‘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
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’s happening?
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?’
‘Something must be done!’
‘Life will do it.’
‘The damned fools are outside my house singing a funeral dirge!’
‘“The Worms Crawl In”? My favorite tune when I was a boy. Don’t you remember being ten? Call their folks.’
‘Those fools? They’d just say, “Leave the nasty old man alone.”’
‘Why not pass a law to make everyone seventy–nine years old?’ Bleak’s grin ran along the telephone wires. ‘I’ve two dozen nephews who sweat icicles when I threaten to live forever. Wake up, Cal. We are a minority, like the dark African and the lost Hittite. We live in a country of the young. All we can do is wait until some of these sadists hit nineteen, then truck them off to war. Their crime? Being full up with orange juice and spring rain. Patience. Someday soon you’ll see them wander by with winter in their hair. Sip your revenge quietly.’
‘Damn! Will you help?’
‘If you mean can you count on my vote on the school board? Will I command Quartermain’s Grand Army of Old Crocks? I’ll leer from the sidelines, with an occasional vote thrown to you mad dogs. Shorten summer vacations, trim Christmas holidays, cancel the Spring Kite Festival – that’s what you plan, yes?’
‘I’m a lunatic, then?!’
‘No, a student–come–lately. I learned at fifty I had joined the army of unwanted men. We are not quite Africans, Quartermain, or heathen Chinese, but our racial stigmata are gray, and our wrists are rusted where once they ran clear. I hate that fellow whose face I see, lost and lonely in my dawn mirror! When I see a fine lady, God! I know outrage. Such spring cartwheel thoughts are not for dead pharaohs. So, with limits, Cal, you can count me in. Good night.’
The two phones clicked.
Quartermain leaned out his window. Below, in the moonlight, he could see the pumpkins, shining with a terrible October light.
Why do I imagine, he wondered, that one is carved to look like me, another one just like Bleak, and the other just like Gray? No, no. It can’t be. Christ, where do I find Braling’s metronome?
‘Out of the way!’ he yelled into the shadows.
Grabbing his crutches, he struggled to his feet, plunged downstairs, tottered onto the porch, and somehow found his way down to the sidewalk and advanced on the flickering line of Halloween gourds.
‘Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘Those are the ugliest damned pumpkins I ever saw. So!’
He brandished a crutch and whacked one of the orange ghouls, then another and another until the lights in the pumpkins winked out.
He reared to chop and slash and whack until the gourds were split open, spilling their seeds, orange flesh flung in all directions.
‘Someone!’ he cried.
His housekeeper, an alarmed expression on her face, burst from the house and raced down the great lawn.
‘Is it too late,’ cried Quartermain, ‘to light the oven?’
‘The oven, Mr Cal?’
‘Light the god–damned oven. Fetch the pie pans. Have you recipes for pumpkin pie?’
‘Yes, Mr Cal.’
‘Then grab these damn pieces. Tomorrow for lunch: Just Desserts!’
Quartermain turned and crutched himself upstairs.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The emergency meeting of the Green Town Board of Education was ready to begin.
There were only two there beside Calvin C. Quartermain: Bleak and Miss Flynt, the recording secretary.
He pointed at the pies on the table.
‘What’s this?’ said the other two.
‘A victory breakfast, or maybe a lunch.’
‘It looks like pie to me, Quartermain.’
‘It is, idiot! A victory feast, that’s what it is. Miss Flynt?’
‘Yes, Mr Cal?’
‘Take a statement. Tonight at sunset, on the edge of the ravine, I will make a few remarks.’
‘Such as?’
‘Rebellious rapscallions, hear this: The war is not done, nor have you lost nor have you won. It seems a draw. Prepare for a long October. I have taken your measure. Beware.’
Quartermain paused and shut his eyes, pressed his fingers to his temples, as if trying to remember.
‘Oh, yes. Colonel Freeleigh, sorely missed. We need a colonel. How long was Freeleigh a colonel?’
‘Since the month Lincoln was shot.’
‘Well, someone must be a colonel. I’ll do that. Colonel Quartermain. How does that sound?’
‘Pretty fine, Cal, pretty fine.’
‘All right. Now shut up and eat your pie.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The boys sat in a circle on the porch of Doug and Tom’s house. The pale blue painted ceiling mirrored the blue of the October sky.
‘Gosh,’ said Charlie. ‘I don’t like to say it, Doug – but I’m hungry.’
‘Charlie! You’re not thinking right!’
‘I’m thinkin’ fine,’ said Charlie. ‘Strawberry shortcake with a big white summer cloud
of whipped cream.’
