The Night of the Moonbow

by Thomas Tryon

  That evening, after he’d gone through the candy line (the store had been moved inside the barn because of the weather), he waited for Peewee to make his purchase, then grabbed him and walked him down to the lower camp, using the occasion - and Peewee’s inability to keep quiet even in the company of one he had been told to avoid - to ferret out everything he could concerning the unexplained goings-on. The gatherings in Hosea and in the cellar had been meetings of a new secret club calling itself the “Mingoes,” after the sinister Algonquin tribe described by James Fenimore Cooper in The Last of the Mohicans. Originators and self-appointed “chiefs” of the organization were Phil Dodge and Billy Bosey. Other founding members included - as might have been expected - Claude Moriarity and the other erstwhile Rinkydinks, who had been deprived by the rain of their usual meeting place at the Steelyard house. Gus Klaus, Bud Talbot, Blackjack Ratner, and Zipper Tallon had soon joined, then Dump Dillworth and Monkey Twitchell. Initiation into the club required a sacred oath, sworn in blood, to divulge nothing about the club or its meetings, never even to acknowledge its existence, never to squeal on a fellow member, and never to break the code of silence that had been ordained.

  Having gleaned these wisps of information, Leo mulled them over privately, unsettled by the thought that whatever was going on had something to do with him. It was almost as if the club had sprung into existence for the sole purpose of excluding Wacko Wackeem from its membership, and intimidating him into the bargain. And now, everywhere he went around camp, it seemed, he caught “looks,” observed silent but meaningful exchanges, heard stealthy whispers, glimpsed tight little granny knots of conspirators in conference, knots that quickly untied themselves at his approach. But when he expressed his concern to Tiger and the Bomber, he was reassured. “They don’t mean anything,” Tiger declared scornfully. “The Mingoes are just the Rinkydinks in full dress. It’ll all blow over when the rain stops, you’ll see. Besides, if Dr Dunbar gets wind of it, he’ll put a stop to it quick enough.”

  But Leo had his doubts. The way things were right now, no one could say when the rain would stop. And what if news of the Mingoes never reached Dr Dunbar’s ears?

  ***

  And so the rain continued - after nearly a week, the trails were sluices of mud, the playing field a pond. Blessedly, Leo was alone this afternoon — Reece had taken a toothache to the dentist in Junction City, and the other Harmonyites were all at the lodge, where Oats Gurley was giving a demonstration of taxidermy - and for half an hour or so, huddled like a mummy in his blankets, while outside the wind moaned among the wet fir boughs, and up among the roof beams moths swooned in a blind delirium around the amber lantern glow, he made entries in his journal, interrupted only by Hank Ives delivering the mail, late as usual because of the mud, which slowed his jitney.

  Lying back, Leo closed his notebook and stared up at the handtinted snapshot of the delectable Nancy Driver in Reece’s mirror. He turned his flashlight beam on it, reading the inscription at the bottom:

  Virginia Beach

  Summer 1937

  “Wish You Were Here”

  XXX

  Nan

  He allowed his eye to trace caressingly the lines of her curvaceous figure and the way it filled her gleaming bathing, suit, appreciating the way in which her wavy hair hung shoulder-length, the laughing smile on her lips. He enjoyed imagining he knew some girl like that, one he could go dancing with or take for a ride in his convertible coupe. Fat chance, he thought. Nancy was years older than Honey, and he’d been tongue-tied around Honey; maybe, though,'he could say some things in writing, maybe that would make it easier. He liked the notion of having a pretty girl to correspond with. He’d never had a pen pal. Except, perhaps . . . now that he thought about it, perhaps he did: Leo’s quota of mail had consisted of a single letter, from Miss Meekum (“don’t forget to wear rubbers in the rain”; at Friend-Indeed nobody ever wore rubbers), and - more importantly - a postcard whose arrival had surprised him considerably. The card was from Honey Oliphant, from Cape Cod, and it depicted a lighthouse by the seashore. In her delicate, careful script, she had penned:

  Hello from sunny Cape Cod. The water here is so cold - brrrrr!

  Having a wonderful time, wish you were here. I think of you often and the brave thing you did. See you some time.

  Love,

  H.O.

  Love, H.O.

