New Title 1

by Campbell, J R

  by Ian Millsted

  Beaconsfield Cottage 21st January 1971

  Dear Ralph, In response to your enquiry about unpublished writings by my great-aunt I can only offer the enclosed. It was bundled up with her private letters but seems to be a missing prologue to her account of her travels in the Rocky Mountains. You will see, on reading it, why she would have chosen to omit this section from her published account. I offer it to you in your position as her biographer but request you do not use it. Even now, I do not want to see her placed in a position of public ridicule. There can be many explanations for what she describes in this incident. All I can say in response to what she writes is that the woman I met, when she was very old and I was very young, was the most lucid and rational that I ever met.

  Virginia Johnston.

  From the journal of Miss Arabella Crowe

  *** After travelling by steamboat from Hawaii, I arrived in Portland on the 10th March 1899. I was eager to make my way into the mountains as quickly as possible to see all that might be seen while the weather was favourable. I was able to travel by Northern Pacific Railway inland as far as Spokane where I was advised to seek a professional guide. It was on making enquiries as to the same that I first encountered Professor Challenger, whose career I have subsequently followed with interest but little surprise. He was then only recently in receipt of his professorship, around ten years younger than myself and was using his newly gained tenure to take some time to explore Jurassic excavations in the American north-west. He was clearly a man on any number of missions.

  I had booked a room at the Washington Hotel, having been advised by the railway porter that it was the most suitable in town, and that if I was lucky they might even have the special on for dinner that evening. After a light afternoon meal and a reviving coffee, I asked to be directed to where I might be able to employ a professional guide to take me into the mountains. It transpired that the only such guide that could be recommended was a Mr William Yates. The late afternoon was sunny and warm, so I walked along the main street to the boarding house where Mr Yates was said to be located. I arrived at the same time as a gentleman walking from the other direction who followed me up the steps to the boarding house porch. In response to my knock at the door a woman I presumed to be the landlady asked who I was calling for. My mention of the name Yates prompted an exclamation from the gentleman behind me.

  “ I fear, dear lady, given you share my accent and are asking after the very same name as I had intended to enquire for, that we are in competition for the services of the same guide. I believe he may find my offer of employment more lucrative that the day excursion I presume you are requiring.”

  “You fear correctly and presume incorrectly,” I said. The man laughed loudly. He was of less than average height for a man but broad and exuded greater presence than many a taller male.

  “I will not presume again,” he said. “My name is Professor Challenger.” “ Arabella Crowe,” I said. “I intend to employ Mr Yates for two months while I travel in the mountains. For how long are you looking to employ him?”

  “I have a little under two months before I am due back in Edinburgh.” At that point we were both shown into a small parlour where a lean and elderly man stood by an oak bureau. The landlady introduced us both to ‘Mr Yates’ and scuttled off, leaving us to our business. The Professor, under cover of being gentlemanly, let me make my offer first although I am sure he merely meant me to speak first in order that he could make an offer that would trump mine.

  “ Mr. Yates,” said Challenger, “I am a professor tenured at Edinburgh University having taken my own degree there. I believe the mountains to the east of here offer opportunities for paleontological discovery and I will pay generously.”

  “Bones, ya’mean,” said Yates, his diction obscured by constant chewing on, I assumed, some kind of tobacco. “You want to find some of them old lizard bones.”

  Challenger nodded. Yates turned to me.

  “And you just want to travel into the mountains t’see whatever there might be?”

  It was not how I would have put it, but for the sake of argument I agreed. “Well, might as well make it a party of three. I’ll take you both up on your offers of payment and I can guide you both. I’ll meet you both at the front of the Hotel at noon tomorrow and we can make a start from there.”

  As we left Professor Challenger asked me about the Washington Hotel. I gave what little account I could. We walked together to the hotel and I left him to negotiate with the reception clerk while I went to rest before changing for dinner.

  The dining hall of the hotel was dimly lit, with a scattering of tables. There were a dozen of us that evening and all but Professor Challenger were eating in company. He, however, was sat at a table which allowed room for only one diner. He was engrossed in what might have been a scientific journal and although he noticed as I entered the room he did not acknowledge me in any way that suggested I ought to join him. I was therefore also seated on my own but at a table close to Challenger.

