Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

MORE THAN YOU REALIZE Sheriff Jacob Keller was very quiet the day he signed out a week’s worth of vacation. His son Joseph was delighted when his Pa asked if he’d like to come along to the mountains. Ruth quietly, efficiently, packed what the three of them would need. It wasn’t until the day before their departure that Ruth found the note. Joseph stood beside his Pa in the back of the room. Joseph had never been to a funeral service back on Earth, but he’d been to church plenty of times. To his credit, the Sheriff’s young son stood still without fidget or itch; he did not tug at his suit, nor did he scratch the way restless little boys will. Joseph paid attention to the proceedings, he listened with more attention than most of the adults; he was silent during the procession to the cemetery. Ruth watched her husband in that quiet, careful way a wife will observe when she knows her husband is hurting, but she does not want to make a public production of it. It wasn’t until they were seated at a back table in the Silver Jewel that Joseph finally spoke up. “Pa,” he said quietly, “why wasn’t Grampa there?” Jacob smiled a little – Joseph’s young stomach felt funny as he realized his Pa looked kind of sad – Jacob replied that his Grampa didn’t go to school with the deceased. Joseph knew “deceased” meant “dead” and for a confused moment he wondered what it would be like to go to school with a dead person, then he realized that’s not what his Pa was saying. Jacob smiled quietly at the girl in the paisley dress and asked for two coffees and a lemonade, and what was good today, and Joseph heard the quiet kindness in his Pa’s voice, right before he saw the corners of his Pa’s eyes tighten a little the way they did when he was smiling on the inside. “Why darlin’,” the waitress said cheerfully, swatting Jacob’s shoulder with the towel that usually lived over her own shoulder, “it’s all good!” – then she bent a little, palms on her knees, she winked at Joseph and smiled at Ruth and the told Jacob, “I think I can recommend the usual!” Jacob looked at his wife and his son, nodded. “Three usuals, if you would, please, and keep the coffee comin’ “ – he winked at Joseph – “the Navy runs on coffee, and so do I!” Father and son lay on a blanket, high on the mountain: their horses grazed nearby, and Joseph’s quick eye picked up two shooting stars before Jacob saw his first. “The stars look funny,” Joseph observed. “I know,” Jacob agreed. “We’re used to seein’ ‘em with almost no atmosphere.” “I saw the Aurora yesterday, Pa!” “You’re doin’ better than me,” Jacob admitted. “I’ve been on Mars for years now and still haven’t seen ‘em!” Joseph grinned in the mountain darkness. “Pa, why’nt Ma come with us?” “Oh, I reckon she would have … was she some younger,” Jacob speculated. “She’s a girl, though, and we men make sure our girls are comfortable.” “But what’s she doin’, Pa?” Joseph heard his Pa’s quiet chuckle. “Joseph,” Jacob sighed, “knowin' your Mama, she’s probably just talkin’ up a storm with my Mama!” Shelly read the note, the back of her free hand pressed against her lips as she read. I am dying, she read. The nights are long and scary. When it gets too bad, I’ll open the latest envelope you sent me and I’ll read about Old Pale Eyes. I’ll smell dust and hear wagons and horses’ hooves, I’ll see sunlight shatter bright off polished silver harness bells swinging above a horse collar and I’ll feel warped boards on the Boardwalk underfoot. I’ll hear the saloon piano and smell beer and tobacco smoke, and for a few minutes, I’m not scared and alone in an empty house, with Death whispering around the outside, looking for a way in. Shelly blinked as she read further, then she laid the note down and blinked rapidly. Ruth slid a paper napkin across the tablecloth toward Shelly, took the note, slipped it back in her pocketbook. “That’s where we were today,” Ruth said. “I heard cancer finally killed her.” Shelly looked at her daughter in law. “Does Jacob know … the note?” Ruth nodded. “He was really quiet after he got the note.” Shelly remembered the boy Jacob had been, remembered how quiet he got in difficult seasons in his life. “He’s taken a week’s vacation. He said he knew where he wanted to go.” “Did he say anything else?” Ruth gave Shelly a knowing look – she’d heard her husband use that exact phrase, word for word, and not a few times. Ruth nodded, bit her bottom lip, remembered standing beside her husband, his hand in hers, listening to his silence, until he finally spoke. “He seemed … surprised … that writing down those stories about Old Pale Eyes and sending to his friend, actually helped someone,” Ruth offered, her eyes bright. “I looked at him and said he helps people more times than he realizes!”

