The Night of the Moonbow

by Thomas Tryon

  “Okay,” he murmured.

  The quietness was suddenly rent by a shrill blast on a whistle. “Oh, gee, I think you’re being paged—”

  Leo looked up to see Reece standing on the infirmary porch with his whistle.

  “All right, camper, let’s hop it,” he called through cupped hands.

  Honey gave Leo’s hand a brief, encouraging squeeze. “You’d better go.” She ducked inside; Leo had no choice but to return the way he’d come.

  Reece was waiting at the head of the path, a disapproving frown on his face. “What were you doing over there?” “Talking.”

  “About what?” “Just - talking, that’s all.”

  “About me, I bet. Weren’t you?”

  “No. We weren’t. It was something else.”

  Using the palm of his hand, Reece propelled Leo along the path in front of him.

  “Where’ve you been all afternoon?”

  “I was with Tiger.”

  “You keep away from the infirmary. I don’t want you going there. Tiger’s not feeling well, he doesn’t need spuds like you bothering him.”

  “I wasn’t bothering him. He said he was glad I came.” “He’s just being nice. That’s the way Tiger is.”

  “We’re friends. I’m going to visit his house this fall. He’s going to have me stay overnight.”

  Reece gave him a look of disgust. “You’re nuts if you believe that. The only reason he bothered with you was that Ma told him to. If she hadn’t—”

  “We wouldn’t be friends, you mean?”

  “I mean you’re not up to his standard. It takes a special kind of guy to be friends with Tiger Abernathy.”

  They had reached a fork in the path; Leo started off toward the infirmary, only to have Reece hold him back.

  “I told you, Wackeem, I want you to keep away from there.”

  Reece wheeled and went loping along the path to the Oliphant cottage, where the girls were sunning themselves on the dock.

  Friday morning the talk was all over camp: Tiger Abernathy was being sent home. For once, Hank Ives wasn’t first with the bulletin: Leo had already heard it from Ma. She was waiting for him as he passed her office on his way to breakfast. Wanda had telephoned Lake Winnipesaukee and spoken directly with Pat Abernathy. He. and Tiger’s mother were cutting short their stay and driving down as soon as they could pack up and get started.

  Leo had listened to the news with two minds. He realized that whatever it took to make Tiger well again must be done, but even though, thanks to Reece’s edict, he hadn’t seen his friend for two days, the prospect of his leaving camp for good was a daunting one. With Tiger gone Leo would have only the Bomber (who had taken his cue from Tiger where Leo was concerned) to depend on.

  When the Bomber came up from the lake after swim, the two boys wandered off to the woods for a private confab.

  “I have to see him,” Leo declared. “I have to tell him something. Something important.”

  “Whyn’tcha tell me and I kin relay the message to him,” the Bomber suggested.

  “No!” he blurted. The Bomber’s offer was well meant, but not one Leo could accept. What he had to say was for Tiger’s ears alone.

  The Bomber sensibly suggested Leo wait until after dinner that evening to get to the infirmary. Tonight was Counselors’ Night at the lodge; Hap Holliday was putting on a locker-room skit, featuring Reece in the role of the ' “Little Bambino,” Babe Ruth. With the counselor thus occupied, Leo would have his chance.

  It was getting dark when Leo, on KP, finished drying and putting away the last stack of chinaware, and once dismissed he ran all the way down to camp. Skirting the lodge, where the evening’s program was already in progress, he made his way into the sickroom by vaulting in over the sill. Tiger was listening to the radio. A fine sheen of perspiration gleamed on his brow, and his cheeks looked unnaturally flushed. “Hi,” Leo said.

  “Hi. Come on in. Where’ve you been?”

  “Reece told me to keep away. He doesn’t like it that we made it up between us.”

  “Tough stuff, I’d say. He’ll just have to get over it.” Leo was grateful for the vote of confidence. He tiptoed to the bedside and sat in the chair.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “I feel okay, I guess. Sort of. I’ve been having weird dreams, though.”

  “What kind of weird?”

  “Well, just - you know - weird. Sort of like nightmares. Everything’s screwy. You know what that’s like.”

  Did he ever.

