The Night of the Moonbow (35 page)

Suddenly a figure in a slicker and sou’wester hat lurched into the pathway; it was Bullnuts Moriarity. He held up a lantern; in its light two shadows appeared behind him, advancing toward Leo, who now drew back: Bullnuts he could probably elude; a gang would make things truly difficult. He was filled with relief as he recognized the voices of Fritz and Wanda, who were coming along the path.

“What is going on here?” Fritz demanded sternly, shining a flashlight around. He frowned as he spotted Moriarity. “Claude, what are you up to? What was all that racket?” Finally he saw Leo, then the overturned latrine. “Leo, are you all right?” he asked, stepping toward him. “What’s been going on around here?” He shone his light into the pit.

“Aw, gee, willya lookit that!” Moriarity pretended to have only just noticed the overturned latrine. “My golly - whoever do you think done that? Turned over the Dewdrop Inn.”

The wet sputter of giggles issued from the bushes on either side of the path.

“All right, you fellows,” Fritz called at the sound. “Whoever you are, you can come out now, the fun’s over.”

A sudden flurry of activity erupted among the shrubbery as dark forms broke from their hiding places and scuttled to safety in the encompassing dark.

Fritz now shone his light on Leo. “I think we’d better get you over to the infirmary and let Wanda have a look at that head. As for you, Claude,” he went on, turning to Moriarity, “you may consider yourself on report.”

“For what?” Claude bellowed. “I didn’t do it all on my own. Those guys were in on it too.”

“Rinkydinks, I suppose? Kindly give me their names and I’ll see they’re all properly dealt with.”

“You got to be kiddin’.”

“Try me and see, Claude. Now I suggest everybody get to bed. Leo, that means you, too.”

As Fritz turned to go, Moriarity made a sudden movement forward. But Leo was swift enough to dodge him, leaving a space for Bullnuts to plunge headlong through, his momentum carrying him over the edge of the latrine pit. No one was more surprised than Claude to find himself hurtling through space, lantern and all, to hit the bottom with a wet, splishing sound.

The boys who had gone to bed during a final deluge of rain awoke to a bright world again, and although the entire camp was so waterlogged that it would take days for the place to dry out (from the red-painted designations on his dock pilings Doc Oliphant was able to demonstrate that the lake had risen two and a half inches in the six days of rain), with the return of good weather everyone at Moonbow cheered and roused himself and felt renewed, as if before the season’s end Friend-Indeed had been granted a second lease on life. Like schoolboys too long cooped up in the classroom, the campers burst forth into the sunshine, giving full vent to their natural ebullience; spreading themselves across the breast of the lake in flotillas of watercraft, carousing north and south along the line-path, shinnying up the trees in Shinny Park, and catching snakes and firing slingshots at anything that moved. Every clothesline from Virtue to Endeavor sagged with damp shorts and polo shirts, and moldy bathing towels and bedding were spread out for airing on every available cabin roof and shutter.

To all outward appearances the world at Moonbow Lake was green and gold again. But not for Wacko Wackeem, whose stock at Friend-Indeed had plummeted since the exposure of the contents of his private journal. With his incriminating comments set down in Parker’s blue-black Quink, how could he afterward deny what he had written? Or explain that his comments were just private jokes, not to be taken seriously - that Reece Hartsig didn’t really look like a cigar-store Indian in his Moonbow Warrior’s garb, that Claude Moriarity didn’t really bear a resemblence in certain particulars to Farmer Kelsoe’s prize bull, or that Pa Starbuck wasn’t the Bible-thumping Billy Sunday of Moonbow Lake.

And the boys had had their private revenge. Knocking latrines off their beam ends was old-timers’ sport at Moonbow - mischievous campers had been pulling such stunts since the days when Rolfe Hartsig was an adolescent bunkee and Jeremiah was only a tent - but it was not exactly customary for such barrelhousing to occur when a person happened to be inside the Dewdrop. Nonetheless, Pa had chalked the business up as another prank - and if it was more than that, well, Leo had trespassed, hadn’t he? - and let it go at that. As for Moriarity’s tumble into the pit, even Pa smiled at the reports, while Bullnuts went around camp loudly demanding reprisals. Thus far, however, he had done nothing along those lines, and for the time being the joke remained on him.