  He felt his heart beat faster at the mere idea that, some hundred miles distant, she had given him the slightest thought, let alone written to him. Maybe if he could talk"Peewee into giving him his sister’s address he could write her back.

  He capped his pen and slipped his journal and the postcard under his pillow as footsteps sounded on the porch. The door opened and Phil marched in with Dump,

  Monkey, and Eddie, followed by Moriarity, Moon Mullens, and some others of the Rinkydink gang. Leo wondered where Tiger and the Bomber were - and Wally. For once Phil’s ever-present shadow wasn’t running behind him. Phil kicked the door shut and stood with his back to it, regarding Leo suspiciously, while the others stripped off their wet gear and, spreading themselves among the available bunks, made themselves at home.

  “Hey, Wacko, whatcha doin’ in here all by yerself?” demanded Moriarity. “Poundin’ your pud, J bet.” Leo turned scarlet but didn’t dignify the crudity by making a reply. The room was so crammed with faces he feared and disliked that he didn’t know which to look at. He glanced at Eddie for a cue, but Eddie, who was fiddling with his belt buckle, failed to make eye contact.

  “You know something, Wacko?” This was Phil. “We’ve been thinking about you, all of us.”

  Leo looked around the circle of faces. “No kidding. Did you decide anything - you and your braintrust?”

  “Don’t get wise with me, Wacko. What we decided was that, if you were really smart, you’d get on that bus you came here on and head back to where you came from. This really isn’t your kind of place.” He put his hand in his pocket. “You haven’t got the hang of things around here,” he went on, “so we’ve all chipped in the four bucks it’ll take to get you home.” He held out a handful of quarters. Leo stared at them, then turned away.

  “Skip it,” he said. “Who needs your money?”

  “Hey, you guys,” crowed Phil, “listen to Daddy Warbucks.”

  “That ain’t Daddy Warbucks, that’s Little Orphan Annie.”

  This from Moriarity, who had been watching closely. “I can tell you one thing, if Little Orphan Annie don’t scrammay-voo out of here while the scrammin’s good, he’ll be asking for trouble. A guy like him needs to be taught a lesson, right, Phil?”

  Phil nodded grimly. “I think Wacko already knows we have ways of getting rid of people we don’t like.”

  Leo returned Phil’s glare. “Like Stanley Wagner, is ih.n what you mean?”

  Phil’s brow furrowed. “You better shut up about Stanley Wagner before you—” He broke off without finishing as the door opened again and Pfeiffer slipped in, dripping.

  “Well, here you are,” Wally said, shaking out his poncho and staring around at the group. “You didn’t tell me you were leaving.”

  “Jeez, Pfeiffer,” said Moon Mullens, “does Phil have to draw you a map every time he wants to do something? He’s not your mother, you know.”

  “Shut the damn door,” growled Zipper. “My ass is freezing.”

  Wally slammed the door shut; he hung his slicker over Phil’s, then began sneezing. “I’m catching a cold, I can feel it.” He slid his red, bulbous eyes around the room. His long pale lashes were wet, as though he’d been crying. “I know you had another meeting,” he said, failing to heed Phil’s frowning look. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Shut up about that,” said Moriarity; all eyes had gone to Leo.

  “No, I won’t shut up,” Wally retorted. “Phil promised I could join.”

  “I never.”

  “You did! You said you’d take me, then you played ditch on me.”

  Phil’s l
ook grew menacing. “I said shut up about that.” Ignoring Leo, Wally stared rigidly at the others. “Well, am I going to be a Mingo or not? You promised. You said I could take the oath. You said—”

  Phil raised a heavy fist. “You better shut up about what I said.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll tell. I know what’s going on. You’re not so smart. I’ll tell Pa, he’ll - ooof!” Wally crumpled as Phil’s knuckles caught him in the midriff. When he’d got his breath back he lifted a face white as flour paste, and fell back toward his bunk.

  Phil smiled. “Some guys just have to learn,” he said. “On the other hand” — taking in Leo — “some guys never learn.” He leaned over and, grabbing Leo’s pillow, gave it a spin in the air.

  “Albert, huh?” he went on. “First time I ever heard of a camper snuggling up to someone named Albert at night, right, you guys?”

