Ruby. Along with Rampart the only two villages on the left side of the river. Same look, a dozen or so boats tied up helter skelter in the mud and gravel, a couple beat up pickups either up on the dusty road in town or down on the beach near the boats, a fish net stretched out near the alders, some old log buildings, and a picnic table. Up the hill I walk and run into a man on a four wheeler who calls his cousin to come open up the gas pumps, the store up the hill opens at 10 (or 10:30, whenever the gal gets there) so I walk the town, population 175, and then wait on the wooded steps with Thomas Fischer the half hour for the woman to drive up on a four wheeler and open the padlock on the Ruby Commercial Company.
Thomas is from Augsburg Germany and is a nuclear power plant steam vessel inspector on the second of three legs of a complete kayak paddle of the Yukon. He will store his kayak downriver in Galena in a few weeks and return for it in two years to finish the trip. We enter the small store together, I buy a microwave hamburger to eat on the walk back to the boat and reach in the drink cooler to get a Coca Cola only to find that the cooler is unplugged and the drinks are warm. No thanks. On the way out the door an older guy that had walked in said to me, "Leave the Indian girls alone." I think he was joking around.
