Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

Leo’s face heated up and his eyes stung as he tried. to pull away.

Moriarity laughed and nudged Bosey, standing next to him. “ ’Smatter, can’tcha take it? Big Jimmy Durante schnozzola.” He gave the nose another painful twist, making Leo cry out.

“That hurts!”

“Aw, poor baby, he says it hurts. You know something, Wackoff, if I had that nose full of nickels I’d be so rich I wouldn’t ever have to work again. Right, Phil?”

Phil was quick to agree; he turned to the others. “Come on, let’s leave this spud and get out of here.”

Abandoning Leo, the four ran noisily up the stairs. uul disappeared. Leo waited until he was sure it was safe to leave, then crept away, feeling lucky he hadn’t got a fat lip for his snooping.

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.”