The Dark Design

But I still did not have the money to quit writing fiction long enough to travel around the country interviewing people who'd known him-even if I could have found them. There were some who could have given me details of his careers as a Texas Ranger, a U.S. Marshal in New Mexico, a deputy sheriff in the Oklahoma Territory, a Rough Rider with Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, a soldier in the Philippine Insurrection and the Boxer Rebellion, a horse breaker for the British and possibly as a mercenary for both sides in the Boer War, as a mercenary for Madero in Mexico, as a Wild West show performer, and as the highest-paid movie actor of his time.

The articles about him couldn't be trusted. Even those who claimed to have known him well gave differing accounts of his life. His obituaries were full of contradictions. And I knew that Fox and Universal had put out a lot of publicity stories about him, most of which had to be checked out for exaggeration or downright lies.

The woman who thought she was his first wife had written a biography of him. You'd never know from it that he had divorced her and married twice thereafter. Or had two daughters by another woman. Or that he had a "drinking problem." Or an illegitimate son who was a jeweler in London.

She thought she was his first wife, but, as it turned out, she was his second or third. Nobody's too sure about that.

That he was still a flawless hero to her even after all this says much about the man, though. It says even more about her.

A good friend of mine, Coryell Varoll (you remember him, a circus acrobat, juggler, tightrope walker, gargantuan beer drinker, a Tarzan fan) wrote me about him. In 1964, I think.

"I remember the first time I met him I thought I was meeting God ... over the years, being on the same lot with him many times" (in the circus, he means) "the awe fell apart but he was always liked by most people and always idolized by the kids even after he quit making pix ... I know that sober he was a swell guy, drunk he'd fight at the least excuse and do some of the damnedest things (don't we all?). .. I've a few dozen stories about him that never made the publications. I'll tell them the next time we get together."

But somehow Cory never did.

Even his birthdate was in doubt. His studios and his wife claimed he was born in 1880. The monument near Florence, Arizona (where he died doing 80 mph on a dirt road), says 1880. But there was contrary evidence that it was 1870. Whether he was sixty or seven­ty, though, he looked like a young fifty. He always kept himself in great shape.

Also, a friend who saw him off on his fatal trip said he was driving a yellow Ford convertible. His wife said it was white. So much for eyewitnesses. The studio publicity departments claimed he was born and raised in Texas. I found out myself that that was a lie. He was born near Mix Run, Pe

Just as I was about to write to the War Department to get a copy of his military record-and find out for myself just what he had done in the Army-a novel by Darryl Ponicsan came out. I was stymied again; again, too late. Though the book was semifictional, its author had done the job of research that I'd been pla

So-my hero wasn't the grandson of a Cherokee chief. Nor was he born in El Paso, Texas. And, though he was in the Army, he hadn't been severely wounded at San Juan Hill nor wounded in the Philippines.

Actually, he'd enlisted the day after the Spanish-American War started. I'm sure-as was Ponicsan-that he hoped to get into action. There is no doubt that he had great courage and that he desired to be where the bullets were the thickest.

Instead, he was kept at the fort, then honorably discharged. He thereupon reenlisted. But still, no action. So he deserted in 1902.

He did not go to South Africa, as the studios claimed. Instead, he married a young schoolteacher and went with her to the Oklahoma Territory. Either her father got the marriage a

While working as a bartender, shortly before he went to work for the 101 Ranch in Oklahoma, he married another woman. This didn't work out, and he apparently failed to divorce her, too.

Most of what the studio publicity departments-and Rider him­self-claimed was false. These tales were made up to glamorize a man who did not need it. Rider went along with these tales, maybe made up some himself for the studios. After a while he got to believing them himself. I mean, really believing them. I should know. I've heard him relate almost all of the prevarications, and it's evident that by now the fiction is as genuine as the reality to him.

This blurring of distinction between reality and fantasy in no way interfered with his competency in real life, of course.

He did, however, reject Fox's wish to advertise him as the illegitimate son of Buffalo Bill. That might have started inquiries which would have exposed the whole truth.

And he never says a word about having been a great movie star. He does tell stories about his film experiences, but in these he's always an extra.

Why is he using a pseudonym? I don't know.

His third wife described him as tall, slender, and dark. I suppose that in the early 1900's he would have been considered a tall man, though he's shorter than I am. His slim body does contain steelwire muscles. Farrington is shorter than he but very muscular. He's always after Tom to Indian wrestle him, especially when he (Far­rington) has been drinking. Tom obliges. They put an elbow on the table, lock raised hands, and then try to force each other's hand down to the table. It's a long struggle, but Tom usually wins. Farrington laughs, but I think he's really chagrined.

I've wrestled with both of them, coming out about fifty percent wi

It's important to Farrington. If it is to Tom, he never shows it.

Anyway, it was a thrill to be with these two. It still is, though familiarity breeds, if not contempt, familiarity.

Tom Rider has been up and down The River for hundreds of thousands of kilometers and has three times been killed. Once he was resurrected near the mouth of The River. By near I mean he was only about 20,000 kilometers distant. This was in the arctic region. The River's mouth is, like its headwaters, near the North Pole. However, the two seem to be diametrically opposite, the waters issuing from the mountains in one hemisphere and emptying into the mountains in the other hemisphere.

From what I've heard, there's a sea around the North Pole, and it's walled by a circular mountain which would make Mount Everest look like a wart. The sea pours out of a hole at the base of the mountains, winds back and forth in one hemisphere, finally curving around the South Pole to the other hemisphere. There it wriggles like a snake up and down from the antarctic to the arctic and back again a thousand or so times, and finally empties into the north polar mountains. (Actually, it's one mountain-like a volcanic cone.)

If I drew a sketch of The River, it'd look like the Midgard Serpent of Norse myth, a world-girdling snake with its tail in its mouth.

Tom said that the areas near the mouth are populated chiefly by Ice Agers, ancient Siberians, and Eskimos. There's a scattering of modern Alaskans, upper Canadians, and Russians, though. And some others from everywhere and every time.

Tom, being the adventurer that he is, decided to travel to the mouth. He and six others made some kayaks and paddled down­stream from the land of the living into the wasteland of the fog shrouds. Surprisingly, vegetation grew in the mists and the darkness all the way to the mouth. Also, the grailstones extended for a thousand kilometers into the fog. The expedition had its last grail meal at the last stone and then, laden with dried fish and acorn bread and what they'd saved from the grails, they paddled on, the ever increasing current speeding them toward their goal.