The Spook Light (End)

“For our teacher the trip ends soon. She might have found her end in an accident. Her companion might have planned it out before the trip began. I suspect the second traveler had been searching and fantasizing about ways to solve her own problem and when she saw an opportunity, she acted.

“At any rate, we must turn our attention to the other traveler, because the teacher can not long act. She takes over the teacher’s trips, even her identity. She uses the teacher’s credit cards, writes checks on her account and drives with her license. She enjoys a carefree summer while the teacher sets on ice somewhere.

“When the end of summer is in sight, so is a new problem. Our villain is an imaginative problem solver and an opportunist. She comes across a way to get rid of some troublesome baggage, disappear, and tangle potential pursuers in legends and jurisdictional problems.

“So when she got on the bus to begin our tour, she already prepared some transportation for herself in Joplin. She came out here, discarded her load, and went back to the hotel for a shower and change of clothes before getting on the bus. She might have had an accomplice to help her get around. She might have had a moped. It’s not as if she was really paying for anything.

“When we arrived here and people were settled in, she walked away. In ten or fifteen minutes, she could be a mile away, which might as well be a thousand miles away. She gets into the car she left or she meets her accomplice. She could have been well into Missouri or Kansas or Arkansas by the time we discovered the body. She may be gone for good.”

The sheriff gently shook his head. “That seems like a lot of work to get rid of a body. It’s a crazy story.”

“People do crazy things, sir. If someone is crazy enough to murder or hide a body for months, they might be crazy enough to do all kinds of things.”

“You have quite an imagination, Dr. Davis.”

“In my line, it’s a very helpful thing.”

-end-

The Spook Light (15)

“Are you saying that isn’t Holly Gibb?” Sheriff pointed a rectangular finger at the sheet-covered figure on a gurney that two men were loading into an ambulance.

“I suspect that is Holly Gibb. But she didn’t come out our on the bus with this tour. Another Holly came and now she is gone.”

“You sounded like a reasonable man when you said the spook light didn’t kill her. Now you’re starting to sound a little crazy.”

“Do like stories, sir? Would mind if I tell you one?”

The sheriff looked at the thin, earnest face of the tour guide. Every criminal is a fabulist, he thought and pushed the thought aside. “Let’s hear it.”

“Imagine a young woman. She is a teacher. She is settled in her job. She has some money in the bank.

“But she is restless. She sees the dreams she had just a few years before just slipping away. She decides that this summer she will take the trip of a lifetime while she is still young.

“She plans, talks to her principal about any summer workshops she’ll miss, arranges for someone to watch her house. When the last school-bell of the season rings, she’ll disappear into the American wilderness and roadways until those bells ring again.

“Of course, a lot of people know she’ll be gone. Maybe she called an old girlfriend and talked her into being a traveling companion. Maybe she spills her plans chatting with an on-line buddy. Maybe she just meets someone along the way. Someone who is a good listen, who understand, who she feels like she has known forever.

“Her friend is looking to escape for the summer, too, maybe for longer. For this friend, it is more than a youthful spree. She has darker reasons to hit the road.

The Spook Light (14)

The sheriff took the measure of the man who approached him. The wiry man seemed a little dandyish at first in his pale blazer. But he wore a serious expression, his walk was direct and purposeful and he had an open stance. “Hello, Mr. Davis. Has a deputy taken your statement already?”

“Yes, sir.” Dan slowed his speech just a bit to match the sheriff’s pace. He squared his shoulders and wondered if the old cop has spent many years in the military.

“Did you find the body?”

“No, sir. That was Al Kaiser, our driver. We were looking for a passenger who hadn’t got back on the bus. He found her and called me over. I checked for a pulse; she was long dead. We called 911. Everyone waited on the bus until you deputy arrived.”

“I heard some referring to you as doctor. Are you a medical doctor?”

“No, sir.”

“But you’re sure she was dead.” He paused as Dan nodded. “I once responded to an auto accident that involved a university professor. He was very insistent about being called ‘doctor.’ I called you ‘mister’ and you didn’t blink.”

“It seems a minor point in light of the crime unveiled tonight. The woman who did this could be in any of four states by now.”

The sheriff shrugged. “You’re the one that suggested this was a murder.”

“Yes, sir. Maybe not a murder, but almost certainly some crime.”

“Mm-hm. You checked her pulse and thought she was dead. Many things could have happened. What makes you think she was killed?”

“Sir, I’m not a physician or a physicist, but I know a body doesn’t get colder than everything around it unless something made it that way. It must be close to ninety out here even at this time of night, but she felt very cold.” Dan looked directly into the sheriff’s eyes. “And I don’t think the woman we found dead tonight was the woman who came out on the bus with us.”

The Spook Light (13)

**

The Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department regularly received calls from the vicinity of the spook light road. It had been a long time since the sheriff himself bothered to answer one of those calls. It would take about a half an hour to get to the site. The sheriff didn’t bother to use the lights or sirens on his patrol car; the deputy could secure the scene until he got there. The state police would be coming out, too, to help collect evidence.

