The Night of the Moonbow

by Thomas Tryon

  “How come you came by bus? Couldn’t your mother and father bring you?”

  “I’m afraid they couldn’t.”

  That might have been the end of that, but the Bomber was like a dog worrying a bone. “Father have to work?” he pressed.

  “No.”

  “You don’t have a car?”

  “That’s correct. No car.” He walked one or two steps before adding, “No mother and father, either.”

  “Oh.” That one was a shocker to all but Tiger.

  Peewee piped up. “Yikes! You an orphan? You live in a orphanage? Do they feed you gruel—?”

  “Peewee, for cripes’ sakes, give the guy a break, will you?” Tiger said.

  “I was only askin’. Gruel’s what they gave Oliver Twist in a orphanage.”

  “Oliver Twist wasn’t in any orphanage,” Dump corrected. “He was in a workhouse.”

  “What’s the diff?” Peewee wanted to know.

  “Not much, to be truthful,” Leo answered.

  “But don’tcha know who your mother and father are?" Peewee persisted.

  “Yes,” Leo returned deadpan. “ ‘My mother was an Indian princess and my father was the Emperor of China.’ ” The guys wanted to laugh outright; yet - there was something in the way he spoke the words that made them hold back. Peewee, however, had to titter. What a twerp, his laugh said. Not being absolutely sure, he looked to

  Tiger for a guiding sign, but was offered none. Then he looked to the Bomber, who shrugged, then behind him to Eddie; still, nothing doing.

  “What did he do, your father?” Phil inquired.

  “About what?”

  “No, I mean - well, what did he do for a living? What was his job?”

  “Butcher.”

  “Huh?”

  “He was a butcher. You know - loin of pork, lamb chops, rib roasts ...” Clearly these words were meant humorously, but they served to bring a frown to Phil’s brow. The Bomber, however, was getting a kick out of the new boy.

  “Hey, your ma must’ve liked that. She was real lucky.” “Yes. Real lucky,” Leo said, but there was something odd on his tone that made the Bomber wonder; Tiger, too.

  “What did you think of Ma Starbuck?” he asked, having just introduced Leo to Ma outside the dining hall.

  “I guess she runs the place, huh?”

  “How’d you guess,” said the Bomber.

  “Does everybody call her Ma?”

  “Everybody around here does.”

  “Ma.” The boy repeated the word. “Everybody’s ma. Well, every boy should have a ma, shouldn’t he? A boy’s best friend is his m-mother, isn’t that what they say?”

  By now they had come onto the playing field, but instead of going over to watch the evening one o’ cat game, they split up, most of the Jeremians heading for the Dewdrop Inn, while Tiger took the new boy on toward the pine grove and council ring to introduce him to the setting for tonight’s campfire.

  Though Tiger had known the pine grove for seven summers, knew it as well as the palm of his own baseball mitt, this evening the place seemed to have taken on a tinge of mystery, of unnatural quietude. Occasionally a bird chirped, a brief, fleeting melody of evensong, and now and then a call came from one of the canoes out on the lake, bright gold in the last of the sun. Beside him, Leo stood gazing at the giant flat-topped chunk of granite

  - Tabernacle Rock, they called it - that lay altar-like at the foot of the tallest pine in the grove.

  “What an extraordinary tree,” he remarked, sighting up to the topmost branches.

  “They call it the Methuselah Tree,” Tiger explained. “Because of its age.”

  “It’s awesome. Hercules would have trouble felling it. How old is it?”

  “Oats Gurley thinks it must be over two hundred. Oats is our nature director.”

  Head thrown back, Leo continued to stare up at the tip of the tree.

  “ ‘This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks . . . ’” he quoted. “Do you like Longfellow?” “ ‘Hiawatha?’ ” Tiger ventured.

  “ ‘Evangeline.’ Sorry.” There was a pause, presumably so Tiger could digest this nugget, then the silence was broken by the sound of backfiring over on the road. Leo laughed. “Mr Ives’s jitney leaves a lot to be desired. I suggested he call it Bellerophon.” Clearly he was out to impress Tiger. “You know who Bellerophon was, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “He was one of Alexander the Great’s horses. He had another: Bucephalus. It appears you have an owl in your tree,” Leo added; the sequence of his thoughts seemed slightly disordered.

