masked memories
story of the reid family

by Dennis E. Power

Due to a mistranslation of the Secret History of the Wold Newton Universe, ( I really must concentrate on that Eridanean!) I made the statement in the previous version of the Wold Wold West that Daniel Reid was James West. I must now correct that statement. Daniel Reid was not the James West whose exploits were detailed in the Wild Wild West series. However he did use the name for a short time having been manipulated in a plot to discredit and possibly kill the real James West

    There was an uncanny resemblance between the two men but that is to be expected since they were cousins.

On a trip to New Orleans to visit her brother in 1832, Emma Silver de la Cruz took her second eldest daughter, Estrellita along. Estrillita De la Cruz met and fell in love with a young Scottish sailor named Britton Reid whom she latter married. Reid was searching for a friend of his, his former commanding officer, First Mate Benjamin Cartwright who had been known to frequent New Orleans on  occasion. Cartwright practically disappeared with his son after his wife Ann had died. Estrellita convinced Britton Reid to come to Texas with them. They married and for a dowry she received a small plot of land upon which they built a ranch. They had issue Daniel 1835, Angela 1838, Brittany 1841, John 1844, Penelope 1850

Britton Reid's brother Francis also emigrated to the United States. He met and married Joanna Swift, a cousin of Barton Swift. They had a son, Francis Jr.  Francis Reid, jr. was a scientific genius whose capcity for invention rivaled his distant cousin Tom Swift. Francis Reid jr.'s exploits were however recorded as the adventures of Frank Reade jr. in the long running series of dime novels that bore that name.

Daniel Reid was born 1835 in Houston, Texas the first born of Britton Reid and Estelle Cross. His Father was a ranchman and part owner of shipping lin.

Estelle Cross Reid died in 1850 after giving birth to a fifth child and the third daughter.

Reid taught his boys all he could about ranching but kept a promise to his wife and sent Daniel east for his education.

Daniel Reid attended a University in New York and eventually studied law. When war broke out, like a good many Southerners he joined the Union Army, believing that the Union must be preserved.

He discovered a flair for intelligence work and found himself being used for undercover work, eventually as a member of the Secret Service sniffing out traitors, double agents and spies in Washington itself. While in Washington, he met Mary Scott, a young woman from Detroit, Michigan, daughter of one of the clerks working for a Senator from Michigan. They married in 1863. (An older sister of his wife named Victoria, married Tom Barkley and together they made a fortune in Stockton, California. Victoria’s exploits as the widowed matriarch of the Barkley clan were portrayed in Big Valley television series)

During the War Reid worked for the Secret Service dividing his time on missions on the front and at Washington.

According to Robert Vaughn the current biographer of James West, in the volume Night of the Assassin, he places James West at Ford’s theatre at the time of the Assassination. In NIGHT OF THE ASSASSIN. Reid was also there and the resemblance between the two men caused no end of confusion between Reid and West, especially by the various conspirators.

Lazarus Man television series shows glimpses of the main character attempting to stop the Assassination. We can only speculate that Reid somehow got wind of the plot but could not stop it from taking place. There are allusions in the Lazarus Man that he discovered a larger plot and that this is the reason that he was shot and killed. This could be partly true. I imagine that he did investigate the assassination but was only allowed to follow up certain leads. Frustrated and suspicious of the atmosphere in Washington, and worried about his brother and sisters, whom he had not heard from since the beginning of the War, Reid decided to return to Texas in 1866. His wife had just had a child and was to join him as soon as she could travel, stopping to first visit relatives in Detroit.

Reid found his Father’s ranch destroyed, his sisters married off and his brother also returning home from serving with the Union forces based in New Mexico.

Using his connections with the Secret Service Reid secured himself a position with the Texas Rangers, the Federally controlled state government was only too glad to have an Unionist Texan in its ranks. His brother also joined the Rangers.

Butch Cavendish was ordered to kill Daniel Reid. Cavendish was apparently a free agent who worked for hire, working variously for Eridaneans, Capelleans and other secret and criminal organizations. Accompanying Cavendish on the ambush at Bryant’s Gap were one or two men who had known Reid and were part of Baker’s organization.

Reid recognized them as they beat him up before tossing him into the second grave.

Recall the scene if you will, In 1866 Captain Dan Reid of the Texas Rangers leads his men into Bryant’s Gap where they are betrayed by another Ranger. And ambushed by the Butch Cavendish gang. All but Reid and his brother are killed out right. Reid falls and then does his brother.

The traitorous Ranger Collins checks on the bodies and then is shot in the back by Cavendish. The Cavendish gang rode off. An Indian who has been watching from a hiding place checks for survivors.