If only, Leo thought, that could have been the end of it. But now, from every quarter, starting in Cabin 7 and extending up and down the line-path to the outer reaches of High Endeavor and Virtue, he felt the resentment of his fellow campers. There was a general feeling that he had “got away with it,” that peeing on the Seneca campfire was a violation on a par with dancing around in the Buffalo Bill War Bonnet, and fully deserving of punishment. But the Sachems’ Council, convening to adjudicate the matter, stood divided on the issue, with a few, after an impassioned argument by Fritz Auerbach, maintaining that the real “crime” had been reading Leo’s diary. Since the Sachems’ decisions were required to be unanimous, no action was taken, as a result of which, two things happened: one, after an acrimonious row, Reece Hartsig resigned from the council, and, two, the Mingoes, whose clandestine meetings had been removed to the Rinkydinks’ former bailiwick in the cellar of the Steelyard house, let it be known that they themselves would see to the matter.

When formal notice of the council’s decision (or lack thereof) had been posted on the bulletin board outside the lodge for all to see, the paper was torn down in the dead of night, and in its stead a crudely lettered poster appeared:

WANTED:
WACKO WACKEEM

Dead or Alive (Preferably dead)

For Crimes Against the Camp

Also wanted:

Fritzy Katzenjammer alias THE NOSE

Quickly removed, the placard was (as usual) ascribed to camper hijinks, with Pa listening to Fritz’s objections with half an ear, then dragging out his “Boys will be boys” wheeze and declaring he was sure the whole thing was only meant as a joke. During his pre-dinner remarks after grace, he reminded the boys that this was Camp “Friend-Indeed,” and that “Actions speak louder than words.”

And that was that. Except that at night, when the sun had gone and a gibbous moon gored the dark sky with its horns, mischief was afoot. After lights out, campers would find excuses to visit the Dewdrop Inn. As they came and went they stopped in dark clusters for a few words, mirthful sputters and giggles, and then the mocking warning would be sounded among the trees: “Wacko, Wacko . . . someone’s gonna getcha!” And along the needled paths the spores of poisonous toadstools - Amanita muscaria -blossomed in the potent dark.

Far worse than all this for Leo, however, was his fall from grace where Tiger was concerned. The two boys were constantly thrown together in the normal course of events, but since their quarrel no words more intimate than “pass the potatoes” had been spoken between them, no look had been exchanged. Though Leo was resentful of what he judged to be Tiger’s failure to understand the situation -how could Tiger blame him when Leo’s privacy had been invaded? - he regretted his flagrant use of the despised epithet and would gladly have called it back. But to do so required an apology he couldn’t find it in himself to offer, and so they remained apart, each playing “Invisible Man” to the other.

Leo felt the schism keenly as the day approached when, with the completion of the village, he hoped once again to redeem himself for all that had gone before. The model would repose on its stand in its glass display case, the formal unveiling would be held, photographs would be taken for the paper, and the two creators of the village would be honored. By Tuesday morning everything was set, and he sat on his stool in the work corner of the lodge, surveying the fruits of his labors. Was it all right, he wondered? He had just given the castle one last coat of banana oil, the fortress was fitted securely into its mountain site, the banner with its Hapsburg device was flying over the portcullis. If only, Leo thought, Tiger would come by to make it up, everything would be just fine.

It was not Tiger who arrived, however, but Pa Starbuck, accompanied by two young men who were announced as the newspaper reporter and his sidekick photographer. While the photographer checked his camera equipment, the reporter asked Leo some questions (“What’s your name, son, and where do you come from? Are your folks members of the Society of Joshua? What do they call you? Play baseball? What’s your batting average? Ha ha”). Leo was relieved of further interrogation by the arrival of Fritz, who greeted the reporter with aplomb and provided him with some background on the real Durenstein. Pa kept looking at his watch, growing more impatient every minute until the Hartsigs, including Reece, finally arrived, twenty minutes late, Rolfe giving as an excuse for their tardiness the fact that he’d had to stop at the film exchange in Putnam to pick up the movie for tonight’s program.

While Reece shook hands with the reporter, an old high-school chum he greeted as “Andy,” Joy Hartsig walked straight to the model to look it over, her eyes shining with pleasure. As often happened when she was around, she quickly became the focus of the gathering, her gold and ivory bracelets jangling as she gestured, patting her coiffure or bringing her cigarette to her red lips.

