Farewell Summer (2 page)

The hours burned in cold white wintry flashes, as people scuttled in and out of Braling's mansion, hoping against hope that he was Lazarus.

Calvin C. Quartermain careened about Braling's porch like the captain of a wrecked ship.

‘Damn! I
saw
the boy's gun!'

‘There's no bullet–hole,' said Dr. Lieber, who'd been called.

‘Shot dead, he was! Dead!'

The house grew silent as the people left, bearing away the husk that had been poor Braling. Calvin C. Quartermain abandoned the porch, mouth salivating.

‘I'll find the killer, by God!'

Propelling himself with his cane, he turned a corner.

A cry, a concussion! ‘No, by God, no!' He flailed at the air and fell.

Some ladies rocking on the nearest porch leaned out. ‘Is that old Quartermain?'

‘Oh,
he
can't be dead, too –
can
he?'

Quartermain's eyelids twitched.

Far off, he saw a bike, and a boy racing away.

Assassin
, he thought.
Assassin!

When Douglas walked, his mind ran, when he ran, his mind walked. The houses fell aside, the sky blazed.

At the rim of the ravine, he threw his cap–pistol far out over the gulf. An avalanche buried it. The echoes died.

Suddenly, he needed the gun again, to touch the shape of killing, like touching that wild old man.

Launching himself down the side of the ravine, Doug scrambled among the weeds, eyes wet, until he found the weapon. It smelled of gunpowder, fire, and darkness.

‘Bang,' he whispered, and climbed up to find his bike abandoned across the street from where old Braling had been killed. He led the bike away like a blind beast and at last got on and wobbled around the block, back toward the scene of awful death.

Turning a corner, he heard ‘No!' as his bike hit a nightmare scarecrow that was flung to the ground as he pumped off, wailing, staring back at one more murder
strewn on the walk. Someone cried, ‘Is that old Quartermain?!'

‘Can't be,' Douglas moaned.

Braling fell, Quartermain fell. Up, down, up, down, two thin hatchets sunk in hard porch and sidewalk, frozen, never to rise.

Doug churned his bike through town. No mobs rushed after him.

It seemed the town did not even know that someone had been shot, another struck. The town poured tea and murmured, ‘Pass the sugar.'

Doug slam–braked at his front porch. Was his mother waiting in tears, his father wielding the razor strop …?

He opened the kitchen door.

‘Hey. Long time no see.' Mother kissed his brow. ‘They always come home when they're hungry.'

‘Funny,' said Doug. ‘I'm not hungry at all.'

At dinner, the family heard pebbles pinging against the front door.

‘Why,' said Mother, ‘don't boys ever use the bell?'

‘In the last two hundred years,' said Father, ‘there is no recorded case in which
any
boy under fifteen ever got within ten feet of a doorbell. You finished, young man?'

‘Finished, sir!'

Douglas hit the front door like a bomb, skidded, jumped back in time to catch the screen before it slammed. Then he was off the porch and there was Charlie Woodman on the lawn, punching him great friendly punches.

‘Doug! You did it! You shot Braling! Boy!'

‘Not so loud, Charlie!'

‘When do we shoot everyone on the school board? For gosh sakes, they started school a week early this year! They deserve to be shot. My gosh, how'd you
do
it, Doug?'

‘I said, “Bang! You're dead!”'

‘And Quartermain?!'

‘Quartermain?'

‘You broke his leg! Sure was your busy day, Doug!'

‘
I
didn't
break
no leg. My
bike
  …'

‘No, a
machine
! I heard old Cal screaming when they lugged him home. “Infernal machine!” What
kind
of infernal machine, Doug?'

Somewhere in a corner of his mind, Doug saw the bike fling Quartermain high, wheels spinning, while Douglas fled, the cry of Quartermain following close.

‘Doug, why didn't you crack
both
his legs with your infernal machine?'

‘What?'

‘When do we see your device, Doug? Can you set it for the Death of a Thousand Slices?'

