"Not the Indians," someone said.
"Not the Indians, no. And not those members of the community who acted inappropriately. You see, at some point, the little settlement started to grow, and they became less concerned with basic survival and more concerned with other things. Things like morality. Once their numbers were up and they knew they were going to make it, they decided they wanted to police the private lives of their citizens, to ensure that the right kind of people were in their midst. So if a young woman wanted to marry the wrong kind of man, or if, God forbid, she ended up pregnant out of wedlock, The Pioneer Club got together and made the difficult decision about dealing with the problem. And when I say they dealt with the problem, I mean they dealt with it permanently, just like they dealt with Blue Bear, the mad Indian."
Ludwig let his words sink in. He saw a few heads nodding, a few people writing in their notebooks. Someone raised a hand.
"What gave them the right to do these things, to just destroy lives that way?"
"We could ask that about any government, couldn't we?" Ludwig laughed, but none of the students did. He cleared his throat. "Actually, that's one of the more interesting aspects of this entire matter. Where did they get their power? And the answer to that question is inextricably tied up in the actual location where they held their Pioneer Club meetings. The records that survive indicate that they held their meetings in a clearing in the woods, a location some distance from the actual town or any other aspect of civilization. This makes sense if we suppose that they wanted to keep their activities secret from their fellow citizens. In a sense, they were operating as a shadow government, and it wouldn't do to hold those meetings right out in the open on the town square.
"But there's more to the story than just finding a secluded spot in the woods. It seems as though the particular place they chose, this clearing, possessed a unique power of its own. A few letters and documents survive that were written by the members of The Pioneer Club, and a strange set of facts emerges. Since the Club met in secrecy, they held most of their meetings at night. At those times, with only the most primitive roads and no cars or street lights to guide the way, and the threats from wild animals as well as Indians always a real danger, it was no small order for these individuals, approximately ten in number, to travel to this location and conduct their business.
"But they always wanted to go. Why? Because something happened to them when they gathered in that clearing at night. The existing letters describe a power that flowed through them, an energy, something that sounds to me, as a twenty-first century reader and a confirmed skeptic, rather akin to possession, as though something took hold of them in those woods and drove them to carry out their duties with a fervor and a zeal they might not have felt if they had met anywhere else. The letters and journal entries also speak of the power that the place held over them, as though something there kept drawing them back to that clearing, and at some point, they found themselves craving a return there for a fresh fix of whatever it had to offer.
"What I'm about to say shouldn't seem like a big leap. It seems likely that whatever feeling possessed those members of The Pioneer Club in the woods enabled them to carry out the decisions they reached there. How else would otherwise law-abiding citizens become willing to carry out what amounts to ritualized rape and murder? How?"
Before he had even finished speaking, he saw a hand up.
"Isn't the answer obvious?" the student asked.
"I don't know. You tell me."
"Well, isn't it possible that they were using this clearing as an excuse to do whatever they wanted to do. It's like saying, 'the devil made me do it.'"
"Interesting theory," Ludwig said. Inwardly, he was pleased. He had led them part of the way to that conclusion, but stopped just short, hoping that one of them would carry the discussion the rest of the way. "You're saying that the clearing has no real power of any kind, that these people were just looking for an excuse in the way that you all use alcohol as an excuse on the weekends. 'Oh, I never would have slept with him if I hadn't been drunk.' Right?"