The Night of the Moonbow (39 page)

The two girls were on the path when Honey, having spotted Leo on the point, waited for him to catch up, while Sally went on ahead to the cottage.

“Well, Leo,” Honey began as he came up to her, “how are things?”

“Okay.”

“Just ‘okay’?”

“Well, sort of - only—”

“Only what?”

Leo blushed, stumbling for words.

Pretending not to notice, Honey put her hand in her pocket. “Would you like to see some of my snapshots from the Cape?” Without waiting for a reply she took them out and one by one handed them over: the bridge at the Cape Cod Canal (Honey arm-in-arm with Sally Berwick); several shots of the beach (Honey in her yellow bathing suit building a sand castle; Honey with a lifeguard); the lighthouse at Nauset Heights (Honey on her bicycle).. .

The exhibition got no farther. Suddenly the screen door at the cottage flew open and Peewee came racing across the porch and down the steps, an orange Popsicle melting in his fist.

“Peewee - here’s Leo,” his sister called. “Come say hello.”

The boy shot Leo a fierce scowl. “I can’t talk to him, he’s a spud,” he said, and ran on toward camp.

“Gosh, what’s been going on around here while I’ve been gone?” Honey asked. “Why are you and Peewee on the outs? You used to be such good pals.”

Leo ran his tongue around inside his mouth. “It’s nothing. Peewee’s just—” He shrugged.

Honey laughed. “Young; I know. Master Harrison has a lot of growing up to do, I’m afraid.”

“Is that Peewee’s name? ‘Harrison’?”

“Yes. Isn’t it ridiculous?” Her expression sobered. “I was real sorry to hear about what happened to your model village. After all your hard work. I know how disappointed you must be. However could such a thing have happened?”

Leo didn’t see any point in hashing the matter over again, so he let it go at the “frayed-rope” story, though he wasn’t sure Honey bought it, any more than he did.

“Honestly, I don’t know what this place is coming to,” Honey said. “Everyone always has such a good time, really. But this summer - well, it’s almost over.

Doesn’t seem possible, does it? Labor Day’ll be here before we know it.”

Sally’s round, jolly face appeared at the sink window, where she was pumping water (she was making lemonade). Honey drew Leo aside for a more personal word.

“I’ve been telling Sal about your music,” Honey confided. “I said you were just about the best violin player I’d ever heard.”

“You did?”

“I certainly did. I can’t wait till you’re famous and I can tell my children I knew you when.”

“I’ve been wanting to thank you,” Leo said shyly.

“For what?”

“For the postal card.”

“Oh, that. I wondered if you ever got it. I love sending postcards. I send them to all my friends. Some collect them.”

Leo was deflated by this news. Others got cards, too. “Will you keep yours?” she asked. He nodded, eyes cast down to his toes.

“Good. And sometime, when you go somewhere, I want you to be sure and send me one. For my collection. Okay?”

“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 confessed 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,