Doug examined Charlie's face, to see if he was joking, but Charlie's face was a pure church altar alive with holy light.

‘Doug,' he murmured. ‘Doug, boy, oh boy.'

‘Sure,' said Douglas, warming to the altar glow. ‘Him against me, me against Quartermain and the whole darn school board, the town council – Mr Bleak, Mr Gray, all those dumb old men that live at the edge of the ravine.'

‘Can I watch you pick 'em off, Doug?'

‘What? Sure. But we got to plan, got to have an army.'

‘Tonight, Doug?'

‘Tomorrow …'

‘No,
tonight
! Do or die. You be captain.'

‘General!'

‘Sure, sure. I'll get the others. So they can hear it from the horse's mouth! Meet at the ravine bridge, eight o'clock! Boy!'

‘Don't yell in the windows at those guys,' said Doug. ‘Leave secret notes on their porches. That's an order!'

‘Yeah!'

Charlie sped off, yelling. Douglas felt his heart drown in a fresh new summer. He felt the power growing in his head and arms and fists. All this in a day! From plain old C–minus student to full general!

Now, whose legs should be cracked next? Whose metronome stopped? He sucked in a trembling breath.

All the fiery–pink windows of the dying day shone upon this arch–criminal who walked in their brilliant gaze, half smile–scowling toward destiny, toward eight o'clock, toward the camptown gathering of the great Green Town Confederacy and everyone sitting by firelight singing, ‘Tenting tonight, tenting tonight, tenting on the old camp grounds …‘

We'll sing
that
one
, he thought,
three times
.

Up in the attic, Doug and Tom set up headquarters. A turned–over box became the general's desk; his aide–de–camp stood by, awaiting orders.

‘Get out your pad, Tom.'

‘It's out.'

‘Ticonderoga pencil?'

‘Ready.'

‘I got a list, Tom, for the Great Army of the Republic. Write this down. There's Will and Sam and Charlie and Bo and Pete and Henry and Ralph. Oh, and you, Tom.'

‘How do we use the list, Doug?'

‘We gotta find things for them to do. Time's running out. Right now we've gotta figure how many captains, how many lieutenants. One general. That's me.'

‘Make it good, Doug. Keep 'em busy.'

‘First three names, captains. The next three, lieutenants. Everybody else, spies.'

‘Spies, Doug?'

‘I think that's the greatest thing. Guys like to creep around, watch things, and then come back and tell.'

‘Heck, I want to be one of those.'

‘Hold on. We'll make them
all
captains and lieutenants, make everyone happy, or we'll lose the war before it gets started. Some will do double-duty as spies.'

‘Okay, Doug, here's the list.'

Doug scanned it. ‘Now we gotta figure the first sock-dolager thing to do.'

‘Get the spies to tell you.'

‘Okay, Tom. But you're the most important spy. After the ravine meeting tonight …' Tom frowned, shook his head. ‘What?'

‘Heck, Doug, the ravine's nice but I know a better place. The graveyard. The sun'll be gone. It'll remind 'em if they're not careful, that's where we'll all wind up.'

‘Good thinking, Tom.'

‘Well, I'm gonna go spy and round up the guys. First the bridge, then the graveyard, yup?'

‘Tom, you're really somethin'.'

‘Always was,' said Tom. ‘Always was.'

He jammed his pencil in his shirt pocket, stashed his nickel tablet in the waistband of his dungarees, and saluted his commander.

‘Dismissed!'

And Tom ran.

The green acreage of the old cemetery was filled with stones and names on stones. Not only the names of the people earthed over with sod and flowers, but the names of seasons. Spring rain had written soft, unseen messages here. Summer sun had bleached granite. Autumn wind had softened the lettering. And snow had laid its cold hand on winter marble. But now what the seasons had to say was only a cool whisper in the trembling shade, the message of names: ‘TYSON! BOWMAN! STEVENS!'

