Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

Ah wah ta na hay Ah wah ta no ho Ho tah! Ho tah ha!

Na wah ha na toe!

When he had made several circles around the fire, he proceeded along the first row of campers, bending to peer closely into each face. In one hand he held a cluster of red feathers, in the other empty medicine bags, like the ones the Jeremians wore. Pausing before a camper, he bestowed one each of these items on him, to warm applause from everyone; then, winding up among the tiers, he graced another boy and another. As he drew nearer to the Jeremians, his appointed features sharply etched by the vermilion light, Leo became aware of the overpowering presence of the half-naked figure, and he strained forward as the same tokens were offered to a fourth camper two rows ahead of them. “Attaboy, Bosey,” someone whispered.

Pivoting on his moccasin-shod feet, the Indian straightened for a moment, tensing his muscles, then crouched again and moved to the end of the next row, where the boys of Cabin 7 sat. But every Jeremian had already become a Seneca, so there would be no feathers or bags handed out to them, and yet – Leo saw how the Indian was moving along the row, passing the Jeremians one after the other, coming toward the new boy. Suddenly Leo felt a surge of excitement. Was such a thing possible, a new camper being made a Seneca, achieving Brave status on his first night at camp? The crouching figure came nearer. Nearer he came; nearer, until he stood poised directly in front of Leo. Suddenly the features disguised by the dark makeup made sense to Leo, and he realized that under the war paint the Warrior was Reece Hartsig!

He wanted to lower his eyes, but found he could not. Hardly daring to return Reece’s penetrating look, he waited – hoping – not daring to hope – the moment stretching out until, like a rubber band, it snapped and he blinked. And as the Indian passed on, Leo was filled with an incomprehensible sense of wrong doing, as if his capricious thoughts might have been read. He sat glued to his log as the Warrior retreated down the aisle and at the foot of the ring, having presented the last feather and medicine bag to another camper, stood erect, and, in a few panther strides, emerged into the light again. Bringing his feet together and taking a deep breath that expanded his chest, he raised his two brown arms in a majestic salute, then lowered them as he bowed before Pa Starbuck. A single step backward, out of the circle of firelight, and as magically as he had appeared he disappeared again, swallowed up in the velvety dark.

No sooner was he gone than, at a nod from Pa, the inductees rose and were ushered from the ring, to be instructed by the Moonbow Warrior in what was to come later, when all the members of the Seneca Lodge would gather for the secret campfire at the Wolf’s Cave. Applause followed their exit, and when the clapping had died away a silence gradually fell along the tiers. From his chair beside Tabernacle Rock, Pa Starbuck coughed and hemmed a bit, then suggested that everyone have a stretch before the rest of the program began.

After this general stirring about, they all sat again, gradually settling themselves into a renewed state of anticipation as the moment approached – the telling of the tale that by tradition crowned each council fire. Fresh logs were chucked onto the burning ones, sending sparks popping like Chinese firecrackers into the blackness, and the flames cast their amber glow along the sets of tanned legs picketing the front row, where rested pair upon pair of rubber-soled U.S. Keds, lined up as on the shelf of some outsized shoestore.

Now is the time. The moment all the boys have been waiting for, time for the ancient tale, that mixture of old-time native lore and birchbark legend that is the warp and woof of the camp, woven from stories far older than anyone present. Such moments as these are what make Camp Friend-Indeed the place it is. The spirit of Moonbow Lake lies among the words the boys know they will soon hear, words that newcomers like Leo Joaquim have been told to pay attention to. A born teller of such tales, Pa addresses his listeners with adroit turns of phrase, conjuring the Moonbow Princess who once lived in this same place, here within this very grove of pines, and the Moonbow Warrior, her secret lover, whose lodge stood on the opposite shore, among her foes – their rival tribes for decades warring with each other over some long-forgotten quarrel.

“Alone and lorn of love,” Pa says, “the maiden waits, while deep night draws on apace, and the old Star Maker takes out his tools to cut the shape and pattern of the stars, which he pins onto the dark cloak of night. He cuts the moon as well, full and round and silvery, to shed its light over all, while still the beauteous princess waits for her warrior to come to her, across the shining water, secretly so no one will know. On her soft cheek a tear glistens, bright as the Pole Star itself, for she is resolved to rebel against the tribe and all her people, to be united in love with the man that Sagittai, the Ancient Seer, has foretold shall be hers…”

All along the rows the boys harken, some leaning forward, some back, some gazing up at the star-strewn sky, some staring into the fire, all hanging on Pa’s every word. How they relish the telling; how silky and intricate the design as the threads of the familiar story are drawn out: whimsy and enchantment, shot through with moonlight; for to have the moonbow without a moon is impossible.

Pa goes on: “Alas,” he declares, “the princess waits in vain, for her warrior is by fate forestalled – each time he embarks, a fearful tempest, the work of Misswiss, the Evildoer, arises and forces him to return to shore. He cannot succeed until the fateful Night of the Moonbow, when, the seer proclaims, a bridge of moonlight will be magically created for him to cross upon.”

Aahh, the boys murmur, the moonbow, and Leo strains forward to catch each word.

Many nights pass, and days, and the moon wanes and waxes again, and still the moonbow does not appear. The princess weeps, the warrior chafes. Then, one night when the moon is full, the impatient maiden commandeers a canoe and paddles toward the opposite shore where her lover waits; but before she can reach it, her flight is discovered. She is overtaken and for her treachery is condemned to death; nothing, no one, can help her now, her fate is sealed.

“There the doomed princess lies,” Pa goes on with a lift to his voice, “there, upon the giant rock – this same rock where our council fire burns tonight. Misswiss holds aloft his knife. The sharp blade glints in the moonlight; see how he clutches it, ready to plunge it into her heart. Ah, hear her piteous moans – but who shall hear her pleas, who shall succor her?”

A ripple of sound traverses the rows, for the boys know that this is the best part of the story. By now Pa has risen to his full powers of description, and tonight’s moonless night seems moonless no longer, but clear and bright as can be, a night transfigured, filled with the wonder and magic of the tale.

Now, see it, boys, picture it in your minds: As the vengeful braves look on, silent and breathless, and Misswiss stays his hand yet a moment longer, little by little the miracle takes place. Yes! Look there, up in the sky! Forming itself from the tiniest, most infinitesimal particles of incandescence, attracting one another as though magnetized, gathering more and more substance, only faintly visible at first, a trembling shape of something not quite real, then, growing brighter and fuller, a filmy skein, and now, taking clearer shape, it becomes a visible band – yes, see it, boys, see it – a horizontal band that, ever so slowly, begins to bend at either end, to arch above the lake that mirrors it, its gleaming terminals linking one shore with the other, until, at last, behold the completed wonder, a luminous bow, a glorious rainbow of the night!