The Night of the Moonbow

by Thomas Tryon

  Soon the trip on the green trolley to Mr Schneidermann’s became a regular part of Leo’s routine. As he passed over the bridge he would gaze from the streetcar window down into the river thirty feet below, where Mr Kranze and his crew (Mr Kranze was a foreman on the state bridge-and-highway commission) were working to replace some badly rusted beams in the old king span. The view both exhilarated and repelled Leo. He knew he was safe on the streetcar - the gong went ding-ding, the wheels went rattle-and-clank, and on the overhead wire the little wheel that ran along gave off bright sparks - yet what if the bridge were to give way? Two years before, the thaw-swollen Cataraugus River had overflowed its banks and risen to street level, carrying away entire houses. And though the bridge itself had held, a woman and her child had been drowned in the flood, and Leo imagined that the woman was Emily, he the child, and that the bridge actually did give way and they both drowned in the foaming torrent.

  Sometimes, when Rudy was too busy in the shop to miss her, Emily would go upstreet on the trolley car with Leo, to listen to him play. And sometimes, while Leo went upstairs for his lesson, Emily would wait downstairs in Mr Burrough’s office - she could hear perfectly well, she assured Leo - and when the lesson was over, Mr Burroughs, who said to call him John, would offer Leo taffy treats wrapped in colored waxed paper.

  For a time Leo - and Emily - had been content in the belief that they were getting away with their subterfuge. Rudy seemingly paid no attention to their comings and goings (he was giving them enough rope to hang themselves, Leo later decided), all he cared about was his butcher shop. Then Leo had exciting news: John Burroughs arranged for Leo to travel by bus to Hartford to play an audition at the music school in that city, and Leo played so well that he was offered a special scholarship to continue his music education.

  Emily was ecstatic. Her dream, she said over and over, was to have Leo play for the great conductor, Toscanini, and someday to be accepted into his radio orchestra, so she could tune in the program and hear Leo play. There was no doubt in her mind that she was raising a true musical prodigy, like Mozart or Chopin, and she craved the same sort of fame for her son.

  But it was not to be. One day Rudy discovered the box of saltwater taffy John had given Leo, and he forced from him the truth about where the candy had come from. He cursed the name of Burroughs and swore he’d kill the man. He dragged Emily by the hair into the bedroom and berated her. Then he beat her mercilessly, until the terrified Leo ran down the stairs, out through the door, and over to Mrs Kranze. She called the police, who came and took Rudy away in the wagon, and Emily had a mouse in her eye for nearly a week, and an ankle she’d fallen on that had to be taped for her to walk.

  When they let Rudy out of jail he came home sullen and unchastened, and snicked his belt out of his loops and bent Leo over his knee. And if the punishment failed to fit the crime, what did Rudy care? Leo was sent to bed without his supper and Emily wasn’t allowed near him. He cried himself to sleep and awoke to cloudy skies: that day the rains came and the river began to swell - the river that would free him from Rudy’s tyranny, but lose Leo his beloved mother as well.

  He returned the photograph to his wallet, then rolled over on his stomach, feet crossed in the air, chin propped in his palms, as he regarded what he could see of the Haunted House: its yellow-painted clapboards and mermaid’s scales aged to an unappealing mustard shade, its tall, narrow windows bare of shutters, the glass broken out long ago, so that the empty oblongs stared out with a grim sort of blindness. Not surprising, Leo thought, when they had only a weed lot and a heap of coke cinders to gaze upon. Strange, the feeling the house gave him. What was it? Terrible things had taken place in those empty rooms that reminded him of

  - what? What did it remind him of?

  He shut his eyes tight, trying to squeeze out the dark thought that was like a slippery fish, an eel, maybe; it came swimming out of the black ooze, to dart past his eyes in a bright flash, then, before he could catch it, to be swallowed up again in the inky blackness. It was like fishing at the bottom of the sea, where stinging, paralyzing creatures lurked, anemones that bloomed like flowers and then shocked you to death.

