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SIZZLE, SPIT, CLAW AND BITE Sheriff Linn Keller seized the man by his throat and his crotch. His grip was fast, hard, crushing, painful. It didn't last long. The Sheriff could not hear his angry roar. Everyone else could. The Sheriff was known as a patient man, the Sheriff was known as a reasonable man. The Sheriff was now known as someone who would cheerfully throw an opponent through a plate glass window. Perhaps "cheerfully" isn't the right word. When a lean waisted lawman's eyes turn dead white and he can't hear himself screaming, when he spins once and throws a grown man with the ease of slinging a child's doll, when he drives the offender through the window, climbs out after him, picks him up off the sidewalk and shoves him face first in the only remaining horse trough on the main street and holds him underwater until a great gout of bubbles come to the surface, when he hauls the man's head out by the hair, picks him up overhead and body slams him to the sidewalk -- hard! -- it probably can't be said that the Sheriff was cheerful. Paul Barrents slammed his hand down on the offender's chest -- hard -- he drove claws into him hard enough to bring up all the shirt and most of the underlying chest hair, he hauled the man off the ground and pinned him against the brick wall beside the blasted-open window, he pinned him hard and hissed, "Give me an excuse." The Navajo Chief Deputy, best friend of the pale eyed Sheriff, peeled his lips back to show clenched white teeth. "Just one. Please." There was, of course, court action that followed. The Sheriff was exonerated. It seems that video of the event showed the Sheriff faced a knife, close-in, that his actions were to keep himself from getting flayed, filleted or gutted, not necessarily in that order, even if it did involve the unorthodox method of launching the offender through a window. The court stared in open astonishment as an expert in knife fighting demonstrated just how much damage could be done to the human body, with the help of an anatomic dummy, followed by multiple witnesses who knew the offender and swore under oath as to the assaults and murders performed by said offender. Perhaps the greatest surprise was the Sheriff's youngest daughter, Victoria. She was addressed by the Judge, as she was not yet of majority, nor even close: she was able to assure His Honor she knew the difference between a lie and the truth, that she would speak the truth, but it wasn't until she came out of the witness stand and said "Let me show you what he did, and what I did to him," that the court realized they hadn't grasped the entire situation. One of the Sheriff's deputies, about the same height and build as the man who tried to gut the Sheriff rather than submit to arrest, wore a padded suit for the occasion. Victoria was wearing a frilly dress and anklets, her little block heels clicked sharply on the floor as she stepped forward, looked around and said, in a child's innocent voice, "There I was, minding my own business, when that man" -- she turned, thrust an accusing arm at the defendant -- "tried to grab me." "Tried to grab you?" the prosecutor asked. "Well, he did grab me, and I'll show you how." "What did you do afterward?" Victoria seemed to draw inside herself: she closed her eyes and shivered, then she opened her eyes, and her eyes were pale. The deputy seized her wrist and snarled, "You're coming with me!" It was the first time in Firelands history that a pretty little girl in a frilly dress and hard-toed dancing shoes, turned into an honest to God wildcat in a little girl's body. Victoria didn't try to pull away. She thrust into her attacker, just like she did on the sidewalk in front of a building under renovation. Victoria was an Irish dancer. An Irish hardshoe dancer. Victoria drove two fast kicks into the shin bones, drove her steel-plated heel down onto the deputy's arch -- and made him grateful he'd listened, and wore jackhammer sabatons over his boots and under the red suit's padding -- she literally climbed his frame, clawing, raking, her fingernails leaving chatter-marks in the suit material. He tried -- reflexively, spontaneously -- to block her. She grabbed his arm and drove her teeth deep into the