  “Have you heard?” Tiger went on. “I’m leaving.”

  “Ma told me.”

  “I don’t want to,” Tiger said glumly. He adjusted his position and his eyes swerved about the room as if reluctant to light anywhere.

  “Will we still see each other?” Leo asked, “Like we said?” “You mean when camp’s over? Sure we will,” Tiger said expansively. “Leave it to me.”

  “Reece said—”

  “Said what?”

  “That you were just pretending. About inviting me to visit. He said you didn’t mean it.”

  “Sure, I meant it, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked you.” “He said you’ve been acting friendly just because Ma said to.” “It’s true, Ma did ask me to show you the ropes, me and the Bomber. But she never made me. I had you pegged right from the start.”

  “Pegged as what?”

  “Well, as - as different, see? But good different. Something we didn’t have too many of around here. Remember ‘Icarus’?”

  “I guess you thought that was nervy of me, naming your owl.”

  “Not my owl. He was yours, right from the start. I told Bomber later, I said you were going to be a very interesting member of Jeremiah, very unusual. And you were. Are. So don’t pay any attention to what Reece - or anybody else - says. We’re friends now and we’ll go on being friends. When you come to our house, I’ll have my mom bake you her special lemon pie—”

  “Great.”

  “And my dad has a friend who’s a barnstormer. Maybe dad’ll get him to take us up for a spin. Is it a deal?”

  “A deal.”

  Solemnly they shook hands. Tiger lay back, fatigued. “Something else on your mind?” he asked, as Leo started to speak, then stopped.

  “I was thinking ...” Leo began again.

  “What?”

  “There’s something - you ought to know before you leave. I wanted to tell you before now, only . . . only ...” He groped for words that wouldn’t come.

  Tiger roused himself sufficiently to be attentive. “That’s okay. Whatever it is, just spit it out. That’s the best way.”

  Now that he’d initiated the conversation, Leo was having serious doubts about going through with it. “You’ll probably get mad at me,” he muttered.

  “Try me.”

  Leo leaned close to Tiger’s pillow and lowered his voice; he couldn’t take a chance on anyone’s overhearing. “I’ve been keeping something from you. And if we’re going to go on being friends, it’s something you should know about. Only, after I’ve told you, maybe you won’t want to be friends anymore. It has to do with something that happened a long time ago, except - well, it’s still going on, in a way. I mean it’s still—”

  He broke off.

  Tiger studied him. “Does it have something to do with when you were in the asylum?” he asked.

  Leo shot him a grateful look. “You remember that time at Dagmar’s? When I - when I - well, ran out of the room? During the storm?”

  Tiger nodded.

  “That’s when I remembered.” Leo stopped, then went on, confessing the truth of what had happened that stormy night in the house on Gallop Street, getting it all out at last. Tiger listened with the thoughtful, earnest expression Leo had come to know so well.

  “And Rudy’s still alive, isn’t he?” Tiger ventured.

  Leo was taken aback. “How did you know?”

  “I just figured. He’s doing time in the pen, isn’t he?” Leo conf
essed that this was so.

  “And that’s why you get those bad dreams,” Tiger went on. “Cripes, that’s enough to give anybody nightmares. I’d be screwy myself.” He produced a wan smile. “ ‘Ya done good in spite of it, camper,’ ” he said.

  This affirmation made Leo feel better; his spirits were further cheered when he was instructed to open the table drawer: in it lay Tiger’s Bowie knife in its leather sheath.

  “I want you to have it. To remember me when you go back to Pitt.”

  “I can’t do that. It’s yours, you won it.”

  “I’m leaving, remember? I won’t need it. But you might.”

  Leo shrugged. “I don’t think I’ll stay, after you’re gone.” “Why not? Listen, I know the guys’ve pulled some lousy tricks on you, but you don’t want to let that stuff get you. Don’t give in to them.”

  Leo shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t want to stay without you.”

  “That’s crazy! It’s just what they want you to do - quit. You don’t want them thinking they licked you, do you? That you’re another Stanley?”

  “Do you think I am?”

  “ ’Course not. And you’re no quitter, either. ‘Never Say Die’ - remember the Count?”