  A piece of the puzzle was missing, something he needed to put it all together, but like the little fish it eluded him. Perhaps it was better this way; sometimes it didn’t do to pry into these matters too much. Lift up a rock and you never knew what might crawl out. Maybe that was why people got amnesia, so they wouldn’t remember what they wanted so badly to forget. Leo knew a thing or two about amnesia. He remembered the doctor’s face, not Dr Percival at the Institute, but the other doctor - Epstein was his name

  - who wore the white coat with the row of pens and pencils picketing the edge of his starched pocket. Eagle pencils they were, funny how Leo could remember a minor detail like that when he couldn’t remember - again that little fish of thought swam into his ken, but though he baited a hook he had no luck.

  Resettling himself in a more comfortable position, he took his pen and notebook and began writing. Miss Meekum had been right: the notebook would give him a record of his Moonbow summer, one he’d cherish at a later time, and he’d been not only jotting down accounts of his day-to-day activities, and making notes on spiders, but trying his hand at stories, and character sketches of some of the campers he’d met so far - the ones he didn’t care for, bullies like Bullnuts Moriarity, and some of his cronies from High Endeavor, and the ones he did, like the other Jeremians, especially Tiger and the Bomber, and, next door in Ezekiel, Junior Leffingwell and Emerson Bean and Dusty Rhoades, who had been friendly toward him.

  His concentration was broken as he heard a Tarzan yell, and, looking up he saw Tiger and Harpo charging across the meadow; with them came Eddie Fiske and the Bomber, venting the throaty cry of the born Berserker, charging at Leo head down, arms spread like airplane wings, palms flattening the tops of the Queen Anne’s lace. He threw himself down beside Leo, narrowly missing the violin case, which Tiger yanked from destruction only at the last moment.

  “Cripes, spud, watch where you’re dumping that big can of yours, will ya?”

  The Bomber looked around him. “I didn’t do nothin’. Jeez...”

  “You would’ve crushed it if you’d sat on it.”

  “But I din’t sit on it!”

  “Yeah, but you almost did.”

  “Nerts.”

  The Bomber made himself comfortable, then pulled an Oh Henry! bar from his pocket and began peeling off the wrapper. The three boys had met up at Orcutt’s and made their purchases together. Tiger spilled out between his bare knees the contents of a small paper sack: flat squares of brightly wrapped bubble-gum packets, each one containing a card bearing a portrait of either a befeathered Indian chief or a famous baseball player. He offered Leo his choice of the packets to start his own gum-card collection: Leo got Lefty Gomez.

  “Hey, Leo, aren’t you supposed to be at Sandbag College?” the Bomber asked, munching on the Oh Henry! bar.

  Tiger darted Leo a look that said he agreed with the Bomber. It wouldn’t do to rile Coach, who was already down on Leo because of his chicken-wing.

  “That’s okay,” Leo said, more unwilling than ever to tear himself away from the meadow now that his friends had come. “I’d rather stay here. Besides, there’s time. I can practice with Coach during swim.”

  Tiger still looked doubtful - Coach didn’t like changes in his plans, and Leo needed swim practice, too - but the Bomber, having consumed the remains of his candy bar at a bite and licked his sticky fingers, chose that moment to insert them into Harpo’s mouth to finish the job.

  “Come on,” said Tiger, disgusted. “He’s not a napkin, you know, he’s a dog.”

  The Bomber looked properly chagrined, while the dog went on licking his chops. For a moment they were quiet. The stream bubbled over the weir, the birds sang in the trees, the scene was properly bucolic. In the distance they could hear the sound of the Moonbow Maid, Doc Oliphant’s new Chris-Craft.
r />   “I bet that’s Heartless and Honey,” Eddie said, and they all jumped up for a better look. Out on the water they saw the bright flash of chrome, and the glossy red mahogany hull of the gorgeous speedboat creating a feathery wake as it spanked across the water. And even at a distance they could make out the bare-chested figure of their counselor, a jaunty white yachting cap on his head and his pipe clenched in his mouth. He was lounging on the back of the seat, piloting the boat with his bare toes, and, beside him, her golden hair flying, looking curvy and kissy in a yellow bathing suit, was Honey Oliphant.

  For a while it looked as if the boat might be headed for the China Garden - the icehouse was reputed to be a Heartless rendezvous - and the boys prepared to make themselves scarce. But Reece evidently had other things in mind: the boat went speeding off toward the opposite shore.