padding, reached up, clawed his cheek, surged up further -- she climbed his frame without mercy and with a surprising speed -- her fingers were clawed, rigid, she seized his cheeks and pulled her face up to his and drove her teeth into his neck, or tried to. She started screaming when he first grabbed her wrist. She didn't stop until she buried her teeth in the red suit's neck, or as near to it as she could. Victoria pushed free, dropped easily to the floor, spat out a chunk of red padding: she smoothed her skirt down, then she spun, glided across the floor on her toes like a ballerina, spun back into the witness stand. Victoria looked at His Honor the Judge with big, innocent eyes. "It was easier with my attacker," she said in the pure, innocent voice of a child: "that red suit is kind of hard on my fingernails." For some odd reason, Defense had no questions for this witness. After the ER physician and two nurses were sworn in, after they gave their sworn testimony that the injuries on the defendant were indeed consistent with clawed fingernails, that there was not just a bite mark on the defendant's neck, but a chunk bitten out of his neck, that they'd taken evidence photographs of the bruising on her wrist, bruising consistent with being seized -- hard -- they'd carefully taken fingernail scrapings from Victoria that were DNA matched to the defendant -- though Prosecution was forbidden to bring in the offender's past attacks on young female children -- the jury had very little difficulty upholding the Sheriff's justification in his actions. Sheriff Linn Keller went back to the building under renovation and spoke with the new owner. He offered to pay for a replacement window, as he'd been the one who broke it. The new owner thanked the Sheriff for his kind offer, then he thrust a chin at the hole where the window used to be and said, "It was old glass, single pane. I couldn't afford to heat the place with glass like that. I'm replacing it with a double thickness of insulated glass." He gave the Sheriff a long look and said, "It was coming out anyway." The man's eyes hardened and Linn knew there was something behind his words, and he was right. "I heard what that fellow did," he said quietly. "Sheriff, I've got a girl at home. Can you teach her to fight like that?" Linn considered for a long moment, then he thrust his bottom jaw out and nodded. "I know someone who can." Victoria Keller danced across the barn floor, steel-tapped heels and hard-toed dance shoes loud on smooth cement. She glided like a magical creature, floating on her toes with the ease of a ballerina. She spun and high-kicked, but she didn't give the graceful, pointed-toe kick of the Irish dance she practiced so much. When she turned, when she kicked, she kicked for the chin of a ballistic dummy she'd positioned for the purpose. She kicked it under the chin, a precise strike with the hard, reinforced toe of her hardshoe, then her hands fisted and she spun again, drove her heel into the dummy's belly. Victoria Keller, the pretty young daughter of a pale-eyed Sheriff tore into the ballistic dummy with claws and fists and feet and elbows, she drove it to the floor, she seized it and hauled it off the ground and slammed it face-first onto the concrete, she jumped as high as she could and drove her heels into its kidneys and then she stood it back up, danced backwards from it, drew her Daddy's stainless Walther and walked ten rounds from the bottom of its breastbone to the bridge of its nose. She had the fresh magazine slammed into the handle before the empty mag hit the floor. Victoria Keller saw the sights, the screaming-bright orange front, sharp and clear, perfect in the flat-black rear notch, and she heard something she didn't expect, something she didn't recognize, something she didn't know she was doing. She heard herself snarl, deep in her young chest, and she realized ... This is what Daddy meant by the Rage. The pale eyed daughter of a pale eyed Sheriff held the sight picture for a long moment more, then thumbed the hammer-drop, shoved it back up, holstered her Daddy's pistol. Victoria closed her eyes, took a long breath, blew it out, then she squatted and started picking up her fired brass. A girl has to be tidy about these things, you know.