  Leo was in no mood for talk about the count. “They’re saying it’s my fault you’re sick. The Mingoes—”

  Tiger was scornful. “Forget the Mingoes, they’re all full of you-know-what.” He gestured toward the knife. “Now take it, will you? I want you to.”

  Following the command, Leo took the knife, undid his belt, and slid it through the slits in the sheath. He thought about what Kretch would say when he showed it off; how Measles and all his loudmouth bunch would carry on. Tiger’s gift was a token of friendship and esteem, honor, even, things guys like Measles didn’t know - or care - anything about.

  They fell silent for a time. Leo’s eye wandered to the night table, where Tiger’s medicine bag lay, beaded and feathered, guarding its tantalizing secret. He still yearned to know what it contained, what made those provocative little bumps in the bag. From the Oliphants’ dock came the strains of music from Honey’s Victrola. Then, “Finish the poem, why don’t you?” Tiger said, opening his eyes. “I don’t want to go to sleep this time without knowing how it ends.”

  Leo was agreeable. Opening Fritz’s book, he picked up where he’d left off three days before, with the Etruscan forces making a bid to cross the Tiber bridge.

  Four hundred trumpets sounded A peal of war-like glee,

  As that great host, with measured tread,

  And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,

  Rolled slowly towards the bridge’s head,

  Where stood the dauntless Three.

  “The dauntless Three.” Leo glanced over to the bed to see if Tiger had heard, but his eyes were on the ceiling. Leo went on:

  Alone stood brave Horatius,

  But constant still in mind;

  Thrice thirty thousand foes before,

  And the broad flood behind.

  “Down with him!” cried false Sextus,

  With a smile on his pale face.

  “Now yield thee,” cried Lars Porsena,

  “Now yield thee to our grace.”

  But the stubborn Horatius would never yield; he fought on until the bridge went down, and Rome was saved. For his valor he was awarded public lands to till, and a bronze statue was erected in his honor.

  It stands in the Comitium,

  Plain for all folk to see;

  Horatius in his harness,

  Halting upon one knees

  And underneath is written,

  In letters all of gold,

  How valiantly he kept the bridge

  In the brave days of old.

  When Leo looked up he saw that Tiger’s eyes were shut, his cheek lay upon the pillow. Leo watched him a moment longer, then reached over to switch off the bedside lamp. Unwilled, his fingers went instead to the Seneca bag, lying in a pool of light. He picked it up and held it by its string. The chamois sack twisted slowly in the lamplight, not heavy, but somehow weighted by the mystery of its contents.

  He hefted it, then let it drop into his cupped palm. What power did it contain? Just touching the bag made his hand tremble. Gingerly he kneaded its contents between his fingertips. What was it? Something small, hard, round. He inserted two digits into the neck of the bag, loosened it, and felt inside. Three small objects, round, sort of, about the size of raisins. Nuts? Beans? Checking to make sure Tiger’s eyes remained shut, he spilled the objects into his palm: three pebbles, that was all, just three ordinary pebbles, one black, one white, one red. It didn’t make sense. Why were three common pebbles of such significance? He was about to return them to the bag when one of them slipped through his fingers and bounced on the floor. He bent quickly and picked it up. When he straightened, Tiger’s eyes were on him. Leo turned scarlet with guilt.

  “I — I—”

  Tiger reached over and took the pebble, dropped it into the bag and closed the neck. “It’s okay, don’t worry,” he said.

  “I only wanted to — to—”

  “To know. It’s natural, I guess.” Tiger opened the bag again and spilled out the pebbles, then picked up the black stone and held it to the light.

  “This stone is for the earth, who is the mother of us all, who births us and feeds us and protects us all our lives. And this” - holding up the red one - “is the blood of the Senecas, who are blood brothers, bound together in friendship and loyalty through all our lives. And this” -the white stone — “is for purity of soul. The shining spirit of the Great Manitou who awaits his sons in the Happy Hunting Grounds.”

  He closed his fist around the pebbles and clenched them tightly so his knuckles turned white. Then he spilled them back into their bag, pulled the drawstring, and set the bag back on the night table.

