“And more customers for your theater, eh, Josh?” somebody joked from the crowd.
“Well, I wouldn’t turn down the chance to sell more popcorn.” The way Josh grinned got a laugh, and everybody started talking at once, but the mayor didn’t bother calling for order because it was clear there was going to be a Ghost Light Hunt. Those in favor would work out the details on their own.
So that Fourth of July, hundreds of people gathered at the gravel parking lot outside town. All those headlights blazing were a show of their own, Luther thought, and the overwhelming rumble of that many engines, mostly from pickup trucks, was awesome. Johnny arrived on his motorcycle. Luther had a 1960 military-style Jeep he’d bought from a junkyard outside El Paso. A natural mechanic, he’d re- built it and painted it yellow. Several cowboys arrived on horseback.
Everybody was talking so much that Waylan Craig-who owned the hardware store-needed to use a bullhorn to get everybody’s attention.
“Shut off those engines!” His amplified voice struggled to compete with the noise of the vehicles.
A few people complied, and then others. Before long, Luther could hear everything Waylan said.
“And shut off those headlights! I didn’t think I’d need sunglasses at this hour!”
A couple of people chuckled, and soon there were only enough headlights to keep people from stumbling around in the dark. Luther looked up into the cloudless sky and saw the stars of the Milky Way stretching brightly across the sky.
“I brought eight sets of walkie-talkies from my store,” Waylan announced, “As soon as you get organized into groups, I’ll hand ’ em out. Naturally I ’d like ’em back when we’re finished-unless, of course, some of you want to buy a pair.”
That got more chuckles.
“You’re supposed to have your own flashlights,” Waylan continued, his words echoing into the dark grassland. “But in case you forgot, I brought some of those from my store, also.”
“And you want them back, too, unless we decide to buy them,” somebody yelled from the crowd.
“This week, they’re on special.”
Even more chuckles.
It wasn’t that Waylan was funny. A lot of people in the crowd had come with a supply of beer, and most of the men were sipping from cans. A few kept going back to their trucks to drink from bottles in paper bags. Luther noticed that some of the teenagers had beer cans, too, holding them close to their sides, trying not to be obvious. A breeze carried the smell of alcohol through the crowd.
As a result, it took more than an hour to get organized. Somebody brought wire cutters from his truck and opened a wide section of the barbed-wire fence.
“We’ll want to be sure to repair it after we’re done,” Waylan said.
“Got any tools to sell us to do that?” somebody yelled.
Four pairs of spotters were placed at strategic areas along the fence, about seventy-five yards apart. Each pair had a telescope, a compass, and a walkie-talkie. People went through the gap in the fence and spread out in a line about thirty yards wide.
Mayor Ackerman took charge of the bullhorn.
“Once we get started, just keep walking straight ahead. Use your walkie-talkies to tell us if you see the lights. As soon as we get every- thing coordinated on a map, we’ll send trucks in that direction. They’ll get there so fast, whatever’s causing the lights won’t have a chance to slip away.”
“My motorcycle’ll get there faster,” Johnny said.
Luther almost added, “And my Jeep.”
“My horse can get to places nobody else can,” a cowboy said.
“Everybody’s help is welcome,” the mayor assured them through the bullhorn. “Those of you in the line, don’t use your flashlights un- less you absolutely need to. They’ll ruin your night vision. Be- sides… ” His tone indicated he was about to make a joke. “We don’t want to scare whatever’s making those lights. Heck, we may look as mysterious to them as they do to us.”
But it didn’t get a laugh, and Luther decided that some people in the crowd believed that the mayor was right.
Finally, a half hour before midnight, everybody started. Well, not everybody. Some people got tired and cold and went home. Others had too much to drink and fell asleep in their trucks. Lucky for them. But the majority spread out carefully and started walking into the darkness of the rangeland.
“Happy Fourth of July!” someone shouted.
Luther stayed behind with Johnny, ready to drive into the field if anybody spotted anything. For a while, the backs of the people in the line were illuminated by the few remaining headlights. But despite the cloudless sky, the darkness of the field was murky, and when they disappeared into the darkness, it was like a magic trick.
A breeze cooled Luther’s face as he strained to detect any movement out there.
“I see one!” a spotter exclaimed.
“Where?” his partner wanted to know.
“No! I’m wrong! Sorry, everybody! It was just a flashlight some- body turned on and off!”
Another light flickered and vanished. Luther could tell that it, too, was from a flashlight. Then several lights flickered. The temptation to see what was ahead on the ground was evidently contagious. The off- and-on flashlights looked like giant fireflies bobbing and weaving out there.
A spotter yelled into his walkie-talkie, telling the people in the field, “Turn off those flashlights! You’re making it hard for us to see what’s beyond you!”
“Cut the flashlights!” another spotter shouted.
Gradually they went off, and finally all Luther saw was darkness. The sky was another matter. When he happened to look up, he saw the flashing lights of an airliner speeding toward its distant destination. Another moving light-this one not flashing-probably came from a satellite.
“Shit,” Johnny said, hugging himself. “If I’d known it’d be this boring, I never would’ve suggested coming out here. I’m freezing my ass off. This is worse than the stupid fireworks.”
Luther was about to agree when he glanced toward the grassland, and something in him came to attention as a patch of darkness seemed to brighten a little.
Probably just another flashlight, he decided.
But it appeared to be far beyond where the searchers were likely to be, and it was different from the darkness around it.
“Johnny.” Luther pointed. “Do you-”
“I see something!” a spotter announced.
“So do I!” somebody else exclaimed.
So did Luther. Definitely. A ball of yellow light out there in the distance. Then a ball of green joined it. They bobbed as if floating in water, then merged into a single large ball that was red. A few seconds later, they drifted apart, and there were three of them, blue, orange, and a different shade of green.
Luther realized that he’d raised a hand to his right ear. An almost undetectable, high-pitched sound irritated his eardrum. It reminded him of a vibration he’d heard when he’d watched a man repair an old piano that was always stored in a corner of the school’s gymnasium. The man had taken a shiny metal object from his toolbox. It had a stem and a two-pronged fork. He tapped it against the side of the piano, and the fork vibrated with a hum, allowing the man to adjust a wire in the piano until the tuning fork and the piano wire hummed identically.
Luther heard something similar now, like a note from an unusual- sounding piano, except that the barely perceptible vibration was annoying, making him imagine a hot needle piercing each of his eardrums.
“I see another one!” a spotter yelled.
“Two hundred degrees!” his companion shouted, checking his compass.
“One hundred and eighty!” someone farther along the fence yelled.
The other spotters made their reports.