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A new legend swept Oregon, from Roseburg all the way north to the Columbia, from the mountains to the sea. It traveled by letter and by word of mouth, growing with each telling.
It was a sadder story than the two that had come before it — those speaking of a wise, benevolent machine and of a reborn nation. It was more disturbing than those. And yet this new fable had one important element its predecessors lacked.
It was true.
The story told of a band of forty women — crazy women, many contended — who had shared among themselves a secret vow; to do anything and everything to end a terrible war, and end it before all the good men died trying to save them.
They acted out of love, some explained. Others said they did it for their country.
There was even a rumor that the women had looked on their odyssey to Hell as a form of penance, in order to make up for some past failing of womankind.
Interpretations varied, but the overall moral was always the same, whether spread by word of mouth or by U.S. Mail. From hamlet to village to farmstead, mothers and daughter and wives read the letters and listened to the words — and passed them on.