Where We're At: Parts 4.16-4.17: Against the Day

Stray, Ewball, Mayva

• Stray and Ewball are still together but they don't remember why anymore. Stray's got her own network of medical supplies, doctors, union hospitals, pharmacists, and she's getting food and medicine to where they're needed. She never realized that Ewball's motivation was just that he liked getting into trouble.
• Ewball decides to bring Stray to meet his family, who he hasn't seen in years, in Denver. Ewball's been using rare, incredibly valuable stamps (link) on this letters home.
• Mayva's working as the Ousts' housekeeper.
• Stray and Mayva bond again. Mayva's mellowed; she's mostly pretty happy.
• "[H]ow inevitable, right from the minute the first easterners showed up, would be the betrayal of everyday life out here, so hard-won, into the suburban penance the newcomers had long acceded to."

Frank

• Frank has remained in Chihuahua even though the US government has warned all Americans to leave Mexico because of the revolution. He ends up fighting with an irregular unit on behalf of Pascual Orozco, in revolt against both the government and the Madero Revolution. They're winning battles and heading for Jimenez.
• The land around Jimenez is famous for its meteorites. Frank recalls the piece of Iceland Spar from El Espinero that he used to see Sloat Fresno.
• Frank helps his insurgents create a macquina loca-- a train loaded with dynamite and sent at high speed at the enemy. Just before he jumps from the lit-dynamite train, he wonders if this isn't the path that El Espinero foretold for him. But ultimately his side is losing: the other side has cannons; his does not. He realizes he has no real reason to be where he is, and leaves for Mexico City.
• In Mexico City, Frank runs into Gunther, who's working in Oaxaca but stuck in the City because of the revolution. Gunther offers Frank a job mechanizing and maintaining the machines for his coffee plantation; Frank can train his crew. Besides, Gunther doesn't trust his foreman, and he really needs the help.
• Frank sees the Monument to National Independence and recognizes the face of the angel. (It's Dally, we assume.)
• Frank and Gunther return to Gunther's plantation.
• In town, Melpomene tells Frank about cucuji, giant luminous beetles that the Indian women tame and name. These bearers of light are souls--Melpomene introduces Frank to his own, and Frank realizes that he's seeing the soul of everyone who's ever passed through his life. There's something here about light as indivisible and telepathy-- Melpomene and other Indians communicate instantaneously.
• Frank has a vision that takes him back to his earlier vision with El Espinero. It takes him under a ceremonial arch into violence; he sees the Capital of Huerta coup. In real life, Frank's side has now definitely lost; Frank leaves Mexico rather than find out if someone's out to kill him.
• Frank arrives in Denver and runs into Doc (Willis) Turnstone, who's married to Wren Provenance. Wren tells him that Turnstone also knows Stray--she's helping the coal strikers in the tent city outside Walsenburg. Frank heads there; Turnstone tells him that Ewball should be there as well.
• Frank and Ewball meet; Ewball apologizes for messing with Stray, who Frank's been interested in forever. "But now she's all yours, pardner.....She always was." And he tells Frank where Mayva is. They travel to the Walsenburg tent city.

Where We're At: Part 4.14: Against the Day

Frank

• Frank is still in Mexico; he's been injured fighting in the Revolution(?).
• The shaman El Espinero sees Frank, wounded, and tells him that Stray is looking for him. And in walks Stray with a gorgeous man called Rodrigo. She's got him for a prisoner exchange but it's only partly business.
• The next day Stray shows up again and has exchanged Rodrigo. Her new companion is Ewball Oust, who suggests she go back to arms dealing, and he and Frank tell her what they need.
• The next day in walks Wren Provenance, the anthropologist.
• Ewball and Stray fall for one another and eventually leave together.
• El Espinero gives Frank hallucinogenic cacti. He has a vision of having escaped trespassers (lower-case "t") and defending against invaders.
• A plane flies through; this is the first plane any of these people have seen; "[t]ownsfolk would reckon events for years to come as occurring before or after the airplane came."
• Frank and Wren fall for one another.
• Frank becomes invisible except, El Espinero tells Frank, to Wren--she'll always see him, Still, eventually she needs to get back to work and she leaves.

(p. 930)

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)