The Night of the Moonbow

by Thomas Tryon

  “Oh, no, don’t!” she cried in a frightened voice. “Please don’t! You’re hurting me!” She began sobbing so hard that he released her. Then, when she had got to her knees and was struggling with her torn clothing he took her by surprise and dragged her down again.

  “Hey, not so fast,” he drawled, “Daddy’s still got some thing coming to him.”

  He pinned her down as before, working at her with his whole body while she struggled to free herself.

  “Help! Help!” she called out. Leo caught a glimpse of her face, pale and and terrified. Saw Reece’s face too; he was panting like an animal. And then, suddenly, Leo was watching him smash the doll, seeing the broken pieces on the ground. Was this what he planned for Honey, to smash her, too?

  “Damn you, Reece Hartsig!” Suddenly Leo was on his feet, running across the grass, hollering at the top of his lungs. Without stopping, he flung himself onto Reece’s back, pummeling him until he rolled off of Honey, carrying his assailant with him.

  “Jesus! What the hell!”

  Twisting around, Reece got a look at his attacker - Wacko Wackeem - then he peered dazedly about for the rest of the ten-man powerhouse that must have struck him as Leo continued the assault, striking out blindly wherever he could land a blow. Finally, one wild punch connected with Reece’s nose. He howled in pain, and there was a sudden burst of bright red as he began to bleed. Leo stepped back; groping in his pocket, Reece pulled out his bandanna and clapped it over his face, his eyes tearing from pain - effectively prevented from making any counterattack on his assailant.

  As Reece threw his head back to help reduce the flow of blood, Leo turned to Honey, who was on her feet now, sobbing and covering her exposed breasts with her crossed arms. Her hair hung over her eyes, and her shorts were stained. Then, still sobbing, she grabbed her blouse and fled toward the beach, where she clambered into the speedboat, started the motor, and sped away, while I t*o turned to face the wrathful, blood-spattered Reece. Standing now, his feet planted well apart for balance, he stared furiously at Leo.

  “What the hell is this all about?” he growled. “Where did you come from?”

  Leo pointed at his hiding place. “I was in there! I was watching. I saw it all. I saw what you were doing to her!” “What are you talking about? I wasn’t doing anything.” “You hurt her!”

  Reece’s look was scornful. “Why, you lousy little shit, I ought to brain you! You don’t know what you’re talking about. We were just having some fun.” He patted his nose with the bloodied handkerchief. “You keep it up, Wacko, just keep it up. One of these days you’re going to get it good.”

  He turned on his heel and stalked back to the blanket. “What am I supposed to do with this crap, anyway?” He looked at Leo. “Okay, camper, let’s have a little clean-up detail here. Pack up this gear and tote it back to camp. On the double.”

  “Clean it up yourself.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said clean it up yourself. You tote it, it’s your stuff.” And while Reece, arms akimbo, watched him with sullen fury, Leo turned on his heel and headed for the icehouse to get his paraphernalia. When he reappeared - the counselor was nowhere to be seen. The lake-shore was empty, the waters of the China Garden quiet once more, and for a moment Leo thought he must have imagined the violent scene. But he could still hear Honey’s cries in his ears, and suddenly, again recalling the broken doll, he felt afraid.

  During the warm forenoon of the following Saturday, Leo stood in the blinding July sunlight, gazing out from the parapet of the tall stone tower at the Castle. The view was dazzling. Six miles off, across the billowing treetops, he could just glimpse a wedge of glittering water that was a reach of Moonbow Lake, and intermittent sections of the Old Lake Road winding through the countryside. Above his head the Stars and Stripes snapped at the white-painted flag mast, casting its shadow across the worn slates beneath his feet, and the tower itself, girdled by its crenellated fortifications, seemed to him like the forecastle of a medieval galleon plying a dark-green sea.

  Nothing he had yet heard from Fritz or Tiger about the Castle had prepared him for all that he had discovered here. Designed by an architect known for his advanced ideas, built of local materials - oak and pine, fieldstone and quarried slate - the house had been constructed in tiers against the mountain, out of whose side it seemed to grow. The tower where Leo stood had been built almost single-handedly by Dagmar’s husband, Knute, the thousands upon thousands of stones making up its walls, staircase, and crenellations gathered from fields all around the countryside or dug out of the earth of Mount Zion itself, to lend a touch of the European past to a country that had never known it.

