Friday 12 May 1871
Dr Jebediah Wilson
341 Bleecker Street
New York, New York
My dear Mr O'Flaherty,
I must apologize for leaving as I did in such a rush. I must also apologize that I am only now replying to your letter. We only returned to New York a few weeks ago, and our first several days here were rather frenetic.
Now that certain things are sorted out, I can explain what happened. Mr Gallant came to the ironworks in the company of a man from the American Embassy, whose name I have since forgotten, with some very troubling news. My sister Polly and her husband having settled in Oregon some months back were missing. I state that incompletely. As far as the Cavalry, the Railroad, or anyone else could determine, every human settlement in the entire State of Oregon and Territory of Washington had vanished.
Mr Gallant had been summoned back to the States to organize a troop of specialists to look into the mystery. He wished me to join them. There was some talk of a Presidential Pardon to clear up some of my misunderstandings, but frankly I was not listening. I was just thinking of poor Polly, and imagining horrors worse than we saw in our travels happening to her. I had to get back right away. It didn't occur to me until we were on the train to Liverpool that I hadn't said Good-bye to, well, to just about everyone.
We had an uneventful crossing, other than that small misunderstanding with the Captain about Mortimer. He really should have just said he wanted to come along, rather than try stowing away. We did get it all cleared up, which is all that matters.
Once we arrived in New York, we were met by Mr Gallant's Mother, who is a very gracious hostess, and some of Mr Gallant's associates. Mr Gallant Senior was in Washington, and quite busy with business there, so I was not able to meet him before we set out for Montana by train.
No trains were travelling any further west than the town of Butte, because there was no place west of there to turn a train around. We followed the tracks by our own fashion, and found that they ended in a most peculiar way. The rails looked as if a giant had simply chopped them through with an enormous cleaver, then rolled up the tracks and ties and even the raised railbed itself west of that point. We spent a great deal of time investigating the area and looking for a town that used to be there. There was no sign that any such town had ever existed.
Among Mr Gallant's associates was a stage magician who goes by the name The Great Sulvani. His real name is James Patrick Sullivan, and I understand that you and he have met when you still lived in America. He sends his compliments. He has certain traits in common with our friends Mr Ramsey and Miss Whitnell, if you catch my meaning. Another of the associates goes by the name Bill Blackmoon, his father being half-Cheyenne and his mother from an allied tribe. He shares certain traits in common with our Mrs Cuthbert. They were convinced that the people (and entire towns) had been spirited away by dark forces, possibly related to that trouble we had in Prussia. They eventually found a way for us to go to where the people had been taken.
That is where things became truly interesting. Because they had been taken away to a place where fantastic creatures roamed the countryside, and where the countryside itself was considerably different than anything mapped in the last century. There was an inland sea where the plains should be, for one thing. As we searched for the missing people and the source of the trouble, we met Miss Magda and her teacher, Professor Crimine. You remember that they assisted us in some of that business in Europe. Well, they had been in North America for several months chasing down more beasts and sorcerers and the like. It became clear we were all battling the same dark forces, so we combined our efforts. And lucky for all of us that we did.
We eventually tracked things down to a pair of mountains on opposite sides of the Columbia River. The local tribes believe that each of these volcanoes is the home of a great spirit, and that these spirits have fought for eternity for the love of another spirit. The legends say that their fights nearly destroyed the world before, so they were each imprisoned in a mountain. Yet another spirit, The Fire Lady or the Keeper of Fire, lives in a third volcano between the two of them, I guess to guard them. The guardian had been taken captive, and the two spirits were free, except instead of fighting over the woman, they were working together to drive White Men from the land.
At least that's what the locals were saying. Once we got into it, it turned out to be a bit more convoluted than that. Colonel Poole, that unrepentant Confederate, was involved. And somehow Dr Fate had followed us. There was a stupendous battle, and the new fuel that Mortimer and his lady friend cooked up for my Mountain-Buster Rocket didn't quite work the way we expected, but you can't develop a new rocket without getting a little singed, so it all worked out in the end. Except that I couldn't actually find Poole's body once all the smoke cleared. After all, I survived the drop from the exploding balloon, so it's possible he did, as well.
I found my sister and her husband. They were alive and as well as could be expected, though they'd been living under very rough conditions for a time. Some of their neighbors had not survived all the hardships. Once all that was set right, we helped sort out some difficulty in California before coming back east.
There's more news I ought to share, except that I need to go see my lawyer. There's some publishers here who have written some of the most outrageous things about me. Mr Gallant's sidekick, indeed!
In any case, I remain your friend,
Dr Wilson
Contents this page copyright 2005 by Gene Breshears. Dr Wilson copyright 2002 by Mark Allen Davis. All Rights Reserved.