Haunted Heartland

by Michael Norman

  A stooge planted in the audience could have shouted that Archie was going through the roof while appropriate sound effects simulated the noise of ripping canvas. The audience members, distracted by the sudden appearance of the skeleton and confused by the smoke images, believed they had actually seen Archie vanishing through the roof of the tent.

  Records do not indicate whatever became of Archie Collins. Perhaps his life was unhappy and he welcomed the opportunity to make an unforgettable departure. But who had taken Herman the Hypnotist’s place? That was never discovered. Were he and Archie in the scheme together? That was widely speculated on.

  Whichever if any of these scenarios may be accurate, all of them prove one thing—the hand is quicker than the eye.

  Missouri

  The Hornet Spook Light

  Joplin

  Twelve miles southwest of Joplin, near the Missouri–Oklahoma state line, a gravel road arrows through a canyon of blackjack oak. This obscure east-west track, not quite four miles in length, lies in Oklahoma, just beyond the former border village of Hornet, Missouri. Known as Spook Light Road, or, as it is called locally, the Devil’s Promenade, it is similar to other roadways in the Ozark foothills. Except at night. When darkness falls, a mysterious light appears, bobbing along from west to east. It has been seen frequently from dusk to dawn for over a century. Early pioneers called it the Indian Light, but it is now more commonly known as the Hornet Spook Light.

  The ball of fire, varying from baseball-sized to larger than a bushel basket, spins down the center of the road at great speed, rises to treetop level and hovers, then retreats. At other times, it sways from side to side and up and down like a lantern being carried. But no one is ever there to carry it.

  Observers say the light is silver, red, or yellow. Sometimes blue or green. It is usually seen as a single glow, but one woman said she saw it “burst like a bubble, scattering sparks in all directions.” If chased, the light seems to go out, only to reappear later. One man drove his car directly at the light until it vanished.

  Although the mystery light has never been known to harm anyone, some observers claim to have had close personal encounters with it. Early one morning, Gregory Briones was driving nearby when he turned around and saw the Spook Light sitting on the lid of his trunk.

  “It throwed off a good bit of light, like an electric bulb close up to you,” he told a news reporter. “I took off in one big hurry.”

  A man walking along the Devil’s Promenade said the light swung past him close enough so he could feel its searing heat.

  Other people reported seeing the light bob through open windows of automobiles; one car caught fire. On at least two occasions, the light was observed six miles beyond the western end of the Devil’s Promenade, near Quapaw, Oklahoma.

  Chester McMinn, who farmed near Quapaw, was working his fields late one summer night when the Spook Light appeared overhead, illuminating his acreage with silvered brilliance.

  Louise Graham was riding home in a school bus from a carnival at Quapaw when the light appeared outside the rear window of the bus. The brilliant yellow fireball badly frightened her and her schoolmates and forced the driver to pull over. Only then did the light drift away.

  Generations of local people believe that the Hornet Spook Light is a ghost, or “ha’nt,” in local parlance. There are many legends to account for the queer glow.

  One version of the legend involves the Quapaw Native Americans who once called the region their home. It is said that a woman and man of the tribe fell in love, but the girl’s greedy father demanded a larger dowry than the young man could afford. Unable to marry with the tribe’s blessing and unwilling to separate, the lovers eloped. Their absence was soon discovered and a party of warriors sent in pursuit. Overtaken on a bluff above the Spring River, the couple joined hands and leaped to their deaths.

  Shortly afterward, in 1886, the light first appeared; it was thought to be the spirits of the young lovers. It created such a panic in the village of Hornet that many people abandoned their farms and moved away. The light was a hoodoo, they claimed, that brought death.

  Another legend claims the Spook Light is the ghost of an Osage chief who was decapitated on the Devil’s Promenade. The Spook Light is the torch held high in the chief’s hand as he returns to search for his lost head.

  A third legend places the origin of the light in the Prohibition era (1920–33). Although the law forbade alcoholic beverages, illegal whiskey sites known as stills pervaded the Ozark hills. With some regularity, federal agents raided the operations, flushing out these so-called moonshiners.