  Leo, who had climbed to the summit with a group led by Fritz Auerbach, reveled in the feeling of airy spaciousness, in the astonishing sense of freedom and glorious release. Only if he stared straight down at the gallery and terrace, where numbers of Harmonyites sprawled about on the redwood furniture, luxuriating in the sunshine while under the vocal supervision of Bullnuts Moriarity the collapsible lunch tables were being carried from the camp truck and the food pans readied, did he become prey to the sensation of vertigo. He blinked, shut his eyes, to get himself under control; today was no time for that sort of nonsense. Today was high adventure, the fulfillment of his hopes of getting a look at Dagmar’s treasures, the impossible somehow come true. Nothing must spoil it - not even Reece Hartsig, who mercifully had not yet put in an appearance on the scene.

  Leo had replayed in his mind the scene at Kelsoe’s icehouse a thousand times in the days since it had occurred, and always it had a different, uglier, more tragic end, for in his thoughts he never got to Reece in time, never did save Honey. Of course, he knew that wasn’t what had happened at all, that Honey was safe: on the pretext of visiting her friend Sally down on Cape Cod, she had removed herself from Moonbow without a word to anyone except her family. Not even Peewee was able to predict when she would return, and her departure from Friend-Indeed had left an undeniable hole in the fabric of the summer. Perhaps, Leo thought, it was the fact that she was gone, while Reece remained and went on as before - thus far not a word appeared to have been circulated about what had happened - that made him replay the scene as he did. For nothing was changed, yet everything was changed for Leo where the counselor of Jeremiah was concerned. Reece might pretend - as he did so well, and craftily - that nothing was wrong; in front of others he was equable, even friendly, but from a steely look, a frown, an unspoken word, Leo knew that Reece was now his enemy and there would be no making up. Not that Leo much wanted to make up; for him the hero was fallen, and his once admiring view of his counselor had become one of scorn and disapproval. And fear. Of course, Leo now saw, the awe in which Reece was held at Friend-Indeed had always contained an element of fear - of what would happen when a camper lost Reece’s favor, when the clouds of anger gathered about that Herculean brow. And the fact was, Leo, in defying him, had now stirred him to a rage that would be unrelenting. Though in front of others he smiled and played his Mr Nice Guy game; though, between the two, not a word had been uttered about the icehouse, about Leo’s bruises, about Honey’s sudden departure, Leo knew, and Reece knew that he knew, and Leo knew ... It was like the girl in the Land O’Lakes carton, an infinity of possibilities.

  Reece could not know, however, that, for Honey’s sake, Leo was determined to say nothing, not even to Tiger or the Bomber. He had confided in Fritz, who said that the whole incident was best forgotten. Honey was out of trouble, no one the wiser, and better to let the ugliness fade away. Which was all well and good, Leo thought - except that the hostility remained. Brief, private looks from Reece, in the dining hall, the coop, the crafts barn, revealed his feelings of resentment, and only Leo (and Fritz) could see the wolf’s teeth behind the smile.

  At least the hike to this astonishing place on this glorious morning had been free of the counselor’s presence

  - he had had an “appointment he couldn’t break” in Putnam, an
d would be driving over “later” in the Green Hornet. Upon receipt of this news, Dagmar had commented in that acerbic way of hers that if she had his number right he’d turn up just about the time lunch was being served.

  There had been one arrival of note, however; half an hour ago a car had driven up, and its passenger -- a stranger to Leo -- had received’ a cordial welcome from Dagmar. She and the man were now seated on the terrace talking together, and as Leo looked down from his eyrie he saw both heads turned upward. Were they talking about the tower, or perhaps the sky, which was showing signs of weather - or about Leo? Though why he should imagine such a thing, he couldn’t say.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Fritz’s suggestion that they go down. The rest of the viewing party had already disappeared through the small doorway that led to the circular flight of steps. “Come, let me show you the trophy room,” Fritz said, pocketing his little telescope and steering Leo down the descending spiral and along the gallery to this treasure house, the high-beamed room where Dagmar’s collection of artifacts was housed, a trove of exotic impedimenta that took up every flat surface, every inch of wall space. Here was a wastebasket hollowed from an elephant’s foot, a matched pair of narwhale tusks; a grass skirt from Waikiki, and a pair of teakwood-and-brass opium pipes from Canton; a half-dozen fierce-looking Fijian ceremonial masks and an array of primitive weaponry, including bamboo blowpipes that shot poison darts - and the famous shrunken head.

