Sherlock in Cheyenne : The Adventure of the Cure-All in the Bunkhouse

Mr. Holmes has disappeared. That is, my Sherlock Holmes has been gone for more than three weeks. He has been absent before on numerous occasions due to requirements of whatever a case might require of his time. But he kept in touch. Not like this, which is gone, gone, gone.

One morning he was in his chair angled toward the lab and away from me and my card table and bed, it had got so he was there every morning as I got up. He might be reading the newspaper, our page first, of course, or studying various textbooks, or staring thoughtfully at the lab over by the wall.

Then he was almost always there in the armchair at the close of the day when I would be about to fall asleep. The wind could be howling or the rain pasting the east window, and the space heater roaring away on max and he was there. Calm and quiet he was and ready to reply if ever I said Good Morning or Good Night – but I never did. I now regret that. I should have told him how his being there was an aid to me in my continuing attempt to accept my transfer to this era, under these conditions, and what having his ongoing never-fail triumphs over Them did help to sustain me.

He had got here before I did. I may help him in an inconsequential way but no doubt he is the Main Man. It seems I provide a base for him, a place to be as my “tutor”. He really could be my tutor, though anyone who knows of such a cover such as it is doesn’t buy it. So what? He does a lot of good. Sometimes the community knows it, and sometimes it’s Native Americans, and sometimes it is the Air Force, and sometimes just the two of us. So what?

But is he gone for good? It is impossible They could have hurt him. He is of course, not “dead” – such doesn’t apply to him. But maybe he is off on a new assignment? OK for him but I don’t want someone else nor do I want to stay here by myself – what purpose would it serve? I have already speculated about my cycling through junior high over and over. Though maybe I would go onto high school, college?

Truth be known it is the empty chair in the morning and night. What a concern! He battles for all of us and I want him in his chair!  OK. OK, I am trying to get the homework done, be a good brother and son and accept the foibles of my friends. I am doing that. So where is he?

I have been spending more time upstairs – actually not more family interaction but more being there and “there” is usually in front of the TV. Recently it was Barney Fife giving a “hairy” rendition of the Preamble to the Constitution to prove once you’ve got it (memorized) it’s always with you. Friendship and close associations can be modified so that, if you accept the premise of irrevocable change, then no shock occurs if they aren’t going to be always with you. Remembered they can be, but not in a living format.

Neither of us is dead. I’m doing my part. Again and again I ask – where is he. I mean is he “here” and not on assignment elsewhere? Has his tour of duty ended here, has he ETS’d ? In the way of a few unearthly things having an imitation of a living format came to me one school night as I sweated over pre-calculus (we are all patriotically, with ample funds, going to find an answer to the Russkies) I heard a sigh for achievement, a woman’s luxuriant sound, rich and mild, surely with a glowing countenance and velvet dress, demure with the whole scene in coloration almost like caramel. A very beautiful woman. And I did hear it. Mom and the others were in bed. No wind. Furnace not yakking. No space heater. I had heard her. It came from the lab. The lab was against the east wall after the door swung open to it farthest and the lab then went to the west wall and South to near the furnace. Then the lab filled in the space diagonally back toward the door. Two rows of benches and equipment and experiments were along that dimension.

I went to the entrance to the lab but really if Mr. Holmes put more equipment there you would have to vault the benches to get inside the lab. I stood expectantly at the entrance. Something was up. I smelled off to the right an electrical short with cinnamon sprinkled on it – so it registered. I went toward the smell, and behind an inner row of benches, was a blue fluid flow experiment. Mr. Holmes had set it up. It had started. There were three presentations of it. In one the blue fluid remained pooled at the bottom of a tank. An amorphous mass was inert above the pool. In a second adjacent part of the experiment the fluid had made it half way into the mass. The last section, the third one, had blue lines piercing the mass. The blue pencil-thin fluid was in lines in the hundreds and multiplying in number then and there. The mass was defeated, the pool was ascending. The fluid shot out and up and over the container and blue splatters sounded loudly on the concrete floor.

It was a sign. Mr. Holmes was fine and still here.

Confident that Mr. Holmes would soon show, I gave more undivided attention to playing my bit part in the great Cold War struggle, for as much as my homework could contribute. My hard concentration on my math was broken when I had to look around for my slide rule to get on with it. I then could hear my Mom upstairs calling out about a phone call. About a tutor. Tutor! I was out of the room in two giant steps and bounded up the stairs. I paused for composure before I entered the dining area (also containing a washing machine shrouded in fine linen in a corner). I walked in to take the receiver from Mom. “Sorry,” I said to her. She had no problem with it, having other fish to fry elsewhere in the ruckus-filled house.

Sherlock! Holmes! (Pausing, calm and composed? Well try for it.) Mr. Holmes, good to hear from you again.

Ah, yes indeed, and I am very sorry my dear boy, for having taken such a very long time to contact you, I was trying to infiltrate Them and one thing led to another and I did not do as I had hoped. I shall stop by in a few hours with a guest. Is that acceptable?

A guest downstairs?

Of course, of course, I should have made that clear. Another “student”.

Sure thing.

The phone went dead. I returned to my study and after a few hours I heard two set of shoes navigating down the stairs. The door opened wide and in stepped a Zeegler! For a split second I thought it could be Mr. Holmes in disguise, but Mr. Holmes was close behind the Zeegler.

The Zeegler stopped a few steps inside the room so the door could close. Mr. Holmes moved ahead of the Zeegler and indicated the Zeegler should sit in my chair at the card table, I was on the bed. Mr. Holmes remained standing very near to the Zeegler. One of Mr. Holmes arms was inside his coat.

Mr. Holmes – I thought you would care to speak with a Zeegler. This is a rare opportunity for us to get to know a Zeegler. Of course he can ask about us.

So I was to cross-examine the Zeegler. I assumed Mr. Holmes had already conversed with the Zeegler, to no avail. Therefore, I was to query on a lower plane of interaction. High road vs. low.

So: How are you trained? No response, no sound, no movement. How old are you? Where were you born?

Mr. Holmes interjected – I believe they “come about.” They persist unless pierced in combat as we well know.

Me- So they are clones?

Mr. Holmes shrugged. And I then couldn’t remember if we had gotten to “cloning” in our conversations.

Me- Well, then, do you prefer guns or spears or knives?

Now that got a rise. He looked at me and he said they had never used spears.

Oh but you did, Mr. Holmes and I were once attacked by hundreds of Zeeglers carrying spears.

He shouted, No spears! And he rose from the chair and twisted toward me and lunged for me. He was about half way to me when Mr. Holmes brought a revolver butt from his coat down on the back of the Zeegler’s neck. He fell into a nondescript heap at that half way mark between the chair and the bed. Mr. Holmes effortlessly picked up the Zeegler and seated him in my chair. Then Mr. Holmes stepped quickly into the lab and returned with a rope. The rope went around the Zeegler’s neck, then around his wrists and then around his ankles. Mr. Holmes held the end of the rope as he stood over the Zeegler.

The Zeegler’s head was against his wrists and his wrists were on his knees. Uncomfortable it looked to me.

Mr. Holmes – Please be so kind as to be more courteous toward by colleague.

The Zeegler actually smiled or at least showed his teeth to me and seemed to regret his action, beg for forgiveness, and silently plead for an alteration in how he was situated. Uncomfortable no doubt.

The Zeegler said – I have no spear.

Me – Well certainly some may and some may not have a use for a spear. I meant not to insult you by forcing a spear on you.

I smiled. I guess the Zeegler did too. I looked at Mr. Holmes for guidance.

Me - Well then let’s chat about nothing in particular (when I had every intention of mining something useful from whatever I got out of him).

I said “let’s chat” again. I then also looked at Mr. Holmes.

My colleague, said Mr. Holmes, is desirous of being friendly toward you. For your next infraction I shall shoot you.

The Zeegler blankly looked up at Mr. Holmes. Mr. Holmes extracted a huge knife, like a Bowie knife, from his coat. He swiftly made three motions to cut the knots at the Zeegler’s knees, then wrists, and then the neck.

The Zeegler stiffened, gulped, and then relaxed in the chair.

I asked questions about the weather, uniforms, food (3 squares a day?), bunks in barracks, cars, trucks, school buses, freight trains, snowflakes, high winds, and so on.  I was asking about his favorite day of the week, assuring the Zeegler that mine was on the weekend and I named each day. On “Saturday” I perceived a twitch, I’ll call it that, anyway his countenance flickered. On the streets of Cheyenne, favorites of, he had a tiny “reply” to Lincolnway and for what was his favorite kind of building I meant such as wood, brick, concrete, and adobe with an aside on use, form and function, he had an unspoken preference for adobe.

