March 5th, 1885 -
What follows is a summary of the last few weeks.
After rushing to Council Bluffs to rescue Faye, I set up a meeting with Proud Elk to negotiate her return. It seemed that Proud Elk's ancestors had been "haunting" his dreams to get the talisman returned to him. Well, Gus figured out that it might not be Indian Ancestors at all, but more likely it is either Booth, or the Theosophical Society. Proud Elk agreed to give us 60 days to make it stop or we would give the talisman back to him. I try to convince Faye to move to St. Louis, where it is safer, but she stays behind as we head back.
Once I got back to St. Louis, I gathered some of my earnings and took out copyrights on several of my potion titles, and started the Missourians Yearning for State Enrichment and Livability Fund. This will allow me to collect funds from like minded people in Missouri and combine those individual donations to, hopefully, have some real leveraging power in the state's political system. Granted, I will take an administrative fee for running the fund, but that only seems fair. Even have some fliers printed up and talked with the mail service about distributing them. I also hired a man named Augie to run the organization while I am working for the Agency. I foresee this as a groundbreaking new way to have an effect on how our elections are run, and making sure that people's voices are heard.
Once I got back to the house, I found that a certain Arch Bishop wanted me to meet him for breakfast. So after a night of drinking and gambling, I met them at the Church. It was there that they told me Col. Harrison Jeffers' last know whereabouts was in the Gettysburg graveyard, but apparently he didn't stay there. I'm not sure, just yet, what I'm going to do with that information, but the thought of a Harrowed Jeffers running around doesn't put me at ease to say the least. I suppose at some point I will need to find time to head to Pennsylvania.
Another interesting bit of information the Arch Bishop gave me was that our good friend Mr. Giorgio was following us everywhere. We ended up trapping him on a roof top and he said he was sent to keep us safe. We will see about that, but I suppose someone watching our back never hurt anyone. That evening we gained entrance into the Theosophical Society through some induction ritual that I could care less about. I just want to access what information they have and be done with them.
The next day we decided to ride out to a neighboring town and inspect a huge sinkhole that had opened up and swallowed the entire town. On the first night we are camped there we started to hear . . . I'm not sure what come flying up out of this hole. It was about a dozen man sized bats, and one of them was carrying some devilish looking creature. A pretty nasty fight ensued and thanks to a geologist named Jenkins and his handy anti-bat whistle, we barely made it out. Needless to say, the next morning, I rode back to St. Louis for reinforcements. Bullock used this new invention called a telephone to contact the head of the Agency, in Washington, and the St. Louis branch rode back to the sinkhole in force. With me in command, I might add.
Soon after, Bullock and a man named Teddy Roosevelt showed up. TR is the head of The Agency, and a pretty impressive fellow, to say the least. An accomplished hunter, fighter, and author, I'm going to keep my eye on him. I have a feeling he will be someone important someday. Luckily, I had a chance to get into his good graces when Clay and myself went down into the hole, and I found a spell to close it up and shut down the portal to hell. That's right, future readers of my memoirs, I closed a portal to hell. I also received my Agency badge and a full time salary. For a gentleman who has spent his life on the run, or in the shadows, I am not sure how comfortable I am with all of this new-found do-goodery.
After I defeated the devil, we went back to town and I delivered the fake sword to the church and then told them I'll have no more to do with them. My loyalties to this group have gotten quite strong. Even to the negro. I think I might have a group of real, in-the-flesh friends, and I don't quite cotton to someone asking me to betray them.
The biggest thing that happened, however, occurred this morning. We opened the paper to find that Miss Kitty had been caught in a cross-fire and killed. Needles to say, Clayton took this news pretty hard and kind of went off the rails. He pulled jurisdiction for the case from Rayford and then took the shooter to our warehouse for "questioning". Well after a well placed bullet and a lot of cleaning up, Clay found out that several people have been looking to take Clay out of the arms business for good. I'm not sure how all of that will turn out, but I'm sure it will be bloody. The next thing on our agenda is heading down to New Orleans and dealing with La Croix. But first, there is the matter of laying to rest our good friend Miss Kitty, so it is with a heavy heart that I put down my pen and end the story of these last few week's events.