Finding one severely wounded he binds his wounds and quickly buries the bodies.

He then takes the wounded man to safety. When he returns to the gravesite, we can image that the grave has been disturbed. Since the bodies had been buried in haste predators must have been attracted to it, but Striker was too genteel to mention this, or the Cavendish’s might have doubled back to loot the graves.

Nor would Tonto tell his brother that his brother’s body had been disturbed and mutilated.

Tonto took what supplies remained and returned to nurse back to health Ranger John Reid who became the Lone Ranger.

What happened was this: Daniel Reid took a bullet in the back and a glancing shot to the head. After being buried he clawed his way out of the shallow grave and stumbled off following the tracks of the Cavendish gang. Unfortunately he walked right into their evening camp. Cavendish had his men beat the wounded Ranger and then he shot Reid point blank in the chest. The bullet cracked his sternum but did not penetrate, it traveled under his skin along his ribcage, breaking a couple of ribs and exited out his back.

They then buried him in a shallow grave. Amazingly enough, Daniel Reid was not dead; he once again clawed his way out of the grave and walked aimlessly until finding a farmstead. The farm people took him in and cared for his wounds.

When he regained consciousness. He realized that he was did not know who he was. The physical trauma and mental trauma had given him almost complete amnesia.

He spends the next 18 months unsuccessfully trying to discover his identity, spurred on by the memories of the faces of the men who had beaten him and by the memory of a tragedy he had witnessed, the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

He used the names Lazarus and Shenandoah during this period, and some of his adventures were highly fictionalized in the television series Lazarus Man and A Man Called Shenandoah. His quest eventually took him to Washington D.C. Throughout his travels he had been beset by men thwarting his attempt to regain his memory, he believed that it involved knowledge he had about the Lincoln Assassination. Information had come to light from a high government source that Lazarus's real name was James West and that he was an operative for the United States Secret Service.

TraveIing to Washington, D.C. in 1868 Lazarus, using the name James West, became involved with an incident that involved a stolen national historical document from the Library of Congress. There was also an actor involved named Artemus Gordon. Together they recovered the document. During this period Gordon and West were working seperately but Gordon had become aware of someone with a close resemblance to Jim West using that name. When his paths had crossed with this "James West" during the stolen Emancipation Proclamation Incident he decided to help "West" investigate his past. They checked the archives but found scant records of James West’s true identity. The files had been ordered destroyed by Lafayette Baker, former head of the Secret Service

They could find no one that would talk to them in Washington, so they decided to pay a call on Lafayette Baker, who was staying in Philadelphia. Baker was corrupt as they come, A Treasury Department official wrote of Baker's tenure as head of the Secret Service: "Baker became a law unto himself. He instituted a veritable Reign of Terror. He always lived in the first hotels [and] had an abundance of money."

Gordon and "West" tracked Baker down to a hotel room. He regarded West with fear and shock. Instead of revealing "West"s true identity. Baker gave him teasers of information, telling West that he had indeed worked for the government during the War first as a Scout, then as a Intelligence Agent for the Army and finally as a member of the Secret Service. He had used the name Jim West more often than any other cover but he had used several. He told Lazarus that Grant knew him as West and by the way, some groups objected to the good General running for President and had quite a reception planned for him.

Artemus demanded to know what Baker was talking about, resorting to persuasive tactics to make him talk. Baker launched into a detailed description of an assassination plot against Grant when he suddenly slumped forwards and died.

Examination found a small dart protruding from his neck. Gordon plucked it out with a pair of tweezers and tossed it into the fire.

Gordon and "West" succeeded in foiling the plot against Grant, which involved killing two Secret Service Agents guarding Grant.The guards were agents of the Knights of the Golden Circle.  Gordon and "West" were nearly killled by soldiers also attached to guard Grant.

    Gordon revealed himself to be an agent of the Secret Service on detached duty. He had the unfortunate duty of telling Lazarus that everything that Baker had told him was a lie. While there was a James West that worked for the Secret Service as Baker had detailed, Lazarus was not him. Grant’s requested that Lazarus join Secret Service. If he did he would be trained by and work with Gordon and the real James West in neutralizing special threats to the United States. Grant promised Lazarus that as a special agent of the government he could use its resources to discover his true identity. Despite being tempted by the offer Lazarus declined, not really trusting for the government to divulge the actual truth. As it turns out the conspirators had destroyed all the evidence concerning Reid’s identity as they destroyed all the evidence surrounding the Lincoln assassination that did not support the idea of a impulsive plot by a crank actor and his cronies.