We “chatted” without a word from him for another half hour. Finally I looked at Mr. Holmes and back at the Zeegler and back to Mr. Holmes.

Mr. Holmes to the Zeegler – I suppose this has been a waste of time. I had hoped we could have had a congenial expression of companionship – on some level. Well and good if such does not become you. As things are, we will meet again. Be gone.

The Zeegler got up, went to the door, and left. As simple as that.

Mr. Holmes – So then, an adobe structure on Lincolnway to be visited by us this Saturday.

Mr. Holmes did briefly relate to me his infiltration. He had himself captured. That status did not prove useful so he disappeared in their midst and became a Zeegler. Then he captured a Zeegler – the one that I chatted with.

But then why were we concerned about Saturday on Lincolnway with adobe?

Mr. Holmes – Rather amusing to be off to thwart Them but not knowing how or why.

Me – Sorry, I just realized I haven’t been reading the newspaper of late. They are there. I pointed at a pile of papers beside his armchair.

Mr. Holmes – Ah well then, let us have a go at acquiring news of Them.

He picked up a paper and then turned to “our page”. I did the same with another issue and others. The more recent issues had a small, and on our page, ad of a Cure-All as a tonic, elixir, modern super medicine, fit of the fittest and so on across many small ads on our page.

Mr. Holmes – No doubt the “cure” will in and of itself become an illness second to none. What?

Me – Oh undoubtedly. Saturday?

Mr. Holmes – Delivery? Shipment? Manufacture? Our presence will resolve it. But what building?

Me – I know of only one adobe directly on Lincolnway. I mean an adobe “house” and an adobe “bunkhouse”.

At this site there has been a cooperative effort involving my school and a trucking company called DBN, meaning Drive by Night, from the film “They Drive by Night” with Raft, Bogart, Ann Sheridan, and Ida Lupino. The DBN is located at a “house,” really only a bedroom for Miguel’s father, and what is called the “bunkhouse”. Both are on a large paved lot. The house seems to sit in a parking lot. The lot is large and slopes from the bunkhouse at the top of the slope and from the north then down to the house and further on down to Lincolnway. On the east is Beacon Street and along it the company trucks park before beginning a night run. The drivers sleep in the bunkhouse during the day if they so choose.

Miguel’s father manages the operations. I went there to return Miguel’s visits to our house (we then rented a house not far from the adobe structures.) I would wake up Miguel’s father. He was a baseball nut. Ok guy, usually asleep during the day, mostly spoke Spanish and had a bat, ball, and mitt in bed with him.

Along the west side of the lot, which drops off down to the alley, are grates cut into the rock wall. Coals can be place in the grates and hot dogs and Pepsi are available some Friday evenings, courtesy of the school and DBN. Boys and girls attend. Whichever sex predominates in numbers has dibs on the bunkhouse for that night, if they want. We then lived close enough that I preferred to go home since I had seen the object of my then desires, Betty Carlson, and usually my conversation with her was in opposition to a restful bunkhouse night.

Across from the lot, across the alley, was a used car lot that Mr. Holmes and I would make use of post our visit to the bunkhouse. That visit occurred Saturday night, late. Mr. Holmes was in disguise as a Zeegler. I was his prisoner and we went downstairs, after entry, to a football-sized expanse of manufacturing apparatus that looked like the second football-sized area under the first one. At the first sublevel, Mr. Holmes extracted huge bags of sand from within his Zeegler duds. We began to run along the corridors flinging the sand into the works. Then Mr. Holmes grabbed two crowbars from a wall cabinet, and we sprinted along smashing left and right, up and down the aisles. Down to the second sublevel we went using the crowbars to brace shut a large door behind us. Mr. Holmes pulled out two revolvers from his coat (he had changed back to himself) and tossed me a third one. He was shooting out three manufacturing sifters or pumps or sorters – whathaveyou- with one shot. He walked eyes closed and pointed left and right with one revolver in each direction. I more modestly might get two with one shot. And I kept my eyes open.

The Zeeglers were coming, the Zeeglers were coming. We were in a narrow corridor beyond the production area and the Zeeglers were four abreast coming at us. Mr. Holmes got three from right to left and I got the leftmost one as they, of course, advanced inches on us everytime a line of them disappeared. Not to accept the inevitable, M. Holmes shot out the electrical boxes. Even in the dark he and I kept firing since the barrel flashes gave tiny, but enough, illumination, and it was a straight corridor so I kept the weapon pointed on the same line.

Mr. Holmes said “go left” and I smacked into a door, which on opening, led further west, I gathered. The door was slammed shut by Mr. Holmes as the Zeeglers pounded on it. Cracks from somewhere showed light. We went there and opened a chute to the outside. The “outside” was the west edge of the truckers’ lot and the light was from across the alley in the used car lot, closed to customers.

Not closed to escapees from the wrath of the Zeeglers. We low-crawled among the vehicles looking for keys in the ignition. Found one. We got in. We pushed it off the lot and down the slope to Lincolnway which also sloped down. We coasted to the intersection of the Sinclair station and the motel. Then right until near 15^th Street. We tried it and it started. With me steering and Mr. Holmes working the pedals, we made it to less than a mile from home.

The transition from Saturday to Sunday was very short for me. Mom was calling down about breakfast and I had only started to sleep. Couldn’t stay in bed. If I did she would come down and Mr. Holmes and I would have had to have a “lesson’ underway. Therefore, I went up to pancakes prepared on a flat grill that were thin, crispy at the edges, with maple syrup streaming down the sides and ice-cold milk in a huge glass. We all had a delicious time.

Only an hour later after my return to Mr. Holmes did sleep overpower me. Mr. Holmes kept watch and could run interference with any interaction with the upstairs element. I couldn’t sleep long. I had a couple of big tests on Monday. To get the official results of our intervention at the bunkhouse, we would need Monday’s paper.

I could study since we weren’t trying a church. Mom took us to a different church for a trial period on some Sundays. Not Catholic, since Mom felt they would compromise you somehow and then convert you. Once converted, you owed them, they owned you. As a Church member you remained one, no amount of nays got you off… so Mom said. But this Sunday we had a break. Usually we attended Bible study while the grownups were at services. We wore Sunday best, and for me, that was like singing at the VA when I met Grady.

I had to come awake for lunch, or dinner as it was called on Sundays. Mr. Holmes said he was going downtown, or nearly there, to the bunkhouse. Upon his return in the evening about suppertime, he said it seemed as before on the lot at Beacon and Lincolnway.

Monday’s paper had no ads for Cure-All and instead there was a short article about a local maker of medicinals had gone out of business. End of story. So then I wanted to say something to Mr. Holmes about his presence being pleasantly felt day and night if he was in the armchair as I began and ended my day. But how to say it? Could I prevail upon you to be in your chair at certain times? No, wouldn’t do.

Ok – Mr. Holmes, it is good to see you there (pointing) AM and PM. At such times I know nothing is amiss.

He had a pipe in his left hand. He stopped bringing it to his teeth. The pipe went in his coat. He stood up, went behind the chair, grabbed each armrest, and lifted and rotated the chair some degrees toward my direction. Then he sat down.

Ah, he said, the pleasure is all mine, and he smiled.

I tipped my invisible hat to him.

An Insertion of the Mind - Millions and Millions

We all have our preferences. Certainly. Loren Eiseley preferred a past of millions and millions of years. Actually better was a “sunlit and timeless prairie” – gone beyond time. Even millions could not be enough. Or at least from “ I look up across the moon and Venus – outward, outward into that blue-white glitter beyond the galaxy… Have we come from elsewhere? … Has not the great 200-inch reflector upon Mount Palomar already spied out the prospect?” It was common enough to place too much hope on what Palomar could do for us. At least it could be used, as here, to again get beyond time, to be from simply out-there somewhere, and time need not be mentioned.

Of course he isn’t there, as he wasn’t, of course, “in” the time of which he wrote. And so he speculated – “Perhaps there is no meaning at all, … save the journey itself…” There was denied to humankind “the dimension of time.” Reasoning thus could take him up “against the confining walls of scientific method” and push him over the wall to “the intangible substance of hope which at the last proves unanalyzable by science, yet out of which the human dream is made.” It’s easy. Put yourself where you can’t go.