Douglas leap–frogged TYSON, danced on BOWMAN, and circled STEVENS.

The graveyard was cool with old deaths, old stones grown in far Italian mountains to be shipped here to this green tunnel, under skies too bright in summer, too sad in winter.

Douglas stared. The entire territory swarmed with ancient terrors and dooms. The Great Army stood around him and he looked to see if the invisible webbed wings in the rushing air ran lost in the high elms and maples.
And did they feel all that? Did they hear the autumn chestnuts raining in cat–soft thumpings on the mellow earth? But now all was the fixed blue lost twilight which sparked each stone with light specules where fresh yellow butterflies had once rested to dry their wings and now were gone.

Douglas led his suddenly disquieted mob into a further land of stillness and made them tie a bandanna over his eyes; his mouth, isolated, smiled all to itself.

Groping, he laid hands on a tombstone and played it like a harp, whispering.

‘Jonathan Silks. 1920. Gunshot.' Another: ‘Will Colby. 1921. Flu.'

He turned blindly to touch deep–cut green moss names and rainy years, and old games played on lost Memorial Days while his aunts watered the grass with tears, their voices like windswept trees.

He named a thousand names, fixed ten thousand flowers, flashed ten million spades. ‘Pneumonia, gout, dyspepsia, TB. All of 'em taught,' said Doug. ‘Taught to
learn
how to die. Pretty dumb lying here, doing nothing, yup?'

‘Hey Doug,' Charlie said, uneasily. ‘We met here to plan our army, not talk about dying. There's a billion years between now and Christmas. With all that time to fill, I got no time to die. I woke this morning and said to myself, “Charlie, this is swell,
living
. Keep
doing
it!”'

‘Charlie, that's how they
want
you to talk!'

‘Am I wrinkly, Doug, and dog–pee yellow? Am I fourteen, Doug, or fifteen or twenty?
Am
I?'

‘Charlie, you'll spoil everything!'

‘I'm just not
worried
.' Charlie beamed. ‘I figure everyone dies, but when it's
my
turn, I'll just say no thanks. Bo, you goin' to die someday? Pete?'

‘Not me!'

‘Me either!'

‘See?' Charlie turned to Doug. ‘Nobody's dyin' like flies. Right now we'll just lie like hound–dogs in the shade. Cool off, Doug.'

Douglas's hands fisted in his pockets, clutching dust, marbles, and a piece of white chalk. At any moment Charlie would run, the gang with him, yapping like dogs, to flop in deep grape–arbor twilight, not even swatting flies, eyes shut.

Douglas swiftly chalked their names, CHARLIE, TOM, PETE, BO, WILL, SAM, HENRY, AND RALPH, on the gravestones, then jumped back to let them spy themselves, so much chalk–dust on marble, flaking, as time blew by in the trees.

The boys stared for a long, long time, silent, their eyes moving over the strange shapes of chalk on the cold stone. Then, at last, there was the faintest exhalation of a whisper.

‘Ain't going to die!' cried Will. ‘I'll fight!'

‘Skeletons don't fight,' said Douglas.

‘No, sir!' Will lunged at the stone, erasing the chalk, tears springing to his eyes.

The other boys stood, frozen.

‘Sure,' Douglas said. ‘They'll teach us at school, say, here's your heart, the thing you get attacks with! Show you bugs you can't
see
! Teach you to jump off buildings, stab people, fall and not move.'

‘No, sir,' Sam gasped.

The great meadow of graveyard rippled under the last fingers of fading sunlight. Moths fluttered around them, and the sound of a graveyard creek ran over all their cold moonlit thoughts and gaspings as Douglas quietly finished:' Sure, none of us wants to just lie here and never play kick–the–can again. You want all that?'

