Free The Siren's Tale by Anne Carlisle

Christmas night. Fire Nights, as they were called, were the time-honored, surefire occasions to find out who was traveling south to Casper or east to Rapid City, and whose husband had been spotted making cow eyes at Diane, the buxom barmaid at the Plush Horse.  
    The bonfire tradition went back a century or more to rituals of the local tribes, first the Shoshone, and later the Lakota Sioux. They used the base of the Hat—an elevated portion of Hatter's Field that looked like a miniature version of Devil's Tower—as a place to worship their nature gods. The Indians would set ablaze pine logs and sagebrush, dancing solemnly around the bonfires in a pattern that gave pause to white settlers who knew of the Ghost Dancers. But by the dawn of the twentieth century, the wars between the Indians and the whites had died out. Now the practice of lighting bonfires was an excuse among the pious white homesteaders for a rare night of debauchery. 
    The First Fire Night of October 27, 1900, was very special indeed, since it marked the first of the new century. The highpoint would be fiddle music and dancing after the first bonfire was lit at the base of the Hat.
    As was customary, t he exact locations and times for the firings were announced in church. The order was strictly followed, a throwback to earlier notions about appeasing a nature god. By sunset the male citizens of Alta, Bulette, and Corinthus had already collected brush and bundled faggots in all the outlying hamlets and neighborhoods.
    The men would use a firing technique that resembled a modern telephone chain, lighting the first bonfire at the Hat at precisely nine o'clock. The first would be quickly answered by a second, a third, and so forth, until all the fires were raging.
    Sometimes there were as many as thirty, sometimes as few as eight, depending on the bitterness of the weather. The quickness of the teams in firing up would be a matter for bragging rights, as was the size of a particular fire, its color, and its visibility from miles away. The bonfires would be manned for several hours by boys and men, attracted by virtue of a foolish willingness to risk their lives to keep up the longest fire. Lightning strikes were very common up at the Hat and along Alta Mountain.
    As to the color , it was generally agreed the prettiest fire to be seen was at Mill's Creek Pond, which was graced by a large grove of junipers. What a disappointment, then, when Captain Vye announced he was declining to participate! 
    “ There will be no bonfire at Mill's Creek Pond tonight,” Captain Marcus Vye intoned. It was four o'clock, and the men had gathered at Bottomly's to escape the bustle of activities and nagging voices of their wives.  General hissing and groaning ensued.
    He held up his hand, then explained that his treasured supply of juniper logs was being saved for another occasion. At the third Fire Night on Christmas evening, he planned to host a ball in honor of his grand daughter Cassandra, who had graced his bachelor residence since fall of 1899.  He wanted his Christmas bonfire to be the longest fire ever seen in the district.
    None believed him, as the Captain had never yet played the host at his stone home. Later and to a select few, Captain Vye offered a different reason for refusing to participate. He confessed an ancestress had been hastily tried and then burned at the stake in Salem, Massachusetts for the crimes of adultery and witchcraft. She was burned at sunset on the Feast of All Hallowed Souls’ Eve. “I swear to you,” he said, “her only sin was unusual beauty, which excited the jealousy of the local matrons.”
    “ To honor her memory,” the Captain said solemnly, “I vowed there would never be fires set on Vye property at Halloween, for fear of arousing a vengeful ghost. I don't mind, though, if the young people want to caper around the bonfire at the Hat, or if my pretty granddaughter wants to dance among 'em. You've never seen anyone dance