With Darwin’s evolution and its variants, you got trapped in the physical, structural variables and lose a perspective on how humankind came about, from where, not when, did humankind get intellectualization in excess. To separate itself from animals, it has been noted humankind had its knowledge of mathematics while other said it was the conscience of humankind that did the trick. A greater thinker than Darwin was Alfred Russell Wallace who knew natural selection couldn’t put into humankind capabilities far beyond its needs. If it could have, why so far back in time, to what use to have it and not use it since its possession has been synonymous with its use? Or, as Wallace, thought, said Eiseley, that which was “us” came later.

Once you have those millions and millions of years at your disposal, it would seem all of evolution could surely take place. No limit to fashioning sequences of changes via natural selection. But saying it and proving it is the flip side of millions and millions – it is too general, the specificity can’t be located. It became an article of faith that what was assumed to have occurred to carry along pre-humankind, humankind, and post-humankind was not an assumption but really the truth. Assumptions, begging reality, become a dogma. A solid foundation for organic change was derived from geology. Geology supplies the crush of millions and millions of years. Once started, as Wallace observed (and noted by Eiseley), evolution became subject to “indefinite departure” no return, ever onward.

So onward and it is assumed the past is “there” and onward has been traversed and we are “here” at present, and onward again we will arrive at the “future”. As for now, we are said to be very aware of “our” time and how it has disintegrated into, said Eiseley, “a meaningless mosaic of fragments” and cannot be packaged, made whole into a past where we were. Someone was there, just not us. We are persisting because of our specialization, that is, our intelligence, our “smarts” and so we avoid what 90% of Earth’s creatures had experienced – extinction. Or are we ready to give it up, the intelligence, and realize the “smarts’ were wasted on us? The ape-like survived well enough for a very long time. Then somehow the nascent “we” came along. There too was an increase in “smarts” for no good reason, then it was “us.”

Such change, for Eiseley, was within “limitless change in limitless time.” Thomas H. Huxley was read by Eiseley in a way so that Eiseley could convey that uncontrolled conviction, and thematically he entered into it in isolation, touting lonely, cold death. Nevertheless, his style borrowed from Paul Sears who had a classical-humanist tinge for science and literature. In Eiseley’s Scientific American articles around 1942, he got mystery, pathos, and wonder mixed in. He could not wholly accept materialism or the scientific method; he couldn’t detail what he sensed. It was a vast and single entity.

If its sense could be found as a derivative of humankind’s insatiable curiosity, Eiseley foresaw in The Firmament of Time we would find that secret to be boring. Without a tinge of conscience, the conscience which he thought, as previously mentioned, separated humankind from the animals (never mind that much earlier was the presumption that our use of mathematics involving the calculation of the date for Easter was the distinguishing feature). He resurrected the “Christian order” for small amounts of contemporary stability and good graces with no amount of morals in sight. And he left it at that, not liking the age, the era – but then he wasn’t above changing the truth for poetic expression, so why bother?

Then, too, the future need not concern us. There we could discover our past. We could know what we don’t know now. We could be fossils for them, those of the future. They could come from the stars, as we may have gone there. The paths may not cross. Millions and millions of years might not be necessary for the missed opportunity. Though, of course, those millions and millions of years are always available, such flexible entities they are. They aren’t going to encounter morals like Eiseley did along the way since science (evolution) was formulated without them and the scientific method, if mastered, cannot be improved upon or so it is said. Those millions and millions of years, confidently enunciated, have at the disposal of those who used them for the negation of all morality and for which then morals are a joke and God along with them.

All joking aside, those millions and millions of years are accepted as real. Within them A is A and B is B. Certainly in the brain there is B and A or their representatives. But you say A then B. Where is the “then” in the brain? Nowhere to be found, certainly one must admit. No evidentiary material can be provided. What produced it? An extensive hunt is not necessary – the mind, is the answer. It supplies the “then,” it makes an insertion for A and B.

All joking aside, which came first – the motion or the mind? And now quickly before it melts, how did motion become time? If no change of position, no dynamics, it is stasis. Nothing but A, B, C, … But mind makes an insertion so A and B and so on were already on the field of play, so to speak. The brain had to have A and B prior to the insertion.

Most certainly A and B were real. The brain couldn’t properly relate to the imaginary. But no “then” in the brain. That is the province of mind. A lack of reality allowed it to place, to make an insertion such that it allowed for motion, relation and millions and millions of years. All false. Time and its minions are no more real than the mechanism lacking in evolution to account for the mind.

A baby playing peek-a-boo better exemplifies the emergence of mind. You are at A, baby is at A. You at B. Baby at B. You at A and B in succession. Then you are at A and stay but baby is at B. Lastly, a baby’s eyes can follow an object as it moves. The mind is already there. It wasn’t there at birth, as was the brain. The truth of space, from the brain, is there. The falsity of time comes later.

Eiseley never had those millions and millions of years, not really.

Sherlock in Cheyenne : The Adventure of the Perfectly Potential Puzzle

I honestly don’t remember the class we were in. It was an afternoon one, for sure. That afternoon doze denied us, as always. We were not at the top of our form - especially Duane who would get no awards for pen rolling. In this instance “we” were myself and Duane.

We had been discussing the plus and minuses of a girl. She was not, of course, in any of our classes. The classroom we were about to enter was the only one Duane and I shared. It seemed imperative that we continue our discussion immediately. With the classroom etiquette in our way, we resorted to notes. Duane was five up and on my left. As always, a big classroom, which was fortunate since they were many desks in it, providing cover. Student-to-teacher ratio was never one of my concerns. It also never seemed to affect the quality of instruction. We were the best judge of that but, of course, it was never asked of us.

Three notes had come to me and those three returned to Duane. Then I got one in code. Letters had been rearranged. I thought I got the code. I needed to write something down for assistance. I motioned to Duane by scrawling on the desktop with my finger. He leaned down and rolled a fountain pen (of all things!) in my direction. As it rolled, it leaked. It hit a few joints in the floor tiles so that it jumped and spewed deep dark blue splashes of ink that were added to the trail.

I reached out and over and down for the pen. Two fingers became blue. No one except us two had seen it. Then Tipton across the aisle found it. I am sorry to say I thought of a bathroom break, or maybe trade places with Tipton? But he was looking at me as if I hadn’t gone to the bathroom and should have. Also, we were arranged in assigned seats. Then finally the teacher ended my agony when she saw it. Duane brought it off beautifully - slipped from his grasp and started on an independent journey in my general direction, Duane needed a new pen. My need to decipher the message became mute.

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Whereas Janusz Koslowski had a need for cryptography, surreptitious cryptography and with no women involved. No ink trails, but nevertheless he was in trouble, big trouble, since They were interested in him. It was because They knew his recent entrepreneurial venture into translation and editing had a third and hidden component.

It was all in a smooth black (naturally) metal box. Actually the third component wasn’t in the box. It was said to be “associated” with it. It is not at all clear how Janusz developed this connection. He was actively seeking it but how it explicitly came about was unexpected. What he got became known (to very few) as the Quantum Entity. I called it the QE.

Naturally Mr. Holmes, when referring to it, gave the full two words. Mr. Holmes learned of the box and two of its components via “our page” in the local newspaper. A tiny ad was there proclaiming how Janusz (J) had for sale, and now for demonstration, his box. We had no idea there was the third component. It could decode or decipher the meaning of any communication, and it could respond like an oracle to questions of fate or perplexity.

It was unwittingly started along to completion by a cousin of J who had heard of Rejewski’s exploits in mostly pre-WWII Poland. Rejewski had figured out how the German Enigma worked. The Engima began in 1918 by Scherbius of Scherbius and Ritter. Later it had three then five rotors to scramble letters for messages to be sent by business enterprises and the military. The German military got 30,000 of the Engimas. They were much used in WWII. You know, Bletchley and all that.

What Rejewski did was to detail the 105,456 rotor settings. That took a year. Then machines were set up to check on rotor arrangements, they were replicas of Enigmas. These machines were called bombes, and they could get the settings in two hours.

J didn’t build a bombe. He actually started out with translating. You would feed in a paper page on which was typed what needed to be translated. Out came the translation. Nifty, but common. J added an editing component to the box. In went a document through a second slot to be edited and back came an edited (more or less) version of that document. But these two functions of the box and their two slots for insertion were fronts for J’s real interest - cypto and answers without limits. The translator and editor represented some money but the crypto function guaranteed power and a great deal of it. That was what J wanted.

