Where the Devil’s Promenade Ends Part I

In the autumn of 1957, the old mining country of northeastern Oklahoma seemed to be dying by degrees.

The chat piles still rose around Picher like pale mountains beneath the moon, but fewer whistles called men to work each morning. Empty buildings stood along the roads with their windows broken and their doors hanging open. Rust gathered on abandoned machinery. Weeds pushed through the cracks in filling-station lots. At night, the wind swept loose grit across the pavement with a dry whisper, as if the land were telling stories no one wanted to hear.

Dan Eagleton had lived among those stories all his life. His father repaired automobiles in a cinder-block garage outside Quapaw, where the air always smelled of grease, gasoline, and hot metal. Dan had worked beside him since he was thirteen. By nineteen, he could identify a failing engine by the rhythm of its knocking and could tell how far a car had traveled simply by laying his palm against its hood. Machines made sense to him. People did not.

Summer Thomas was the exception. She had first walked into the garage on a sunny June afternoon wearing a bright yellow dress and carrying the broken chain from her father’s bicycle. She was eighteen then, with dark hair pinned behind her ears and a scattering of freckles across her nose. She was the kind of girl who could be “girly” when she wanted to be and in the next instance, be the first one to climb Farmer Johnson’s apple tree to the very top and make it look easy.

“Can you fix this?” she asked. Dan studied the chain.

“You know this is an automobile garage, right?” Dan said with a grin. “I fix automobiles, not bicycles.”

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“So, you're saying you can’t,” she said returning the expression.

“Well, wait a minute now,” Dan replied. “I didn’t say that.”

Summer smiled big that time, and from that moment forward, Dan’s life seemed to divide itself into two distinct periods: the years before Summer Thomas smiled at him and everything that followed. They met and hung out almost every day that summer. Sometimes they shared cherry sodas in Miami, sitting in a booth at the back of a drugstore where her father’s acquaintances were unlikely to notice them. On other evenings, Dan drove her along the Neosho, where huge cottonwoods leaned over the water and cicadas sang from the trees. The two spent time talking beneath skies so broad that Summer claimed she could feel the earth spinning underneath them.

She wanted to become a teacher and help the area children with getting a good education. Of course, Dan wanted to own his own garage where the roof didn’t leak and the winter wind couldn’t blow through cracks in the walls. Neither dream seemed extravagant. Together, however, they became dangerous.

Summer’s father, Vernon Thomas, owned two hardware stores and served on the board of his church. He believed his daughter should marry someone with clean fingernails, a college education, and family property that did not sit within sight of an abandoned mine. When he learned about Dan, he first became angry, then forbade Summer from seeing him. A week later, he arranged for her to live with an aunt in Wichita and attend a secretarial school there. She was to leave on October 14.

On the night of October 13, Dan waited for her beneath an elm tree two houses down from the Thomas residence. The engine of his black 1949 Ford was off, and the headlights were dark. He sat behind the wheel listening to the ticking sound of the cooling motor. At eleven seventeen, Summer slipped from the side door of her house. She wore a red wool coat and carried no suitcase. Dan reached across the seat and opened the passenger door.

“You actually came,” he whispered.

“You sound surprised,” she said.

“I thought your father might lock you in your room like Rapunzel and nail your window shut.”

“Oh, he did!” she replied half laughing. Dan looked at her.

“So, I used the front door,” she said light heartedly. She laughed softly as she settled beside him, and for a little while, the world felt young and harmless again. Then Dan noticed the redness around her eyes.

“Hey, he said. “What happened?”

“Oh, nothing,” came her reply, wiping gently at her eyes.

“Summer,” Dan said softly, reflectively. “I still love your name.” She looked through the windshield toward her sleeping neighborhood. Fallen leaves cartwheeled along the curb.

“My train leaves at eight in the morning,” she said, the joy slipping from her face.

“I know,” Dan replied. “How can I not know?”

“He told me that I’m not coming back until I’ve forgotten you,” she replied.

“And… what did you say?” Dan asked.

“That Wichita must be a very old city, because forgetting you could take a lifetime,” she answered.

Dan lowered his eyes. They had discussed eloping, or running away before, but always in the safe, unreal manner of young lovers. California. New Mexico. Somewhere beyond the reach of fathers, reputations, and towns where everyone knew who belonged with whom. That night, however, the possibility sat between them like a third passenger.

“Remember what we talked about,” Dan asked. “There’s still time. We could head west. I have all of forty-three dollars.”

“And then what?” She asked.

“Well, I guess after that,” Dan reasoned, “I’ll have to find work.”

