He saw that there was a whole tribe of them, men and women both, shaggy-haired, loose-limbed, in striped shirts, serapes, big-brimmed straw hats and cowboy boots, filing off the bus to sprawl on the lawn and pass joints and cigarettes from hand to hand, while a contingent mounted the steps of the veranda and one of them—short, muscular, cowboy hat—banged on the front door as if he belonged there, as if he’d been invited. That was when the door swung open and Dick’s face appeared, flanked by Alice’s and Fanchon’s. Mouths moved, heads nodded, and then Dick and the women stood back and ushered them in, the whole mob—there must have been twenty of them, the ones on the lawn pushing themselves up to climb the front steps and disappear into the recesses of the house. The bus driver abruptly released the horn and a moment later he too headed up the steps and into the house—but the music, if you could call it that, never faltered. It just kept grinding on, a stew of feedback, static and distorted shrieks.

It was bewildering—and wrong, that too. The noise, let alone the spangled bus and the cowboy garb and all the rest, had to be a magnet for the police. They’d just plowed their way through the village, hadn’t they? Shouting and waving and blaring their loudspeakers—and what if they’d tossed smoke grenades in the streets too? He snatched a glance over his shoulder, expecting to see the town’s two police cruisers charging up the drive, sirens wailing, but there was nothing there but the glowing white stones and the trees that overhung them. Finally—he didn’t want a confrontation; let Dick handle it, that was what he was thinking—he slunk around the side of the house and came in through the kitchen door, leaving it open behind him in case he had to make a quick exit.

There was a smell of cooking, a pot of something on the stove, fresh-baked bread set out to cool. And Susannah, her hair tied up in a kerchief, sitting at the table with a knife and the cutting board, dicing carrots. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Who are these people?”

“I don’t know—the Pranksters.”

“Pranksters?”

“You know,” she said, “the writer? Kesey?”