He also wanted recognition. He made it known through back channels that his box could do more than translate and edit. The cypto position came into play through a third hidden slot in that box. Also, anything could be asked of it. It could solve any cryto puzzle put to it. And I do say “asked.”  J would talk to the machine then he typed what he had asked or proposed. Later he spoke as he typed. He didn’t always get a reply. If he did, it could be garbled (and not in code). Once a reply took a week. Whatever it took, if J could understand the reply, it was awesome.

Such a huge potential led J to incautiously place another tiny ad on our page. J was touting the box as an enterprise of his Hobby and Invention shop. His shop had been owned by Sam before Sam turned to bribery (see the Adventure of The Babel Plants, Part Three). The ad mentioned crypto and something like “no job too big.”

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Mr. Holmes had snapped the paper open. As always he went to our page first. He found the second ad.

Really, now I will need my magnifying glass if these little adverts become any smaller. What is this? I do believe the proprietor of Hobby and Invention is going into a dangerous area. It could be he has made himself a subject of interest to Them. Sam of course is in confinement but the new owner will be lucky to be so situated. I must repair to Hobby and Invention forthwith.

I decided to also head that way. We parted at the shop entrance. J was down the street at a snack shop, so Mr. Holmes went to get him and I decided I would hang out with John Rockenjer, J’s assistant, who was minding the store. I had hardly got into the shop and began to survey projects, parts, electronics of all kinds, and scientific support books and games when I discovered a Zeegler behind me and another and another... I ended up bound and gagged in a chair sitting where I could not be seen unless someone opened the door wide. John was on the floor behind the counter - gagged and tied.

I heard Mr. Holmes and J talking as they approached the door to the shop. They entered and took a few steps when approximately nine Zeeglers emerged from behind various parts of the shop. Each had a knife in hand. Mr. Holmes struck J senseless so that he slumped into a pile against the wall and floor. Mr. Holmes crouched over J. The Zeeglers came at Mr. Holmes in pairs or threes lunging at J but Mr. Holmes fended them off. After four or five attacks, the Zeeglers regrouped and as one they held their knives aloft and then launched them at J. Mr. Holmes was like a hockey goalie in thrusting out his legs to block some of the knives. Others he caught in his hands, but one got J in the shoulder and two more ended up in a leg. The blades were not long and the wounds, thus, were superficial. Then the Zeeglers disappeared.

Mr. Holmes had knocked out J to make him easier to defend. Mr. Holmes had him in a compact place and knew the immovable borders to defend. Mr. Holmes undid me. John had worked himself free. J needed little attention, more of a bloody mess than anything else.

Me - Why knives?

Mr. Holmes - Why indeed and with short blades. They had no intention of greatly harming Janusz.

A scare tactic?

Perhaps. In the event, Janusz must go into hiding, separately from the box. Obviously They are presenting evidence to Janusz that They will affect whatever they regard as necessary vis-à-vis the box and Janusz. The effort on Their part will take place soon and be the apprehension of Janusz and the box. Once Janusz shows Them how it works, then Janusz will be no more.

I went home and at least I had no headache or chest pain this time unlike some of my other encounters with the Zeeglers. The Zeeglers hadn’t tied us tightly. I hadn’t tried to force my bonds as John did. Surely they could have done better than that. When Mr. Holmes arrived he appeared quite concerned, very perturbed.

My dear boy, this has become a matter of the utmost urgency.

His box is that good?

His Quantum Entity, as he calls it, if in the hands of Them, will secure world domination for Them and, in due time, world destruction - except for Their enclaves, of course.

No secrets safe from Them?

Yes, I am sorry to say. It is quite irritating that Janusz insists his box has no superordinary capabilities, he says the Zeeglers came to seize the box, and that there was one in the shop but it was only a prototype. Furthermore, the prototype has only translating and editing activities. What nonsense! In his shop I asked him to show me the design of the box. Janusz began to get out some blueprints and notes he had drawn up. These were incomplete, deliberately so. Meanwhile in an adjacent room, wadded newspapers in a waste bin that I had lit a few moments previously were in flaming contact with window drapes. I took a few steps to the doorway to that other room and paused. Janusz, succumbing to the old trick, rushed to another file cabinet and drew out other drawings and notes. I contrived to bump into Janusz when he was exiting to the storefront and he dropped all on the floor. He begged me not to help him. But I saw enough to know what Janusz had been attempting and had now succeeded in building. The box had a third component. For it, there was an off and on toggle switch. A blue light was lit if it was operating.

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Fortunately, I could get free of this ominous business by the simple expedient of attending school, which I did with obliterating gusto. Some guys from Detroit came in for a talk about car design and with a snazzy big model of the look of a car of the future. So? It was all over our heads (and we were all boys, except in one instance) - the math, the drafting skill, the interest in such a mass of metal. To drive it would have been cool but then what? As a job? We all had vague notions about what was a “job.” No thanks. Later, one of the speakers put up on the board the usual math symbol for infinity. A girl did the ID of it without having got her hand up. I had gotten my hand up first. Anyway, for them to sully the deep glorious dense mystery of a fascinating concept with a connection to car design was repellent to me.

Duane and I walked home across the fields close to our homes. In the days in decades to come we would have been on peoples’ lawns. If it was open, it was built upon, such is “progress” at all times and in all places. He spilt off a few blocks from my place, and I entered my room to find Mr. Holmes and J in conversational low tones. J had my chair so I went to the bed. J was looking at the floor, musing, as I came in, and Mr. H had put a finger to his mouth to signify recognition that I had arrived and to be quiet. I sat on the bed.

Mr. Holmes - Surely Janusz you do not believe They (of course J didn’t hear a “They,” it was “they” to him) will now ignore you? You are in much danger. Though I fail to see what translation and editing can be as so important to them.

J - Industrial competition. I have a very good machine, an excellent product.

H - The puzzles it can solve, no task too difficult?

J - Of course, all translation and editing done well.

H - (impatient and raising his voice) Mr. Koslowski, your box is not all about translation and editing. Is not that correct?

J had been with eyes on the floor until now. He looked at Mr. Holmes with tears in his eyes. And why not? I know more than others. Why should I not be unlike the others?

H - (pressing) You will soon be in a state like so many others that have gone before you like we all must, but as always the how and the when occupy some with paramount anxiety. No such anxiety need now plague you. Your time and place are awaiting you in a matter of days, perhaps in less time.

J put his head in his hands. No sobbing, but exasperatingly loud breathing, as if mounting an attempt at a great physical exertion - that old “gird the loins.”

J (in a soft wail) Oh can’t something so beautiful and forceful be without pain and capture?

H - The key is “force.” There is always push back, please be sensible. Let me help you. There is no crime here, yet, and no problem in crime to be solved, I do this to prevent much other damage to a great many other people. Do consider them. Let me take you to a safe place, and the box can be hidden until further complications can be sorted out.

It was obvious J was frozen into a lack of action. Mr. Holmes looked at me and then the door. Yeah, little I could do here. I went upstairs to check out the Tube. It would be Three Stooges most likely. I could tell Mom that Mr. Holmes had another student needing a one-on-one. Maybe I could find some untethered high-in-sugar edible. As it turned out, it was one of the better shorts, Curly was a military honcho and Larry was a diplomat while Moe was a startlingly accurate Hitler. Really it was fearfully good - like a horror show with calm prelude of what would soon be an impossible to believe presentation of slaughter. Though, of course, WWII wasn’t an entertainment.

Upon my return, I discovered J and Mr. Holmes had left. Upon Mr. Holmes return he told me that J was in hiding. The box was stowed safely somewhere. He was not going to tell me where J was hiding. Mr. Holmes can’t be hurt by Them. Whereas I can be hurt for short periods, but They could string together a series of hurts, so I cannot know J’s whereabouts. Certainly if They knew of the Quantum Entity and it’s being impossible to always control, they would rid the world of J. So, then, how to dispose of or what to do with the box? I rather liked the idea of it being Their problem. Soon enough They would find out the QE isn’t in the box, it is “associated” with it. As noted, J doesn’t know exactly how he got the box and the QE associated. Easiest would be to prove it has become dissociated but how? Failing that, where is the box going to be?

Woe to me for not inquiring where the box had got to. It turned out to be rather uncomfortingly close. And, as far as I was concerned, it had personality. This “thing” had begun to bother me and to usurp my time and thoughts. I wanted to not think of the QE so I asked what is so hot about J’s crypto machine? And, anyway, decode or decipher anything? Isn’t that a bit much? And to be better than Delphi?

Mr. Holmes - One would have hoped it were not so. But now Janusz has gone where he should not have. To withdraw now without addressing the Quantum Entity’s capabilities is unconscionable. Those capabilities must cease, therefore, the Quantum Entity must cease. As for Janusz, I hope he need not be dispensed with. Our opponents must lose interest in him.