  Eventually they caught old Uncle Dick Hunt, purveyor of the finest “corn likker” in the area. It was so fine, in fact, that Uncle Dick refused to pour it into bottles that had contained any other blends. He used bottles of only the best brands or the buyer’s own stone jug. But after the Feds raided him and broke up his still several times, Uncle Dick got smart. He mounted the still on the rear of an old spring wagon. Whenever the agents were around, Uncle Dick moved the still to the safety of a nearby cave. The Spook Light is Uncle Dick Hunt’s still, jouncing around on the back of the wagon eternally heading for cover.

  Over the years, the light has been studied, photographed, and even shot at with high-powered rifles in efforts to identify and explain it.

  So what is it in reality?

  Marsh gas? Probably not. Winds fail to disperse the fireball as they do conventional marsh gas.

  A will-o’-the-wisp? The light is far more intense than the luminescence created by rotting organic matter.

  Glowing minerals from the numerous piles of mine tailings in the area? Maybe.

  A pocket of natural gas ignited by lightning and once worshipped as a fire god by Indians of the area? Not likely. Natural gas flames and, in time, burns out.

  Anomalous lights, such as the Hornet Spook Light, have been reported all over the world for thousands of years. Some experts believe that these lights are electrical atmospheric charges generated by the shifting and grinding of rocks deep below the earth’s crust. Although such lights are frequently associated with earthquakes, their presence does not necessarily predict quakes. The distorted electrical field that results from these charges can make the light appear to act in an “intelligent” way, changing direction and altitude and giving chase. And physical encounters with the electrical field can make a person fearful and apprehensive. Sleep difficulties, skin burns, nausea, and temporary blindness may follow.

  Joplin, Missouri, just north of the Spook Light area, lies on a great fault line running from east of New Madrid, Missouri, westward into Oklahoma. Four earthquakes during the eighteenth century were followed by a devastating series of quakes that convulsed this area in 1811–12. Strange lights may have accompanied these quakes, but it was not until 1886 that the Hornet Spook Light was first reported. Although the appearance of the light has not been accompanied by any major quake in this century as far as is known, seismologists consider this region of Missouri one of the most unstable areas in the country, and the generation of an electrical atmospheric charge may possibly explain the Spook Light.

  Over the past quarter century, a dramatic increase in earthquakes has occurred in an eight-state region, including Missouri, Oklahoma, and southern Kansas. Geologists speculate this escalation in seismic activity is due to a rise in hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, in the area.

  Other teams of investigators who have studied the lights conclude that they are those of automobiles driving east on an old, iconic portion of U.S. Highway 66. This highway is about five miles away in a direct line with the Devil’s Promenade but at a slightly lower elevation. A high ridge lies between the two roads. The density and rarity of atmosphere as it rises over the ridge causes the light to bend, creating the eerie effects.

  In 2014 a professor from the University of Central Oklahoma conducted an experiment and explained the Spook Light as car headlights from the junction of Highway 137 and E 50 R
oad outside of Quapaw, Oklahoma.

  Old-timers smile and shake their heads. They know the mystery light was seen in the same spot in these woods long before the automobile was invented and the highway built—back in horse and buggy days, they would say.

  Whatever the Hornet Spook Light may be—and the debate will no doubt go on—thousands of visitors will continue to visit the area. Cars park bumper to bumper on the narrow gravel road, while drivers wait and watch for that strange light that swings and sways and bobs along up in the night sky.

  Sentries in the Night

  St. Louis

  The snow came, blanketing roofs and mortaring window frames. Inside the house on the hill, Dr. John J. O’Brien lit another lantern and set the dinner table. His wife, Elizabeth, added wood to the cookstove then peered through the kitchen window clouded by steam from the kettle of stew bubbling on the stove. Her husband stood behind her, his full, red beard barely touching the top of her head. Usually the gaslights of St. Louis shone like a jeweled carpet spread far below, but now, beyond the swirl of flakes, no lights were visible. Nor were there any sounds—not the clatter of buggy wheels on the cobblestone street or the call of children at play. Only the ceaseless howling of the wind.

