Where We're At: Part 2.19: Iceland Spar

Frank Webb (who last we saw previously under attack by the Bob Meldrum or someone, in Telluride)

• Has escaped to "Old Mexico" ("was to spend months that seemed like years traipsing to no purpose around an empty shadowmap, a dime novel of Old Mexico, featuring gringo evildoers in exile, sudden deaths, a government that had already fallen but did not yet know it, a revolution that would never begin though thousands were already dying and suffering in its name.") with the Gaston Villa band and meets Ewball Oust, whose family is paying him to stay in Mexico and try to earn a living as a mining engineer/metallurgist. Oust sees that what Frank is really after is the spar (properly called espato in Spanish; colloquially also called espanto, "which is something either horrifying or amazing, depending"), not the argentaurum. Frank has seen ghosts through the spar.
• Frank and Ewball cross into Mexico and end up at Guanajuato. Frank keeps dreaming of Deuce Kindred, who keeps telling him that he's not here, he's miles away. Frank stumbles on a street that's been in his Deuce dreams.
• Frank and Ewball are arrested for something political. In jail they meet Dwayne Provecho. Someone's funneling money to Ewball from outside and jail is okay. Jailer Sgt Amparo Vasquez (female) tells them that the charge was something that one of them did "a long time ago, on the other side." Frank assumes it's him; Ewball has been bribing people all along but that's not enough to imprison them both for.
• Dwayne Provecho has been sent there on a mission to offer Frank contract employment because it's widely believed (in the both US and Mexico) that Frank is the Kieselguhr Kid. Apparently Ellmore Disco and Bob Meldrum both believe this--and this is why Meldrum didn't kill him on first sight ("'I frightened Hair-Trigger Bob?' 'More like professional courtesy.'")
• Frank and Ewball break out of jail. Dwayne stays behind. Frank and Ewell take off deeper into Mexico with anarchist El Nato and his parrot, Joaquin. Joaquin talks with Frank about double refraction/espato (vis-a-vis cities and states--Zacatecas, Zacatecas, etc-- being named the smae). Frank is being haunted--there's something in his past he needs to take care of. After a failed attempt to steal dynamite, Ewball drives off army men attacking Tarahumare Indians then takes off northward; El Nato peels off as well.
• Frank travels with the Indians, including El Espinero (the dowser) and his (unnamed) wife and her sister, Estrella, and heads north as well into the Sierra. El Espinero leads Frank to a large, perfect calcite; in it Frank sees Sloat Fresno (where he is), but not Deuce Kindred. Years later Ewball explains that since Ewball and Frank saved two lives, something about two lives owed to them. Deuce is one; Huerta (the leader of ???) should ideally be the other.
• Frank splits with El Espinero and ends up in a cantina somewhere, and Sloat Fresno is there. Frank kills him. The locals tell him that Deuce Kindred has already left. "This had been so quick, even, you could say, easy. He would soon begin to understand how it all might turn, was already, well before he had the godforsaken little town at his back, turning, to regret.
  

Page 396.

Where We're At: Parts 2.12-2.16

Lake Traverse

• Lake and Mayva have moved to town and are working at a cafe. Lake meets and falls in love with Deuce Kindred. (He knows who she is; she doesn't know who he is.) Lake had been seeing Dr. Willis Turnstone, from the Miner's Hospital. Oleander Prudge (female) tells Mayva that Deuce killed Webb; Mayva tells Lake; Lake won't leave Deuce; Mayva leaves Lake.
• Lake and Deuce marry; she's a virgin bride (so whatever Webb thought she was doing, she wasn't). Sloat Fresno moves in with them and Lake is sleeping with both Deuce and Sloat (simultaneously).
• The mining company has noticed that the bombings have not ceased with Webb's death; either they went for the wrong guy or Deuce lied about killing him; Deuce is warned. Has Sloat sold Deuce out? Sloat leaves.

Frank Traverse
In Denver

• Frank hides out in Denver from whoever killed Webb and as time goes on to try to find out who killed Webb. He's being approached b y mine company middle-manager types who want to employ him--these are Vibe company reps. He learns that Vibe Corp was ultimately behind Webb's murder (and knows already that Vibe is paying for Kit's schooling at Yale). Vibe Corp is trying to buy Frank's loyalty? something? and because Frank won't accept the offer he's essentially unemployable in gold mining, which leads him to specialize in zinc and spend more time in Leadville and Lake County.
• Wren Provenance is a Radcliffe grad, anthropologist studying the southwest.
  
• Crime reporter Booth Verbing warns Frank that (Cap'n) Bulkley Wells's people down from Telluride (where Reef had been) have been looking for him. Another Stations of the Cross reference-Wren has arrived here after Stations of the Cross, etc.
  