Me - You are an expert in crypto. At least you have been reputed to be an author of a “trifling” monograph with analysis of 160 ciphers. There was a case involving stick men.

Do tell.

Well, not of this era, I guess. Anyway, what’s the big deal? Can’t they keep secret their secrets whoever they are?

Mr. H - Mostly governments and their military have wanted secure communication for the sake of dominance of others.

Me - Do tell.

Yes, though one cannot be sure just where difficulties in code breaking, used loosely, now lie. There is secrecy about the secrets of the British GCHQ and your National Security Agency. Since they are secretive, we have no idea how good they may be.

So how do they get on with it? I have (had) heard a smidgen or two about quantum computers, and public and private keys and so on.

I know very little of those. Historically it has been a race between encryption and decryption. They have come up with some unbreakable messaging and then it gets broken. Mary, Queen of Scots, had a code. She was beheaded. Microdots much later were an aid in 1941, though there the message itself was hidden, whereas more emphasis is placed on knowing there is a message and the dare to know its meaning.

Caesar had a cipher. Monoalphabetic substitution has been done. Frequency analysis was the major avenue to counter the encryption. Along came the Vigenère cipher, and it seemed it had been done, no breakage could be possible. Prior to and after the then latest efforts, long ago governments employed Black Chambers to crack secrets. Best was Geheime Kabinets-Kanzlei in Vienna.

No group broke the Vigenère cipher. Babbage did it and by cunning. He found repetition because the English to be rendered was repetitive. And there were factors of length in regard to the keyword. But he got no credit for this discovery. Kept it to himself. Kusiski was credited. Both realized the cipher could be broken, because the key had to have meaning.

Janusz is after meaning too. The utilitarian kind that facilitates power. To have enough of it, power, there is our capacity to interpret and respond that becomes overwhelmed if the power be immense and that response and interpretation in the service of meaning is taken over by machines. Then meaning becomes what the machines indicate it may be. They then define “power.”

The Quantum Entity may be omitting what is obvious to its kind, like Champollion realizing scribes were omitting vowels on the cartouches of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, while Ventri, building on the work of Kober, found that in Linear B, the “s” ending was deliberately being suppressed since it was well enough known then that it should be there. Most probably the Quantum Entity is a list with no exclusions. It encompasses all items, if scientific in Newton-Hamilton-Fermi-Einstein fashion. If not scientific, all is sorted into assigned functions to become “knowledge” which is of little use to it. It is not alive, nor can it die. It provides “history” as a fiction. It connects the dots, lines become lines of lines and matrices spring forth in differing dimensions. It can deal in thought but not Mind, which is where Janusz comes in.

Me - So to be rid of the QE, we must be rid of J?

H- Not necessarily.

Me - So the QE knows no past, no future, “now” simply “is,” not sandwiched between past and future. Metaphorically in quantum terms one could bend the past into the future and live out one’s past in the future.

H - Odd expression.

Me - There, for QE, all is done very fast, there are no speed limits. The power J hungers so abjectly for, is frightful, gigantic, monumental and decisive. There is no progress or achievement since these depend on the slowness of process. Earth gone in a blink, no realization of what had been done. There is no experience to be realized. So it has no development, no start, no end. No birth, no death. All of it “is.” Right?

H - Hm, you are grappling with a great unknown.

Me - Anywho, we assemble and disassemble, for it, no such thing, all “is.” It doesn’t affect us unless we provoke it. Our research, by J and others, is reaching to it. We, in a sense, create it by discovering it. The QE may not be representative, it could be much worse.

H - Perhaps you are glossing over extraordinary complexity rather roughly.

M – It is idle speculation, no referent. It is worrisome and bothersome. I don’t want to stick with it.  Hm, well then how about a game of chess? I can’t sleep just yet.

H - Certainly.

M - May I be Black? I have been persistently playing as White.

H - In these circumstances? But of course.

Actually Black is red (almost pink) since it is a plastic set, the cheapest, and White is cream. We went into a Queen’s Gambit. I had tempi but his piece activity was compromising my desire for a quiet positional game. He gave up a piece for the attack and to clear the center. I recognized his advantage but he had to do more, he had to win. Of tremendous power was his Queen, though she was at the edge of the board, she raked along the center towards my King who sheepishly had to stumble along and get behind two Pawns and call on a Knight that needed to be much closer. Mr. Holmes had potential galore and could make it a short game. His potential was paralyzing my formulation of variations. My move calculations were into a not favorable endgame, I had to prevent a move making my stance worse. What to do? How to negate or neutralize such potential? But then Mr. Holmes offered to adjourn the game. What a good guy! I accepted with alacrity. And then to bed.

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I dreamed : I was being splashed with blue ink, it came spurting out of a model Detroit car as it rolled toward me. It was going to crush me! But a Queen approached, I was dry and no car. She raised a knife with a short blade above her head and threw it at me - I got it in the forehead. It spilt my head open, not in half. One side was a winner, the other was a bigger portion, the loser. Doubt was invited in and I got a dollar a page. I was eating dog food out of a can like Victor Jory. No career for me. The test I knew but not the answers. I was looking for the answers on a tic tac toe board. I was X and the O’s were blue lights with toggle switches - off and on, blinking and winking, thinking and mocking, devious and insincere and malevolent. Moe wanted to hug me and I said no mustache but he screamed he would lose his personality. Mr. Holmes was down at the far left with all the other space in the Universe taken up by a huge wad of paper trash of almost google-plex size. It was data. It was swelling despite already having all room to itself except for Mr. Holmes. Tiny Mr. Holmes had a machete with a long blade. He was ready to swing and cut into the wad which could not move and so it could not be the Prime Mover or the Leviathan. Such vastness could not be uncorked. It must include the stupid. Of what use is a Stupid Universe? If it has immense intelligence from superb also supernatural knowledge then it must include the stupid. It was without innovation, lacking a twist. All things in their places are the best (Aristotle). Take care of your tools and they will take care of you. Too bad, so sad, we got fire, fission, wheels, flight, chemicals, orange blades of grass, civilization, culture, bipeds and trees, single cells, Big Bang vs Big Boil and poof! atoms and less, more fragments, it was gone and defragged? Mr. Holmes wasn’t swinging, he was shaking, me. I was awake. Awake? Well not dreaming.

Mr. Holmes - Up now. Breakfast. And he was shaking me by the shoulders. Awake? Breakfast, I daresay it would be just the thing.

Me -  If only you had a longer machete.

Mr. Holmes - What?

Me - OK, OK I’m going. Up I go and maybe awake.

I stepped through the open door and started the slight left turn and one step up to the lower landing and saw something. It was there on the floor at the back of the recessed darkness under the flight of stairs (a quick right and up from the landing). It maybe was where others before us had put gardening tools. There were no outside sheds. What I saw was blue. A little bigger than a quarter. It was hazy, like clouds in front of it. It was watching me. Was I awake? I saw a dim gleam of metal beside the light. It was the toggle switch and it was up! Meaning it was on!

I felt like I could die any second. Too sudden for me. Why now? I wasn’t prepared. This was unfair. I backed away to the door. Not looking at anything except the blue light, the indicator. I pushed the door open by reaching behind me. Mr. Holmes made an indistinct sound. I was nearly in the room still backing away going toward the bed. Mr. Holmes came over. The door had shut, he opened it - Good heavens!

He came over to me. I would not look at him. Why did he bring that damn thing here? I said nothing.

Do understand my dear boy. Go upstairs, call this number (on a paper he gave me). Call Janusz and tell him to bring his typewriter and paper. Tell him it is an extremely urgent emergency! The thing has exerted itself!

I would not go through the door. I put my chair under the East window and grunted my way outside. I returned the same way.

Mr. Holmes - The box could not be far away. It was placed in a neglected area. Janusz did not know it was here. I beseech you my old friend, I felt it was for the best.

I croaked - Really?

In a very short time, J arrived. He knew it was there, that is, he saw it on his way in. He got it and put it on my card table. He had my chair and the typewriter was in front of the box. Mr. Holmes stood by his chair. He was looking at the door. With regret? He continued watching the door. Until I yelped. I stared at the box, at the eye, from a far corner of the bed, I really really wanted to be anywhere but here.

Mr. Holmes, in a commanding voice began to speculate about the Etruscans, or so I thought it was speculation. What the heck?