This is not at all what I'd intended to write, and my apologies for the lapse. House phone line was deader'n a politician's promise, it took both dial tone and Internet with it. It's fixed now. I'd started one that was writing really well until I realized there was a major flaw with my underlying premise. Here's what I wrote: The Sheriff did not hurry. He felt no need. His pace was measured, regular, the drumbeat of doom in a black suit. He paced down the boardwalk. Firelands took pride in its appearance, and had from its inception. Buildings were painted, window frames and doors were trimmed, the boardwalk was constructed quickly out of need, but it was constructed solidly and well. Time, high altitude and dry air sucked the moisture from the planks; boards warped, some twisted, but the general construction remained sound. Boot heels on the dusty, warped boards were not quiet, and the Sheriff made no attempt at stealth. His footfalls, his boot heels, sang a drumbeat of utter doom. He walked with a deliberate slowness, slightly slower than his usual pace; his hard and pale eyes shone like burning beacons of righteousness from under the shadowed overhang of his brushed black Stetson. A stranger, an auslander from his attire, pushed out the heavy, ornate doors of the Silver Jewel. The Sheriff seized him by the shirt front, a fast, punching grab that twisted up all the slack material – the Sheriff pulled him quickly toward him, then just as quickly drove him into the side of the building, then he hauled the startled, wide-eyed stranger off his feet, pressed him overhead, one-armed, brought him down to eye level and murmured, “You’d best behave” – in a voice that was terrible for its quiet, for its calm, for its sense of utter, absolute, control. The Sheriff’s hand knifed under his unbuttoned coat and engraved, blue-steel gunmetal whispered from its carved black holster: the smooth, oiled mechanism chuckled to itself as the cylinder rolled and locked, as the hammer came to full stand, as the gold-bar-inlaid front ramp portrayed itself against the high center chest of the second stranger, who’d fled after his fellow and found himself pinned to the spot by the sight of a .44-caliber gun muzzle taking a long, unblinking look at his wish bone. It was the last thing he ever saw. Jackson Cooper appeared from somewhere, which was a particular gift the man had – for a soul of his considerable size, he moved fast and silent and had a habit of appearing when he wasn’t expected. As fast as the Sheriff was, Jackson Cooper was faster – he once caught a thrown knife, by its handle, slung it back to the thrower, to the thrower’s short-lived regret. Jackson Cooper swung a big hand down, picked up the dead man’s pistol by its barrel, held it daintily between thumb and forefinger like something unclean. He looked at the Sheriff and rumbled with a straight face, “Trade you.” The Sheriff swung his prisoner around – Jackson Cooper’s big hand claimed an impressive acreage of the back of the man’s coat – the Sheriff took the would-be holdup’s little .32 pistol and stepped aside as Jackson Cooper packed his prisoner to the hoosegow as easily as he might carry a carpet bag. Linn looked up, looked diagonally across the street, raised his arm in summons. At the sound of the gunshot, Linn knew Digger would be at his window, looking hopefully for business. The Sheriff kicked out the one fired hull and reloaded, holstered; he squatted beside the carcass, turned it over, studied the stranger’s face, then began going through pockets, waistband and money belt. Mr. Baxter cautiously opened the door, looked out, Tilly peeking over him, around him, bobbing like a curious schoolgirl behind the barkeep. Linn looked up. “Mr. Baxter, anyone hurt inside?” Mr. Baxter shook his head: “Nobody’s hurt.” “But …?” “We’ve got some folks unhappy you killed him.” The Sheriff looked at the barkeep, amusement in his pale eyes, almost as if he knew what was about to follow the barkeep’s words. “Got some folks in here who want to beat that fellow plumb to death.” “Well pardon me all to hell,” the long tall lawman muttered as Digger came rattling up with the dead wagon. Unfinished, because I realized the root premise is flawed. Pull a gun and try a holdup in the Silver Jewel and you’d have plenty pointed at you, not to mention Mr. Baxter’s sawed off howitzer he keeps under the bar! It writes well, I can see it happen as I write it, but the root premise – a holdup, IN the Silver Jewel – no, anyone that dumb would not live long enough to make it out the door!