‘Tom,’ said Douglas, ‘in the by–laws in your nickel tablet, what’s it say about treason?’
‘Since when is thinking about shortcake treason?’ Charlie regarded some wax from his ear with great curiosity.
‘It’s not thinking, it’s saying!’
‘I’m starved,’ said Charlie. ‘And the other guys, look, touch ’em and they’d bite. It ain’t workin’, Doug.’
Doug stared around the circle at the faces of his soldiers, as if daring them to add to Charlie’s lament.
‘In my grandpa’s library there’s a book that says Hindus starve for ninety days. Don’t worry. After the third day you don’t feel nothing!’
‘How long’s it been? Tom, check your watch. How long?’
‘Mmmm, one hour and ten minutes.’
‘Jeez!’
‘Whatta you mean “jeez”? Don’t look at your watch! Look at calendars. Seven days is a fast!’
They sat a while longer in silence. Then Charlie said, ‘Tom, how long’s it been now?’
‘Don’t tell him, Tom!’
Tom consulted his watch, proudly. ‘One hour and twelve minutes!’
‘Holy smoke!’ Charlie squeezed his face into a mask. ‘My stomach’s a prune! They’ll have to feed me with a tube. I’m dead. Send for my folks. Tell ’em I loved ’em.’ Charlie shut his eyes and flung himself backward onto the floorboards.
‘Two hours,’ said Tom, later. ‘Two whole hours we’ve been starving, Doug. That’s sockdolager! If only we can throw up after supper, we’re set.’
‘Boy,’ said Charlie, ‘I feel like that time at the dentist and he jammed that needle in me. Numb! And if the other guys had more guts, they’d tell you they’re bound for Starved Rock, too. Right, fellas? Think about cheese! How about crackers?’
Everyone moaned.
Charlie ran on. ‘Chicken à la king!’
They groaned.
‘Turkey drumsticks!’
‘See.’ Tom poked Doug’s elbow. ‘You got ’em writhing! Now where’s your revolution?!’
‘Just one more day!’
‘And then?’
‘Limited rations.’
‘Gooseberry pie, apple–butter, onion sandwiches?’
‘Cut it out, Charlie.’
‘Grape jam on white bread!’
‘Stop!’
‘No, sir!’ Charlie snorted. ‘Tear off my chevrons, General. This was fun for the first ten minutes. But there’s a bulldog in my belly. Gonna go home, sit down real polite, wolf me half a banana cake, two liverwurst sandwiches, and get drummed outta your dumb old army, but at least I’ll be a live dog and no shriveled–up mummy, whining for leftovers.’
‘Charlie,’ Doug pleaded, ‘you’re our strong right arm.’
Doug jumped up and made a fist, his face blood–red. All was lost. This was terrible. Right before his face his plan unraveled and the grand revolt was over.
At that very instant the town clock boomed twelve o’clock, noon, the long iron strokes which came as salvation because Doug leapt to the edge of the porch and stared toward the town square, up at that great terrible iron monument, and then down at the grassy park, where all the old men played at their chessboards.
An expression of wild surmise filled Doug’s face.
‘Hey,’ he murmured. ‘Hold on. The chessboards!’ he cried. ‘Starvation’s one thing, and that helps, but now I see what our real problem is. Down outside the courthouse, all those terrible old men playing chess.’
The boys blinked.
‘What?’ said Tom.
‘Yeah, what?’ echoed the boys.
‘We’re on the chessboard!’ cried Douglas. ‘Those chess pieces, those chessmen, those are us! The old guys move us on the squares, the streets! All our lives we’ve been there, trapped on the chessboards in the square, with them shoving us around.’
‘Doug,’ said Tom. ‘You got brains!’
The clock stopped booming. There was a great wondrous silence.
‘Well,’ said Doug, exhaling, ‘I guess you know what we do now!’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In the green park below the marble shadow of the courthouse, under the great clock tower’s bulk, the chess tables waited.
Now under a gray sky and a faint promise of rain, a dozen chessboards were busy with old men’s hands. Above the red and black battlefields, two dozen gray heads were suspended. The pawns and castles and horses and kings and queens trembled and drifted as monarchies fell in ruin.
With the leaf shadows freckling their moves, the old men chewed their insunk mouths and looked at each other with squints and coldnesses and sometimes twinkles. They talked in rustles and scrapings a few feet beyond the monument to the Civil War dead.