Mr. Holmes - They had become identifiable by 700 BC. Mystery about them was tainted by later corrosive contact with the Romans. But the language remains a mystery. Could be a connection with shreds from Lemnos in the North Aegean Sea. Then there is Raetic from an Alpine region north of Verona. I wonder if it is hearing this? All the better if it does.

continued Mr. Holmes - Janusz (who had only been staring at the typewriter, no looks at the box) please insert your paper and recite after me: “How and why was the Etruscan language not Indo-European?”

J did as he was told. Thereafter, he then went back to staring at the typewriter. Mr. Holmes resumed watching the door. My vision was glued to the blue sinister and silent light. Nietzsche would have liked what could be beyond... beyond whatever you cared to name like the box with the light. Maybe I was going to vomit. Something was going to happen. Maybe ten minutes went by. I wished for some release, I was too young to die, so what else was there to do?

I let out a yelp. Good word, if a cross between a yell and a cry (Victorian usage) for help. I gulped and it hurt an awful lot.

It moved! J and Mr. Holmes snapped a look at me, then at the box. The blue light was out. But the sound of the toggle switch, looking like a small baseball bat, going down, shutting off, frightened me and startled me. Holy cow, it was loud! Rather unnecessarily I pointed at the box. Now I felt fine. I smiled. I suppressed a laugh. I thought it would hurt J’s feelings. But then he was the jerk that could have ruined us all. Now I felt like slugging him.

Calmly, Mr. Holmes said to J - You have a fine machine. What remains is worth much and will be a powerful influence in its field.

J didn’t say a word. He carefully put the typewriter in its case. He left the paper. I kept it as a memento, an exhibit. J picked up the box and left.

No breakfast.

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I sleepwalked through normalizing the next few days. Mr. Holmes put a tiny ad on our page proclaiming the superiority of the Holmes Factor over any other crypto technique - should it come to primes. He was like the Queen in our chess game - in a position of enormous potential. A bluff? Sherlock Holmes? Consider the track record.

He also visited the Hobby and Invention shop where J and John were getting on with it. Mr. Holmes was there for a short time and then left by the back way. John by then was tending to affairs behind the front counter. Then a Zeegler entered the shop. John alertly watched the smiling Zeegler. Then another Zeegler entered the shop. John reached under the counter for the revolver kept there for certain situations. Next to the revolver was the police button. The first Zeegler held up his hand, smiled, and said “No need.” The second Zeegler turned around and faced John and also smiled and held up his hands and said “No need.” John did not touch the revolver nor press the button. Then more Zeeglers entered. One came from the back room. In all there were ten Zeeglers in the shop so the shop was packed with Zeeglers. All were animatedly asking questions about merchandise. All seemed well informed as the questions were to the point, no fluff. In all they bought a ton of equipment and supplies. All paid cash. They exited as a group except for one who had a radio in each hand that we put down as he began to remove his disguise.

I actually have no need for these radios, I get the news I need from the weather report, and as he said that, he glanced at the newspaper open on the counter to the weather page. Nevertheless, please accept this purchase price and may I donate it to a raffle on behalf of Janusz so that he might start up his translation and editing company? The last of the disguise had been removed.

Mr. Holmes!

I tarried a bit out back before setting off. I saw the visitation unfold. Tell Janusz I will match whatever is raised in the raffle that will benefit his company.

Most generous of you, sir.

Ah, but I am not of the peerage, though your appreciation is acknowledged.

Later I asked how Mr. Holmes was prepared to don a Zeegler disguise.

After the Moonlight and the Arrow of Time adventure, as you term it, I placed certain items in my coat’s vast inner pockets in order to be prepared for such an eventuality, however slight I regarded the prospect.

No arm bands or headbands?

Certainly not.

Much later, with the dust more settled and the motes long gone, I craved a chess game, a truly absorbing one.

Me - How about a nice game of chess? Sure beats Global Thermonuclear War. Or tic tac toe?

Eh?

Chess it is. May I have White?

Let us endorse the time honored approach.

He picked up a cream pawn and a red pawn. Now he put them behind his back and then extended his fists fingers down. I did not want to touch him, so I pointed.

I lost. As always, Mr. Holmes pulled no punches. In compensation I wanted breakfast. That other breakfast had been missed and served without me. I went upstairs. I asked Mom for breakfast. Ordinarily such a request was instantly dismissed as foolishness. There were rigid times for the three meals per day. Not there? Didn’t like it and said so? Then in either case no ill feelings, but you didn’t eat. Maybe the stress of events in the QE vein had been showing. She knew something had been up. I needed to get down and stay there. I got breakfast. All the trimmings. Nothing was said except I thanked Mom. Breakfast as the emblem of Normality. I could resume.

The End

Sherlock in Cheyenne: The Adventure of the Night Rain

Before I arrived here, I would have bouts of sleeplessness mostly due to life itself. But sleeplessness here comes from what was then (now) caused by, for example, test worries, a particularly intense argument with Duane, or how I could not always live up to my expectations for myself. I was (am) sorting out what I wanted to be from who I was becoming.

So I was awake one summer night when it continued to be hot and dry and all Sun during the day. In the basement, it was cool enough so that nothing but shorts was passable. If not, the sweat was on me. Mr. Holmes had to modify his usual wardrobe if out during the day. He gave up the cloak and coat topside. He made no modification below the belt.

As I could not sleep, I thought I heard mosquitos flying close to the pipes and wiring above us. Coming from the west side of the basement and passing overhead and out the eastern side. They were in formation, so it sounded. That last feature kept me awake.

Mr. Holmes? – I inquired.

Yes. (He was there in the armchair in the dark, as he now sometimes does.)

Do you hear it?

Yes.

Mosquitoes?  My tone was of disbelief.

I think not, planes.

Here? Above us?

To be sure, perhaps quite high in the sky.

Oh, sheepishly I said. (I might not have been as awake as I thought. Of course, not in the basement, whatever they might be.)

In the morning, I found myself alone. In the afternoon Mr. Holmes was in the armchair after I came downstairs from a visit to the bathroom the family shared.

Mr. Holmes said the Air Force officials at the Base had no knowledge of their aircraft doing W to E night formation flying. In addition, on our page in the newspaper was an article on how the prevailing winds had been carrying aloft insects of all kinds, - some more noisy than others. The Base story was, no doubt, true and the insects aloft was, no doubt, false.

I slept OK, for a few more nights. Then I was awake as the sound, seemingly from very far away, persisted again for perhaps a few minutes. So they could be very high and slow? An inquiry of Mr. Holmes got no result. He wasn’t in the armchair. He explained at daylight for me that he had been outside when they came “buzzing,” as I chose to call it. In succeeding nights, Mr. Holmes again was outside when they did their flyover.

I wasn’t thinking much of them any longer until Mr. Holmes read another article on our page about unexpected but appreciated rainfall on ranchland to the N and E of Cheyenne. Nothing out there but cattle, some on open range, and scruffy plants, dirt, dust, and narrow disheartening paths lacking connection to any significant landscape features. In other words, flat as flat could be. Easterly you could keep going to Pine Bluff and across the border to Kimball and veering more northerly you got to Scottsbluff. Mr. Holmes was proposing to head out at night to go as far as he need go.

Before he started out, I related to him what I had overheard at school in a conversation on the second floor above the gym in “the Cage” at one end of the gym. A guy (1) I didn’t know at all was relating to a guy (2) I sort of knew who was willing to take the place of (1) in the kill ball battle below. They would get a count soon to go down into the gym. Maybe a hundred on a side. Time was running out for our gym session. This would be the last consignment. So (1) in appreciation was telling (2) in a broad brag how he, the night before, had been in a car, smoking, and with a girl at a location East of town. He (1) didn’t have a driver’s license. He estimated he was due East of Cheyenne. Maybe half an hour from town. Rain got the windshield wet, enough so that he turned on the wipers. He heard something, maybe not very high, going along a line to the N and S of him. She heard it too, but only he saw what to him looked like model airplanes starting to ascend. The Moon, like in a different Universe, had its light to come thrown up before its rise and briefly some of them got caught in what the Moon was doing.

(The mention of model airplanes reminded me of my brief, but intense, infatuation with flying model airplanes. So expensive and not radio-controlled. It was a model of a single engine Piper Cub. It had wires attached to it and to handheld controls. It needed gas to fly. Also, a large open space was required. I misjudged how open it had to be on the maiden flight and slammed it into the ground as I dodged a high fence. I was bringing it down short of the fence and was then to go upward and onward, but I only got the downward part of it accomplished. That thing was so darn expensive! I had such limited funds that the smash-up was like a physical hit to me. It was representative of a failure to be able to have what was often so feverishly and fervently desired and unattainable because of cost. I wasn’t in an unheated basement with a card table for a desk for the heck of it.)