  Tiger allowed as how it was indeed a horned owl, a common enough species in that locale. “You can hear him sometimes,” he said. He cupped his hands and hooted softly, but the bird remained aloof and silent.

  Out of the blue, Leo pronounced a name: “Icarus.” Tiger looked at him. “Icarus?”

  “That might be a good name for the owl,” Leo said. “What do you think?”

  Tiger bit his lip, then grinned, amused that the new boy, not two hours in camp, was loftily bestowing names on a broken-down jitney and a bird that had been part of the Moonbow scene longer than Tiger himself.

  “I hope you don’t mind me being under you,” Leo went on. “My bunk, I mean.”

  “It’s fine. It’s real close to Reece, I know, but don’t let that bother you.”

  “When do I meet him, anyway?”

  “He’ll be back for the council fire.”

  “Do you think we’ll be friends?”

  “You and Reece?”

  “No. You and me.”

  “Sure, we’ll get on - don’t worry. The Bomber, too,” he added.

  They left the ring and headed for the cabin, where they found the others lying around in their bunks. Tiger and the Bomber set about showing Leo how to doublefold his blankets, half on top, half under; to accomplish this they had to empty the bunk of its interesting paraphernalia.

  “Whatcha really got in them boxes?” Peewee demanded as Leo picked up the stack — six white-pine Gorton’s Codfish boxes, all indentical.

  Leo looked down at them and blinked. “Nothing,” he said. “They’re empty. All but this one.” He held it up. “There’s a ferocious creature in here.” He held it out. “Want to see it?”

  Peewee drew back in alarm. “No.”

  “Shaddap, squirt. Show us,” the Bomber said.

  Leo was agreeable, but first he instructed them to shut their eyes, and when he said to open them again they saw that the top panel of the box had been slid back. Inside was a large black spider, fixed in place with pins.

  “Yikes!” cried Peewee, jumping backward. Tiger also shied from the sight of the hairy and fearsome-looking thing.

  “Holy maloley!” exclaimed the Bomber, and no comment was made when he broke wind, clambering down from his bunk for a better view. “Is it a black widow?” he asked.

  “Nope,” said Dump, who knew about such things. “I bet it’s a tarantula.”

  Leo nodded confirmation. “It’s from New Mexico and it’s called Lycosa tarentula. A wolf spider.”

  Eddie was impressed. “Boy, I’ll bet it could kill you if it was alive.”

  Leo shook his head. “Not true. Tarantulas can bite, but it’s not fatal.”

  The boys exchanged looks; evidently the new boy was something of an authority on spiders. In fact, he seemed to know a lot about a lot of things.

  Then everyone began talking at once, not directly to Leo, but speaking for his benefit all the same, expanding bit by bit, describing boat tests and canoe tests, and discussing next week’s Snipe Hunt and the Water Carnival later in the month. Leo, who had been privately surveying the immaculate cot positioned a scant three feet from his own, the shiny footlocker with its brass studs and stenciled monogram, the row of neatly pressed garments hanging from an over-pole, the Indian clubs against the wall, the tinted snapshot of a bathing beauty tucked into the frame of a mirror hung on a nail, vent
ured a question about their owner.

  “What’s he like, anyway?”

  “He’s Big Chief,” Phil said proudly.

  “He’s Heartless,” the Bomber said.

  “Heartless Hartsig.” Leo tried it out.

  “Better not let him hear you call him that,” Wally said. “He doesn’t like it.”

  Phil spoke up again. “He’s the best counselor at Friend-Indeed. And we’re the best campers. You’ll never go wrong if you do what Reece says.”

  “True?” Leo asked, looking around the circle of faces.

  True, they chorused. There were Reece stories galore: about his father, Big Rolfe, and his mother, Joy, “den mother” to the Jeremians; about Reece’s car, the famous green Chevy coupe dubbed The Green Hornet, and about the governor’s daughter and the waitress at the Blue Ribbon he had dated last year and dropped in favor of Honey Oliphant.