  The chef, or ‘cook’ might be a more accurate term, recommended the casserole special. The local residents seemed to all be eating steak. I asked the cook about this, as politely as I could and he muttered something about saving the special for a particular type of traveller. I made it a point on my travels to try new dishes. In Hawaii this approach had resulted in some wonderful meals. Here, however, the experience was less good. Professor Challenger also had the special and said, as he passed my table on the way out, that he thought the cook was passing old meat off on us.

  We travelled for five days through foothills and into increasingly steeper paths. The thick forest gradually gave way to sparser vegetation, allowing us clearer views of the land around us, although we regularly dropped back down into wooded valleys. Riding through the forest required one or two fewer layers of clothing than when we were up in the mountains. Neither Challenger nor Yates made any comment about my preference for riding astride a horse rather than side saddle although I noted sidelong glances when we first left Spokane.

  On the sixth day, Yates said we were now officially in the Rocky Mountains, although the terrain did not appear any different to that we had travelled through the day before. He had promised to take us to a native Indian settlement where we could buy more food and to allow Professor Challenger to question them about possible locations of dinosaur bones. He explained that the Indians in these parts spoke a local variation of the Algonquian language but that he knew enough to make our requests understood. While we rode he also told us of the local legends. Professor Challenger was clearly intrigued by the tales of the Sasquatch and I could see another research paper forming in his mind. For my part, I was more interested in the accounts of a spirit being called a wendigo but Yates seemed unsure of what it was supposed to be beyond a story to frighten women with and my interest seemed to throw him off balance somewhat.

  At the Indian village we must have been something of a novelty. Some of the children hid behind their mothers but others were more overcome with curiosity for Challenger’s large beard. As we slid from our saddles some of them, and the adults as well, came over to touch it. My own height, I am one inch less than six feet tall, was also of interest once they realised I was female.

  The sun was already setting and we were invited to share a meal, for which Yates had discreetly given gifts in return. After the food, strips of some meat I had not tasted before, had been eaten we remained sitting in a circle. Yates whispered to us to indicate that the man to the right of the chief was a kind of medicine man and that he had agreed to tell us about their legends.

  “ It is good for a man to hunt and feed his woman and young.” The medicine man’s words, spoken over the flames of the fire in the centre of the circle, were translated for us by Yates. “But, the mountains are harsh and there is not always food. Some men then kill other men to steal their food. This is a deep wrong. But there is something worse. Some men have been known to kill another, not t
o steal their food, but to eat their flesh. The spirit will punish such a wrong. The spirit will send a wendigo.”

  “ It is also good for men to welcome strangers to share their meat,” the speech went on. “To shun the stranger is to invite men to shun you in exchange.”

  After the medicine man had finished, Professor Challenger asked Yates to translate a story of his own. I’ve no idea what the translation was like but the audience was transfixed by the Professor’s performance. His arms waved wildly, his eyes bulged with expression and his voice ranged from stage whisper to gigantic roars. I think Challenger must have been familiar with the scientific romances of Mr. Verne and Mr. Wells for I detected elements from their stories in the offering but the professor told the whole thing as if everything happened to him personally.

  I was given space to sleep that night in a tent, or tepee, with two of the older women of the tribe. I presumed them to be widows. There was a fire in the centre of the tent and smoke drifted up through the gap in the roof. Challenger and Yates chose to sleep under the stars by the remains of the larger fire outside. When we left the next morning I gave each of the women a small gift.

  On the second evening after leaving the Indian village we had travelled high enough into the mountains that we had crossed the snow line. Yates suggested heading for a cave he knew of so that he could get a fire going on the dry ground out of the ice. The distance seemed to be farther than he remembered and we had to ride the last hour in darkness. However the cave itself was large enough to take the horses inside and lay our bedrolls down for the night. Yates cooked a rabbit that Challenger had shot earlier in the day. As we ate Professor Challenger asked me of my travels in Hawaii. I am not unaware of my effect on men. They find me handsome, rather than pretty, and are usually somewhat intimidated by my height and ability to speak directly and for myself. Not so Professor Challenger. He frequently interrupted to divert on some tangential anecdote of his own. I think he could pleasurably have a conversation with no one present but himself.

