CIDER

There in the woods. In the night. A lantern made enough light to illuminate the cards in the hands of the Indians that held them. The remainder of the glow was reflection from the only two white faces by the fire. The crickets chirped the chant that was the percussive background for this predawn poker game. Sweat slid like egg whites down the faces of the would be winners, the only breeze in this Oklahoma heat was the wind from the cards being shuffled and fanned so quickly that even an eye sharpened by the hunt would capture only a blurry black or red streak like a cheap camera. Though, on this black night,the only winners were predestined. This was no game of chance! This game had been fueled and driven fast by the marked deck of two young okies in a buggy. One of whom was Cider Wood. My Grandmother's brother, Walter. Nicknamed for the cider he would sell to the Indians who had been rounded up and corralled in Oklahoma Territory, late in the nineteenth century, by a government hellbent on gobbling up an entire continent, and the proud people who occupied it. That night, that hot, sweaty night, the Indians did not become quite as drunk as on previous visits. Then it began to rain. Small sprinkles at first. As the raindrops grew exponentially larger,so did the awareness of the dazzled and duped. What poured out of the sky that night was wrath. Chasing Cider and his accomplice on foot, at first the drunken pursuit seemed pointless. The footrace was one that,against a horse and buggy, seemed doomed; that is until in the murky mud, the horse slid and fell in the pouring rain, in the craggy woods. Wild, drunk and enraged, the cheated pursuit of men humiliated to themselves and each other, seemed as if Lady Luck had finally smiled on them. But that wasn't the case. The two young gamblers, cloaked by darkness and the woods and the rain camoflaged themselves until the hunters were discouraged by their prey. Cider, despite the danger, remained a gambler the rest of his life. Our small town had an underground poolhall,where Cider spent his later years,gambling at dominos, staying alive, and treating his daily pilgrimage like an occupation. On a good day. he would stop at the bakery and bring home a sugar cookie for me. Old men would stop by to visit with him, and talk to Cider about the old days.