  As this discussion went forward, Peewee had been busying himself with an impromptu change of attire and was now standing with his feet on Reece’s cot admiring himself in the mirror..

  “Jesus, Peewee, are you completely nuts!” Dump exclaimed, watching him cavort.

  “No, why?”

  “If Heartless catches you like that you’re really going to get it.” Peewee had substituted for his cowboy hat Reece’s garrison cap, bright with gold insignia, which he was trying on at various rakish angles, and, to add to the startling effect, he had taken the athletic supporter from the counselor’s rack and pulled it on over his shorts.

  The Bomber wagged his head glumly, predicting dire consequences. “I’m tellin’ you, Peewee, you’re really askin’ for it, y’know that? If Heartless catches you, your ass won’t be in a jock, it’ll be in a sling.”

  A silence uncommon to the cabin ensued; but not for long. The next subject of conversation was, inevitably, the Haunted House, which Leo had passed in Hank’s jitney, and the Bomber launched into the history of the place and how one careless camper had fallen - or been pushed by “unseen hands” - through a trapdoor and broken his leg.

  “Is there really a ghost?” Leo asked.

  “Darn tootin’,” said the Bomber fervently.

  “You betcher boots,” Monkey agreed.

  “Me, I seen it!” Peewee declared.

  The Bomber made a scoffing sound. “Aw, you did not, you little spud. Shut your hole before I sit on you and squash you flat.”

  “Did too! Did too!” Peewee persisted. “A great big hairy monster with pop eyes and horns and tusks like a elephant. Honest I did, honest!”

  As always, nobody heeded the boy’s clamor, with the exception of Leo, who listened attentively to the farfetched description of the ghost, darting glances from one Jeremian to the next, as if trying to put names and faces together. “I believe you,” he said finally when Peewee’s protestations died down.

  Outside, it was turning to twilight; soon the torchlight parade would begin. The boys lit the lantern, then went about getting their equipment together for the council fire - sweaters, torches, flashlights, and little chamois bags that each camper hung around his neck on a rawhide thong.

  “What are those?” Leo asked.

  “Seneca medicine bags,” said Tiger, and went on to explain about the Seneca Honor Society and how, at tonight’s council fire, each new inductee would be presented with a red feather and a medicine bag, marking him as a “brave-to-be,” and then escorted to the Wolf’s Cave in Indian Woods to be formally initiated. All the regular Jeremians were already Senecas. When Leo asked what the medicine bags contained, however, he got short shrift from Phil for an answer: The contents of the bags was secret, only a Seneca brave could know.

  Leo shrugged and studied the dusty toes of his shoes, then looked up suddenly. “Want to see a trick?” he asked Peewee.

  Peewee gave him a suspicious look. “What kinda trick?” he asked warily.

  “Like this. Watch closely.”

  Peewee observed with wonder as Leo’s ears began performing weird and amazing feats, wiggling and wagging up and down. In a moment the younger boy was giggling at the comical sight, then laughing, and his childish crowing was soon joined by the deeper laughter of the others.

  “Now play something!” Peewee shouted, shoving the violin case at Leo. “Go on, play!”

  Leo shook his head, his expression clearly stating he had no wish to go on entertaining them.

  “Yeah, play somethin’,” urged the Bomber; then they were all yelling for him, pressing and cajoling until he had no choice. With a glance toward Tiger, who’d said hardly anything since they’d come in, Leo unsnapped the catches and laid back the top of the case. With the fingernails of one hand he plucked a tiny flurry of notes from the instrument. They were all waiting. He picked up the violin and began tuning it, making rapid, professional forays on the strings until he seemed satisfied, then tucked it under his chin and began to play. Seated on the edge of Reece’s footlocker, his thin arm bent, the hand and fingers curled upon the butt of the horsehair bow, he played with a faint smile on his mouth, his eyes now flashing, now remote, his head moving with a rhythmic grace all its own as he drew forth a soft, intense melody that held his listeners in thrall.

  But the roof of Jeremiah could not contain the sound of his music, nor the walls - how was this possible with all four flaps open to the evening? - and before long, all up and down the line-path they gathered, campers and counselors, on the porches of Hosea and Isaiah and Ob&diah and Ezekiel, and of all the cabins of Virtue and High Endeavor, to listen as the music floated out from Jeremiah.

