|
|
Moonshine Reunion
by D. Grant DeMan
That particular summer dawning - a tiny blue star peeking over the crescent moon as it lazed in the southeastern sky in fond adieu to the stillness of night, and sweet coral light tinging a far horizon - Ledman Stedbucker spied the Caddy. It's back seat loaded with luggage, a purple El Dorado squatted generously beside the Sunoco filling station while a gaunt whiskered jockey pumped it full of heady Blue for some kind of trip. Fixing for a weekend at Grand Bend or Port Franks, Leddy thought, and praised his fortuitous luck. Maybe they'll be passing Sam's.
"Don't suppose you got a lift for an old timer, do ya boys," he said, smiling and eyeballing the two casually well-dressed young men about to enter the vehicle. "I'm mighty tuckered, and have a ways to git this fine day."
"I don't know. Billy, what do you say? Want some company?"
The other youth contemplated the codger leaning on a burled crutch, the black leather patch covering his right eye under the brim of a ratty Stetson, and the bindle slung over his left shoulder. "Can you crowd into that back seat, old man? Sit on the blanket there."
Ledman relaxed as the car growled up the gravel road, but turning right at the highway, he was taken aback: "Hey, where ya goin' boy, The Grand Bend is t'other way," Leddy cried.
"We're driving to Leamington for the weekend."
"Hell you are! I thought you was warmin' for a hoolian at The Bend, the ladies and the beach." Leddy became exasperated.
"Sorry, we'll let you out here. You can hitch another ride."
And as the boys turned to face the old man, they also gazed down the barrel of a Frontier Forty-four. "Damned if you is. Sorry to use my iron persuader here, but I got business that won't wait up near the Lake. Turn right around, fella."
* * *
The call from Chief Farmer Collins of Lucan came into the Township Station that same morning as I arrived for work. Sergeant Wilson of Green Watch sent me out, and an hour later I pulled up to see the rawboned Chief standing outside the County graystone office, brassed and blued like an Empress doorman. Packing a thightied Forty-Five Magnum, he showcased his monumentally chrome, three-cherry, two-siren, Mercury Turnpike Cruiser bedecked with authoritative gold encrusted coat-of-arms' door shields: Lucan City Chief of Police that smacked the eyes like a circus wagon at carny time. Never minding that The Chief was the only cop in town, I respectfully chuckled to myself and saluted his gold braid.
"Got a doozy for you this time Buddy. It mostly happened in your Township, so's I'm turning him over to you."
We went inside where I met legendary Ledman Stedbucker slouched in front of a small desk pushed up against cell bars, his ancient Smith and Wesson laying inert in front of him. "Two boys dropped him off," The Chief Explained. "They was about to be kidnapped, but got the best of him and brought him here."
Before long Leddy, the gun, the bindle and I were heading back south. He seemed talkative: "I wasn't going to hurt those boys none. Just wanted a ride is all."
"So you stuck your gun in their faces?"
"I weren't going to use Ol' Wessy. Merely for a scare, you know. Ain't got but one bullet and never used even that in forty years." He began to retch, "Oh my. I'm gonna chuck up. Pull over here."
"Okay, but don't you try anything funny, Leddy. You're too old to vamoose on me." He spewed into the gravel something that looked like blood. "I better take you to the hospital, Old Man."
"I'm okay. But I would beholding if you was to make a little detour down the sideroad yonder."
"I don't know about that. What's down there you think?" I teased.
"Lemme bend your ear, Sonny. Back in the days when corn grew tall as clouds and women came double breasted and then some, me and my sidekick Cowboy Sammy Tuck had a little operation over in Lobo. Best barley, corn and rye mash in the whole country, I dare say. Most folks learned to make a big commotion when they approached our still, so to avoid being mistook for them sneeky Dominion Police and gittin' shot.
"Now one day a couple of sidewindin' varmints came in with a dispute. Declared us to be cheating polecats, commenced to they shoot up the place, and broke near everything we had. Well, Sammy and I just sat there nursing our wounds, downed the next-to-last jug, and split. We made a mutual pact that we'd git together and imbibe the final good bottle one day, and I have that very object in that bag yonder.
"Yesterday they get word to me that Sammy's dying abed, and will I come see him off. Well, I ain't so good myself, but I gotta go. A friend is a friend, and a promise a promise. And I promised, didn't I?"
He sure enough did.
The last time I saw Leddy he was bent over his friend Mr. Tuck. Each held a jar of moonshine liquor. Two old lightening men, smiling and feebly raising their toast to parched lips, the August sun sifting through the yellow cheesecloth curtain and cloying dust of that weathered oaken room of a shotgun shack off the Thirteenth Concession Road. "Here's to the fine days we had, Sammy. The hard times we face now. And to Glory ahead as the curtain falls around us."
* * *
"He what?" The Sergeant was incredulous.
"The old guy got away from me is all, Merve. Couldn't catch him in all those woods out there." I whispered, gritting my teeth.
"Well you know the rule: Should you loose a prisoner, be prepared to take his place. We'll see what the Chief has to say about this!" Merve's face was redder than a hot chili pepper.
"Oh come on. Give a guy a break. He wasn't totally in custody, was he? And those two college kids will never breathe a word back to us. They've no doubt forgotten him already in the arms of a couple of suntan coeds down in Leamington. So where's the hurt?"
* * *
And thus the case, if there ever was one, drifted away like sideroad dust. Now if you visit Lucan Cemetery, about fifty paces south of the Black Donnelley monument you'll see a little weathered headstone engraved:
Here sleeps two moonshine wranglers
Ledman Stedbucker and Samuel Tuck
Leddy was a mean old tucker
Though Sammy didn't give a buck
Buddies to the end...
R.I.P. 1957
'Vox Populi', get started! Send in your comments and critique on
The Donald Grant DeMan Main Page - - - Email Donald Grant DeMan - - - Possibility Arts - Don & Diane's Website
Inditer dot Com Index - - - Inditer dot Com Main Page