  “It’s unreal, isn’t it?” murmured Elizabeth, looking up into her husband’s face. “It’s as if we’re suspended in time, cut off from all living things.”

  John detected a quiver of excitement in her voice. He knew that, like a child, she both loved and feared blizzards.

  “I’m glad you finished your rounds early today,” she added, ladling the stew into bowls and setting out great slabs of freshly baked bread.

  Her husband nodded and sat down at the table, the chair creaking beneath his weight. He was truly a massive man with a deep, hearty laugh and a streak of Irish whimsy that people said was his best medicine. Yet tonight no whimsy livened up the doctor’s face.

  “Elizabeth,” he began, “I haven’t seen Mrs. Kilpatrick for a long time.”

  He knifed a slab of butter onto his bread.

  “I’ve had her on my mind all day. As you know, she has that weak heart.”

  Elizabeth’s jaw tightened and her cheeks flushed, but John saw in her eyes the same gentle light that had first attracted him to her, when she was Elizabeth Fitzwilliam and he was the stranger passing through town—an Irish physician recently graduated from medical school in Dublin, traveling across America to see the world before settling down to a practice in Australia. But Elizabeth had charmed him; so had St. Louis. The adventurous young doctor-to-be never did get to the South Pacific.

  John had known from the beginning that Elizabeth was the only woman with whom he wished to share his life; he sensed that she was proud that his patients’ needs came first, and he loved her deeply for it.

  Now their eyes met across the table.

  “But John, you wouldn’t be going to see Mrs. Kilpatrick on a night like this, would you?”

  He stared into his empty bowl.

  “If I thought for one moment . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “. . . that she needed me,” finished Elizabeth.

  She then murmured, “Of course.”

  The dinner table conversation waned. John’s preoccupation distracted him and he fell silent. Finally he rose, went into the living room, and stood by the fireplace. He laid another log on the glowing embers.

  Hands clasped before him, he watched fingers of flame encircle the dry wood and bounce the light off the soot-blackened back wall of the firebox. From the corner of his eye, he saw Elizabeth clearing away the dinner dishes. She moved deftly, with that certain resilience that all adaptable women possess.

  John went to the kitchen doorway. “I’m going to Mrs. Kilpatrick.”

  Elizabeth nodded. She knew that would be his decision long before he said it aloud.

  He never knew how he had acquired that sixth sense about the condition of his patients, but this inexplicable intuition often meant the difference between life and death. He suspected it was a gift given to most country doctors in that era before the telephone.

  Dr. O’Brien pulled on his boots, put on his heavy overcoat, fur-lined cap, and gloves; then wound the long, wool muffler Elizabeth had made for him around his neck. He kissed his wife good-bye and begged her not to wait up.

  Trudging to the stable behind the house, he kicked the drifts into snow showers.

  Moments later, the horse was hitched to his buggy.

  The doctor sat high on the box spring cushion, his medical bag beside him. Glancing back, he barely saw Elizabeth’s face framed in the kitchen window, hands cupped to her cheeks, nose pressed against the glass. He knew she would watch the rig until its twin oil lamps vanished in the cold, snowy night.

  What Dr. O’Brien did not know is that he was setting forth on the most unusual house call of his life, one that he would never forget.

  The wind had picked up, driving the snow with stinging fury against his cheeks. He tried to shield his face with one hand while holding the reins to guide the horse with the other. Perhaps he should have put up the rubber side curtains, but he never liked to use them because they obstructed what little vision he had to the sides.

  He hunched forward now on the seat, trying to see where to make his first turn. The Kilpatricks lived several miles away down a maze of side roads. In daylight and good weather the route was not difficult. But now, in the darkness and with swirling snow obstructing nearly everything in sight, even familiar landmarks were obliterated. Dr. O’Brien found it nearly impossible to see junctions with other roads.

