and always I am with pain, yet I dream. Always!" Abruptly he swung his legs around to the floor and grabbed an elegant walking stick tilted against the table. "Come to back window with me. I show you latest."

He hobbled. I followed.

"Next spring those hills, the pastures much filled with flowers after snow melts. My dream, Pete, to see all that beauty and . . . ha! . . . ride the Palomino I shall buy.

"The liver operation . . . I could die, maybe. But Rys Wojna lives to dream," he shouted, pounding his chest with a fist.

He glared at me. "And so must you, Pete."

Rich's histrionics left me so speechless I returned to my Adirondack. He went to the fridge, refilled his tumbler, and stumbled back onto his chaise

I finished the beer as I read his notes again.

"I foresee no problems, Rich," I said, "and I'll stay overnight if that's what you want." I looked at him, allowing a smile to wriggle across my face. "Spend enough time here, I just might come up with a dream."

He lifted his glass and winked. "I drink to that."
***

Rich wanted me to drive him to the hospital in his Cadillac.

"Ranch look after itself for awhile. You drive this back, watch it, too, eh?" he laughed.

I laughed, too.

We chatted while the nurses prepped him. Dad made an unexpected appearance and gave him a bottle of expensive cognac.

"Rich, you, me and Pete will drink this at the ranch when you're home again."

We never did.

The operation went badly from the start. The surgeon found more than he had foreseen, and Rich had a massive coronary while still unconscious in the recovery room.

Dad read Rich's will to me alone in his office.

"He--he left me his ranch?" I said.

"And everything therein, Pete. If we sell it all, we can afford any law school--."

"No! I'm keeping it, Dad. I love that ranch."

"But law school--"

"No law school, Dad, but an MS in agriculture. I'll ranch, maybe enlarge it. But I'll be creating my own dream. I owe Rich that. And, Dad--"

He gaped.

"Dreams don't scar."