Four on the floor and a fifth under the seat!!

Tonight is like a combination of Christmas Eve and the night before a colonoscopy

YOUR HAND, MY DEAR Jacob Keller picked up his son in one arm, his daughter in the other. His little boy grabbed his Pa's Stetson, dunked it on his own head and laughed as it came down to the bridge of his nose. His little daughter put her finger to the corner of her mouth, the hugged her Daddy with the quick, happy spontaneity of a happy little girl-child. The photographer fired the flash-bar, burning magnesium dust seared the air and a cloud of smoke rose, rolled toward the ceiling: it was a rare thing for a photographer in this era to get a spontaneous expression of filial delight, but somehow, unexpectedly, he'd managed. When he developed the plates, when he fixed the image, when he washed it in clean water and let it stand and dry off, he presented the plate to the pale eyed Sheriff and his wife. They exclaimed in delight, for it was exactly what they'd hoped for: it was a perfect depiction of Sheriff Jacob Keller, lawman, husband and father, in a moment at home with his family. More formal images were taken, of course; these were duly examined, and pronounced good, but by far the favorite image of husband, of wife, of photographer as well, was the one where the Sheriff was laughing, with a laughing little boy usurping his skypiece as his own, and a happy little girl delightedly embracing her big strong Daddy. Another Sheriff Jacob Keller, another planet altogether: photography was somewhat more advanced than the days when flash powder was used to illumine a photographer's subjects. Jacob Keller stood, stiff, one arm at his side, his hand thrust inside his coat, looking as stuffy and as officious as he possibly could: his rich red mustache was curled into a truly villainous handlebar, he looked sternly at the camera, then turned his head and winked at his wife and said "Well? Do I look enough like a stuffed owl?" Mother and children laughed: Jacob squatted quickly to receive the charge of his son and of his daughter: in accordance with the whispered conspiracy they'd engaged in earlier (which conveniently excluded the photographer and his in-laws, in whose study the photographs were being taken), Jacob's little boy happily snatched the brushed-black Stetson from his Pa's head, dunked it down on his own, laughing: Jacob stood and his little girl hugged her Daddy, laying her head happily over on his shoulder, giggling shyly for the camera. Glaring light flashed, the image chemically seared on glass plates: copies were made, at the request of Jacob's delighted father-in-law: he took pleasure in hanging the image of his grandchildren laughing with their father in a moment of what looked like unplanned, spontaneous happiness. The other photograph was taken with more conventional methods, but was no less cherished. It was a close-up, just Jacob and his wife, and had his father-in-law any doubt as to the gentlemanly nature of the man his daughter had chosen to marry, they were utterly dispelled, and the photograph reminded him of the moment when Jacob looked at his bride and murmured, "Your hand, my dear," and raised it to his lips, and looked at her with a gentleness few outside immediate family ever saw.

Don't take your pet rock for granite.

I did NOT work in on that gun! It was …err, like that when I got it. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I was hoping someone was going to pick up on that

... where ... Downton ... At least "bogan" was spelled right. Considering the meaning of "bogan," whoever wrote the text might be one.

Must have been one of those “lung blowers” 9mm or maybe the most powerful round on the planet…. 223 according to the know nothings. Regards Gateway Kid

It's not gneiss of you to keep posting schist like this.

... mine lost it's marble ... 🙃

I have an urge to slap someone on the back of their head.

You just need to tighten the chain reeeeeal tight.

They can....and will. The things you see at some of the parties in my Ute.

A woman in her seventies called the police when she believed that her husband, also in his seventies, was dead. A detective showed up with a couple of uniformed cops and a medic team. When they arrived at the house, the woman was standing over her husband slightly in tears. He was lying on the carpeted floor in the living room with a wheel chair also lying on its side next to him. The medic immediately checked the old man’s pulse and confirmed that he was dead. The detective, after examining the dead man’s body, stood up and gently put his hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Are you all right, ma’am?” “Yes,” she whimpered, still in tears. “You think you can take some questions now?” The woman nodded, still looking as though she couldn’t believe what had just happened. “Did he fall out of his wheelchair, ma’am?” the detective asked. “You might say that,” she replied. “Is that how he died?” he asked. “Oh, no,” she quickly replied. “Oh!” the detective exclaimed. “So you know how he died then? ““Yes,” she said, “he took poison.” The detective looked at the dead man’s body again. “He took poison?”, the detective asked surprisingly. “Then why are all these bruises on his body? Why does it look like he was knocked from his wheelchair?” The woman looked exasperated and again shook her teary head, “I’M SORRY, DETECTIVE. BUT HE DIDN’T WANT TO TAKE IT!”

