Indian Shoes

Ray and Grampa Halfmoon traipsed down the cracked sidewalk of a steel and stone city. Ray tracked Grampa’s steps, danced to the rat-a-tat-a-clang of a trash can band, and skipped beneath the ruffling branches.

“Let’s duck in here,” Grampa Halfmoon began, “and say ‘Morning.'”

When the wind whistled into Murphy Family Antiques, Ray and Grampa whistled in with it. At the welcome mat, Grampa said “Morning” to Junior Murphy. Ray retied his neon orange shoelaces and took a look around the store.

The shop brimmed with treasures: an autographed baseball…a Chinese lantern…ostrich feathers…a basket of antique buttons on a pedestal…a tabletop held up by a real elephant leg…a moose head mounted high on a wall.

Where are the coats that matched the old buttons? Ray wondered. What happened to the rest of the elephant? Who took the body of the moose glaring down?

Grampa asked, “Do you see that?”

A pair of men’s moccasins waited in a glass box on a pedestal. The card read:

Seminole Moccasins
from Oklahoma
$150 $100 $75 $50
or best offer

Grampa Halfmoon told Ray, “These put me in the mind of being back home.”

For a long moment. they both looked at the moccasins. But Ray’s mind was mostly on their afternoon plans, and his gaze wandered to the autographed baseball.

“We’d best get a move on,” Grampa said, “to today’s Cubs game.”

Grampa and Ray left the shop with matching grins. They rode the rattling elevated train to Wrigley Field and watched the Cubs take on the St. Louis Cardinals.

From the first inning on, Grampa Halfmoon told old-time Cherokee, Seminole, and family stories. “Every once in a great while, my gramps used to wear moccasins,” Grampa said, “instead of his cowboy boots.” Grampa paused a moment to study the Cubs’ scoreboard. “He used to pitch to me and my cousins, too, and Gramps usually struck us out. Then he’d jump in the lake to cool down afterward, just like us kids. The lakes back home in Oklahoma…those are the prettiest lakes I’ve ever seen.”

Ray frowned, thinking it over. Not far away, Lake Michigan lapped against the shores of Chicago, a fierce blue blanket alongside the park. It was a pretty lake, Ray decided. A lot bigger than the lakes in Oklahoma. More sailboats.

After the seventh-inning stretch, Ray and Grampa Halfmoon ordered hot dogs.

“Now, these Chicago hot dogs,” Grampa said, “they’re dandy, but every now and then I get a hankering for some of that crackle-fried bacon your Aunt Wilhelmina likes to make. You know, that woman fries everything she cooks. I saw her fry a whole turkey once for Christmas, and it was sure enough some big bird.”

Ray bit into his hot dog. He knew all about Aunt Wilhelmina’s cooking. Ray and Grampa drove their pickup down to visit her and Uncle Leonard in Oklahoma once or twice a year. What he didn’t know was why Grampa Halfmoon was thinking so hard today about Aunt Wilhelmina’s crackle-fried bacon.

When the wind carried a home-run baseball into the stands, Ray almost caught it.

Cheers filled the air, but Grampa Halfmoon didn’t make much of a fuss.

He was homesick, Ray realized.

Ray wiggled his toes inside the hightops with the neon orange shoelaces. He couldn’t afford a bus ticket to Oklahoma, but he had an idea. Ray thought about it during the last two innings of the game and while riding on the rattling elevated train all the way back to the stop nearest his redbrick bungalow.

Meanwhile Grampa Halfmoon talked about this wild-haired mutt he’d had when he was a kid and how he’s named it Catastrophe. Grampa talked about Ray’s parents, who were killed by a tornado back when Ray was just a babe. And Grampa talked about how he used to take Ray’s daddy fishing by starlight.

At bedtime the wind breathed against the stained-glass pane in Ray’s bedroom window. He dumped jangling money–twenty-eight dollars and sixty-seven cents–out of his jar and onto his woolly blanket.

It was the most money Ray had ever owned at one time, but it wasn’t enough.

Or was it? The sign had said “$50 or Best Offer.” Maybe the best offer would be a little less than thirty bucks. Maybe the best offer would come from Ray.

On Monday after school, Ray marched down the cracked sidewalk. He held tight to his money jar, danced to the rat-a-tat-a-clang of a trash can band, and skipped beneath the ruffling branches.