"Spooks!" said Chuck Evers. He wriggled his muscular shoulders, slipped down onto the small of his back in the chair, and propped long legs on the porch railing.
"Spooks?" Carl Royston's brow wrinkled puzzledly. Drinkard and Evers both watched with suppressed amusement as his face suddenly cleared and he 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 the lights of Precipice Peak—they are quiet."
"Are you sure?" John Drinkard asked. "How do you know that every coyote you hear is a coyote?"
"At any rate," said Royston, "if they make sounds, they are the sounds of 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 against the crisp western air.
"You are speaking of the land I love," said Chuck Evers. "If you don't like it, why stay around?"