• Frank explains to Wren that if Reef hasn't avenged Webb, the job falls to Frank. He knows that the gunners were Deuce and Sloat and that they were hired by the Mine Owners Association in Telluride.

In Telluride

• Frank goes to Telluride to search for Deuce and Sloat. The city is filled state Guardsmen.
• Gunfighter and hair-trigger temper Bob Meldrum is here; his day job is security at the Tomboy mine and he also works for Cap'n Wells.
• Ellmore Disco, a shopkeeper, is "the man to see" in town. Frank sees Ellmore to try to get an appointment with Cap'n Wells, ostensibly to try to sell him on a new system for zinc mining (extracting?); Ellmore tells Frank that Frank needs to be in good with Meldrum first. Loomis is Ellmore's aide and sidekick. La Blanca is Meldrum's wife.
• Frank meets Meldrum; Meldrum won't tell him about Wells's whereabouts but Meldrum does point him toward Merle Rideout, who is working as an amalgamator at the Little Hellkite mine--Frank can try to sell his new process to Merle. Frank backs up Meldrum in a bar fight. A Japanese trade delegation is in town including a representative of international spy Baron Akashi, a roving military attache in Europe (meanwhile, there's Russia-Finland issues--Russia occupies Finland at present); they may also or instead be interested in industrial spying.
• Frank rents a horse and sets out for Little Hellkite mine (it's haunted) to see Merle Rideout. He meets Dally, who is working as a dynamiter in the mines. Merle tells Frank that he knew Webb; Frank is looking for whoever pulled the trigger on Webb, not for Wells, the boss. Merle shows him a photo of Deuce and Sloat. Dally warns Frank that Bob Meldrum (and his sidekick Rudie) is after him; Dally helps him escape through the Silver Orchard brothel.
• Merle tells Frank about Dr. Stephen Emmens in New York, who transmutes silver to argentaurum, which looks like (and is passed off as, including to the U.S. Mint) gold. Look through spar to see whether it's gold or argentaurum(?). What if the Emmens process reduces the value of gold, "knock[ing] the Gold Standard right onto its glorified ass"? Merle tells Frank that what he, Frank thinks he's looking for really isn't what he is looking for; and that Webb was also looking for (and similarly misguided re) and sends him to talk to Doc Turnstone (Lake's old beau).
• Turnstone has seen gnomes in the mines, like Merle, Dally, and Frank have.
• Turnstone earlier had helped pistolero Jimmy Drop with back pain, worked a chiropractor circuit before being hired at the Miner's hospital (where he courted Lake and Lake dumped him for Deuce--this is the first Frank learns of Lake and Deuce). Deuce used to be part of Drop's gang; Drop offers to harm Deuce as a favor to Turnstone but also because he doesn't like Deuce ("nobody liked him, mean little brush snake").
• Frank meets Jimmy Drop. Drop knew Reef, who he says has gone all the way back east.
• Ellmore helps Frank disguise himself as a Mexican musician with Gaston Villa and his band.
• Frank visits Webb's grave; Webb's ghost tells him that Deuce and Sloat have left town and split up. Frank wants to find Deuce and Lake.
• Dally leaves town and heads east.

Kit Traverse

• is at Yale and is burned out. His mentor, Gibbs, the mathematician, has died. He's being watched by Vibe henchmen.
• Vanderjuice sends for him and gives him a letter (already opened and kept from Webb for some time already) from Lake telling him that Webb had been killed and Reef and Frank were avenging him. None of the Vibes, including Colfax, mention Webb; were Vibes behind the killing?
• Tesla has erected another transmitter, on Long Island, across the Sound.
• Vanderjuice tells Kit about his working for Scarsdale Vibe earlier (and yes, Vibe was financing Tesla's work at the same time as he was financing sabotaging it). Vanderjuice suggests that Kit get out, that he take the education being paid for as blood money and that he go to Germany to study with Dr. Hillbert at Gottingen, who is developing a "Spectral Theory" which requires a vector space of infinite, not just three, dimensions. This would move Kit much further into vectorism.
• Colfax and Kit boat to Long Island to meet Tesla; Tesla knows that Scarsdale Vibe played him; thanks Kit for earlier (Colorado) suggestions.
• Colfax has been reporting to Scarsdale about Kit and was supposed to kill him (because he wants out of being bought?). Colfax suggests that Kit get out, go to Germany.
• Kit meets with Scarsdale Vibe and Foley; subtext of the conversation is that Kit knows about Webb's killing. Scarsdale would be more comfortable now with Kit out of the picture and sends him off to Germany.
• Was Scarsdale bringing Kit east an act of mercy? Is he paying off Mayva (and thereby Lake) and employing Frank? Or was he doing it to corrupt Webb, the anarchist's, children? Scarsdale is increasingly isolated and Foley worries.

(p. 335)