‘Heck no, Doug…'

‘Then we
stop
it! We find out how our folks make us grow, teach us to lie, cheat, steal. War? Great! Murder? Swell! We'll never be so well off as we are right
now
! Grow up and you turn into burglars and get shot, or worse,
they
make you wear a coat and tie and stash you in the First National Bank behind brass bars! We gotta stand still! Stay the age we are. Grow up? Hah! All you do then is marry someone who
screams
at you! Well, do we fight back? Will you let me tell you how to run?'

‘Gosh,' said Charlie. ‘Yeah!'

‘Then,' said Doug, ‘talk to your body: Bones, not one more inch! Statues! Don't forget, Quartermain
owns
this graveyard. He makes money if we lie here, you and you and
you
! But we'll show him. And all those old men who own the town! Halloween's almost here and before then we got to sour their grapes! You wanna look like
them? You know how they got that way? Well, they were all young once, but somewhere along the way, oh gosh, when they were thirty or forty or fifty, they chewed tobacco and phlegm–hocked up on themselves and that phlegm–hock turned all gummy and sticky and then the next thing you know there was spittle all over them and they began to look like, you know, you've seen, caterpillars turned into chrysalis, their darned skin hardened, and the young guys turned old, got trapped inside their shells, by God. Then they began to look like all those old guys. So, what you have is old men with young guys trapped inside them. Some year soon, maybe, their skin will crack and the old men will let the old young men out. But they won't be young anymore, they'll be a bunch of death's–head moths or, come to think of it, I think the old men are going to keep the young men inside them forever, so they're trapped in all that glue, always hoping to get free. It's pretty bad, isn't it? Pretty bad.'

‘Is that it, Doug?' said Tom.

‘Yeah,' said Pete. ‘You sure you know what you're talking about?'

‘What Pete is trying to say is that we gotta know with precision, we gotta know what's accurate,' said Bo.

‘I'll say it again,' said Doug. ‘You listen close. Tom, you taking this down?'

‘Yup,' said Tom, his pencil poised over his notepad. ‘Shoot.'

They stood in the darkening shadows, in the smell of grass and leaves and old roses and cold stone and raised their heads, sniffling, and wiped their cheeks on their shirtsleeves.

‘Okay, then,' said Doug. ‘Let's go over it again. It's not enough just seeing these graves. We've got to sneak under open windows, listen, discover what those old geezers are sick with. Tom, go get the pumpkins out of Grandma's pantry. We're gonna have a contest, see which of us can carve the scariest pumpkin. One to look like old man Quartermain, one like Bleak, one like Gray. Light them up and put them out. Later tonight we start our first attack with the carved pumpkins. Okay?'

‘Okay!' everyone shouted.

They leapt over WHYTE, WILLIAMS, and NEBB, jumped and vaulted SAMUELS and KELLER, screamed the iron gate wide, leaving the cold land behind them, lost sunlight, and the creek running forever below the hill. A host of gray moths followed them as far as the gate where Tom braked and stared at his brother accusingly.

‘Doug, about those pumpkins. Gosh almighty, you're nuts!'

‘What?' Doug stopped and turned back as the other boys ran on.

‘It ain't enough. I mean, look what you've done. You've pushed the fellas too far, got 'em scared. Keep on with this sort of talk you're going to lose your army.
You've got to do something that will put everything back together again. Find something for us to do or else everyone will go home and stay there, or go lie down with the dogs and sleep it off. Think of something, Doug. It's important.'

Doug put his hands on his hips and stared at Tom. ‘Why do I got this feeling you're the general and I'm just a buck private?'

‘What do you mean, Doug?'

‘I mean here I am, almost fourteen, and you're twelve going on a hundred and ordering me around and telling me what to do. Are things so bad?'

‘Bad, Doug? They're terrible. Look at all those guys running away. You better catch up and think of something between here and the middle of town. Reorganize the army. Give us something to do besides carving jack–o'–lanterns. Think, Doug, think.'

‘I'm thinking,' said Doug, eyes shut.

‘Well then, get going! Run, Doug, I'll catch up.'

And Doug ran on.