  As the sound of the motor faded, Eddie ventured a question. “Do you think he and Honey - I mean - you know what the guys are saying - about going all the way?” he asked, his eyes rounding with the possibilities. The Bomber also probed them. Honey Oliphant was a walking, breathing, ugly-duckling story. For years here was this scrawny kid, flat as a bed slat, with her chopped-off hair sticking out all over her head, and wowie! This summer the whole camp had been astonished by the incredible transformation, duckling into swan.

  “She’s sure got a build on her,” the Bomber said fondly. Leo agreed. In his brief stay at camp he had already suffered through several manifestations of that ineffable vision, whose name, it seemed, was upon the lips and in the heart of every camper over the age of six. Honey, to use Reece’s phrase, was a four-point-oh girl.

  Despite his occasional proximity to the luscious creature, however, Honey remained a mystery to Leo (he had yet to address a syllable to her, or she to him). Still, as he imagined the scent of the traces of perfume that she must surely leave trailing behind her, he also imagined what it would be like to hold her in his arms and kiss her and hear her say, “I love you, Leo Joaquim.” But who was he kidding? And at this point his feelings about Reece became more complicated - for, along with the classy Nancy Rider, whose snapshot graced Reece’s mirror, Honey Oliphant was the sole and exclusive property of the counselor of Cabin 7.

  Now the others began kidding about Reece, about how he was a real Don Juan, a sailor with a girl in every port, who always kept a couple of prophylactics (he favored Trojans, the red-and-black pack) in the glove compartment of the Green Hornet “just in case.” Leo enjoyed the notion of his counselor being a wolf - certain romantic exploits just made a man that much more to be admired and envied - but when it came to Honey Oliphant, he wasn’t so sure.

  The talk dwindled away and for a few minutes the four boys again fell silent. Then, “You all set for the big hunt, Leo?” Eddie asked, referring to the annual Snipe Hunt, which was to take place that evening.

  “I still don’t get what it’s all about,” Leo said. “I mean, what exactly do we do?”

  “You’ll find out,” Eddie replied mysteriously.

  Leo felt a creeping suspicion. “Just where do we hunt these famous snipe?” he asked.

  “Over in Indian Woods,” said Tiger, sitting up.

  “They build their nests there,” the Bomber added.

  Leo looked from one to the other, assaying their expressions. “If you ask me, I think there’s something screwy about this whole deal,” he said. “These birds must be awfully stupid. Why don’t they just fly away?”

  Tiger shook his head. “They can’t. They’re like penguins, their wings aren’t big enough.”

  Leo was not impressed. “I still think there’s a catch to it,” he insisted.

  “Sure there’s a catch,” the Bomber said. “A catch of snipe.” He rolled over and presented his amiable features to Leo. “Whyn’tcha play somethin’ for us?” he urged, changing the subject.

  Obligingly, Leo again opened his case, and took out the violin.

  “What’s that s’posed to mean?” the Bomber asked, looking into the open lid, which showed a label of frayed gold silk printed with the words “Heindorp Briider. Leipzig.” “That’s the name of the people who made the violin,” Leo replied, adding that the Heindorp brothers were famous in Leipzig.

  “What about them initials?” The Bomber indicated the almost worn-off gilt letters stamped on the forward rim of the case.

  “My mother’s,” Leo said. “This was her violin. What would you like to hear?”

  Before the Bomber could respond, Tiger put in his request.

  “How’s about ‘The Music Goes ’Round and Around’?” Fair enough. Taking up the violin, Leo began fiddling up the corny melody in a mock heroic style with lots of exaggerated swoops and arpeggios, making the ditty sound comical, yet performing in the most straight-faced manner possible, with no trace of humor or mischief in his face. As he sawed off the “Whoa-ho-ho-ho” part his listeners laughed, then joined in on the bridge.

  I push the middle valve down.

  The music goes down around below, below,

  Dee-dle-dee ho-ho-ho,

  Listen to the ja-azz come out

  Then, without finishing the piece, Leo segued into the Mendelssohn “Spring Song,” for a fillip adding a clever bird-whistle. The boys were impressed; this was what music-making was all about. But it was getting on toward Morning Swim - time to head back to camp - and at the conclusion of the piece Leo laid his violin again in its case, shut the lid, and snapped the catches. When he looked up, he saw the Bomber trotting off, not in the direction of the road, but heading for the Haunted House, Harpo sniffing in his footsteps.

