Tears of the mountain

the long version

"It is July 4th, 1876, and Jeremiah McKinley is looking forward to a great day of festivity ... among friends, family, and heroes in Sonoma County, California. His only teacher is returning from the East Coast to visit after an absence of twenty-five years. He reflects on past love, the hazardous pioneer journey of his youth ... and the many violent conflicts of the West, and voices of the long dead seem to come from everywhere. A series of mysterious notes follow him throughout the day. When a visiting senator is found murdered, suspicion leads to his old mentor, Professor Applewood, whose sudden disappearance from the festivities makes McKinley a suspected accesstory to a fugitve."--Jacket.