Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

“And Fritz – has he left camp yet?” Dagmar asked.

Ma dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. As planned, Fritz had departed on the morning bus for Hartford, where he would entrain to New York and Washington to meet with the Red Cross group. Ma described the farewell between him and Leo, who, after Hank’s jitney had taken Fritz away, looked as if he’d lost his last friend.

“Maybe he has,” Dagmar said. With both Tiger and Fritz gone, Leo was more vulnerable than ever, and she deeply regretted the coolness between them.

Ma’s eyes welled with tears again as she confessed that she hardly knew what to make of it all anymore. How could things have gone so wrong? Camp Friend-Indeed wasn’t a place where bad things happened, it was a place for boys to spend a pleasant summer and enjoy themselves. They’d never lost a camper, never had the least bit of trouble -except for Stanley Wagner, who was the exception that helped prove the rule. And now, and now – Tiger, best trouper in camp, dead and buried, and all of Fritz’s things gone up in flames. A dark cloud seemed to hang over the camp, Ma said, and she feared that worse was to come.

Dagmar declared tartly that a man who walked around with his head in the clouds all the time couldn’t expect to avert trouble. “Gar’s either a child or a fool,” she added, then looked up to see the man himself coming into the arbor.

“Welladay, welladay,” Pa said as he lowered himself onto the bench where long ago he had lovingly carved a pair of initials (his and Ma’s, intertwined). Pushing back his hat, he wiped his brow, wagging his head in disbelief, like a farmer at a two-headed cow. “Welladay,” he repeated mournfully.

Dagmar’s lips pinched at the corners; she knew what “welladay” meant – the trials of Job were nothing compared with those that were now to be retailed in her ear: What, Pa dolorously asked, had he done to deserve all that now beset him, whence came these tribulations? And why Tiger, of all boys, to be taken?

“Tiger Abernathy! Now, there was a man!” he exclaimed. “A boy, true, but in time a man. Regrettable loss. Indeed, no one mourns his death more than I. But we can’t bring back the dead, can we? ‘Do not mourn me when I have crossed the bar, for I am mortal clay’ – that’s what that boy’d be telling us if he could.” He passed a hand across his face. “Well, enough, enough. The world’s a garden of roses if we can but forget the thorns.” He sighed again and contemplated the middle distance. A frown creased his brow and he tugged ruminatively at his lip. “Never should have had that orphan kid at camp,” he went on illogically. “Trouble’s his middle name. Spiders."

“Oh, don’t talk such foolishness, Gar!” Dagmar exclaimed. “You ought to be a comfort to the boy, not blame him for what was not his fault.”

Pa sighed and cast his eyes heavenward. “ Eee -heh. We have tried, we have endeavored-”

Dagmar was clearly at the end of her patience. “Oh, bother endeavor!” she snapped. “If you’d just kept your eyes peeled, if you’d only paid a little attention, instead of always going in search of a new warbler or titmouse-” Pa’s smile was beatific. “Dagmar, I confess it, when I am with the birds, I am one with my Maker. As I tell my boys about our feathered friends-”

“Yes, your boys, your boys, but not the one boy,” Ma put in. “Dagmar’s right. I’ve got bad eyes, it’s true, but it’s not me who don’t see, Garland Starbuck.’

Pa stared at her, taken aback by this unexpected outburst. “Why, Mayree,” he began with some consternation, only to be cut off.

“Never mind the talk. You know as well as I do Leo didn’t cause Tiger’s death.”

“And if he didn’t, he’s still a mischief-maker. Look-at what he wrote in that journal of his. And putting on the Buffalo Bill War Bonnet the way he did and prancing around in it. Why, it’s like spitting on the flag.”

Dagmar moved her torso around inside the jacket of her blue suit, too hot for the weather. “Oh, be quiet, Garland, for pity’s sake. If I hear another word about your precious Buffalo Bill I shall lose my patience.”

“Oh, never do that, my dear,” Pa expostulated mildly. “The great man presented me with that headdress with his own two hands. It was the greatest day of my life, the very greatest. Why, I remember the look in that old Indian fighter’s eye-”

“Oh, Pa ” Ma looked at him with a baffled expression. “Must you go on so?”

Pa hiked his chin. “Why not? I pride myself on possessing such a memento.”

“Oh, stop it, can’t you?” she said, at the end of her patience. “You may possess that bonnet, but it never came from Buffalo Bill. And don’t look at me like that. You know perfectly well Buffalo Bill never gave you a nickel in change, let alone the time of day.” She turned to Dagmar and explained. “It’s just a story, just one more of his fanciful tales to tell to the boys, it’s no more true than his moonbow tale.”

Dagmar straightened in her seat. “You mean it was all made up? About the bonnet?”

Ma nodded sadly. “Yes. All made up.”

Dagmar was shocked. “Are you saying that boy was sent to Scarsdale over a fake?” She glared at Pa. “What a fraud you are, Garland Starbuck!”

“Eeee-heh.” He countered this accusation with his characteristic wheeze. Then, as though coming out of a reverie, he gazed at his wife with brimming, reproachful eyes. “It was a good story, May-ree. The boys always liked it.”

“But it was a lie!” Dagmar exclaimed.

“I don’t see where’s the harm in a bit of exaggeration. Everything in life can’t be true, can it? It can’t all be real. Sometimes a little story eases things along. Truth’s not the only think makes a man happy.” He furrowed his brow and gave Ma a small, wistful smile. “If I am wrong, I hope I may be forgiven.”

He gazed entreatingly at both women, then heaved himself up, jerked his head round, and ambled off.

As he headed for the house, Leo emerged from the office, shading his eyes as he peered into the sun. Dagmar got up suddenly. “Well, I’ll be off as well,” she said crisply. She kissed Ma, and, tucking her bag under her arm, she marched away, meeting Leo halfway between the office and the arbor. His face was pale and pinched. “If you’re looking for Ma, she’s over there,” she said. “Try not to upset her more than she is.” She unsnapped her bag and took out a bill. “Here’s a dollar for you. Come, take it and don’t be foolish.”

He shook his head.

“Stubborn boy.” She snapped the money back in the bag. “I won’t see you again once you’re gone, I expect.” She started away, then turned back. “Ask Ma to tell you about Pa’s famous Buffalo Bill War Bonnet,” she said; then, pulling in her chin, she marched away, while a mystified Leo went on to the arbor, where Ma set aside her colander and made room on the bench beside her.

Leo glanced at her. Her iron-gray hair had a side part today, and was rolled around her ears on a bit of ribbon. “What did Dagmar have to say to you?” she began. “Nothing.”

“She must have said something. I saw her talking.”

“She said to ask you about the war bonnet.”

Ma shook her head ruefully. “It’s of no matter now, honey. Your old Ma shamed her mate of thirty years in front of company, and she’s mighty sorry. But how are you? Are you all right? You’ve lost your friend-” “Fritz.”

“Fritz, too – though I was thinking of Tiger.” A tear appeared behind her glasses. When she took them off to wipe her eyes she seemed a stranger to Leo. Her pupils were clouded by a milky film, and she visored them with her crabbed hand, attempting for vanity’s sake to hide her affliction. “It’s not right to weep for the dead, I suppose,” she said, fumbling for her handkerchief. “God don’t want that, I know. Tiger’s with his Maker in paradise now, and ’twon’t do to mourn him overmuch.”