The Light on Precipice Peak
By STEPHEN TALL
Illustrated by NEWMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy October 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.]
How warm should a handshake be? The answer may be more vital than youcould guess!
The three young men sat quietly and watched the faint eerie glow. Itwas ruddy and small, a spot of dull red color. For perhaps five or sixminutes it showed, moving slowly along what seemed to be the lip ofBighorn Glacier, six miles away and seven thousand feet up in the thincold air. Then it vanished.
John Drinkard lowered his binoculars. "Well, that's that. You can seeit, but still you can't. The glasses don't help a bit."
"Spooks!" said Chuck Evers. He wriggled his muscular shoulders, slippeddown onto the small of his back in the chair, and propped long legs onthe porch railing.
"Spooks?" Carl Royston's brow wrinkled puzzledly. Drinkard and Eversboth watched with suppressed amusement as his face suddenly cleared andhe almost smiled. "Ah, yes, apparitions."
"Haunts," Chuck said. "Hobgoblins. Ghosts. Banshees."
"Banshees wail," said Drinkard.
Royston's pale eyes glowed with interest. "This you can say for thelights of Precipice Peak—they are quiet."
"Are you sure?" John Drinkard asked. "How do you know that every coyoteyou hear is a coyote?"
"At any rate," said Royston, "if they make sounds, they are the soundsof the country." He shivered slightly. "A miserable country," he added.
John Drinkard was thick and blocky, with big hands and a square chin.Chuck Evers was long and sinewy. Beside them, Royston seemed a pale,slight figure, his thin face sallow, his shoulders ever hunched againstthe crisp western air.
"You are speaking of the land I love," said Chuck Evers. "If you don'tlike it, why stay around?"
Royston shrugged. "It is supposed to make me a man of vigor, with redcorpuscles and a need for cold shower baths. Actually, there is nothingwrong with me. I was simply born to sit and watch while great loutslike you run and wrestle and climb and sweat." He shifted his gaze tothe peak, now a dark silhouette against the ice-clear stars. "There,the light shows again."
Slowly the red glow progressed along a cliff face, much higher than ithad before. For minutes it moved along steadily, then faded.
"That thing," said Evers suddenly, "was goin' along Fifth Avenue.Spooks don't need a route of ascent, even up Precipice. All of asudden, the lights of Precipice Peak are gettin' solid. I got a feelin'they'll leave sign."
"Sign?" Royston's voice went up in the darkness. There was the familiarpause, then Royston's satisfied tone: "Ah, yes, traces."
"Right—traces, tracks, spoor. Only mystery about those lights is,we don't know who makes them. But they're gettin' to be a touristattraction. Maybe that's a lead."
"How many trips have there been up Precipice this season?" Roystonqueried softly.
"Fifteen or so," John Drinkard said, "and the boy has something. Anysign on Fifth Avenue or across Bighorn would have been seen by now.There've been some good mountain men on the Peak this summer. Some of'em don't miss much."
Royston hugged his narrow shoulders and made himself small in hischair, shivering again as the chill mountain breeze blew across theporch of the Lodge.
"Over the swamps of my native Louisiana, where I wish I now was, Ihave seen balls of