Road Trips and War Stories

On the day we met Whiskey Two Shoes, the apple blossoms were in full bloom and The Valley was ablaze with color and sunshine.

Ruthie and I had borrowed Hubie's rattletrap, convertible Volkswagon for the trip and it was glorious to wheeze and wind our way toward Annapolis. The very real possibility of car trouble only added spice to the journey, I'd assured Nana that morning, not to worry, we were among friends. She hadn't been convinced but she'd reluctantly given in.

Call when you get there, she'd insisted and we'd carelessly agreed then in the sheer joy of the drive, promptly forgot until we were well past the Digby town limits. Ruthie thought she remembered a tiny store somewhere around Bear River, one of those dusty, dim little places that sold two for a nickel cigarettes and chewin' tobacco. Its homemade shelves would be cluttered with mouse traps and chocolate bars, fishin' hooks and little tins of aspirin, dulse for the tourists and cellophane wrapped stale bread. There'd be an old sittin' bench on the front porch and a scarred up cooler of icy water for the pop, maybe an unpainted picnic table and a roughened bench or two - if it were prosperous - but mostly just a shack on the side of the road with its back to the ocean. If it had a name at all, it'd be called Mac's or Curt's or some such and it might or might not have a old, hand cranked telephone mounted on the back wall.

The one Ruthie remembered was called Saulnier's (underneath the rusted license plate type sign hanging crookedly over the door, someone had added “Sundrys, Bait, Cold Drinks” in sloppy block black paint) and it was almost exactly as we'd expected.  It was a weatherbeaten, old relic of a place, the kind people throw together to have somewhere to go and pass the time rather than make a profit. Instead of a picnic table, there was a sideways cable spool and a couple of upended barrels off to one side. One one barrel, a scrawny, sleepy eyed black cat sat grooming his whiskers and giving us a disdainful look. On the other, sat an Indian, an exceptionally tall and slim figure in boots, worn jeans and a dark, denim vest. He was playing solitaire. His gray hair was in braids past his shoulders and his brown skin was leather smooth, the color of maple syrup. He might've been not yet forty or goin' on sixty, I thought. When Ruthie called out to ask if there were a 'phone inside, he didn't get up, exactly, he unfolded hisself, gathered up the playin' cards and the cat in one easy gesture, slipped the deck into his pocket and set the cat on his shoulder.

Nickel a call, he said and nodded the little store, Help yourself.

Lord a'mighty, Ruthie whispered as she slid past me, He's near tall as a damn tree.

The cat twined around the Indian's neck and settled itself like horseshoe. There was no need of claws to hold on, I saw, despite his height, the man's steps were as sure, light, and silent as snow falling and the cat was clearly at ease. We followed them inside, paid our nickel and made the call to Nana, enduring a brief but really only half hearted scolding for being so late. The cat and the Indian seemed to have forgotten we were there. That done, it was time to get on the road again. Ruthie dug up a quarter from her jeans for a bar of toffee for herself and a Jersey Milk for me and we headed outside and climbed back into the little Volkswagon. She was about to turn the key in the ignition when we heard the screen door open and close and the Indian called to us to hold up. We watched as he lifted the cooler lid and reached into the near freezing water, pulled out two bottles of Orange Crush, snapped off their caps one handed, and walked to the car.

'Preciate you comin' by, he said in that sippin' whiskey smooth voice and handed each of us a dripping bottle, Stop by on your way back.  Cat don't mind havin' company.

It might've just been the shadows but for a half second I had the not very reasonable idea that I knew the man from somewhere. There was a hint of something that might've been the start of a smile in that ageless face and the idea was heading toward a faint memory when the dusty little car coughed and sputtered to life. Ruthie capably shifted gears and we roared off in a cloud of dust and gravel.  

When we told Nana about him, she smiled in a faraway kind of way.

Whiskey Two Shoes, my grandmother said thoughtfully, I declare I ain't thought of that ol' halfbreed in a dog's age.  Why, if I'd knowed that was where you was, I reckon I'd have saved myself the worry.  He fought with your daddy in France, you know, and Ruth, your mama was right there with'em.  'Fore she met yer daddy, acourse.

The idea that I knew him took a sudden, sharp downturn into an long forgotten war story about France and three friends, a soldier, a Canadian Armed Forces nurse and an Indian persuaded to fight by the promise of whiskey and a pair of new shoes. Ruthie knew the story same as I did but we'd only ever halfway believed it. They'd fought and survived but there just wasn't much romance to it, so we thought, war wasn't in our experience and France was a world away. Yet here on a soft summer day with the apple blossoms all in bloom, here it was and the mystery only deepened when we carried the message home. My daddy, fence-mending in the back pasture of the farm, listened patiently and then gave us his trademark give-nothing-away smile. Over the counter as she counted out penny candy for one of the Albright children, Aunt Jenny blushed prettily and got such a faraway look in her eyes that she lost track and had to start all over again.  As far as we could tell, even Nana thought she'd said too much and scolded us for asking too many questions.

Whiskey Two Shoes is a friend and a good man, she told us shortly, And that's 'bout all you need to know.  

Ruthie and I pondered this.  She suggested they'd been heroes or black marketeers, maybe even spies or doomed lovers like in "Casablanca" but in the end it was something we were never to know.

There's no end of mystery in this poor, old mortal world and maybe it's better that way.