So then Mr. Holmes resolved to go East in search of the rain. He started out at night. Before sunup he was into ranch country. With the Sun coming up, he then sat down, placed his cloak over his head, pulled his hat far down and put his hands into his pockets. He looked something like a cloth brown pear. There he sat all day. At night he began to walk. He walked three nights East and then three nights North, and then he walked the hypotenuse back.

All the land he traversed was the same. There were different stars in different parts of the sky. Without them you could have flipped the land for the sky and have just as well walked the sky – however disorienting that might have been had you known of the reversal. Otherwise, in reality the sameness was not endearing. Mr. Holmes walked less quietly than he could have to give his presence a referral for himself. Each of those nights the planes came, low and slow. Of course they didn’t have wires attached. And it rained. After that, they went up and seemed to rendezvous at the highest point in the sky. Naturally, Mr. Holmes collected samples of the rain.

Once back to the basement and our chemistry lab, Mr. Holmes checked out the what were ostensibly water samples. Not much exciting about the results. The samples were loaded with histidine. It is an amino acid we need but don’t have natively; we get it from outside our selves – in food. Well now, They are providing us with something we need? As Mr. Holmes and I well know, the question is, what else is involved here? Certainly Their SOP is that they are up to no good.

After his monumental trek, Mr. Holmes sat in his armchair for hour after hour. He didn’t want to be disturbed. I studied, went upstairs for family life, and out and about for astronomy club meetings, chess with Duane, sports, and girl-boy interaction at school. Mr. Holmes only sat. He was thinking, it was plain, and this could be sensed, that he wasn’t getting clear of dead ends. When he looked at me, if I stood in front of the armchair for an extended period, he had a look of frustration and restlessness. He clearly needed a purpose. Take his mind off. We didn’t know that more progress on the implications of the night rain, provided courtesy of Them, would have to await my singing and the appearance of “rancher’s disease.” In the meantime, I was looking through recent editions of the newspaper in a more or less idle manner, when I came across articles on a kidnap case right here in Cheyenne. A twelve-year-old had been taken. A suspect was in custody. Despite this, nothing was known about the whereabouts of the kidnapped person. I hesitated to mention the case to Mr. Holmes. I didn’t want to be seen as telling him what to do, but this could neutralize the impasse regarding small airplanes that delivered rain spiked with histidine.

Mr. Holmes are you aware… No, that was wrong, of course he knew about it. Even though it is not on “our page” in the Cheyenne newspaper, it has been the talk of the town and I have seen him at least purview the entire paper. So…

Mr. Holmes, would you consider being of assistance in the matter of the kidnapping the paper has referred to these last few days?

Perhaps, although my histidine analysis in the laboratory must continue apace. I will give it at least a brisk concern. Thank you for reminding me of the case. (Well, in truth he had been doing more putzing about the lab of late.)

I know you are reluctant to intervene, but this is really an unusual case for Cheyenne.

Yes, certainly. I will make inquiries. In due time, if you insist.

(Well that wasn’t hard. Mr. Holmes might even solve the case. What am I saying? Of course it is as good as done.)

It turned out that “unofficially” Mr. Holmes had surreptitiously examined the diary and two notes allegedly written by the suspect. The case against him mainly rested on these documents and the suspect, somewhat mentally challenged, could not recall his whereabouts at the time of the kidnapping. Anyway, the suspect said he had no diary. The diary showed planning for the kidnapping. The notes were drafts of what the suspect was purported to have sent to the victim’s parents. Also, Mr. Holmes entered the suspect’s residence without need of an invitation or a warrant and found a grocery list, greasy, under the kitchen stove. It was a lengthy list, maybe the suspect visited the store once a month. Mr. Holmes decided the handwriting of the notes and diary were by the same hand but not by the suspect’s efforts since the grocery list was not in a handwriting identical to the diary and notes – close, but no cigar. One item on the grocery list was circled, “kielbasa.” Mr. Holmes went to the grocery store nearest the suspect’s residence. That store had all the items on the grocery list except for kielbasa. Mr. Holmes inquired where it could be purchased in Cheyenne. Two stores (butcher shops) were the only possibilities. Mr. Holmes went to the one closest to the grocery store the suspect must have frequented.

This butcher shop had specialties of the house. It didn’t have a TV, must mind the cuts, so radio was preferred. They mostly read Polish sources for news. Nevertheless, Mr. Holmes showed a photo of the suspect to the proprietor and he recognized him. Turns out he was a regular customer for items only this shop had on hand. He arrived the day of the kidnapping slightly before noon. He was still in the shop when a local radio station put out the latest installment of “You Be the Detective” which had audience participation to the extent that clues were dropped to enable listeners to pick the villain from among the suspects. The current show could be one in a series involving a case with a persistent crook and the same suspects show to show. At some point, the announcer said enough evidence had built up to the point that listeners should mail in their cards and letters containing the ID of the bad guy. If more than one listener got it right, then one of those entries was drawn from a hat and that listener got ten dollars.

The butcher shop’s owner and employees were devotees of the show and often didn’t get orders out as fast as usual. So the suspect, not in a hurry if he got back to work in time, listened along with them. The suspect got caught up in the show. Then his kielbasa was ready. He had missed the 12:15 bus but as the show ended he hurried out at about 12:30 and caught the 12:45 bus as a woman remembered who also left the shop at the same time as the suspect. She rode the same bus.

Mr. Holmes – Now, now, this was most interesting since the crime was committed sometime between noon and 12:30 of the day the radio show aired. The victim had gone to study in a bedroom for a short time while at lunch and home from school. The mum checked on the victim at 12:30 since it was time to return to school. The victim could not be found.

Me- Well then, obviously the suspect is innocent. Why didn’t he tell them about the butcher shop visit to begin with?

He suffers from befuddlement of memory at times. Under stress he remembered going to the grocers but not that he had also gone to the butcher shop. His stress is understandable as the police can be quite positive that they have their man.

Then the diary and notes are bogus.

It would appear so.

Mr. Holmes presented the grocery list and what amounted to testimony of the butcher shop crowd to the police. He asked that the suspect be allowed to read the diary. (Well well, he hadn’t seen it yet?) After doing so, he said only one other person, dead a few years ago, knew of some events in the diary that put the suspect in a bad light. Mr. Holmes thought the death of the companion of the suspect had not occurred and the only support for his death was from a letter proclaiming to the suspect his soon to be realized demise due to cancer. The suspect wrote to the mother to mourn the passing of the buddy. The previously hostile mother did not respond directly. She alluded to the continued good health of her son and wanted no more to do with the suspect.

Mr. Holmes – I deduced that the former friend of the suspect had forged a diary and the notes, copying the handwriting from their correspondence that had a long history. The “friend” had formed an active dislike of the suspect because the suspect clung tenaciously and irrationally to their no longer existing friendship. The companion wanted to move on from what had become a mental burden that oppressed him. The mother was innocent enough, she had no knowledge of the deed. She gave out some locales where her son was apt to be. Her son and the victim were found. The police crudely entered the hiding place without an attempt at surprise. The kidnapper shot the victim five times – with an air gun. The kidnapper got one bullet in the shoulder.

OK, that diverted Mr. Holmes for a time. But it wasn’t long before he was in the lab again – investigating the degradative pathway of histidine that yielded biochemical facts of no use to Mr. Holmes in his present predicament. He was beside himself with frustration and not able to shape events to his liking. His “black dog” was cozying up to him. Maybe even this mood jumped up into his lap as he sat there again for hour after hour.

Meanwhile, out of the chair, Mr. Holmes had inched close to a desirable outcome. A critical mass was approaching. On “our page,” the newspaper related how a “rancher’s disease” was making itself known. Some cattle ranchers E and N of town were becoming ill. No one of them had the same symptoms despite it being called a disease. Mr. Holmes was certain They provided rains for plants that the cattle ate. The ranchers ate the cattle, as steaks. Well, at least most them had steak. One rancher Mr. Holmes had met here in town at a saloon had no illness. He was a vegetarian, pretty unusual, given the time and place. But there it was. And, too, another rancher, a steak-eater, was not ill either. He had a skin problem and covered up when outside so the Sun couldn’t worsen his condition. Skin vs. vegetarianism. Same side of a cognitive coin? Or two separate paths leading away from illness?