“Goodness,” she cooed, “haven’t you two done a lot of work! I’m simply astonished.” She smiled warmly at Fritz, her diamond rings catching the light as she crushed her fingers under her chin. “I just love the way you’re making everything a little skewed, a bit crooked,” she added. “It gives a nice fairy-tale effect. At least I imagine that’s what you were after. Wouldn’t it be fun to visit the real thing sometime?”

“I don’t imagine you’d care to visit it just now, Mrs Hartsig,” Fritz said with a touch of irony. Joy’s bright smile left her lips as she laid a hand on his arm.

“I know how much it means to you,” she said. “Is that how it looked when you were a boy?”

“More or' less. It^s not easy making things look exactly the way you recall them. But it’s close, I think.”

“What do you think, Dutch?” Joy asked her husband.

“Looks pretty authentic to me,” Rolfe replied. He was especially taken with the steamboat Leo had crafted, its wheel beating the waves of the blue plaster Danube.

Then the photographer, who had been trying a series of angles, asked that the model be moved out of its corner to a position where everyone could be grouped around it for the shot he wanted. Fritz and Leo, with the newspapermen, performed the job, carrying the worktable out into the middle of the room, after which several pictures were taken of the model with Pa and the Hartsigs (excepting Reece, who declined), and finally with Leo and Fritz, who was' asked to make a further statement about his creation.

Fritz’s expression grew serious and he groped for suitable words. “This is my gift to the campers of Friend-Indeed,” he said at last, “and to Dr Dunbar and the Friends of Joshua, who have invited me to spend my summer here and who have behaved kindly and generously toward an exile from his own land.”

He paused, and the reporter’s glance fell on Reece, who had been leaning nonchalantly against the wall and who now sauntered over.

“What’s your opinion, Reece?” the reporter asked. “Got something to say about this project?”

“It’s fine ...” Reece said with a pleasant smile, "... if you like Tinkertoys,” he added, and there was a moment’s silence while the reporter tried to decide whether he was sincere or joking.

“Oh, but I do!” said Fritz, relieving the others of potential embarrassment. “Everyone enjoys toys, doesn’t he? We’re all children at heart, aren’t we? And see here—” They watched as he reached behind the model to move a tiny brass lever built into the foundation. In a moment a ticking sound could be heard, then tinkling music began: the familiar strains of the “Blue Danube” waltz.

“What a wonderful touch! Whose idea was that?” Joy asked. “Yours, Fritz?”

“No, ma’am.” Fritz gallantly declined the intended compliment. The idea had been Leo’s. The works had come from a dime-store music box.

“Clever lad,” said Joy. “I’m sure he deserves a lot of praise.” She beamed her brightest at Leo, who flushed with pleasure but modestly pointed out that the idea for the village as a whole had been Fritz’s, that he, Leo, had merely “helped out.”

“Let’s get a shot of the whole group, shall we?” the photographer suggested, re-forming the gathering with Fritz and Leo in the center. “Come on, Reece, you get in on this too.”

“Thanks. I’ll skip it.”

“Just one?”

“Didn’t you hear me?”

“Okay, okay, sorry.”

The photographer directed a puzzled look at his colleague, who shrugged, as if to say, “Consider the source,” and went on questioning Fritz, jotting down statistics on the population of Durenstein and the Austrian wine industry. From these considerations he moved on to a general sizing-up of the political situation in Austria, and Fritz spoke heatedly about Hitler, saying that with the way things were going there was. bound to be a war in Europe pretty soon.

Rolfe rubbed his palms together. “You’ve got it all wrong, Fritz; Hitler doesn’t really want war, he only wants what’s coming to him, what belongs to Germany by right, to guarantee her natural borders. Take it from me,” he went on, “Stalin’s the guy we really have to watch. If we’re not careful, we’ll have a bunch of Bolsheviks running the good old U.S.A. It’s the Commies that are making all the trouble, on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Fritz leaned forward, his look intense. “May I ask, sir, have you heard of Mein Kampf?”

“Sure. What about it?”

“If you were to read that book you would learn exactly what Hitler plans to do. And make no mistake - he means to do it! Already he is rounding up all who oppose him. He has taken my family, he has robbed us of our property, they are in prison. I may never see them again.”