Daniel Reid’s memory never returned and continued to use the alias of Lazarus and Shenandoah. There is also a good possibility as his search for his identity grew ever more frustrating that he became an embittered man, and became known throughout the west as the Man with No Name.

The conspiracy against Reid either stopped with Baker’s death or when it became apparent that Reid had actually and truly lost all his memory, he was no threat.

    As we all know, Ranger John Reid was saved from death by the quick thinking of a Indian who happened to be in  the area. To strain our credulity a bit more, we soon discover that the Indian was a boyhood friend of the wounded Ranger who had saved the Indian in their youth. The Indian was of course Tonto and he was a Potawatomi Indian. Yet at the time the Potawatomi were not yet even in Oklahoma, much less Texas. How Tonto came to be there is explained further in the article about him.

 John Reid and Tonto met  when Tonto's  tribe, his extended family, had been massacred by Butch Cavendish and a young man named Barrett. Cavendish had been working under orders from the Capellean High Council to wipe out any suspected Eridanean agents among the Native Americans. The incident was one of the many such atrocities not recorded by history.  It was along the Rio Grande in Mexico.

    John Reid, his brother, and their cousin Lancelot had been taken by their uncle John Silver on a trip to Mexico city. While in Mexico city, John Silver had gotten a message that this small band of Potawatomi with its two Eridanean agents would be slaughtered. John Silver was worked with the Eridaneans but was not an agent or an adoptee. He however had become through business dealings friendly with Tonto's grandfather.

    Having little time to waste, Silver and his nephews rode hell for leather. Unfortunately by the time Silver and his nephews had gotten there they were almost too late.

    Cavendish and his officers had left the area, leaving a final clean up to some riff-raff.

    They had found one survivor a ten year old boy, whom they given a knife. They were holding him at bay with whips while they gradually wore him down.
John Reid fired a bullet into a man who was using his whip to choke the Indian boy.
 The Indian boy was nicknamed the Wild One and he  insisted on become John Reid's blood brother.

    The remaining men were shot down or fled. Silver arranged for the boy to be sent to his nearest living relatives. When the Ranger came to he recognized Tonto as a childhood friend, albeit a brief one. They called you Tonto,

This signaled to Tonto that Jon Reid knew something of Tonto’s activities because that was also his code name in the Intelligence service.

Remember these significant facts, It was Tonto who gave the Lone Ranger his name, it was Tonto, who made the mask out of Dan Reid’s vest, (or one of the Ranger’s) Weeks later when John and Tonto have heard of a fabulous wild stallion in a nearby valley. After saving the magnificent animal from a frenzied bison, they nurse the horse back to health. John wins the animal's trust and, at Tonto's suggestion, names him "Silver." Tonto also did much of the investigative work that was the backbone of most Lone Ranger adventures.

John Reid, believed to be dead, in 1866 adopted the identity of the Lone Ranger but did not confine himself to Texas but became dedicated to the pursuit of justice no matter where it took him. He funded his career and replenished his supply of bullets from the silver mine inherited from Estavan de la Cruz and the Silver family.  An excellent chronology exists of the Lone Ranger's adventures, I however respectfully differ with the exact chronology of the adventures and of their genealogies.

Around the time when John was becoming the Lone Ranger, Dan's wife Mary Scott was informed of her husband's death. She felt that it was important to claim his legacy and so began a trip to Texas with her infant son Daniel. The wagon train carrying them is attacked by Apaches. Dan jr. is found and cared for by a woman named Frisbie for the next several years.

During the course of his adventures, the Lone Ranger adopted many disguises and many pseudonyms. One character that he used quite often was Marshal Brisco County. It was in this character that he met and fell in love with a San Franciscan debutante named Ruth Gage. He eventually told her why he could not marry her as John Reid, so she agreed to become Ruth Gage County. They had a son named Brisco County jr. in 1870 Ruth Gage County died of disease and young Brisco jr. spent time at boarding schools with summers with his father.

    John Reid was still carrying on the double career of being the Lone Ranger and Brisco County.

    Around 1880  young Dan Reid, Jr. is found alive and well.  Dan is sent back to Detroit to live with his mother's family and receive an education. Yet he also receives extra instructions from John Reid, who knows that injustice will always need to be righted by a hero.

  John Reid's career as the Lone Ranger lasted about twenty years before he was seriously wounded.  This occurred during one of his first encounters with the John Bly gang around 1886.

After he retired his nephew Daniel Reid took on the role for a few years. During this time he met Amy Striker who lived near the Reid homstead in Texas. Daniel Reid was the Lone Ranger for approximately ten years. After John Reid retired, Tonto worked with Dan Reid as Tonto .