  As Leo reached to grab the pillow, Phil sent it across the room to Zipper. Leo rushed after it, but Zipper tossed k to Moon, and so it went, all around the room. As Leo made a last, desperate attempt to recapture his property, Moriarity siezed it with both hands and yanked it apart; the seams gave way and the pillow spilled feathers into the air like the snowflakes in a blizzard.

  “Aw, gee, look what I done,” wailed Moriarity. “I ruint poor Wacko’s pillow. Now what’s the baby going to sleep on, no more Albert.”

  The feathers floated to the floor; some of them cascaded onto Reece’s bunk.

  “Boy, Wacko,” Phil said with a smirk, “you better get that stuff cleaned up before Big Chief sees it.”

  “Me? I didn’t do it. He did. He—”

  He had turned and was staring at Moriarity, who, having rid himself of the torn pillow, had discovered Leo’s journal, and was now thumbing through its pages. Leo tried to snatch the notebook away, but Moriarity straight-armed him. “Screw you, Wacko, don’t interrupt me—” While he read, the rest waited and watched with anticipation.

  “ ‘Moriarity, the big bad Brobdingnagian boob—?’ What’s that supposed to mean? Where do you come off callin’ me names, you little twerp?”

  It was useless to explain about Jonathan Swift to the likes of Bullnuts Moriarity; useless to explain anything to anyone. Meanwhile, Phil and the other Jeremians were getting a big kick out of Moriarity being the butt of Wacko’s joke.

  “Don’t laugh, you guys,” Moriarity said. “Wait’ll you read what he says about you and Reece. He calls him a cigar-store Indian, and then - listen to this - Reece is Snow White, and you guys are the Seven Dwarfs.”

  Abruptly the laughter stopped. Phil walked over to Leo. “I guess we know what you think of us now, don’t we, guys?” he sneered. As Leo started to reply Phil put up a deprecating hand. “Don’t bother to explain; we don’t care what you think of us, Wacko. Go ahead, write anything you want to, we don’t care.”

  “It was just a joke—”

  “Yeah, sure, we know.” He winked elaborately at the others. “But - we do care about what you wrote about Reece. He’s not going to like being called ‘Snow White,’ is he?”

  Again the door opened and the group increased by three: Tiger, the Bomber, and Fritz, who asked what was up. “They have my journal and won’t give it back,” Leo said. Fritz saw the notebook in Moriarity’s fist. “I think you’d better give Leo back his property, Claude,” he said in his soft-spoken way. “Gentlemen don’t go around reading other people’s private papers.”

  “I do when it’s about me, damn it. He called me a Brob-Brobdy-something boob!”

  Fritz’s lips twitched with incipient laughter. “Never mind, Claude, forget it.” He put a hand out. “Just let me have the book.”

  “Nuts,” Moriarity said, sneering. “I betcha there’s a lotta guys ’ud be real interested in reading some of what Wacko’s got to say here. ’Specially about a certain trip to the Wolf’s Cave.”

  The Wolfs Cavef What was Wacko doing at the cave when he wasn’t a Seneca?

  As Bullnuts brandished the offending pages in Leo’s face, Fritz made a move toward him, but Bullnuts, surprisingly quick on his feet, sidestepped him, holding the booklet out of reach.

  “Outta my way, Jewboy. Who wants you buttin’ in around here anyways?”

  “I must insist. Please let me have the book!”

  “Go ahead, make me.”

  Fritz eyed him up and down. “Claude, if you think I’m going to expend any physical effort on you, you’re wrong.”

  “Yeah. Know what you are, Katzenjammer? A coward, that’s what.”

  Before Fritz could say or do anything, the door again opened, this time admitting Reece. He was togged out in his sporty military trench coat, with its nattily cinched waist and folded shoulder tabs, wearing his garrison cap, whose black patent visor dripped with water. He unbelted his coat, hung the cap and coat on the back of the door, then turned and coolly surveyed the scene.

  “Maybe someone can tell me what’s been going on in here,” he said.

  “It’s Wacko’s feathers.” Moriarity laughed. “Wacko-quacko’s feathers.”

  “Moriarity’s got Leo’s journal,” Fritz said.

  Reece gave him a deadly look. “What are you doing in here? And what do you mean, Moriarity’s got Wacko’s journal?”