  I have developed the skill of sleeping deeply yet being able to wake and be fully alert within moments. I believe, therefore, that I was the first to hear the piercing cry. I sat up as the cry continued longer than any of the usual animal sounds of the night to which we had become accustomed. Professor Challenger also pushed himself up to a sitting position. We looked at each other and the question of what we could hear did not need to be spoken aloud.

  The cry ceased but after only a few moments pause it started up again, this time louder and, it seemed, closer. I can best describe it as like the call of a swan or goose that has lost it’s young: a cry of pain and loss and aggression all combined in one. Each time it continued for several whole minutes rather than seconds.

  Yates woke and tried to focus on the noise. “Now, that’s a new one on me,” was all he could say. By now, both Challenger and I were up on our feet and the professor was loading his rifle. I went to the fire and tried to stoke up the embers into something that gave a flame that might be used to ward off whatever was clearly coming closer. Once the fire was going again I fed more wood onto it. Gradually the fire threw light out so that we could discern the outlines of trees and rocks beyond the mouth of the cave.

  I think we all saw it in the same instant. A shadow, a silhouette shape moved slowly on the fringes of our eyesight but it was clearly coming closer. “It’s a human,” I said.

  “Or one of the primate family, at least,” Professor Challenger felt the need to add. “Fascinating.”

  “Could be a bear,” said Yates, “but I ain’t never heard a noise like that before.” As the thing reached the shelf of rock that jutted out from the cave entrance it became clear it was neither bear nor ape nor man. It was upright like a human but had no skin. The arms and legs were a mass of tendons or nerves or veins but of grotesque thickness and all intertwined. So too the torso, but the substance there was even thicker. The face was like a skull but with wisps of smoke swirling around and something loomed out of the eye sockets; not eyes, but some kind of white, the kind of white which is an absence of colour. It gave another cry.

  Challenger raised his rifle to his shoulder and, gentleman that he is, called out a warning. The creature’s only response was to take another step towards us. Challenger shot once. I’m sure he was on target. I knew he was an excellent shot from seeing him hunt game on the trail and the target here was not now any great distance away. I’m also sure I saw the brief impact on the chest of the thing where a heart should be. The creature stood straight and the things that were not quite eyes looked at us.

  The cry stopped. There was a brief silence, and as I look back now I’m sure there were no sounds at all from the forest. Then, another noise came, more like human speech although I do not know how that could be possible from such a mouth space. I recognised what it was saying.

  “Wen-di-go.” Challenger shot twice more but with no more effect than before. Yates took a burning stick from the fire and threw it at the thing but the flame simply snuffed out on impact like a candle in a vacuum.

  “Wen-di-go.”

  “It’s come to punish us,” said Yates. “You heard the old Indian.”

  “But he talked of a spirit which punished those who ate human flesh,” said Challenger.

  “The Indians must’ve fed us some,” said Yates. The wendigo being was now in the cave mouth. It halted and looked at each of us in turn. After one glance at Yates it concentrated its attention on Challenger and myself.

  On our journey so far I had grown to like Professor Challenger while frequently finding him irritating or infuriating. It was only at this moment that I found reason to admire him. He stepped forward, walking slowly toward the wendigo, and opened his arms wide as he stepped within arm’s length of the thing.

  The wendigo reached an arm forward and touched the front of Challenger’s chest. The smoke that swirled around the skull spread out and started to shroud the whole body. I found it harder to see what was going on, or even to see the wendigo itself. As the smoke eventually disappeared all that was left was Professor Challenger. He tried to turn around but his legs gave way beneath him.

  I rushed to the fallen body and was gratified to see a spark of life in the Professor’s eyes. “It’s in me,” Challenger said. He was clearly struggling to speak but continued anyway. “Not the Indians. Must go back.” At that point he passed out.

