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Copyright © 2007
Jeff Falkingham

The Stranger

It seems Mr. Holmes came from London, England, where he'd lived quite a few years with an associate named Dr. Watson. This associate had come to the United States several months earlier to study up on the latest surgical practices, or something. In San Francisco, Watson met a woman, and within two days, he had decided he wanted to marry her, according to a message he wired to Mr. Holmes.

The two men had been confirmed bachelors for a long time, so this news was both surprising and disturbing to Mr. Holmes. He decided to come to America to meet the woman, and to check in with his friend. He eventually caught up with them in Minnesota, where Dr. Watson had come to study with Dr. Mayo. (Apparently the whole world had heard of Dr. Mayo's work in the Rochester area after the killer tornado of '83.)

Mr. Holmes wouldn't tell Pa what he thought of Dr. Watson's new fiancee. But he must not have liked her, because he didn't stay in Rochester very long. Saying he missed the hustle and bustle of big city life, he headed up to St. Paul. That's where he read about the dispute over the location of the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

On a whim, he went to visit Fort Snelling. There, he climbed a turret overlooking the spot where the Minnesota River joins the Mississippi. For hours, he stared into the confluence of these two great bodies of rushing water. Eventually, he was able to forget about Watson and his female friend and concentrate on the sight below. Then suddenly, it struck him: It was not the river from the north that was the stronger -- it was the river from the west. The river flowing down from the north was merely a tributary. The river from the west was the true Father of Waters.

Mr. Holmes then recalled another article he'd read in the morning newspaper. It told of the discovery of more iron ore in northern Minnesota. He spent the next two days taking water and silt samples from all three rivers: the one from the north, the one from the west, and the mighty one that flows onward from their junction. The samples all confirmed his theory. Finally he consulted a map, then boarded a train bound for the Dakota Territories.

Upon his arrival in Brown's Valley, Holmes finds the tiny border town embroiled in a bitter battle with a neighboring town over the site of the Traverse County Seat. Holmes has no interest in sticking around long enough to help the town solve its problems -- until the native guide he has hired is suddenly found murdered. When it becomes evident this may be just one in a series of murders, Holmes is hooked.

With the help of two mixed-blood locals -- a tribal policeman named Iron Will and a blacksmith's apprentice named Muley -- Holmes races to solve the mystery, before a member of the town's founding family becomes the killer's next victim. The search for evidence crisscrosses much of Minnesota and the Dakotas -- and a quarter-century of history -- before culminating in a thrilling final conflict. All the while, Holmes is shadowed, and occasionally helped (or is it hindered?), by our young narrator.