Continuing to divert Mr. Holmes, I invited Mr. Holmes to accompany me to the Veterans Administration Hospital for a performance by my school’s choir. It was late in the school year and the music department wanted this annual, up to now, event to continue. We got out of school early to be bussed to the VA. There were girls. The boys wore black shoes, black pants and white short-sleeved shirts. Girls were in white tops and black dresses and black shoes. No uniforms, just get the colors right and sing loudly. (Mostly we shouted.) A choirmaster popped up occasionally and we went through the repertoire in a desultory way. Anyone listening was in a wheelchair. Maybe five. I felt good about doing it, though I knew I wasn’t going to do it again.

At the end, I needed a visit to a restroom pronto. I found one and then I got lost. They were battleship gray walls and unmarked corridors with recessed doorways. Confusing. After thinking this wandering had gone on for entirely too long, I heard a crash near an entryway that had “Laboratory” (handwritten in pencil) over the door. I knocked. No answer. I went in and found a very short man in the ubiquitous VA gray smock, with the name “Grady” on it, sweeping up a broken Erlenmeyer. Obviously some kind of biochemistry lab. Column chromatography, tabletop centrifuges, and a spectrophotometer on wooden shelves of a homebrew carpentry effort piled on the counter space proper. It was a large closet crammed, utterly crammed, with whatever Grady thought necessary.

His hair was straight back from the forehead and temples with streaks of gray. He had on goggles, steamed by the warmth of the close and confining space, over his very thick blue lenses that were in a huge black frame. There was also a tremendous drooping grayish moustache. Clean shaven otherwise but restless in the face from agitating thoughts. Not agitation of a rough sort but of a brilliant sort, as I came to surmise. Off came the goggles and he saw me.

Me – I heard the smash.

Grady – Forgot to get the goggles off. Had some acid somewhere here. But I couldn’t find it what with the steam. I found a flask, I don’t need it, I mean not now, may be in a few days and now I won’t have it so I have to find another – flask, I mean. So where is the acid? How’s Holmes?

What? Who? Uh, I…

Saw him lurking about in the shadows of the Visitors Gallery above the choir. I was passing by from the dining hall. (He was assistant manager of Dining Services).

He came on his own. He is my tutor.

Detective?

Why lie? Ah, I, er… well he is an amateur sleuth.

Awfully good for an amateur – solving that kidnapping.

Oh well sometimes he gets lucky. (And I saw, on a small blackboard propped up on a wooden shelf high up, the word “histidine” and then symbols.)

Me – histidine?

Holmes interested in that?

Why would he be interested?

The rains over the ranchland are full of it.

So?

So, doesn’t Holmes like a good mystery?

Well I suppose Mr. Holmes has as much interest as the next newspaper reader.

Oh come on. Mr. Holmes? I have seen him about town asking pointed questions about all sorts of things, including these rains. I’ve seen you two near the junior high more than once. I live in the area.

Well he is my tutor. (About here I was ready to give it up and confess a true Sherlock Holmes-like personage was known to me.)

Grady – Tell him about the degradative pathway of histidine. Especially about urocanase.

OK.

He turned his back to me, and he was repeatedly saying “acid” as I decided enough had been said.

I walked home. In the basement was Mr. Holmes with perfunctory congrats on the choir’s effort. He wanted to know where had I got to.

I got lost after a trip to the restroom.

Indeed? Then you must have walked home.

Yeah, and while lost in the VA I came across a lab and a guy named Grady in that lab. I tried to ward off his probing about your identity. I am sorry to say I got you down as an amateur.

Never mind and never fear. I can play ignorant if need be.

He knew what you did concerning the kidnapping. He is convinced we are more than student and tutor.

Hm, I may have to have a word with him.

By all means do so, his chalkboard was pertaining to histidine. He thought you are interested in the night rains and he said to tell you about Euro cane us.

Urocanase?

Isn’t that what I said?

With allowances, yes. Remarkable! A kindred spirit. I certainly must visit him.

I can’t help you find him. I don’t know where his lab is located. He has some association with Dining Services at the VA.

Mr. Holmes encountered Grady in the VA cafeteria as Grady was wiping down tables.

Grady – Ah, Mr. Holmes, I presume?

And you are no doubt Mr. Grady.

Ah, well it is Grady to one and all. I told your “student” what I believe to be the key to the rancher's disease as caused by the rains after the sun goes down.

Mr. Holmes – Yes, urocanase. And in its cis form brought on by exposure to sunlight. Isomerization.

Grady – From the UV of the Sun. Photoactivation.

Mr. Holmes – Of course! The urocanase resides in the stratum corneum epidermidis, a part of what is otherwise known imprecisely as the skin, then it must subsequently adversely affect a rancher. This happens in the plant to steak to rancher scheme when the histidine (too much in the rain) is broken down enroute and sunlight is brought into it.

Grady – Yeah, immunity gets out of whack.

Mr. Holmes – May I ask what is your source for the urocanase?

Grady - Pseudomonas putida. Not here in this lab. In my lab at home. I have also been checking on bacteria of the skin.

As he talked, Grady was still wiping as he went from table to table, and looked this way and that with a swift motion of his head.

Grady – Have to do it at home, can’t get permission for biological growth from the VA, budget too strict. No proper lab here.

Mr. Holmes followed Grady’s glances and saw a person, arms folded, watching Grady.

Mr. Holmes – You dare not stop?

Right. While on duty, no “malingering” is tolerated.

Mr. Holmes – Should we meet elsewhere?

This is OK, I really haven’t got much more to say. The data and analysis are done. The best of the rest is synthesis or, in this case, action. To stop the rain.

Mr. Holmes, in his full regalia, all tweed, had been standing ramrod straight with his umbrella hooked over an arm that was in a pocket. His other arm he held across his waist. He was bemused by the ad hoc conference they were having. Certainly Grady was his kind of person. Grady was moving in jerky sweeps of tables, he moved his body in large exaggerated sweeps to demonstrate what was being done could obviously be seen by the one watching him. He appeared to be half the height of Mr. Holmes and as he spoke he literally barked out the words, making his body jump like a little dog that would put its body into jumping with each bark so the front legs left the ground. Grady’s head went up for as long as words were said. Grady had no need of his blue lenses for table wiping. The ubiquitous smock was extra large today. He was watching whoever was watching him and glancing at Mr. Holmes. So it was visual contact with the supervisor and auditory contact with Mr. Holmes.

Mr. Holmes mostly watched Grady but he occasionally looked over at the supervisor. Once Mr. Holmes made penetrating eye contact even from that distance and the supervisor moved back and rubbed his eyes.

Mr. Holmes – Yes, the rain is the culprit. It will be stopped, I promise you. Do you have other projects to research?

Grady gave a swift look of annoyance at Mr. Holmes.

Mr. Holmes – Oh, of course, and I wish you all the best and thank you for your time.

Yea bye, said Grady.

Me – So, OK, Mr. Holmes, this Grady knows his stuff, right?

Indeed. A researcher needing to accomplish more and so he shall.

Are you to talk to the VA research committee?

I have done so. Grady’s efforts will be greatly enhanced to such an extent that he need no longer have Dining Service duties.

Ah, Mr. Holmes, you don’t only thwart Them you further others’ work here.

This furtherance may not be intended, but it certainly is not harmful.

Collateral fallout.

I must add, we, are so involved.

Thanks.

The Air Base was put on notice by Mr. Holmes through Dr. Kipowitz. In four nights time, they would act against Them. It would take that long to bring in the proper “agent” as they put it. So Mr. Holmes departed that night for parts E and N. He traversed the country as he had before -  an immobile “pear” by day and at a walk by night. On the fourth night, the planes had come over him. They rose to the great zenith. Mr. Holmes stood facing West in the direction of the Air Base. At the horizon, there was a vague grumble though it had to be a blast and a roar at the origin. A hurtful flash of light came next. Then this light elongated into a straw of destruction and, as it zoomed upward toward the zenith and its planes, the thin shaft of light became foreshortened and as a stub it closed in on the top of the sky. It disappeared and then Mr. Holmes had to wince repeatedly as jumps of light were propelled across the uppermost Zone like firecrackers in a zig-zag, hundreds of them. There was no crash nor ash, the sky had no sounds nor remnants to offer. Mr. Holmes blinked away the afterimages and immediately set out for Cheyenne.

Once Mr. Holmes returned, I decided to try some kielbasa and I won ten bucks by listening to the radio. The creek just north of us became wet for a time and I swear I swatted mosquitos every night for a week.

The End