Ancient Echoes

CHAPTER 31



Alexandria, Virginia

JIANJUN GOT OUT of the taxi he’d taken from the Van Dorn Metro station. A small white and yellow house, complete with manicured lawn and flower beds, stood before him.

Michael had never contacted him, despite the quantities of information he had sent about the pillars and their history, PLP, and Jennifer Vandenburg. Jianjun was tempted to pursue the PLP angle by going to New York City to talk with Vandenburg and Calvin Phaylor, but he hesitated to do that without checking with Michael first. Also, the line of inquiry near Washington D.C. needed to be followed before he left the area.

Anthropology Professor Emeritus Thurmon Teasdale had created the map Jianjun sent to Michael. Obviously, Lionel Rempart considered it of great value, but Jianjun could not figure out why, nor exactly what area it covered. He needed more information.

He tracked down Professor Teasdale’s widow. He took a deep breath, walked up to the front door, and rang the bell.

Lurline Teasdale was an elderly woman who readily spoke with Jianjun, and didn’t ask him for credentials or anything else to prove who he was. Instead, she warned him against looking into the “secret expedition” that had followed Lewis and Clark. She was convinced that her husband’s interest in their story had somehow brought on his death.

“That discovery excited Thurmon beyond anything I can remember,” she explained over cups of tea and a platter of sugar cookies as they sat in her cozy living room. “He gained access to an old journal in the Smithsonian. There had been rumors about such an expedition, but never before any proof.”

“So he believed it was real,” Jianjun probed.

“Absolutely! “

“And this all happened about fifteen years ago?” Jianjun asked.

“Good gracious no. It happened over thirty years ago, back when Thurmon was a young professor. A couple of his anthropology students found the journal. They were foreign students, I believe, and quite interested in the Mormon culture, which foreigners tend to find rather exotic. In any case, the students thought the journal was fiction, but Thurmon believed it all quite true. There were too many details that corresponded to other information Thurmon had. For example, the journal writer spoke of the woman he loved. A young woman spent her entire life sending letters to Thomas Jefferson asking him what had happened to her fiancé. When Thurmon told me that I found the story so very touching and sad, I’ll admit it made me cry for her, poor dear.”

Jianjun nodded and said nothing. The thought of a woman’s tears—any woman’s—made him nervous.

Mrs. Teasdale also told him that Thurmon had spent several summers in Idaho back in those days, seeking the pillars described in the journal, and any signs of the lost Mormon settlement. He had no success, and eventually he ran out of money to pursue that particular project. He gave up his dream until about fifteen years ago when a wealthy individual contacted him about his early studies. That person convinced him to create a map of the area he had explored.

Thurmon did so, but where that area was, Lurline had no idea.

Thurmon had been quite excited about getting back into that line of study, but one day after completing and delivering the map, he had a heart attack and died.

Men often have such heart attacks, she had to admit, yet Thurmon never had any hint of illness.

“Tell me, Mr. Li,” she said, her gaze clear and sharply intelligent, “what really brings you here? I haven’t spoken to anyone about Thurmon’s map since Professor Lionel Rempart came here last year to ask for a copy. Now, I learn on the news that he and his students are lost in Central Idaho.”

“We’re trying to find them,” Jianjun admitted. “I had hoped you could help.”

She apologized that she had no further information, and soon after, he thanked her for her hospitality and left.

He felt like someone who had been handed pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces might be there, but he couldn’t yet fit them together, and had no idea of what it would look like when finished.