Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

Like an automaton, Leo jerked to his feet and switched on his flashlight; as he joined the rest of the honor party his mind again strayed to Tiger, and his fingers caressed the empty medicine bag on its string around his neck. Suddenly, another, more sobering thought crossed his mind: There was something fishy in all this.

Again he recalled Wally’s warning and his heart beat fast. Yes – he was certain – this was just another Mingo trick and he’d fallen for it! What a sap! He wasn’t to be made a Seneca; they were planning to get him off in the woods and do a Stanley Wagner on him! Holding his breath, he' glanced discreetly to both sides, ahead and behind. No one seemed to be paying him much attention as they trudged along the path toward Indian Woods. He made up his mind.

He must make his run for it – right now, or it would be too late. Scarcely breaking stride, he turned down the nearest crosspath and sprinted forward. No sooner had he begun his move than a shout erupted behind him and they were on to him. He ran as if from the devil himself, dashing blindly along the path, panting, his breath coming in heavy, exploding bursts, hearing nothing but the sound of his own feet hitting the needled ground, legs frantically pinwheeling as he spurred himself on. The light grew dimmer and he was forced to slow his gait; the ground was boggy; pale scarves of mist threaded among the trees, and with every headlong step the way grew more treacherous. Though the sounds of pursuit had died away, still he did not feel safe, only alone. He had started off with such a violent rush, and now he wasn’t sure where he was. It was the Snipe Hunt all over again, only tonight the games were over, the games, the jokes, the fun. No anagrams this time.

He picked up his pace, stumbled, then stopped dead, staring ahead. Before him in the shadows a quartet of menacing silhouettes barred his way. He blinked once, twice, thinking he must be imagining them, but the four, mute and motionless, remained, staring back at him. Their faces were smudged with burnt cork, their eyes shone white. Who they were he did not know; but what matter? They were there and they wanted him. No sense in running anymore. They had him.

Then “Come with us,” he heard one say in an ominous, oddly manipulated voice, a bit of playacting.

“What do you want?” he said, trying to pump some sound of courage into his words.

The order was repeated. The air was very still.

Suddenly Leo felt his body go flaccid, like old rubber with no spring in it, and he knew he was licked. It would be Stanley-time at the Wolf’s Cave. A robot, he proceeded as directed by his summoners.

Single file, like Indians, they broke away from camp property onto the Old Lake Road, heading, surprisingly, not into Indian Woods, as Leo had figured, but farther east, toward Pissing Rock. Trudging along the shoulder, he could hear the open-throated drag of his captors’ breathing as they marched doggedly on, the two backs ahead of him sturdy and somehow brutal-looking, while, from behind him, his every flagging step earned him a helpful prod in the small of his back, forcing him to keep pace. There was no other sound except the rhythmic crunch of their shoe soles; no cars passed, no dogs barked, nothing. Done with its brilliant show, the moon had hid its face. The night was dark, and Leo fearful of what lay ahead.

They came around the bend and then he saw it: there, beyond the treetops, rose the slanted roofs and chimneys of the Steelyard place. It was to the Haunted House that they were taking him, then, not to Indian Woods, not to the grove, not the cave. Tonight Leo Joaquim would witness no gathering of the Senecas, nor would he be made a member of that honorable lodge.

Larger and more sinister the roof peaks and gables loomed as they drew near. He wanted to look away but could not. He dragged his step, only to suffer another prod that made him jerk, forcing him on. Now they were hustling him up the crazy paving, past the beds of cinders and weeds. At the front steps he balked. Nothing could make him enter that house another time. They would have to kill him first.

“Go up, or we’ll drag you by your hair,” ordered one of them, his face disguised, voice too.

“Be a man,” advised his partner. “Go forward.”

Yes, thought Leo, be a man. Above all, he must be a man. Glad Man from Happy Boy. Ha ha…

The first pair marched onto the porch. Leo must follow. Making up his mind to it, he placed his foot on the bottom step and began his ascent behind the two rigid backs, the other two close behind him. The floorboards creaked, and the structure protested under their combined weight. As the party approached the doorway, the leaders held up their lanterns, then stepped inside. Leo stared at the dark portal.

“Go on in,” growled a warning voice.

“No. I won’t.” But his stubbornness was to no avail. A shove from behind propelled him across the threshold. He grew dizzy as the familiar shadows rose about him, and the odors assailed his nose. He clenched his fists, trying to control his trembling, fighting against the wave of sickness and fright that was raising the flesh on his bare legs.

“Well, bring him along then,” commanded another voice, one he hadn’t heard before, and he was given another shove. Despite his protests they manhandled him along the hallway to its end, where the heavy trapdoor stood open, with the two masked leaders waiting beside it, holding up their lanterns.

Leo was forced to stop at the edge of the hole in the floor, aware by now that they were conducting him to the Rinkydink cellar.

“We’re here,” called a voice from behind him.

“Come down.”

“Go down,” Leo was told. He stiffened.

“No, I won’t.”

“He says he won’t come down.”

“Who cares what he says? Make him. And quick, we haven’t got all night.”

Leo cried out as he felt the push from behind and he fell through the trapdoor. He was falling – falling – but instead of hitting the earth he felt his fall broken by pairs of arms, which caught and set him on his feet.

Dazed, he blinked, staring around him. The cellar seemed to be alive with light. Torches flamed everywhere. He could make out some twenty or thirty huddled forms arranged along the walls of the room, a band of grotesque, fearsome-looking figures, their faces besmirched with blacking and garishly painted. Others were wearing animal masks, furred and horned, and were clad in weird wild-man and Indian outfits. In addition to the torches, their hands clutched makeshift weapons – sticks and staves, tomahawks, axes and shields taken from the exhibition wall at the lodge, Leo realized.

But this ragtag-and-bobtail lot was no brotherhood of Senecas come together in a ceremony of honor and friendship. Tonight, the night of the last campfire – night of the moonbow – there would be held not Seneca ceremonies, but Mingo revels. In the flickering torchlight, one by one he examined the evil-looking bunch, seeking hints as to who was who. Yet so successful were their disguises that they were to all intents and purposes impenetrable – except -yes – maybe the one got up as a fox, who now took up a position of importance before Leo, eyes glinting behind his furry muzzle. In one “paw” he displayed an Indian rattle, which when shaken gave off a menacing sound, like the tail of a rattlesnake. It must be Phil, Leo decided. He’d been clever enough to remove his ring, but there was a telltale white band around his finger that the burnt cork had missed.

“Go ahead, look about you,” the fox suggested with a spurious show of affability. “See what is to be seen. Think where you are, and to what purpose.”

He gestured beyond the intervening heads, past the furnace and the coal bin, toward the shadows at the far end of the cellar. There a line of Indian blankets was hung with wooden clothes pins on a wire stretching fully across the room, effectively shutting off the farther view, while in the corner was something else Leo hadn’t noticed before. He stood tiptoe, trying to make out what – no, who – it was.