The Sign on the Horseshoe Pit Post

The Next Sunday

The next Sunday was sunny and cool, the first real fall day.

We went to church in the morning, and Gideon sang the closing hymn louder than I had ever heard him sing.

We got home around noon. My wife had a roast in the oven since before church.

The house smelled like onions and coffee. Gideon changed out of his church clothes and went out to the pits.

At half past twelve, I heard tires on the gravel. I looked out the kitchen window. It was Rudy.

He parked where he always parks, by the big cottonwood. He got out slow.

He had on his church clothes, his good gray slacks and a white shirt buttoned to the collar, and his seed cap in his hand.

He did not go to the house. He did not even look at the house.

He walked straight across the yard to the pit post, the way he must have walked to it a thousand times, to hang his hat.

Then he stopped.

My wife came up beside me at the window and took my hand. We did not say anything. We just watched.

Rudy stood in front of the sign for a long time. He read the top. Then I watched him read down the names, one at a time.

His head went down the board, and then down the post, and then around the side.

He read Emmett’s name. I saw him stop there. He read Myrtle’s. He read the little girl’s name with the backward letter.

He read every one of the sixty names. It took him a good five minutes.

Gideon had stopped throwing. He stood at the far stake with a horseshoe in his hand and watched his grandpa. He did not come any closer. He just waited.

Rudy reached out and touched the white letters at the top of the board. Then he looked down and saw the coffee can at the foot of the post, and the two old dark shoes in it.

He bent over, slow, with one hand on his bad knee, and picked one up.

He turned it over in his hands, the way Gideon does. Then he put it back in the can, careful, like it might break.

He stood up. He put his cap back on. He put one hand in his front pocket.

Then he turned and started across the lawn toward my boy.

My wife let go of my hand and went out the back door, and I went right behind her.

We did not run. We just walked out onto the porch where we could hear.

Five Twenties

Rudy walked the forty feet from the post to the far stake.

It was the slowest I had ever seen him walk. Gideon stood his ground, holding his horseshoe. He did not back up.

Rudy stopped in front of him. He took his hand out of his pocket. In it was a folded stack of bills. He held them out.

“Five twenties,” he said. “I owe you a hundred dollars.”

Gideon looked at the money. He did not take it. “You said it was a joke.”

“I said a lot of things.” Rudy was still holding the money out. His hand was not quite steady. “That one was a lie. I was trying. I was trying as hard as I ever tried in my life. You beat me, bud. You beat me fair.”

He swallowed. “Good game.”

Gideon’s face changed then. It did not get big and proud like it did the day he won. It got soft.

He reached out and took the money, and then he did something I did not expect. He stuck out his hand.

Rudy looked at it. Then he shook it. He shook it the way the men had shaken it on Labor Day, like it was a man’s hand.

“My dad never let me win at anything,” Rudy said. He was not looking at Gideon when he said it. He was looking out past the shelterbelt. “I thought that was the right way to do it. I thought it made me strong.”

He let go of the boy’s hand. “I’m sorry I made you think your legs weren’t good enough. They’re fine. That’s a good arm you’ve got. Better than mine was at twelve.”

He looked over at the post. “Your dad nailed that up, did he?”

“Mom painted it,” Gideon said. “Dad held the nails.”

Rudy laughed, and this time it was a real laugh, a little wet around the edges.

He looked up at the porch, at his daughter standing there with her hand over her mouth. He nodded to her. She nodded back.

Then he turned back to Gideon. “I want a rematch.”

Gideon grinned. “Right now?”

“After dinner. Your mother’s got a roast on. You don’t let a roast get cold.” He pointed at the coffee can. “And I want to throw with those. Those were your great-grandpa’s?”

“My great-grandpa Wiebe’s. Dad’s grandpa.”

“Then they’ll be good shoes,” Rudy said. “Let’s see if they’ll work for an old man.”