ME TOO Sheriff Jacob Keller unbuttoned his handmade black coat and drew it open a little, sat across from one of the Valkyries. Gracie's spherical black helmet was more a symbol of office than the item of utility it had been. Jacob knew Gracie's personal field was well more effective than his own, and his own would keep him warm, dry, safe, and breathing, in hard vacuum and in radiation enough to reduce living flesh to a wisp of ash in a tenth of a second or less. Gracie wore her black flight suit like a second skin; her suit was as shining-glossy-black as her helmet, the black fingers that wrapped around her heavy ceramic mug were as sure, as dextrous, as sensitive, as if she were barehand. Jacob did not pretend to understand how. He only knew that it was, and as Jacob was a practical man, he filed that under "G" for "Good enough." Gracie smiled quietly as she regarded the shimmering tan liquid, then took a slow, savoring sip, eyes closed, concentrating on this one item only. Jacob suspected the other Valkyries had some kind of a mind-link with their Warrior-Sister, and each of these remarkable souls -- most of whom were light-minutes to light-centuries from the underground cafeteria, auditorium, meeting room and dance hall excavated under Martian dust -- were savoring the same sensations, in the same moment. Part of Jacob's mind knew this involved some kind of quantum communication, but again, he had neither instruction nor understanding of these matters, and simply accepted them. He did, however, consider he might be shockingly primitive in that attitude, much like natives solemnly regarding a Great White Hunter speaking into a microphone, and a distant voice replying from the speaker, and simply accepting this as White Man's Magic. Gracie looked up with a knowing smile as Jacob paused to consider whether he was just such a primitive. "Oh, it gets worse," she whispered. "Do you remember reading about our brief sojourn into time travel?" Jacob looked very directly at this woman he'd known all of his life -- for a moment he remembered the quiet, hard-eyed mountain girl in a mousy-grey skirt and men's work boots and a man's flannel shirt, riding into town like an anachronism, mounted on a patient old mule, with a double barrel twelve gauge scabbarded under her lean, sinewy leg -- none of the Daine/Maxwell tribe were aught but skinny, spare, rangy and tough as hell -- he remembered Gracie, almost silent in class, Gracie loading what few groceries they purchased, on muleback and disappearing back into the mountains. He tried to reconcile this with the confident, level-eyed woman across from him, shook his head. "Initial trip was by accident," she said quietly. "I spent better than a century in my ship being repaired, just as my ship repaired itself." She tilted her head a little, smiled, then reached out a black-skinsuited hand, gripped Jacob's hand firmly for a moment, then released. "I had such a crush on you," she admitted, and Jacob blinked, surprised, at the maidenly blush that crossed her face, and he grinned -- that quick, boyish grin of his -- and they both laughed. Gracie tapped the coffee cup with one shining-black finger. "I am so very glad Marnie has a coffee line," she sighed, "and I bless those industrious folk who found there were plants very much like sugar cane to boil down for molasses!" "I take spells," Jacob admitted, "sometimes I'll add honey to my coffee and sometimes molasses." "Molasses has iron." Jacob nodded, smiled quietly. "We have our own hives here." "Really?" Gracie's eyes widened, delighted. Jacob nodded, leaned back as a steaming plate of scrambled eggs, a half dozen strips of still-sizzling bacon and two thick slabs of toasted sourdough with fresh churned butter slid into place in front of each of them. Jacob ginned up at the blushing girl in a headscarf and a Star of David necklace. "Miriam," he murmured, "bless you, you're