  Yates stepped closer and picked up Professor Challenger’s rifle, although he had one of his own.

  “Best shoot him. Give him peace before he wakes up. No one should have to live with that.” I turned on Yates and may have used some unladylike language. Did he not understand what Challenger had done for us? Did he not realise what he was trying to tell us? Yates shrugged and raised the rifle to bear on the Professor’s head. I put myself in front of the gun barrel and told the man to help me get him into the warm.

  I kept vigil for the rest of the night for fear that Yates would make good on his threat to kill Challenger. At first light Challenger regained consciousness enough to mount his horse, with assistance.

  The journey back to Spokane was almost unreal. Yates kept his distance even after I explained it was I who had reason to fear the thing in Challenger, not him, but at least his desire to kill the professor passed. Challenger himself drifted from lucidity to fever but remained physically strong. We detoured around the Indian village. Yates rode off to check on them and came back saying the tribe had moved on. I do not know if he was lying or not.

  It was just before dawn that we finally rode back into Spokane. We made directly for the hotel. Challenger was riding at the front, sitting higher in the saddle than at any time since the night of the wendigo. He led us to the livery attached to the back of the hotel where we dismounted. Yates stayed with the horses.

  “ I would ask you to remain outside, but I know you now too well to believe that you would do so,” said Challenger. He was fully conscious, and aware of what he was doing.

  The
door to the back entrance of the kitchens was not locked, although if it had been I do not think it would have been any obstruction to Challenger. As we walked in we saw the cook that had served us chopping something on the counter. He turned and looked at us; at Challenger. His face went a sickly white and he tried to back away but his legs failed him. I believe he may have been paralysed with fear but I can’t verify that.

  Challenger reached out a hand towards the cook. A mist started to form in the space between Challenger and the cook. As I watched the wendigo shape reform in that mist I recalled the medicine man’s twin warnings against eating human flesh and shunning strangers.

  Once the wendigo form was as complete as it would be Challenger staggered back and I stepped near to support him. The wendigo, meanwhile, reached its own arm toward the cook. He touched the cook’s chest and at once the life went out of the man’s eyes. The cook’s body quickly took on an appearance similar to that of the wendigo until two such creatures were before us. Then, the smoke started to rise again, filling that end of the room. We stood still and watched with an uneasy fascination. After a few minutes the smoke cleared and Challenger and I found ourselves alone in the room.

  Professor Challenger and I ate human flesh. We did so unknowingly. It was served to us by a man who took a perverse pleasure out of killing other human beings. It’s a secret we share and perhaps the reason why we did not choose to meet again. What could we meaningfully have talked about?

  The account of my second journey into the Rocky Mountains was published to some favourable responses. Professor Challenger, of course, went on to even more fantastical travels. I do not believe he knew, when he offered himself to the wendigo, that it would not mean his death. I am grateful to him still.

  CHALLENGER OF TWO WORLDS

  by Tom English [History now regards the late Professor Challenger as one of the greatest figures of the 20th Century. He's chiefly remembered for discovering the Lost World, as chronicled in 1912, warning mankind of the threat of the Poison Belt (as reported the following year), and saving the civilized world -- yet again! -- from the destruction of the Disintegration Machine (finally made known in 1929). But Challenger, the brave explorer and hero to millions, was first and foremost a champion of science. Always on the frontline in the war against ignorance, he once stated, “It [is] the duty of Science to resist retrogressive tendencies....” Challenger initially viewed Spiritism as the result of such tendencies:“...On false premises was built up that belief in spirits or invisible beings outside ourselves....” The professor believed that“Life was a beautiful thing. The man who appreciated its real duties and beauties would have sufficient to employ him without dabbling in pseudo sciences which had their roots in frauds, exposed already a hundred times and yet finding fresh crowds of foolish devotees whose insane credulity and irrational prejudice made them impervious to all argument.” And yet, in the Spring of 1926, while still grieving over the death of his beloved wife, and in spite of his staunch belief in the scientific method, Challenger underwent a startling and curious transformation: He openly embraced Spiritism!