WATCHER William Linn ran his arm under his mule's neck, leaned into Jack-mule's warm fur. The mule's ears swung back, then slowly forward again: he brought his head around, Will rubbed the neck, dropped his arm, rubbed Jack under his jaw bone, and considered yet again that the jaw bone of a jack mule was a right poor weapon if a man was intent to go up against a bunch of Philistines. Will's pale eyes swung back up the mountain and he smiled a little, remembering. He'd been a boy when he first went up on that particular meadow. His Pa called it Spearpoint. It didn't look a thing like the pointy end of a killing shaft. His Pa called it that because Will's Aunt Sarah -- when she was younger than him -- went up there with a knapped obsidian head wet-rawhide-laced onto a seasoned shaft, and she'd taken an elk with it. His Pa said 'twas the legendary Charlie Macneil who took her up there, Charlie showed her how to skin out and bone out the meat, Charlie showed her how to tie down the packs of eatin' meat on the pack horse, and Charlie rode back into town with her. Charlie had cut a sprig -- Pa called it a sprig of acacia, Will thought, smiling at the memory -- he'd dipped the evergreen pine sprig in the elk's blood and stuck it in Sarah's hat band, then he'd striped her cheeks, two streaks of blood, badging her with a creature's life. His Pa said Sarah never, ever took any life for granted, not man, not beast, for she'd taken a life, that she might provide food for her family. When Will was still a boy, he used to slip up to the Spearpoint. He'd wait, he'd watch, and if he was quiet enough, if he'd snuck up without making a sound a'tall, he'd watch the elk. Will looked at the herd with the eye of someone who knew what it was to harvest meat on the hoof for the table. He also looked at this selfsame herd with the eye of someone who knew what it was to take a life, up close and personal, to see the light go out of the eyes that looked up at him, and know that he, Will, was the cause those eyes would see no more, ever. Will watched the herd and Will assessed the herd and Will picked out the gravid does, the barren does, he selected which would be proper for harvest, which should be spared. He leaned against his Jack-mule and looked up the mountain and remembered this, and he felt the corners of his eyes tighten a little as he smiled inside. His Pa taught him to keep his feelings to himself. Will seldom smiled, he seldom frowned, he cultivated a quiet spirit and a poker face. Will's Pa, Jacob, was Sheriff, and Will was his right hand: here Will stood, well up on the mountain, a six point, hand-chased star in a buttoned vest pocket, a man grown, and he'd just come down from the Spearpoint meadow. A grown man he was, yes, but sometimes he liked to Injun up on the elk like he did as a boy. He watched them, flattened behind the same slight rise, looking through the same brush he'd used as concealment, the same rise and brush Sarah used. Will had the same gift for drawing as his younger siblings. He'd come back from Spearpoint, and he'd taken a precious sheet of paper, he'd set down at the kitchen table when nobody was around to interfere, or shake the table or bump his elbow, and he remembered, and the memory flowed out the Barlow-sharpened pencil's tip and onto the paper. He'd left the drawing for his Pa, and his Pa admired the drawing well enough that he'd put it in the back cover of the family Bible -- the big one they ceremonially wrote in names and dates, births and deaths, the big book they used rarely -- his Pa read nightly from the Scripture he'd used since he was a boy, leaving the larger tome for signal events in their lives -- and the drawing Will made at his kitchen table slept in the back of the Book. Will had no way of knowing that paper would be rediscovered years after his Pa's death and burial, that it would be seen and held and exclaimed over by women with pale eyes, that it would end up matted and framed and displayed behind protective glass in the Firelands museum. All Will knew was, as he stood high up on a mountainside, in the company of his favorite riding mule, that he delighted in this one simple pleasure: whether it was following the flight of a swift little bird from one branch to another, whether it was following the soaring circles of the great birds of the mountain as they rode updrafts and thermals, whether it was the rare sighting of the increasingly-rate mountain cats that laid ears back against round skills and hissed angrily ... Will's great delight in life was to watch, like he'd done as a little boy.

AMEN, Bro!

Technically, Cowboy Action can be a form of cosplay. Merriam-Webster defines cosplay as "the activity or practice of dressing up as a character from a work of fiction". So any of us dressing as a fictional character, and I'm including those of us that made up a character, my own Sgt. C.J. Sabre being such, are cosplaying. Most anybody dressing for a Renaissance Festival is cosplaying. Kids in costume on Halloween are cosplaying. When you were a little kid sitting in front of the TV shooting your cap gun with Gene, Hoppy, or Roy, you were cosplaying. I was too. Is it different that other forms? Maybe. But by definition, we are cosplaying. I'm good with that.