  Zipper Tallon heard it in the Dewdrop Inn and, buttoning up, was lured across the field by its sound. Henry Ives, his duties completed, stopped and listened. In Hosea, Gus Klaus put away his Studs Lonigan excerpts to lend an ear, finally abandoning his bunk altogether to take a gander at the music maker in Jeremiah. Ezekielites Dusty Rhoades, Emerson Bean, and Junior Leffingwell did likewise, while over in Three Corner Cove, in the gathering twilight, Honey Oliphant, giving herself a beer shampoo, heard it and wondered.

  Then the music became louder and merrier as the fiddler changed his tune. Jumping onto the footlocker, he began playing an antic ditty, and as he played, beating out the time with his foot, he sang the words:

  I push the first valve down.

  The music goes down and around,

  Whoa - ho - ho - ho - ho - ho,

  And it comes up here.

  Fiddling, all angles and long fingers, with a bright gleam in his eye, he seemed to Tiger like some mad musician at a crossroads fair in a storybook, whose spellbinding music would so enchant the village folk that they must jump up and leap about until they dropped of exhaustion. And, indeed, as the song gained momentum all the campers crowded into Jeremiah were suddenly on their feet, knocking one another about, leaping from bunk to bunk as they sang, faces red and perspiring in the lamplight, the excitement building to a fever pitch with pillows flying through the air and Eddie, who could walk on his hands, proving it.

  Then to the scent of pine and citronella that pervaded the cabin was added another odor: the sweet, sickish pungency of tobacco smoke - Rum and Maple, though in the wild confusion no one noticed until the Bomber, dizzy, spun backward toward the porch and collided with Reece Hartsig.

  Everything stopped at once, the music, the laughter, the movement, all stopped and every head turned to face the tall figure in the doorway, nattily attired in his military school uniform, the shiny visor of his cap casting a dark lunette across his eyes.

  “What’s going on here?” demanded the soft, emphatic voice.

  Pandemonium. The visitors to Jeremiah scattered out the back, out the sides of the cabin, seven of the occupants retreated in considerable alarm and confusion to their bunks, while the violinist, still on the footlocker, lowered his instrument slowly, then stepped down and crossed to his bunk. Only Peewee made no move, but stood in the middle of Reece’s rumpled cot, turned to stone.

  Either failing to notice or choosing to ignore th
e newcomer’s presence in the cabin, the counselor directed stern attention to the quivering Peewee. Making fists of his hands, Reece jammed them on his hips, widening an already broad set of shoulders.

  “Get . . . off . . . my . . . bed,” he commanded, still speaking softly. Peewee seemed to shrink visibly before getting down, presenting a sheepish and pathetic figure by anybody’s standard.

  “All right, Kemo Sabe,” Reece said, now snapping out the words, “suppose you tell me what you think you’re up to.”

  “I wasn’t doin’ nuthin’, Big Chief, honest,” came the plaintive response.

  “The cap. Take it off.”

  Peewee did so.

  “Now put it back where you got it from.”

  Again the boy obeyed.

  “Now the jock.” Again Peewee did as ordered.

  “Now come here.” Digging into his uniform pocket, Reece produced a shiny quarter and handed it to the boy. Peewee, who had no idea why he should be so rewarded, merely blinked.

  “Toss it on the bed.” Reece indicated his cot.

  Peewee again did as he was told; the coin dropped softly amid the slackened bedclothes.

  “Fix it, spud. Stretch it till that quarter bounces.”

  The Jeremians watched while Peewee hustled around the corners of the bed, jumping over the footlocker as he tugged and pulled the blanket so the quarter bounced. When this was seen to, Reece reached out with a long arm, turned the offender over his knee and gave him a sound whack on his bottom.

  “Get the idea?” he said, setting Peewee upright.

  “What idea?” the boy asked in an outraged tone, his eyes sparkling with telltale tears.

  “No more jumping on the counselor’s cot. You don’t belong here anyway. Get back up the line where you do belong.” He marched Peewee to the door. “Okay?” he said, holding out the quarter.