  “Ain’t it somethin’?” the Bomber boomed. “Did you ever see anything so fierce-lookin’?”

  Leo hadn’t. The head was the most grotesque object he had ever set eyes upon. About the size of a baseball, it had black skin as wrinkled and stiff as old leather. Hanks of coarse hair, black and still glossy, sprouted from the scalp. The hideous features were at once alarming and strangely complaisant: on the one hand the owner seemed to have expired in a moment of extreme agony - this Leo deduced from the painful grimace of the cracked and torn lips -while on the other the closed eyes - sewn shut with a series of neatly taken stitches - lent the face a peculiar air of peaceful slumber.

  Noting the others’ eyes on him as they waited for his reaction, he turned away with studied indifference to find himself standing before a vitrine shaped roughly like a clock case on whose half dozen glass shelves were exhibited a collection of glass paperweights.

  “That’s the one, Wacko,” Eddie said.

  “The one what?”

  “In the middle.” Eddie pressed his fingertip on the glass, leaving a smudge. “That’s the one Stanley stole.”

  Leo could understand why someone might want to steal the paperweight: it was a real beauty, a dome-shaped mou nil imprisoning a bouquet of flowers. And while the others went outside again, he lingered behind, contemplating the brightly gleaming object, thinking about the culprit and remembering the story: Stanley had pocketed it, then smuggled it back to camp and hidden it in his suitcase, where it was sure to be found. He should have known that was the first place they’d look for it. Stanley couldn’t have been very bright.

  The doorway of the adjacent room (this was Dagmar’s music room) stood next to the cabinet, and, before joining the others - from outside now Moriarity could be heard bellowing “Come and get it!” as he banged on an aluminium pan - Leo stopped to check out the space where later he was to perform. Suddenly his heart began to pound. All morning he had resolutely refused to consider the fact that this afternoon he was to give his first public performance since Major Bowes Night. Now he couldn’t help remembering that his playing had been part of the bargain between him and Dagmar that had made the visit to the Castle possible, and he steeled himself for the ordeal, praying he wouldn’t disgrace himself again. He liked the look of the room very much. It was long and low-ceilinged, with the ebony grand piano standing in the corner at the far end, away from the fireplace. On the fringed shawl that half-covered it, next to a Chinese vase filled with roses, stood a bust in dark bronze (Beethoven, the eyes glowering sternly from under a majestic brow), and beside that, where Augie had placed it earlier, Leo’s own violin.

  Again he heard Moriarity’s bellow - “Last call, last call” and turned to go, heading for the chow line upon which hungry campers were converging from all directions.

  “Can I eat with you?” Leo asked Fritz.

  “Why don’t we go see what Dagmar has to say?” he replied. “Well, come along, it’s all right.” Together, he and Leo crossed the gallery, to meet with Dagmar, who was heading in their direction. Accompanying her was the stranger. He was wearing a wrinkled suit; his head was bald on top, with frizzy locks that drooped over his collar, and he had warm, friendly eyes.

  “This is Professor Pinero,” Dagmar said as they came up.

  The man smiled kindly. “How do you do, Leo,” he said. Leo liked him right away.

  “The professor teaches music,” their hostess explained.

  Leo took care to keep his eyes lowered. Dagmar was up to something; he didn’t know what, but suddenly he was afraid. He could see the toes of the man’s shoes and the cuffs of his trousers.

  Dagmar must have read his thoughts, for, reaching for his hand to guide him along the gallery, she said, “I invited the professor to come and visit with us today. We’re going to take lunch together.”