“But it won’t be easy,” Summer answered. “You don’t know anyone out there.”

“Okay, but I do know at least one person – You,” he said as she rested her head against his shoulder.

“That is almost enough, isn’t it?” she said.

“Almost?”

“Almost.” They remained beneath the elm until a porch light came on across the street.

“Where do you want to go?” Dan asked. Summer lifted her head. Beneath the dim light, her eyes had regained a little of their old mischief.

“I know,” she said. “Take me to see the Spook Light.”

“The what?” Dan asked, pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about.

“You know good and well what,” she replied. Everyone in the Tri-State District knew the stories. For years, people had reported a mysterious light on the lonely roads near the Oklahoma–Missouri line. Some called it the Hornet Spook Light. Others knew it as the Joplin Spook Light. Older residents spoke of the Devil’s Promenade—a road where a floating glow appeared after dark, bobbing among the trees and slipping away whenever anyone tried to approach it. Dan’s father said it was just car lights reflected and distorted by the landscape. Summer’s grandmother took it a step further and believed it was the lantern of a miner searching for his missing head.

“You know I don’t believe in ghosts, right?” Dan said.

“Okay then,” said Summer, “you have nothing to fear,”

“I didn’t say I was afraid,” he said.

“Oh no?” She said. “I guess that’s why when I said Spook Light you gripped the steering wheel like it was trying to escape.” Dan smiled despite himself.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go see your ghost.”

“My ghost?” She said. “Why do you say it’s MY ghost?”

“Well,” Dan said, “because you’re the one who invited it.” Then he started the Ford.

They drove north through the sleeping streets of Miami and then eastward, leaving the familiar storefronts behind. Soon they were passing fields silvered by moonlight, scattered farmhouses, and the occasional dark silhouette of mining equipment. Near Cardin, an empty structure stood beside the road, its roof sagging toward the earth. Beyond it, the chat piles glowed bone-white beneath the stars. Summer watched them from the window of the truck.

“You know, when I was little, I really thought those piles were mountains,” she said. “I imagined there was another world on the other side.”

“Maybe there is,” said Dan.

“No, not really,” said Summer. “Just more Oklahoma.”

“There are worse things, ya know,” he replied.

“I know,” she said. “I know.” She took his hand and placed it between both of hers. Her fingers were cold.

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They crossed into the border country, where the roads narrowed and the darkness deepened. Pavement gave way to gravel. Dense woods crowded the ditches, and bare branches stretched above them like crooked fingers. Dan slowed at every intersection.

“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” Summer asked.

“More or less,” came the reply.

“So, that means no, right?” she said.

“My father brought me out here once,” said Dan.

“To see the light?” she asked.

“Kinda,” he replied. “He brought me out here to prove it wasn’t real.”

“So, did he?” she asked.

“No light appeared that night,” he said.

“So, that doesn’t prove anything,” she said.

“Well, it usually does,” came his reply. Close to midnight, Dan turned onto an isolated road running between pastureland and woods. Loose stones ricocheted beneath the tires. The Ford’s headlights illuminated pale tree trunks, leaning fence posts, and swirling dust.

“This should be the place,” he said. He stopped the car on a slight rise and switched off the engine. Darkness closed around them and without the motor, the silence felt enormous. Somewhere in the woods, an owl hooted once, then stopped. Summer rolled down her window and a cool breeze blew through the car carrying the smell of damp leaves and distant woodsmoke. They waited. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Summer leaned against Dan.

“If I fall asleep, wake me when the ghost gets here.”

“I thought it was a headless miner,” he said.

“Well, perhaps he is also a ghost,” she replied.

“Seems a little excessive to me,” said Dan. Summer laughed, but the sound faded quickly.

“What will you do after I leave?” she asked.

“Work,” Dan replied.

“And after work?” She said.

“Then I'll Sleep,” he said.

“What about after that?” Summer asked, her voice trailing off as if overcome with sleep..

“After that, I guess I'll work some more,” said Dan.

“Well, that sounds terrible,” she replied.

“Maybe," said Dan, "but it won’t last forever.”

“How long will it last?” Summer asked in a voice lingering between sleep and awake. Dan didn’t answer. Just then a small light appeared near the center of the road. At first, it looked like a distant star glimpsed between the trees. It was faint and yellow, scarcely brighter than a firefly. Then it grew. Summer sat upright.

“Dan,” she said nervously

“I see it,” he replied. The light hovered several feet above the gravel. It swayed gently from side to side as if carried by an invisible hand.

“It looks like someone has a lantern,” said Dan.

“At midnight?” whispered Summer.