The lights went out about nine so they lit two ancient hurricane lamps and played cribbage by the flickering light, a penny a point and double for skunks. Howard broke out a jar of his orchard cider and they drank as they played and the storm raged outside, lightning across the black sky, water churning against the dock. Tom let the old man cheat yet still had him, up thirteen cents and pegging, when one of the lamps ran dry and went dark, leaving barely enough light to see the board. Howard grinned and said Be easier to whip ya in the dark but when he reached for his peg the other lamp blew out and now there was only a faint dancing glimmer from a candle on the kitchen counter. Tom watched the old man hold his hand over the board, watched the subtle shake there. Then Howard pulled his hands into his lap and slumped back into his old leather chair. Tom watched his chest rise and fall though he could not hear his breathing over the storm outside. Then Howard took a deep breath and leaned forward and held his grizzled face in his weathered hands and began to talk.
I might a told ya this cribbage board come from my old man, that it was somethin he carved down east before he come here in the thirties. if I told you that it was a lie. Never told anyone and only Bert Neely knew how it come to me and that only cause he was there and knew the fella I got it from and how I come to have it, and I’m thinkin the story died with him when he passed last spring. Some day I hope it’ll be yours, and you need to know where it come from, the truth, not some story I made up. This was in Korea in 1953 near the end of that war and I remember thinkin bout nuthin but livin to get home to my mother and bein more scared every day that last bullet would find me, and if Bert was here he’d tell you he felt the same way, cause its all we ever talked about as a way to keep sane, jokin how it’d be just our luck to get shot in the back on our way out. well, we were assigned to help a bunch of Canadian soldiers, young kids the U.N. thought should be there, and they were more scared than us. Bert and I were barely in twenty and they thought we were old timers, hard as nails vets. Couldn’t a been anything further from the truth, but these kids from Canada didn’t know that, and didn’t need to know it either. They’d a followed Bert and I into hell, and one night they did. We got orders to support a mission to secure another hill near Old Baldy that we’d been up n down a hundred times, and I still couldn’t tell you why, but one more time we geared up and set out, a March night cold as that water out there, snow in the air, ground half frozen, half mud. We were supposed ta be rear support but the Commies had circled behind us and cut us off. They could walk across that frozen ground without a peep while ya could hear our fat feet crunchin in them old boots a mile away. Then a flare go up, and the shit let loose from there. Those Canadian boys never knew what hit em, frozen out there in that flare light, and we tellin em to take cover and they just stood frozen and the Commies cut em down like reeds under a scythe. Bert and I were in the trees by then and we dragged in the kids we could, but most of em were dead fore they hit the snow and those still breathin were chopped up good. Then as quick as they come those fellas slipped away into the night and we were there pissin ourselves and nuthin but dead and dyin Canadian boys. There was this young fella smooth faced as a kid and we’d pulled him into the trees but he was shot in the chest and the gut and bleedin out quick.This kid grabs my sleeve and pulls his kit across his body, his chest all torn up, and pushed the kit into my hands and then he died. I had lost my gloves in the excitement and my fingers were so cold I couldn’t feel shit but I tucked that bag into my pack, and don’t ya now when we got back and thawed out and stopped shakin I opened that kit and inside was this cribbage board. It was a long time after I come home I could look at it, then one day when Bert was over I brought it out and we played a game or two in that kid’s honor, and after that played most every Saturday night that way and never mentionin where it come from for almost sixty years. But I know every time Bert looked at that board he saw that kid all shot up and dyin, and how we were the lucky bastards and didn’t have no more right to be than them Canadians, but somehow we did, and remembered that luck and good grace every Saturday night, and a few nights in between. I never thought I’d tell anyone, not even Martha, bless her I told her enough we ain’t spoken of since, but you got a right to know. Some day I’ll be gone and you’ll be layin out this cribbage board with a drink or two and playin with your kids or a buddy, I want you to raise that glass to me and ta Bert and to that Canadian kid I never knew cept his initials same as my father’s carved into the backside a that board.
And that was when the power licked back on. We put away our glasses and the hurricane lamps and blew out the candle in the kitchen and Howard put up the board. He went off to bed and I sat the rest of the night listening to the water slapping the dock and when the storm finally moved out I watched the moon in the clearing sky and the dawn creep into the new day and heard Howard snoring in the back bedroom, and thought how blessed I was. I don’t need to tell you Howard died some months later and I never saw that cribbage board again, have no idea what became of it, and never had the courage to ask Martha about it. But now you know, even if this isn’t that board, and I think it’s your turn. Hold on. Let me get us another drink before we play.
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