  “Thanks for the poem,” he said, leaning back on the pillow. “It’s a good one. ’Specially the ending.”

  Through the trees came the light notes of Wiggy Pugh’s cornet as he blew retreat. Leo knew he should be getting back to camp; he’d have a tough enough job explaining to Reece why he’d missed Counselors’ Night; there’d be docked desserts to pay for that crime. And for the hundredth time a vision of Stanley Wagner crept into his mind, that shadow that had a habit of reappearing at the moment Leo least expected it.

  Such thoughts failed to force him from the sickroom, however. Tiger had shut his eyes again; there were drops of perspiration on his brow; it felt hot to Leo’s touch. Then he stirred in the bed and spoke a few words, which Leo failed to catch.

  “What?” he asked.

  Tiger mumbled again, but again the sense was lost.

  From across the way at Three Corner Cove came the soft strains of dance music:

  You go to my head

  With a smile that makes my temp’rature rise,

  Like a summer with a thousand Julys,

  You intoxicate my soul with your eyes.

  There was a curious thing about music heard across water, an indefinable something that altered the tonal qualities of the notes, not subtracting but adding to their sum, rounding and hollowing them, making them both remote and somehow more intimate, like the warming gleam of a familiar but faraway star. And in years to come, whenever he might hear that song, no matter where he was or what he was doing, for Leo Joaquim it would always be the summer of ’38, his Moonbow summer.

  ***

  Beyond the partition, Wanda lay on the day bed, listening to the soft burr of the boys’ voices. She glanced at her alarm clock. Eleven. It was late. She tried to picture the Abernathys in their car, rushing through the night to their son’s bedside. No need, of course, no real need, she told herself. But as well they were coming, just in case. She must go in and shoo Leo out. Hearing a sound, she sat up: a dark shape slipped through the open doorway. Wanda smiled to herself as she listened to the nails clicking on the floorboards. Well, who cared, really? A dog wasn’t going to hurt anyt
hing. She could hear the music from over at the Oliphants’. She lay thinking in the dark, then felt her eyelids drooping . . .

  She hadn’t slept. She was certain of it. Yet, when she looked at the clock again, its phosphorescent hands told her it was ten minutes past midnight. She got up quickly and tiptoed from the room. In the adjoining one Tiger lay on the bed with his eyes shut, his free leg angled and sticking out from beneath the sheet. In the chair Leo slumped, head canted to one side, his mouth partly open, hands loosely folded in his lap. Between the chair and the bed lay Harpo, who raised a sleepy head to regard her with inquisitive eyes, then dropped his muzzle to the floor again.

  Wanda felt Tiger’s forehead; it was moist and warm -too warm. Still, if he was resting she didn’t want to disturb him; there was no telling if he’d get back to sleep again. She checked her watch. She estimated the Abernathys would arrive some time after breakfast, certainly not before. A hundred and fifty miles was a good distance to travel.

  She went back into the other room, lit a cigarette, and sat smoking as she looked out into the darkness.

  Hours later, in the sickroom, Leo came awake in his chair. It was Harpo who’d roused him. The dog was sitting close to the bed, rubbing the crown of his head against the bedrails, whimpering, and Leo got up and went to calm him. Absently he stroked the animal and stared down at Tiger’s head on the pillow. His cheeks had lost their bright color, and when Leo touched his friend’s forehead it felt cool. He got his chair and sat close to the bed, wishing Tiger would open his eyes so they could talk some more. After a while Harpo sat up, then clambered awkwardly into Leo’s lap, where he sat licking his face, looking from him to Tiger in the bed. The animal felt hot and heavy and Leo wanted to put him down, but he didn’t. Under his thick curly coat the dog was trembling. Probably he should be put out; Wanda would be annoyed if she awoke and found she’d been disobeyed.

  Through the window he could see familiar shapes as the dawn began to break. The lake surface was already glinting in the early-morning light. A fine mist curled along the edges of the Three Corner Cove. On the washline three sets of female bathing attire hung: Maryann’s, Honey’s, and Sally Berwick’s. Doc’s Chris-Craft rode at easy anchor, calm and motionless.