The Case of the Missing Doctor-Part 2, A Mysterious Death and the Devil's Rockpile

March 17, 1873 Middle of Nowhere-near Hempler, Kansas
 
The next day started out misty, could hardly see my hand in front of my face. We got spread out a bit on the Trace and all of a sudden I heard Herb shouting out about something. Woulda thought he’d been bit by a damn snake but no, after I wheeled about and got off my horse and got my gun out he was complaining about someone who had appeared out of the fog as he had stopped to adjust his horses gear and pissed on his boots.
 
He went off chasing the fellow and I thought I saw something up ahead in the fog. So I creep off to the side as I heard Elijah bellowing about something or other and then a shot rang out. I had just made it up to the thing I spotted in the mists, which turned out to be a old dilapidated barn with a lot of holes in the walls. I spotted at least 5 men from the Crawford Gang, local outlaws neer’do-wells inside the barn just as guns started appearing out of some of those holes and I ran for the woods to avoid getting perforated. As I ran I heard a bunch of horses off to the southeast of the barn.
 
I crossed paths with Elijah who wanted to go shot them fellas and I took his horse and headed out back towards the horses I heard, figuring if we stole their horses the could not chase us and we could make some money later too. As I was gathering reins a scared looking fellow appeared with panic in his eyes and I tossed the poor sod farmer/wanna-be outlaw a pair of reins and he rode off into the fog without looking back.
 
By the time I got back Mumple, Walker, Elijah and Herb had done gone and killed all the fellows inside the barn although the one that had pissed on Mumple’s boots had apparently got away.
 
We continued along the trace and finally made it to Osage Mission.
 
After getting set up in a hotel I went off and sold the horses as Mumple and the others reported our actions to the local constabulary, a big Norwegian fella named Big Swede. We settled down and got cleaned up before heading to bed for the night.
 
In the morning there was a flurry of activity as we went about trying to local the Good Doctor York. We were able to confirm he made it here and had continued on towards Independence but found no one whom he interacted with much.
 
We also found out that there was a camp of railroad workers just outside of town and a local peculiarity called the Devil’s Rockpile where some fella had got himself killed which Big Swede thought might be our missing doctor. Turns out it wasn’t but rather some eastern fella with a strange sketchbook, a weird fob with a strange burning sword symbol and no apparent cause of death. We went out to the place and looked around, just because I have got to see me what is the most interesting thing ever in Kansas if for no other reason.
Looked like a big pile of rocks all tumbled together with smoke coming out of it. Quite interesting. Herb stayed outside while the rest of us went in, it got misty and smelled quite bad, like rotten eggs. Then, all of a sudden the rocks disappeared and the sky appeared and turned orange! Out to the Northwest I saw what looked like a black barren tree glowing red, freakiest thing ever, and then I blacked out.
 
When I woke up, outside the Rockpile, Elijah had apparently carried me there, I coughed a lot and took a few swigs of water for my parched throat. Apparently they found some sort of smoking fissure in the middle of the place spewing out gases and smoke and some obsidian rocks but not much else. I told them of my vision although they mostly passed it off and just hallucinations and delusions, except Walker who felt that visions were important. I know that tree exists out there somewhere. Have to go find it one day. Oh well. It was getting dark and we headed back to town to rest.
 
Cody Caldwell, March 18th, 1873