a gem!" Miriam's eyes shone at the praise, then she looked with awe at Gracie. "You're a Valkyrie," she whispered. Miriam picked up her spherical black helmet: where it had been featureless when she placed it on the seat beside her. Now it had the same nose art on the sides as she had on her Starfighter -- the image of a screaming young woman in a cowboy hat and fringed skirt, ornately-stitched cowboy boots and Stetson falling back on its storm strap, astride a fire-tailed Starfighter, a fire-blasting revolver in each hand Under this, in an ornate, gold-and-black-shadowed calligraphy, GUNFIGHTER! Gracie tapped the helmet with one shining-black forefinger and smiled, "That's me!" Miriam's fingers went to her lips: her other hand gripped Jacob's shoulder as if to steady herself. Jacob looked from one to the other with an expression of puzzled concern, which did not diminish when Miriam whispered "Thank you," and then spun and nearly ran back toward the kitchen. Gracie smiled across her plate at Jacob, who turned and looked with honest curiosity at the Valkyrie he'd known since childhood, watched her snatch up the pepper shaker and briskly season her untouched eggs: she took a quick bite, leaned back, hummed with genuine pleasure, nodded. "Granddad Sullivan used to pepper his pan gravy BLACK," she explained as she picked up a rasher of still-hot bacon: she bit into it and shivered with delight, chewed, and again Jacob wondered if what he'd just seen was her reaction, or the collective response of all the mind-linked Star Sisters, sharing this one sensual moment. They ate, then, and they did full justice to their shared breakfast: it wasn't until the meal was finished, until each leaned back in their molded-orange-plastic chair (what rule is it that requires cafeteria chairs to be universally ugly?), not until Miriam refilled their coffee, that conversation resumed and returned to Gracie's involuntary incarceration in a natural cavity under Daine Mountain. "The Supreme Confederate debated time travel," Gracie sighed, "and they wasted an incredible amount of effort and time and research on it. "I finally brought my Starfighter into the conference chamber, and believe me, when a full-sized Starfighter materializes over the long conference table, it tends to get everyone's attention!" Jacob chuckled, remembering when he and Marnie each rode into that same chamber, each on their favorite saddlehorse: he knew exactly what she meant by getting everyone's attention, instantly, if not sooner. "I gave them my testimony and explained the only instances of time travel I knew of, were all accidental, and from absolute, sheer and utterly incredible coincidence, each time the destination was Earth: I told them time travel was so unstable and frankly dangerous to our known timeline, that it was something we shouldn't really trifle with. "I didn't tell them that they were well more than a century from even fringing on anything time-capable, I didn't tell them that we -- the Valkyries -- had made two rescue runs involving time travel, and that we were mutually agreed that its risks were too great, not only from a practical sense, but from a philosophical as well." Jacob considered this, nodded. "I'm not much of a philosopher," he admitted, "so I'll leave that to your good judgement." Gracie took another sip of coffee, looked at Jacob with the expression of a woman who knows her breakfast companion has something further to say. "Gracie," he said softly, and it was her turn to see a blush spread over the other's face. He looked up at her and for a moment he was the awkward, bashful boy he'd been, when they were in school together, and he was talking with her, one-on-one. "I ... had quite the crush on you, too." She nodded. "Some of the best memories I have are riding the mountains with you," she murmured. Jacob nodded, and this time he grinned. "Yeah," he admitted. "Me too."

