Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

She went back into the other room, lit a cigarette, and sat smoking as she looked out into the darkness.

Hours later, in the sickroom, Leo came awake in his chair. It was Harpo who’d roused him. The dog was sitting close to the bed, rubbing the crown of his head against the bedrails, whimpering, and Leo got up and went to calm him. Absently he stroked the animal and stared down at Tiger’s head on the pillow. His cheeks had lost their bright color, and when Leo touched his friend’s forehead it felt cool. He got his chair and sat close to the bed, wishing Tiger would open his eyes so they could talk some more. After a while Harpo sat up, then clambered awkwardly into Leo’s lap, where he sat licking his face, looking from him to Tiger in the bed. The animal felt hot and heavy and Leo wanted to put him down, but he didn’t. Under his thick curly coat the dog was trembling. Probably he should be put out; Wanda would be annoyed if she awoke and found she’d been disobeyed.

Through the window he could see familiar shapes as the dawn began to break. The lake surface was already glinting in the early-morning light. A fine mist curled along the edges of the Three Corner Cove. On the washline three sets of female bathing attire hung: Maryann’s, Honey’s, and Sally Berwick’s. Doc’s Chris-Craft rode at easy anchor, calm and motionless.

Leo tensed as from the bed came the sound of Tiger’s voice.

“Ha… al… yee hepp… ridge,” Leo heard. Was it fever talk? Tiger’s eyes were open and he stared up at Leo but didn’t seem to recognize him.

“What? What did you say?” Leo asked.

Tiger turned his head restlessly on the pillow.

“How al – keh… uh… ”

Leo frowned slightly. Then it came to him. “How valiantly he kept the bridge,” he said. Tiger moved his hand on the coverlet, smiled, and shut his eyes again. He looked peaceful. Leo felt exhausted but not sleepy. Harpo had become too heavy. Leo put him down, then got up and stretched a couple of times.

“Come on, Harp,” Leo whispered, but the dog, now lying near the foot of the bed, made no move. Leo paused a moment longer, then backed away and left the room. Through the dispensary doorway he could see Wanda stretched out on the cot. She moved, then sat up, rubbing her eyes.

“Is he going to be okay?” Leo asked.

Swinging her feet to the floor and kneading her back, Wanda drilled him with a look. “Of course he’s going to be okay.” She took her thermometer, shook it down, and went in to look at the patient, while Leo wandered out onto the porch. His backside ached. The camp was already stirring. Over at the Oliphants’, Maryann appeared on the porch. She was wearing an Indian-pattern bathrobe, carrying a coffee mug and a lighted cigarette. Leo returned her wave, wondering why nobody ever saw her in curlers like other women.

Just then Harpo forged his way through the open doorway, bursting from the place like the hound of hell itself, bounding down the porch steps and racing off along the path, past Three Corner Cove to disappear into the woods. A moment later an unearthly howl arose that raised the hair on the nape of Leo’s neck.

“Gosh, what’s wrong with that poor creature?” Maryann called over. No one answered. On the infirmary porch Leo was backed against the railing so hard a spur hurt his leg. Heedless of the discomfort, he was staring at Wanda, who stood motionless in the doorway. Her brimming eyes sparkled in the morning light. But people like Wanda didn’t cry, they helped others dry their tears. In a husky voice she told him she was going over to use the Oliphants’ telephone. Gripping the porch post, Leo followed her with his eyes as she went down the steps and along the path; then he walked back inside.

In the sickroom the shades were pulled down to the sill. The bedsheet was drawn up over the pillow. He could make out the general shape of Tiger’s head underneath. He did not go inside the room. His knees seemed about to fold on him, and he sat down suddenly in Wanda’s chair. He tried to think, but his thoughts floated out of reach like ghostly things, as if what was happening wasn’t really happening, was just part of a dream, another bad dream he’d had. Yes, that was it, he was still asleep, he hadn’t woken at all, and he was still dreaming. In a moment he would wake up and everything would be okay – it would, wouldn’t it? If only He heard the sound of an auto engine. Through the opposite window he saw a car pull into view. It came to a stop on the grassy spot beside the infirmary and the Abernathys got out. They came up the steps and into the room. “Hello, Leo,” they said. “How is our boy?”

Leo didn’t know what to say. He ducked his head and didn’t look up again until they’d gone into the other room. He went onto the porch again. Over at Three Corner Cove, Wanda came out of the cottage with Maryann. Honey was with them. She had a handkerchief to her eyes. When she looked over and saw Leo she turned away, her shoulders shaking. Leo wanted to go and comfort her but didn’t know how to do that. Maryann and Wanda embraced; then Wanda came back along the path. Leo began to tremble. His eyes were blurring. As Wanda came up the steps, he turned and clambered over the railing to sprawl in the nasturtiums growing along the foundations. He scrambled up and without looking back raced along the path, passing the Oliphants’ cottage head down, to disappear into the same woods where Harpo was still howling.

Later Leo asked himself: how had the dog known when he himself had not?

Rock of ages,

Cleft for meeeeee.

Let me hide

Myself in thee-eeeee…

They were in the grove, all of them singing out the rousing old Protestant hymn whose words affirmed the help that cometh when a man’s faith abides in the Lord God of Hosts. Leo, however, could not take heart. Sitting in his rowboat, lost in thought, he doggedly kept his back to the somber gathering in the council ring, where every seat was filled and where the Reverend G. Garland Starbuck had for a half hour past been haranguing the assembled in his best William Jennings Bryan style. In truth, Leo had not wanted to admit to the fact of what lay atop Tabernacle Rock: the black box, covered with flowers; had not wanted to hear about “the young sapling alas too young cut down,” about “that peaceful lamb taken unto the Holy Shepherd’s loving flock,” who now “slept in the soft sweet bosom of Eternity and a Life Everlasting.”

The mere idea made Leo want to laugh. Far better to give Tiger a Viking’s funeral, the way Michael and his brothers had done in Beau Geste: set the coffin on fire and launch it out to sea in flames. Tiger would have loved a send-off like that! A burning vessel, the dead surrounded by battle shields and horned helmets, and a dead dog lying at his feet.

From where he sat Leo could make out certain figures in the congregation: the Abernathys were seated down front, along with Dr Dunbar and a number of the Society of Joshua elders. Wanda Koslowski was there too, and beside her Fritz, and a clutch of females he recognized as Ma Starbuck and Willa-Sue, Dagmar Kronborg, and Honey with her mother and Sally Berwick; on the log where the Jeremians were gathered could be seen the crop of blond curly hair belonging to Reece Hartsig.

At last the singing ended. Quickly, before the service could be brought to its pious conclusion, Leo took his violin from its case and began to play. Slowly, lugubriously, the notes rose from his strings and bow to float across the water to the council ring, where Pa and his congregation, recognizing the burlesque, were stunned to silence. Indignant heads craned toward the water to view the solitary and defiant camper out in the middle of the lake, and as the tune’s title was whispered among the subdued rows of campers they asked themselves who but Wacko Wackeem would have chosen to play a dumb ditty like “The Music Goes ’Round and Around” at such a time.