  “It seems plain enough. I am describing the situation as it exists; I am sure you will treat the matter as is called for. In the meanwhile, I must get back to my cottage. Like the lodge, it too has a leak in the roof.”

  He put on his rain hat and left abruptly. When he had gone, Reece addressed himself to Moriarity.

  “Well, have you this stuff of Wackeem’s?”

  “Sure, we got it.”

  “Then give it back,” he ordered.

  “Yeah, but listen—”

  Reece cut off the protest. “It’s not yours, you’ve no business reading it.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t know what he done. He was in the Wolf’s Cave. He was messin’ around with Seneca stuff. Read it yourself if you don’t believe me.” Moriarity held out the journal. Reece took it and began thumbing its pages

  “See? Right there—” Bullnuts used a dirty thumb to point with. “Read how he was pissing on the sacred fire ring! Read that!”

  Reece looked up, his eye fixed on Leo. “What were yon doing at the Wolf’s Cave? Don’t you know better than to go there? It’s off limits.”

  Stammering, Leo tried to explain how he’d stumbled on the place the night of the Snipe Hunt. “I got lost. 1 only found it by accident,” he said weakly. “Please make them give me back my book.” His appeal went unheeded, however; Reece scrutinized page after page, the crease between his brows deepening as he read. Finally he closed the cover and slowly rolled the notebook up, scroll-like, in his hands.

  “You know what I think?” he said quietly, looking around at the group. “I think our great author here should be made to eat his words.”

  Aah, they all thought, here it came, one of Heartless’s big numbers.

  “Yes, that’s it,” Reece reiterated. “I think our Ernie Hemingway should be made to eat every one of these pages he wrote.”

  Ahh, that was clever, the boys’ looks said. Leave it to Heartless to come up with a way of making the punishment fit the crime.

  “We’ll just find out how they taste.” Unrolling the notebook, Reece opened it and randomly tore out a page, which he proffered to Leo with exaggerated ceremony. “Eat it," he said softly.

  Leo blinked. “I c-can’t.”

  “Go on, eat it.” The words cut through the air.

  “No.”

  “Eat it!” Again Reece’s eyes blazed.

  With a hopeless shrug Leo obeyed. Slowly he tore the page into quarters, crumpled the pieces, and took them one by one between his lips, munching slowly and methodically. He chewed for a long time, and when he finally swallowed, with an audible gulp, someone giggled

  - Gus Klaus. Instantly Reece’s stern gaze fell upon the miscreant. This was no joking matter. He tore a second page from the spir
al and held it out.

  Leo backed off a step. “I can’t. It’s ma-making me sick.”

  “I promise you’ll be a lot sicker if you don’t,” Reece growled. Leo took the page and munched it. A third followed, then a fourth.

  The boys looked at each other. How many pages Would Reece make him eat, they wondered - all of them? Finally Tiger was moved to protest. “C’mon, he is liable to get sick.”

  “That’s too bad,” Reece retorted. “From now on maybe he’ll be more careful what he writes down for other people to read.” He held up the notebook clenched in his hand. “See, Tige? This is what comes of indulging a spud, making excuses for him every chance you get.” He addressed Leo again. “One of these days you’re going to find yourself in deep trouble - you know that, Wackeem? And you know where you’re going to wind up? Right back where you came from, at the Institute.” He smacked the offending journal into his palm, clamped his fingers around it, and stepped back to the door, which he threw open. “Okay, you guys, hop it, all of you.”

  “Where to?” asked the Bomber. “It’s powwow time. And it’s rainin’ out.”

  “I said scram. Wackeem and I are going to have a little powwow of our own.”

  When the cabin was cleared, Leo stood in the corner, waiting for whatever further punishment was scheduled to be meted out. Instead of the anticipated tirade, however,

  Reece tried a new, “confidential” tack, and when he spoke it was quietly, without rancor.

  “So what do you think, Wacko?” he asked softly. “About what?”

  “Oh . . . about you - and camp. I don’t think we could say that it’s been the greatest success, could we?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is that all you can ever say? ‘I don’t know.’ I hear tell you’re brighter than that, a lot brighter.” He jerked his head toward the door through which the boys had retreated. “Don’t you care if they think you’re a sissy and a coward?”