BILLY GOAT, IN A DRESS Courtesy was part and parcel of everyday life. Gentlemanly behavior was an ideal, a goal; men practiced the art of good manners with one another, and ladies, with their more elaborate customs and courtesies, did as well, though in fairness one might expound upon the feminine tendency to hide knives in sweet words and barbed insinuations in what otherwise sounded like innocent comments. Men sometimes did this as well, though more often than not, instead of a verbal riposte or a flounce and a huff, men tended to settle things in rather a more violent manner. Men wished to not be seen as weak; women wished not to give anyone an opening for gossip or for finger-pointing. This worked until the Holland boys' billy goat broke loose and made it to town. Now that billy was mean -- the boys would tease it and torment it and get it to buttin' and Billy's end finally came when it lowered them curved horns at Sullivan Maxwell's bent over backside when the old man was gatherin' up kindling wood -- Billy he lowered his head and shook them curvy horns and taken out at a dead run and rammed Sullivan in the Hind Quarters and not only did he drive the old man forward a remarkable distance, 'twas said Sullivan plowed up a dirt furrow with his Eagle Beak of a Nose, and that armload of kindling got scattered hell west and crooked. You might've heard about that one, Sullivan took the broad ax and when Billy was grazin' all unconcerned, why, Sullivan walked up and clove the head from that billy's shoulders with one mighty swing of that hand made broad ax. I'm a-gittin' ahead of myself. Before that mean billy ended up on Sullivan's spread, it come to town and allowed as it was going to Head Butt anything it damn well pleased, and unfortunately, Esther Keller was crossing the street about the time Billy come around out of an alley and saw her. Now Esther was a woman of quality, and Esther was a woman of gentility, and Esther, in her childhood, was the pampered little girl of a Carolina plantation owner. Esther roamed that plantation more'n the boys did, generally on one of her Daddy's fine horses, much to her very proper mother's consertation, her sisters' comments and whispered words behind other feminine hands on properties adjacent. Esther didn't care. She felt genuinely free on the back of a good saddle horse, Esther disguised herself in jockey silks and won a purse at the County Fair under an assumed name, and Esther out-rode and out-ran her brothers to the point that they complained bitterly (and fruitlessly) to their Pa. Esther is also the woman who saddled her Daddy's fastest racer, loaded up her Daddy's dueling pistols, who disguised herself as one of the hired girls after the damned Yankees murdered her Daddy and her brothers and hanged her Mama and her sisters after doing things to them no woman should ever know -- Esther knew herbs and potions and Esther helped prepare the meal, and the other girls there saw what she was doing, and looked at one another, and said not one word as what looked and smelled and tasted like an excellent meal, was served to the officers who ordered the murder of Esther's family, and who ordered that Esther, the only survivor, should be found, arrested, and returned. Esther took out on her Daddy's racer and she knew where to find the only two Yankees who actually stood between herself and freedom, and her Daddy's dueling pistols spoke a language these bluecoat invaders understood. This was the Esther Keller who was crossing the street with the delicate step and pleasant expression of a woman descended of Suth'n nobility. Billy the Goat didn't care about her antecedents. Billy saw that long, broad skirt. Billy the Goat launched with all the happy bully-charge of an ill-tempered goat. Esther Keller was many things: wife, mother, matron, but she was genuinely a skilled dancer. Esther twirled and took a half-step back, just enough for Billy to drive into a cloud of cloth, and Esther's quick hand seized something and pulled, and then jumped, and her skirt parted company from its bodice and Esther's jump allowed the flowing cloth to remain impaled on Billy's black, sharp, curved horns. Billy stopped, confused, aggravated, blind: Esther was upon him in a moment, winding cloth around his head, fast, tight -- she seized Billy behind the front legs, laid her forearm against his horns to keep him from throwing his head back and impaling her -- she hauled Billy up and onto a knee and by then running men converged and Billy was quickly hogtied. Esther stood back, then bent, hands on her knees, standing in the middle of the street wearing a single petticoat below her bodice: she breathed deeply, steadily, glared green-eyed and fierce at the struggling, screaming goat with what used to be her skirt, tightly wound around its head. Esther felt as much as heard her husband behind her. She turned, planted her knuckles on her belt and glared up at the long tall lawman. Now Sheriff Linn Keller was a veteran of That Damned War, he'd been shot, stabbed, cut, run into, run over, and a street evangelist tried to save his corroded soul. It was right difficult to surprise this particular Sheriff. Esther Keller, wife, mother, matron, fixture about town, glared up at her husband, and he looked back at her with an expression of utter, unmitigated, surprise. "Mrs. Keller," he said softly, "what have we here?" Esther's bottom jaw thrust out and she half-turned, thrust an accusing, trembling finger at the struggling, goat-screaming prisoner. "This," she declared, "is a new wonder of the world, Mr. Keller! I'm surprised you've never heard it it!" Men were standing outside the Silver Jewel by this time, beer mugs in hand, staring, grinning, elbowing one another: from the other side of the street, Digger stared through the front window of his viewing-parlor, crowding in between two display caskets to take in the excitement. Mrs. Garrison stood out in front of the Mercantile, one hand to her bodice in a feminine gesture of utter astonishment. "This," Esther announced loudly, turning, sweeping a wrist-bent arm up in a theatrical gesture of universal inclusion, "is the Grand Arrival of the BILLY GOAT IN A DRESS!" Marnie Keller peered over her schoolteacher lenses and smiled at the Ladies' Tea Society as she finished her presentation titled "Billy Goat in a Dress," and she slid her notes together, tilted her head a little the way she did at the end. "Now who says it was boring back in the day?"

