Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

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 anything. 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.