Two deputies were there when he arrived. One watched over the body of a woman. She was in her mid to late twenties, dark-haired, fair-skinned, almost five and a half feet tall. A tarp covered the body. “Just in case,” explained the deputy as he inclined his head toward the bank of tall clouds in the southwest. The deputy had not taped off the area, besides himself only the people who discovered the body had admitted to leaving the corral.

The second deputy was taking statements. At least all the witnesses were at hand. They were probably all swapping stories on the bus. He couldn’t do much about that. He stepped onto the coach, thanked the passengers for their patience. Most of the people appeared to be seniors, couples. He imagined himself just a few years older, retired, on a tour like this. He thought his wife would really enjoy it so long as nobody died.

He conferred with the highway patrolman who arrived shortly after him. As they talked, the ambulance arrived to retrieve the body. They went together to talk to the EMTs. “Just do your thing by the book the way you always do,” he told the responders. “Just because it was called in as a murder doesn’t means we should get shaken up. We don’t know anything yet. Now, let me talk to this Davis.”

The Spook Light (12)

“No, but I think it’s the same guy who books me.”

“Tell him that next time he calls to ask for me as the driver.”

“Pretty cool, huh?”

Al puffed his cheeks out and whistled. “Yeah.”

The Wrights got on with a drowsily resisting son. There daughter lingered. She looked something ethereal in artificial twilight, her skin pale against layered tanks and the cuffs of her dark jeans ragged. When she stepped into the light, they could see her face was pink. “Dr. Davis, this doesn’t suck.”

Al laughed and followed her into the bus. Dan was on his heels.

“We’re missing one, Dan?”

Dan scanned the passengers. “Has anyone seen Holly Gibb?”

Dan got off the bus. “Holly! We’re loading the bus. Holly! Can you hear me? Al, bring out a couple of flashlights.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. We’d better look for her, just in case. Let’s start at the gate and walk around.”

Al to the clockwise path. Dan walked north, turned west the corner of the corral sweeping his light as he went. A flash in his peripheral vision drew his attention. He turn to see Al’s light at the opposite fence. A distance cloud lit up with veiled lightning.

“Hey, over here!” Something in the driver’s voice made Dan run toward the swinging light. Face in the bus windows turned in unison with him. Some were cupped about with hands pressed against the tinted glass.

Al stood over the dusty form of Holly Gibb. She lay on her side, limbs at uncomfortable angles, between the corral and the sturdier wire fence. “I think she’s dead.”

Dan knelt by the body. He picked up her wrist, the felt her neck. She was cold. “Do you have your cell phone with you?”

“On the bus.”

“We need to call the police. I think she’s been murdered.”

The Spook Light (11)

“I see it.” It was a woman’s voice. She spoke in a loud stage whisper. Dan thought it sounded like Mrs. Jeffers from Lawrence. She and her husband had recently retired from university extension jobs. She had been a 4-H specialist.

Dan turned right, toward the voice, but cast his vision toward the windrow. The spook light was easy to find. It was a bright yellow-orange and big. He couldn’t remember it being so plain at such a distance. It moved eastward a little faster than a man might walk. It flashed out from time to time as it passed behind a tree trunk or signaled something in inscrutable firefly semaphore.

Everyone lined up along the broke down fence and watched the light as it reached the road and turned toward them and picked up the pace to a jog. It cast a circle of light onto the red clay and gravel road.

“It’s going to pass right by us,” someone whispered. “Look, no dust,” another whispered back. Everything was so still that the slightest utterance seemed to crack like gunfire.

About a hundred yards from the corral, the light slipped off the road. It gently jumped the fence. Strands of wire flashed in the light and disappeared into the darkness again. The light was running now and picking up speed.

“It’s coming right for us.” This voice didn’t whisper.

“Steady now,” said Dan. “Everyone be still.”

The spook light rushed at the string of watchers, blazing and swirling. It was at the old fence in an instant and someone screamed. The globe jumped ten feet above their heads, and then came down in the middle of the disintegrating line of people. It raced away in a straight line, disappearing behind a little rise in a few seconds.

**

Dan and Al stood in the halo of light around the bus watching their guests get on. Al had very light on, interior and exterior. He said, “Do you have anything to do with booking coaches for this tour?”

The Spook Light (10)

They pulled off into an old corral. It was surrounded by a disintegrating fence of rough planks.

“A few final points before we get off,” said Dan. “Please remain seated while Al turns the bus around. We’re surrounded by a working cattle ranch, so you may hear mooing in the distance. There is also a barbed wire fence just outside the corral we’re pulling into. Stay in the corral and you should be fine. The ground may be a little rough so watch you step.”

Dan was the first off the bus. He offered a hand to Agnes as she stepped down. He offered a hand to Holly who came down right after, but she jumped passed him.

Al followed the last guest of the bus. “Are we going to see this thing?”

“Probably,” answered Dan. “If they start getting restless, I have a backup speech on Ozarks hauntings. A windrow meets the road a little farther up. Several people have said they’ve seen in drift down though there.”

