Chapter Text
More Author's Notes:
Sadly and with huge affection, this story is dedicated to my nephew, Jacob Anthony Yeshuah, who passed away on January 12th, 2009. He was 29 years old and very close to getting his Masters degree. He was already teaching the classics and had a well earned reputation as a gifted teacher. Jacob or "Jay" as we often called him was the kind of young man we'd all like to know and be friends with. Luckily for me and my closest friend, and a great many others, who packed the church on bitter cold day for his services, Jacob loved being friends with lots of people. A document easily as long as this one would be needed to tell all the things Jacob did for his family and his friends. Another would be needed to talk about his wry sense of humor and his almost shy, day bright smile. Everyone who met Jacob loved him. And that could be taken as a cliché, but it's not in this case, it's the G-d's honest truth. His was a generous, loving, helping, caring spirit, which I firmly believe has made -Jay' one of the newest and brightest angels in the Heavens. We miss you, Jacob and we love, that's for always, that's forever. Roniyah Gabrielle Caitrin Bhaer 01/28/09
I first wrote The Night of the Blind Beggar which precedes the action of TNOT Well of Fire in 1979-80, and sent it to a fanzine of sorts, being published by the Clarion Writing Workshop at that time "housed' at Michigan State University. I checked last year and found that Clarion has moved to a new home at University of California at San Diego. Theirs is a wonderful program, encouraging writers or Science Fiction and Fantasy, including, luckily for me, writers of fanfiction, too. In any case, I was greatly honored to have TNOT Blind Beggar accepted by Clarion that year. And a wonderful artist named Signe Landon did some spectacular artwork for it, too. That story and that artwork was republished later, in -spies in the Old West #2", still available from Live Oak Manor Press, Gail M. Paradis, 237 Simmonsville Avenue, Johnston, Rhode Island, 02919-5823. there.
Now, "warnings' for the kindly reader:
ONE
TNOT Well of Fire and its prequel may need to be considered as Alternative Universe Wild, Wild West fanfiction, for several changes in back story and several inventions and other elements of creative license are to be found in these pages. First of all, you may see the suggestion of some sort of psychic abilities or connections between the good guys here, and that was not seen or heard on screen in W3. Secondly, Jim, Artie and their partners all know and use what we call today "American Sign Language or Ameslan'. Again this was not seen on the show.
In a substantial shift away from W3 "canon', this version of James T West was born in 1840, not 1842. Those two years give him the chance to be a West Point graduate, just when the Civil War was underway. Otherwise, he'd still be in school somewhere... nope, doesn't work for me. So, my version of James West's life has him attending and graduating from West Point, as one of the members of the May, 1861 class. And I've given Jim a backstory in which he actually grew up in northern Virginia, with a large, extended family near Norfolk. This gives Jim the choice of fighting for the Union or the Confederacy from a very personal standpoint, and of course he stays loyal to the Union. And besides, this means Doctor Loveless, seen here as Miguel de Cervantes ACTUALLY got some information on our hero WRONG. LOL
This backstory also gives Jim three of his four grandparents as first generation immigrants to this country, his father's parents from Wales, his mother's father from Ireland, that being the case, my version of the character James T West speaks Irish Gaelic learned from his maternal grandfather Jaimey Randolph, as well as Welsh and North American Spanish, learned from his paternal grandmother, Meredydd Jennet Howlys West, who settled with her husband Daffyd Arthur West near San Antonio, Texas. And Jim speaks the Quebecois French he learned from Jacques D'eglisier, and some of the Yiddish he learned from other agent-friends. The fact that Jim's portrayer, Robert Conrad is himself multilingual speaking French and Spanish with native fluency, as well as German, only goes to support that capacity in his alter ego.
On a different character note, I've given Jeremy Pike an M.D. There were scenes that needed more than one doctor around and others that needed our hero to feel over-doctored. So, since there was nothing in canon about Jeremy's education prior to the War and the Secret Service, we now have Tobias Jeremy Pike, MD. ☺
And lastly, I've given Artemus Gordon a backstory of growing up in San Francisco as Adam Gorniak, the son of a chemist and a violinist who immigrated from Poland. Ross Martin, of course, was born in Grodek, Poland, and came as an infant with his parents to live and grow up in New York City's famous lower east side. So this is in a certain way a shout out to that gifted actor's heritage. -Artemus Gordon' then, is a stage name the character later adopted, in my "alternative W3 Universe". This backstory gives a lot of support to Artie's scientific and musical genius that being a working actor would not.
Giving -Artie' that Eastern European background led me to add another note to my backstory, which again is only my opinion as expressed in my own W3 stories. And it's a more personal one. I chose to make Artie and his parents Jewish. In my opinion it adds color and dimension to the character, rather than detracting them. It also allows me to paint some of that culture and very, very small part of that religion into these stories. Being Jewish myself, it's an added means of self expression, never meant to detract from anyone else's view of Artemus Gordon.
To say that Artemus Gordon is a linguistic genius is a gross understatement, and another reason for him to grow up in San Francisco, which has always been a polyglot city and a goal for immigrants coming across the Isthmus of Panama, across the western plains, or around Cape Horn. So it is very likely that Artie speaks at least a dozen languages, some of which we heard on the show and some we did not. My version of the character like his portrayer Ross Martin speaks and or reads Polish, German, Yiddish, Russian, French, Spanish, and Italian. To which just to cover what we saw and heard on the show we'd have to add Farsi/Persian, Arabic, Mandarin, Aramaic, Japanese,Syriac, Hawaiian, Hebrew, and, Dutch, Portugese, Sioux, and a number of other AmerIndian lauguages and dialects.
TWO
Okay, this story and Blind Beggar should both probably come with "high angst warnings'. The guys are really put throught the mill in both. But Imho, neither story would carry a -rating" higher than PG-13 That being said,. Well of Fire deals in detail with painful events from Jim's childhood that were discussed in general in Blind Beggar. Those details are core elements of the plot and of what our hero-agents have to overcome.