  “Here, boy,” Tiger called, but the dog paid no attention as he tracked the Bomber’s spoor. When Tiger started off toward the Old Lake Road, Leo got up, tapped the spider from its web into the codfish box, slid the panel shut, then gathered up the remainder of his gear.

  “Hey, you guys, you cornin’?” the Bomber called impatiently as he made his way around a clump of pricker bushes and marched across a patch of weeds to the line of trees separating the house from the meadow.

  Leo shot a querying glance at Tiger, who shook his head. The fact of Leo’s failure to attend baseball practice ought not to be compounded by any illegal activity, and the Steelyard house and property were strictly off limits. “Skip it,” Tiger said, “let’s hop it,” and went on toward the road, while an irresolute Leo lagged behind with Eddie, both of them darting looks to where the Bomber was just disappearing among the trees.

  Eddie winked at Leo. “Want to . . . ?”

  Leo was staring at the house now, at the window in the tower. “It’s against the rules ...” he said halfheartedly; part of him would go, part stay.

  “Oh, sure, but that doesn’t stop anybody,” Eddie replied blithely. “Come on, one look won’t hurt. You’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I better get going.” Leo was feeling guilty: Tiger had reached the road and Leo should be with him.

  “There’s time,” Eddie coaxed as he started away. For another moment Leo stood undecided; then, knowing he should go back to camp, he left his knapsack and violin in a hollow at the foot of the sycamore tree and followed Eddie toward the house.

  As they threaded their way through the screen of trees to the backyard, Leo’s eye fell on the sealed-up well.

  “Did somebody really put a dead body down there?” he asked.

  “That’s the story,” Eddie replied.

  “What’s the rest of it?”

  “You’re gonna have to wait and hear it from Hank Ives on ghost-story night. It’s a wowzer. Come on,” he added, leading the way past the well to the front of the house. The Bomber was on the porch, peeking through a window.

  “Hey, you guys — get a load of this—” he called over his shoulder.

  “Whatcha got?” asked Eddie.

  “Wait’ll you see,” said the Bomber, his tone inviting their participation.

  Leo hung back, his heart suddenly pounding, but Eddie sprang nimbly onto the porch. “Scre
w off, Jerome, I bet it isn’t anything.”

  “That’s what you think. Have a look.” He pointed to the window. “There’s a dead body in there.”

  “Aw, come on, Fat Stuff. Can it, willya?”

  “If you don’t believe me, see for yourself. There’s a stiff in that room: it’s lyin’ right there on the floor, a real live dead body. If you don’t see no corpse in that room I’ll let you have my desserts for a whole week.”

  Eddie, whose great weakness was desserts, was snared. He crossed the porch, leaned on the windowsill, and looked inside. What he saw provoked a scornful exclamation, and as he yanked his head back he banged his crown against the sash.

  “So, wasn’t I right?” the Bomber crowed. “Didn’t you see a dead body?”

  “It’s only a bird,” Eddie said.

  The Bomber gloated. “So what? Dead’s dead, ain’t it? I win.”

  “The heck you do,” Eddie declared. “That’s not a fair bet.”

  Eddie’s indignation fell on deaf ears as the Bomber dropped to the ground and gave Leo an elbow and a wink, then made his way along the side of the house. Harpo, ever curious, went bounding after him. By the time Eddie and Leo came around the corner, the Bomber was waiting on the top step of the cellar hatchway. Were they actually going down there?

  Eddie tossed Leo an encouraging nod and disappeared after the Bomber and Harpo, leaving Leo staring at the gaping hatch. Once again his heart was pounding. Over the low doorway was a crudely crayoned legend:

  RINKYDINKS MEMBERS ONLY ALL OTHERS KEEP OUT AT PERIL OF LIFE!

  and under this warning, a skull and crossbones. A moment more Leo stood at the top, trying but failing to hear the voice of conscience, knowing the others would think he was merely scared if he turned back now. Then he ducked his head and, imperiling the only life he’d ever get, entered the dim, musty room.