  “Yes,” the professor said. “And afterward, your friend Dagmar tells me, I’m to have the pleasure of hearing you play. I’m looking forward to that, I assure you.”

  Leo felt trapped. This was something he hadn’t counted on at all. Had the professor come to audition him or - or what?

  While Fritz and the professor chatted in a friendly fashion, Leo glanced nervously at Dagmar, whose eyes snapped with interest, her look saying she was waiting to hear what Leo had to say to her unexpected guest. Rescue came at the hands of Augie, who, wearing a shiny black jacket and no cap, and comfortable-looking slippers on his feet, stepped up to his mistress with word that lunch was ready.

  Dagmar looked toward the end of the gallery, where, in a little pergola, a table had been set. “Leo will be joining us for lunch,” she announced. “But first he might want to wash his hands, if you’ll show him where.”

  Obeying, Leo started to follow Augie, only to bump headlong into Reece, who had come bounding up the steps.

  “Easy there, Kemo Sabe,” he said brusquely, looking him over. “Where are you off to in such a rush?”

  “He’s just going to the bathroom,” Dagmar said. “That’s all right, Augie, take him along.”

  “Don’t get lost,” Reece said with a friendly wave, as Leo hurried after Augie, while the counselor turned, still smiling, to Dagmar. “You have to watch some of these guys every minute,” he said, jokingly. “Hello, Auntie, how’s about a kiss.”

  Dagmar presented her cheek, but her tone was tart as she returned his greeting.

  “Hello yourself, renegade. I said you’d probably put in an appearance as soon as food was in the offing. Here’s Fritz; say hello to him.”

  Reece and Fritz exchanged strained greetings; then Dagmar introduced Reece to the professor. “Reece is Leo’s counselor,” she explained. “We’re just about to sit down,” she said to Reece. “It might be nice if you joined us.” “Sure, why not?”

  “Leo and Fritz will be with us, too,” she added.

  “An interesting lad you have there,” the professor said to Reece. “Very bright.”

  “Oh, sure,” Reece returned easily. “We’re expecting big things from Leo. Very big.” He glanced at Fritz, then grinned at Dagmar. “If it’s all the same to you, on second thought I think I’ll just eat with the hoi polloi and leave Leo to astonish you and the professor on his own—” Dagmar drew her chin down. “Very well, counselor; if that is your wish, do by all means. Go along, go along, try to keep the boys from throwing food; they seem quite boisterous today.”

  As Reece trotted down the steps, Dagmar escorted her guests into the pergola, where they seated themselves at the round glass-topped table.

&
nbsp; “A handsome young man, very intelligent-looking. Tell me something about him,” Professor Pinero said, unfolding his napkin and laying it across his lap. “Is there some difficulty between him and our young camper?”

  Dagmar hesitated, turning the ring on her finger while considering, then, including Fritz in her remark, she said: “I don’t think ‘our young camper,’ as you call him, is exactly Reece’s notion of a proper Moonbow camper.” She glanced down to where Reece leaned against the parapet, talking to a group of boys. “He sometimes - Qu’est-ce qu’on peut dire de ce jeune homme?” she said to Fritz.

  “Madame is finding it hard to be tactful,” Fritz explained. “Though one of our camp mainstays, Reece is sometimes forceful and demanding in his expectations of people.” “But Leo is a good camper,” Dagmar said firmly. “It’s not easy for a boy of his background to fit in with a pack of savages like these.” She laughed indulgently at the boisterous crowd.

  Leo returned to the table with spotless hands, and no sooner had he settled into his chair than Augie arrived with a tray of tempting-looking lobster salads, which he set out on the table with tall glasses of iced tea. When he disappeared, Dagmar used the tines of her fork to poke among the leaves of Hartford Bronze lettuce, turning over bits and pieces of lobster and celery, checking the quality of their preparation. She ate with precision, chewing each mouthful carefully and patting her lips with her napkin at intervals.

  While the adults made small talk, Leo endeavored to keep his eyes on his plate, employing his cutlery as best he knew how and listening to the conversation. He learned several interesting bits he had not been aware of before. One, Dagmar had not been a childless wife, as Leo had assumed, but had borne a son, who had died in the Great War, at Ypres.