Oddly enough the transfer of the Lone Ranger’s identity is echoed in both the Radio and Television adventures of the Lone Ranger. On the Lone Ranger radio show, in 1941, the Lone Ranger lay critically wounded as he slowly recovered his voice grew stronger but it was different than before that is because another actor had assumed the role, taking the place of Earl Graser, long time voice of the Lone Ranger who had died in a car accident.

During the Lone Ranger television series, Clayton Moore was mysteriously replaced without adequate reason for one year.

James West, Reid's fellow lawman and cousin, enabled the Lone Ranger as Brisco County to get a job working for the mysterious Westerfield Club based in San Francisco.

    The Westerfield Club, like the Diogenes Club is privately owned and funded by a wealthy elite, yet it also has strong ties to the United States Secret Service and other Intelligence branches. It was created by American based wealthy and powerful Eridaneans to deal not only with mundane threats to the United States but also to deal with Capellean threats and the ever increasing problem of renegades from both factions. James West and his partner, both sets of them, received their funding and instructions from the Westerfield Club. The East Coast counterpart of the Westerfield Club was the Baltimore Gun Club.

Although based in San Francisco, (begun there to deal with the Capellean sponsored vigilante groups that attempted to usurp civil authority in the 1850's), it also stopped attempts by foreign governments to conquer California, these being Mexico and Russia.

Operatives of the Westerfield Club include Brisco County, Brisco County Jr., James Lonefeather, Paladin, James Wong, Jeff Cable and Cash Conover (of the television series The Barbary Coast) Sam Spade, Spencer Holmes T.H.E. Cat and Derek Flint

In 1893, John Bly, an evil time traveler and his gang killed Brisco County sr.
Brisco County Jr. was hired by the Westerfield Club to track down the killers of Brisco County Sr. He befriended and eventually became partners with James Lonefeather, nephew of James Douglas Henry (James West II). Dan Reid could not aid his young cousin in bringing in the Bly gang because he was at that time deeply entrenched in The Black Arrow War, yet another Capellean plot to undermine the U.S. government.

However during the course of his adventures, Brisco is aided by another friend of his father's Wu Chan. Using the name Lee Pow, Wu Chan settled in Chinatown and become the leader of the Scarred Foot Tong.

    As it turns out Brisco County  had not been entirely killed. Part of his conciousness was trapped inside an Orb Rod. This piece was carried inside the butt of Brisco's County's gun. Brisco County Sr. consciousness can communicate with his son through the orb rod. The Orb is a man-made, electromagnetic wave-particle net, that captures energy at certain nodal intersections of the space time grid. This was created by Bruce Wildman sometime in the 24th century, it had some unforeseen side effects and so was not deemed suitable for general time travel. John Bly however succeeded in seizing control of it and rule the Earth from 2500 to 3500. Two copies of the original orb were created to overpower Bly's. In a desperate escape, Bly succeeded in flinging himself and the three orbs into Earth's distant past. However he did not know where or when they were located.

   Brisco jr. eventually frees his father's consciousness from its imprisonment and banishes Bly to the space/time continuum.

    Brisco went to work for the government as a freelance operative under President Cleveland. He also continued to work for the Westerfield Club. Whether or not he ever married long time paramour, Dixie Cousins is unknown.

    Dan Reid retired from his career as the Lone Ranger in 1896 after wrapping up the Black Arrow war. He married Amy Striker, whose nephew Fran later wrote a series of novels based on John and Dan Reid's adventures as the Lone Ranger.

    Using money from the silver mine, Dan established the Daily Sentinel Newspaper in Detroit. Dan's son named Britton or Britt Reid first became a reporter for his father's newspaper. While a foreign correspondent based in Japan, Reid saved the life of Ikano Kato who became his life long friend.

    In 1936, disgusted by the wave of outlawery in the nation and in Detroit in particular, Dan Reid inspired by his Uncle and Father's careers are the Lone Ranger becomes the vigilante Green Hornet aided by the karate weilding Kato.

    The Green Hornet became a family tradition that evidently lasted until 2080.

    There is a possibility that Kato might have also been a member of the Wold Newton family. In 1815 Zorro fights against a band of Ninja warriors hired by an evil shaman. One of the ninja warriors is a woman and there is a strong mutal attraction between Don Diego and the female ninja. However we are told nothing romatically happened. Perhaps it did, and the woman returned to Japan not knowing she was pregnant. Kato may have been her grandchild, raised on the tales of the great masked warrior of the Americas

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© 2000 Dennis Power