Dan let his eyes wander down the windrow. It made a jagged line a little blacker than the rolling horizon. He turned to watch the shadows move about the corral, some accompanied by bobbing flashlights. Most of the forms drifted out to the fence and came to rest there, nearly blending into the darkness. One lantern, a little lower than the others, moved all around the two-acre lot with puffs of dust rising in its path.

He watched the western horizon for a while. It was slightly lighter from the recently set moon. He watched the moonlight almost imperceptibly fade until the stars tumbled down nearly to the ground. A dry breeze began to blow into his face. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. The air carried faint scents of soil and grass and manure.

The Spook Light (9)

“There are also potential natural explanations. Some have suggested will-o’-wisp, gasses, St. Elmo’s fire or reflected headlights. None of these really fit the geography of the area or the history of the spook light. Some have suggested it is related to the faults in the area. Similar lights were reported in southeast Missouri around the time of the great New Madrid earthquake in 1811, but there is no solid explanation of that phenomenon.

“The spook light remains a mystery. With a little patience and a sharp eye, you’ll very likely see it tonight. If you see it, gently get everyone’s attention and point it out. The first one to spy it will get a copy of my book, Midwest Mysteries. We’ll be stopping if a few minutes. Does anyone have questions before we get there?”

“What do you think it is?” Someone called out from the back of the bus. Dan thought it sounded like Ken O’Connell, who had recently retired as an accountant for a military contractor. He and his wife Janie had moved to Springfield to be near there youngest daughter and newest grandchildren.

“I like to image it is the dong with a luminous nose searching for his jumbly girl. Actually, the legends that surround the spook light are variations on romantic tales you hear across the country. I think they’ve just become attached to the light here. Given that you can see the light appears so frequently at all times of day, I suspect it is a natural phenomenon we just don’t yet understand.”
The bus turned and began to rumble on a corduroyed gravel road. Most of the passengers turned to the windows to see rising dust illuminated in the bus’ yellow lights. A couple of miles from the intersection, they passed a small, crumbling barn. It was surrounded by abandoned cars and tall, dry grass. The bus crept along as the road got rougher and dustier.

The Spook Light (8)

“Most viewings of the spook light are on or near roads. It is generally seen bobbing or drifting between the ground and the tree tops.”

“Dr. Dan?” It was the Wright boy sitting with his mother in the front row. “Are we going to see the light?”

“I’ve seen it every time I’ve come out here. I’ve even seen it in the middle of the day.”

“Can I touch it?”

“I don’t think so. Most people who’ve tried to approach it say it drifts away. A few have said it came straight towards them, jumping right over there heads before speeding away behind.

“While where on the subject of following the light. Let me remind you to stay in the marked off area. It is isolated, but people live out there and we want to be good neighbors. Keep a close watch on your children, too. We don’t want them to get lost or trip in the dark.

“A lot of legends have become associated with the spook light. Some are associated with Indians. The Choctaws lived in this area before Europeans began to settle here. Some say the light is the spirit of a chieftain killed on a hunt or in a battle who is searching for his home. This is near the Trail of Tears. The Cherokee wintered near here on their forced move to Indian Territory. One legend suggests the lights are spirits of Cherokee who died here, trapped between their ancestral home and the land their descendants settled.

“There was a little mining in the area. Several legends suggest the light is the ghostly lantern of a miner searching for something, possibly a miner killed in an accident or buried in a collapse now forever searching for home. Legends like this are common in areas throughout mining areas. A regional twist to this one is that Indians kidnapped the miner’s family and he has never stopped looking for them.

The Spook Light (7)

“So? Lots of people don’t like to talk about work off the clock.”

“True, but most teachers love school. When they get out of school, they go to college so they can work in a school. People like to talk shop, especially teachers. Look, if you met another, um, paranormal investigator on vacation, wouldn’t you share a few ghost stories?”

“You tease me, but I see you point.”

“Now after two days of eye-catching attire, she puts on that outfit. I think almost every female teacher I know owns at least one jumper-tee combo like that. They wear it at least once a week.”

“You don’t approve.”

“Not in this case. You might not want to dress so provocatively in a classroom, but there is not need to be frumpy.”

“What did you talk about?

“What?”

“When she wouldn’t talk shop, what did you talk about?”

“Oh, we talked about music. She is quite a follower of popular music. She has been in some of the bigger cities around almost every week hitting the clubs to see bands. I’m a little jealous. I’m young enough and I could make the time in the summers, but I just don’t. Some know what they want and go for it.”

“Yeah…some people do.”

Al called for Dan on the over the speaker. He excused himself saying, “Time to start the show.”

At the front of the bus, he took the microphone. “Before we reach our destination tonight, I’ll provide you with some information on the spook light. The light appears regularly in this area at all times of year. We’ll be stopping at a site in Oklahoma, but the light has been seen on country roads in Missouri also.

“Descriptions of the light vary. It has been orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and white. It has been as big as a basketball and as small as a golf balls. Sometimes it is pale, others too bright to look at. Occasionally someone reports seeing two lights spinning around each other.