Iceland Spar, Chapter Fourteen: To Hell Ya Ride!

That's how "a local lunatic" (281) refers to Telluride at the beginning of this chapter. I mistakenly thought you'd like to know that. Anyway, it's where Frank is. He's surreptitiously looking around--seemingly--for any sign of his father's killer, and also for this Bulkeley Wells person, a vicious anti-union goon. He has a cover story about coming up with some new industrial process for refining gold. He meets the...boss? well, the "man to see" in Telluride, Ellmore Disco. Another fun name, though I'm afraid its deeper meaning is beyond me. He's a man with an even keel, mostly; "the only people he was ever documented to've shot at were those who, either by word or deed, disrespected one of his hats" (283). Which is fair enough.

He also meets Bob Meldrum, who I had no idea until now was a real guy. He's a gunslinger with a hair-trigger, and he can supposedly get an in with Wells--actually, this whole chapter is really just Frank running around and meeting these people--including Merle Rideout. There's one interesting part where Frank's eating chili with Ellmore:

You've noticed how the smaller a chili pepper gets, the hotter it usually is, right? First thing you learn. Well, these that Loopy's using are small. I mean small, Joven.

"Well Ellmore, how...how small's that?"

"What about...invisible?"

Another veiled reference to the atomic bomb.  I will stake my reputation on it.

The chapter ends extremely bizarrely, with Japanese tourists with cameras causing a commotion. The geopolitics are somewhat obscure, but this seems to have something to do with the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Of course, the cameras also bring back the theme of light. I don't know; it certainly reminds you of the book's main preoccupations.

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