Doug Spaulding snuck up, leaned around the monument, and watched the moving chess pieces with apprehension. His chums crept up behind him. Their eyes lolled over the moving chess pieces and one by one they moved back and drowsed on the grass. Doug spied on the old men panting like dogs over the boards. They twitched. They twitched again.
Douglas hissed back at his army. ‘Look!’ he whispered. ‘That knight’s you, Charlie! That king’s me!’ Doug jerked. ‘Mr Weeble’s moving me now, ah! Someone save me!’ He reached out with stiff arms and froze in place.
The boys’ eyes snapped open. They tried to seize his arms. ‘We’ll help you, Doug!’
‘Someone’s moving me. Mr Weeble!’
‘Darn Weeble!’
At which moment there was a strike of lightning and a following of thunder and a drench of rain.
‘My gosh!’ said Doug. ‘Look.’
The rain poured over the courthouse square and the old men jumped up, momentarily forgetting the chess pieces, which tumbled in the deluge.
‘Quick, guys, now. Each of you grab as many as you can!’ cried Doug.
They all moved forward in a pack, to fall upon the chess pieces.
There was another strike of lightning, another burst of thunder.
‘Now!’ cried Doug.
There was a third strike of lightning and the boys scrambled, they seized.
The chessboards were empty.
The boys stood laughing at the old men hiding under the trees.
Then, like crazed bats, they rushed off to find shelter.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘Bleak!’ Quartermain barked into his telephone.
‘Cal?’
‘By God, they got the chess pieces that were sent from Italy the year Lincoln was shot. Shrewd damn idiots! Come here tonight. We must plan our counterattack. I’ll call Gray.’
‘Gray’s busy dying.’
‘Christ, he’s always dying! We’ll have to do it ourselves.’
‘Steady now, Cal. They’re just chess pieces.’
‘It’s what they signify, Bleak! This is a full rebellion.’
‘We’ll buy new chess pieces.’
‘Hell, I might as well be speaking to the dead. Just be here. I’ll call Gray and make him put off dying for one more day.’
Bleak laughed quietly.
‘Why don’t we just chuck all those Bolshevik boys into a pot, boil them down to essence of kid?’
‘So long, Bleak!’
He rang off and called Gray. The line was busy. He slammed the receiver down, picked it up, and tried again. Listening to the signal, he heard the tapping of tree branches on the window, faintly, far away.
My God, Quartermain thought, I can hear what he’s up to. That’s dying all right.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There was this old haunted house on the far edge of the ravine.
How did they know it was haunted?
Because they said so. Everyone knew it.
It had been there for close on to one hundred years and everybody said that while it wasn’t haunted during the day, at nighttime strange things happened there.
; It seemed a perfectly logical place for the boys to run, Doug leading them and Tom bringing up the rear, carrying their wild treasure, the chess pieces.
It was a grand place to hide because no one – except for a pack of wild boys – would dare come to a haunted house, even if it was full daytime.
The storm still raged and if anyone had looked close at the haunted house, chanced walking through the creaky old doors, down the musty old hallways, up even creakier old stairs, they would have found an attic full of old chairs, smelling of ancient bamboo furniture polish and full of boys with fresh faces who had climbed up in the downfall sounds of the storm, accompanied by intermittent cracks of lightning and thunderclaps of applause, the storm taking delight in its ability to make them climb faster and laugh louder as they leapt and settled, one by one, Indian style, in a circle on the floor.
Douglas pulled a candle stub, lit it, and stuffed it in an old glass candlestick holder. At last, from a burlap gunnysack, he pulled forth and set down, one by one, all the captured chess pieces, naming them for Charlie and Will and Tom and Bo and all the rest. He tossed them forth to settle, like dogs called to war.
‘Here’s you, Charlie.’ Lightning cracked.
‘Yeah!’
‘Here’s you, Willie.’ Thunder boomed.
‘Yeah!’
‘And you, Tom.’
‘That’s too small and plain,’ Tom protested. ‘Can’t I be king?’
‘Shut up or you’re the queen.’
‘I’m shut,’ said Tom.
Douglas finished the list and the boys clustered round, their faces shining with sweat, eager for the next lightning bolt to let loose its electric shower. Distant thunder cleared its throat.
‘Listen!’ cried Doug. ‘We’ve almost got it made. The town’s almost ours. We got all the chess pieces, so the old men can’t shove us around. Can anyone do better?’
Nobody could and admitted it, happily.
‘Just one thing,’ said Tom. ‘How’d you work that lightning, Doug?’
‘Shut up and listen,’ said Douglas, aggrieved that central intelligence had almost been wormed away from him.