  Following a bend on the main road, he met the blizzard head on. He could see but a few feet ahead as the horse slowed its walk even further. The oil lamps were useless.

  Then the wind seemed to take a momentary pause to catch its breath. At that moment came the faint sound of a barking dog. Dr. John thought he had imagined it. But there it was again, louder, and more distinct. He rose, leaned over the leather dash, and peered through the veil of snow.

  That is when he saw them—two giant mastiffs, one on each side of the buggy, slightly ahead of it. Was he nearing the Kilpatricks and did the dogs belong to them? He could not remember; he had never noticed any, but he would not necessarily have seen them if they were kept outside.

  If not that, where had they come from?

  He had to take a chance; there were no other options. And so he followed them. When the dogs led to the left, Dr. O’Brien turned with them. When the dogs led right, the rig followed. The doctor lost track of all the turnings, the jigs and the jogs, but he never took his eyes off the barking four-footed guides as they plunged effortlessly through the driving, drifting snow.

  After a final turn, Dr. O’Brien saw the Kilpatricks’ cozy frame farmhouse covered with snow, its roof rimmed with ice. A lantern’s glow shone through a frosted window. He drove the rig beneath an open shed at the side of the house, grabbed his medical kit, and eased himself down from the seat.

  He knocked and Mr. Kilpatrick opened the door.

  “Oh doctor, it’s so fine you came,” he said, shaking his guest’s hand warmly. “The missus is poorly today and has such trouble breathing. Here, let’s dry your clothes by the fire. And warm yourself, please.”

  Mr. Kilpatrick took Dr. O’Brien’s overcoat and spread it over the back of a chair near the hearth and put his boots close by. The doctor warmed his hands, let the ice melt out of his beard, then went into the bedroom to check on his patient.

  The woman’s pulse was slow and her breathing labored. Dr. O’Brien gave her medicine for her heart and something to put her to sleep. In a short time she breathed easier and drifted off to sleep.

  Mr. Kilpatrick insisted that Dr. O’Brien stay for hot coffee and food. Grateful for the chance to relax after the strain of his trip, the doctor pulled a rocking chair closer to the fireplace.

  “Tell me, sir, where do you keep your dogs in this weather?”

  “Dogs?” echoed the host. “But I ha
ve no dogs.”

  Neither did any of his neighbors.

  By four o’clock in the morning, the storm had passed and the landscape bathed in the glow of a full moon.

  Dr. O’Brien drove home slowly. At he labored to remember each turn, he watched for the dogs, listened for their barking. But he met no living thing on his trip home that night.

  As dawn approached, Dr. O’Brien arrived at the back door of his house. He stomped the snow from his boots and pulled them off. He went inside quietly and hung his outer clothes on the hooks by the stove. His shoulders ached and his head hurt. Perhaps he could coax the living room fire into life and relax awhile before going to bed.

  In stocking feet, he padded into the living room and found Elizabeth curled up in her rocker, sound asleep by the cold hearth.

  Suddenly aware of her husband’s presence, Elizabeth jerked awake.

  “Coffee first, then tell me,” she said quietly.

  He never knew how she sensed what he needed. Tonight, after the long, late trip, he wanted to relax his body and unravel his mind. When Elizabeth stood, John took her into his arms and held her close. Then he added a log to the still-hot embers and watched the fire flame up.

  John and Elizabeth sat together, drinking and talking until dawn fully washed the windows with gray light. He told her of the sudden appearance of the mastiffs and their unknown origin.

  During the next few days, the O’Briens asked everyone they knew about the giant dogs. No one they knew kept such dogs nor knew of anyone who did. The doctor recalled that when he pulled into the Kilpatricks’ yard, the dogs were no longer there. At the time he had given it little thought, believing that they had found shelter or that his eyes were overly strained from trying to focus through the blizzard.

  But Dr. John J. O’Brien, the practical, down-to-earth country doctor, eventually concluded that—as improbable as it sounded—the mastiffs were not real, that they were ghost dogs that had somehow materialized for the single purpose of guiding him to Mrs. Kilpatrick’s bedside.