Where Southern Cross the Dog by Allen Whitley Page B

murders? Have you heard anything?”
    Travis was startled by her question. “Yeah, someone did. My dad said it was some sharecropper from up in the northwest part of the county.”
    â€œWhat did he say?”
    â€œConfessed to all the murders. But he went crazy during the questioning. Beat up a deputy before they could get him under control.”
    â€œPeople do strange things. I’m surprised every time I read the paper.”
    â€œWe’ll just have to wait and see. Nobody really knows anything for sure yet.”
    â€œOh, I almost forgot to ask you,” Hannah said, turning to look closely at him. “There’s a party in two weeks. Would you like to go?”
    â€œAnother one? Sure.”
    â€œIt may be a little wild.”
    Travis nodded. “Okay with me. But not wild like your other party? My legs don’t need any adjustments. I like the way they work right now.”
    â€œWell, that all depends on you.” Hannah smiled at him.
    Travis looked around but still couldn’t figure out what to expect. He leaned over to Hannah and said, “What are we doing at the top of the levee?”
    â€œJust watch.”
    A truck that had been parked by the church pulled up at the bottom of the levee. The driver got out and unloaded a small barrel, some burlap sacks, and some baling wire. Then he reparked the truck by the church.
    â€œWhat are they doing?” Travis said.
    â€œSsshhhhh,” Hannah said.
    Six men whom Travis recognized from the picnic gathered around the barrel. Each one took a sack and carefully cut the burlap, rolling it into a tight ball. Next they took the wire and, working in pairs, wound the wire around the burlap and tightened it with pliers. Then the balls were dropped in the barrel, which seemed to contain some kind of liquid. Just as they finished rolling the sixth and final ball, the last vestiges of sunlight winked and disappeared. It was pitch dark now. No moon, no lights of any kind.
    The picnickers’ voices slowly lowered to whispers and then drifted away altogether. “Is everyone ready?” a voice shouted from down below.
    â€œYeah!” everyone yelled, especially the children.
    Travis saw the single, small flame of a match, then the area below the levee erupted in an explosion of light and fire as each man took a burlap ball from the barrel and ignited it. When the last one was lit, the whole area was ablaze.
    The children screamed with delight when the balls were lit, their excitement rising by the second. The men formed a ring and tossed the balls between them, throwing them higher each time.
    â€œHow do they do that?” Travis asked in astonishment.
    â€œThe burlap was soaked in kerosene.”
    â€œNo, how can they hold onto them?”
    â€œThey’re farmers. Their hands are so callused they can’t feel the heat, and they don’t hold the balls long enough to burn themselves. A couple of them are probably wearing gloves. These are homemade fireworks.”
    The flaming balls flew in arcs through the night sky, like falling stars racing in the heavens. The sight was breathtaking.
    Travis turned and looked at Hannah. Her face was beaming with delight. The light of the blazing spheres and their fiery tails flickered and danced in her eyes. Only she was more beautiful.
    Travis grabbed her hand. “Thanks for inviting me.”
    Hannah smiled and squeezed Travis’s hand in return, never taking her eyes off the spectacle.
    In his subterranean laboratory, at close to three in the morning, Conrad Higson spread the broken and disparate pieces of various metals onto a cloth that covered the entire surface of his desk. He picked up the first one and held it in both hands. The curved blade, thirty inches long, was one of a dozen that had made up the mechanism of his nonfunctioning harvester that chopped off the top ofthe cotton stalk. The blade was made from a material being tested extensively at the