Farewell Summer

Douglas wouldn’t even let them lick their fingers.

Walking out of the ravine, they met a girl eating a vanilla ice cream cone. The boys stared, their tongues lolling. She took a cold dollop with her tongue. The boys blinked. She licked the cone and smiled. Perspiration broke out on a half dozen faces. One more lick, one more jut of that rare pink tongue, one more hint of cool vanilla ice cream and his army would revolt. Sucking in a deep breath, Douglas cried: ‘Git!’

The girl spun around and ran.

Douglas waited for the memory of the ice cream to fade, then said, quietly, ‘There’s ice water at Grandma’s. March!’

II. (#ub400fd8f-08b5-5bf1-a6d3-28eb256f00b1)

Shiloh and Beyond (#ub400fd8f-08b5-5bf1-a6d3-28eb256f00b1)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#ub400fd8f-08b5-5bf1-a6d3-28eb256f00b1)

Calvin C. Quartermain was an edifice as tall, long, and as arrogant as his name.

He did not move, he stalked.

He did not see, he glared.

He spoke not, but fired his tongue, point–blank, at any target come to hand.

He orated, he pronounced, he praised not, but heaped scorn.

Right now he was busy shoving bacteria under the microscope of his gold–rimmed spectacles. The bacteria were the boys, who deserved destruction. One boy, especially.

‘A bike, sweet Christ, a damn blue bike! That’s all it was!’

Quartermain bellowed, kicking his good leg.

‘Bastards! Killed Braling! Now they’re after me!’

A stout nurse trussed him like a cigar store Indian while Dr. Lieber set the leg.

‘Christ! Damned fool. What was it Braling said about a metronome? Jesus!’

‘Leg’s broke, easy!’

‘He needs more than a bike! A damned hell–fire device won’t kill me, no!’

The nurse shoved a pill in his mouth.

‘Peace, Mr C., peace.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#ub400fd8f-08b5-5bf1-a6d3-28eb256f00b1)

Night, in Calvin C. Quartermain’s lemon-sour house, and him in bed, discarded long ago, when his youth breeched the carapace, slid between his ribs, and left his shell to flake in the wind.

Quartermain twisted his head and the sounds of the summer night breathed through the air. Listening, he chewed on his hatred.

‘God, strike down those bastard fiends with fire!’

Sweating cold, he thought: Braling lost his brave fight to make them human, but I will prevail. Christ, what’shappening?

He stared at the ceiling where gunpowder blew in a spontaneous combustion, all their lives exploded in one day at the end of an unbelievably late summer, a thing of weather and blind sky and the surprise miracle that he still lived, still breathed, amidst lunatic events. Christ! Who ran this parade and where was it going? God, stand alert! The drummer–boys are killing the captains.

‘There must be others,’ he whispered to the open window. ‘Some who tonight feel as I do about these infidels!’

He could sense the shadows trembling out there, the other old rusted iron men hidden in their high towers, sipping thin gruels and snapping dog – biscuits. He would summon them with cries, his fever like heat–lightning across the sky.

‘Telephone,’ gasped Quartermain. ‘Now, Calvin, line them up!’

There was a rustling in the dark yard. ‘What?’ he whispered.

The boys clustered in the lightless ocean of grass below. Doug and Charlie, Will and Tom, Bo, Henry, Sam, Ralph, and Pete all squinted up at the window of Quartermain’s high bedroom.

In their hands they had three beautifully carved and terrible pumpkins. They carried them along the sidewalk below while their voices rose among the star-lit trees, louder and louder: ‘The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.’

Quartermain turned each of his spotted papyrus hands into fists and clenched the telephone.

‘Bleak!’

‘Quartermain? My God, it’s late!’

‘Shut up! Did you hear about Braling?’

‘I knew one day he’d get caught without his hourglass.’

‘This is no time for levity!’

‘Oh, him and his damn clocks; I could hear him ticking across town. When you hold that tight to the edge of the grave, you should just jump in. Some boy with a cap–pistol means nothing. What can you do? Ban cap–pistols?’

‘Bleak, I need you!’

‘We all need each other.’

‘Braling was school board secretary. I’m chairman! The damn town’s teeming with killers in embryo.’

‘My dear Quartermain,’ said Bleak dryly, ‘you remind me of the perceptive asylum keeper who claimed that his inmates were mad. You’ve only just discovered that boys are animals?’