DISPATCH, SAY AGAIN The entire Irish Brigade came to what you might call a screechin' halt. Every man Jack -- Chief, Captain, firefighters, medic, everyone but the cat in the window, stopped. The address was familiar, it was not far from their little stone hospital, but the nature of the call is what caused a confusion. Beyond the firehouse, road deputies stopped and looked at one another, then looked at the grey-plastic Motorola speaker bolted to the equipment rack. People with scanners stopped what they were doing and looked at their receivers. A bay door started chuckling open, shivering as segments bent and rolled overhead to open the portal to the outside world: Captain Crane and his fast moving daughter slammed the doors to their squad, Shelly twisted the cap off the erasable marker, stuck the cap between two fingers as she poised to write on the transparent, self-stick shelf paper with which she'd covered the padded dash to make a writing surface. Mic in hand. Button down. Professional voice. "Dispatch, squad one, say again nature of call." Dispatch hesitated, as if gathering the strength to say it again, or perhaps Sharon needed to steady herself first. "Man in a bathrobe with a toilet plunger, running around the yard yelling and beating on the ground." The sound of the 911 phone in the background, a hesitation, fingers still down on the transmit key: several seconds of dead air -- something Sharon NEVER did -- then the huff of her quick little exhale, the way she did right before transmitting. "Firelands Squad One, man down, no pulse, same location." Frances was the hospital's electronics wizard. He'd kept Uncle Sam's shipboard electronics running under circumstances he rarely spoke about, only to complain about cramped installs, hard to get to locations, needing to dismantle half the ship's guts to get to what he needed to repair, and generally exaggerating his difficulties to try and convince himself that he actually had it better in the civilian world. Frances lay barefoot in his front yard, frayed yellow bathrobe around his portly self, still clutching the toilet plunger. He groaned up at his wife, kneeling beside him, bit back a pained profanity, felt her fingers drive into his throat in desperate search for a corroborating pulse. He vaguely remembered saying something half intelligent (but only half) -- like maybe "Where'd you come from?" -- then he kind of faded and only vaguely remembered cold air on his belly as his robe was pulled open, as things were done to his chest, as he was picked up, and set on something that wasn't wet with nighttime dew. Sharon watched as the Sheriff set up the big screen in front of her desk, as doughnuts were set on her desk and a tray with multiple cups of coffee, as traces of cinnamon and of vanilla rose as the coffee cups were uncapped -- Sharon always did like it when Angela got coffee, she didn't just get plain old coffee, she mixed up frou-frou coffee for herself and for the dispatcher -- two shifts' worth of deputies were ranked behind her seated, leaning, standing, all waiting to see the after action report. "You all know Frances," the Sheriff began, thumbing a button: an image appeared, a stout, older man bent over, frowning at the interior of something that looked expensive, medical and complicated, in what looked like their hospital's intensive care unit. "We got the call." Another button, Sharon's voice: "Man in a bathrobe with a toilet plunger, running around the yard yelling and beating on the ground." His thumb moved again. This time it was video, from a doorbell camera, distorted at the edges: Frances was indeed running in a circle, in the yard, swearing as only an old Navy salt can, bent over double and vigorously striking at something grey and fast moving. The image froze, enhanced: a rat was frozen in mid-scamper. "The culprit here," the Sheriff continued solemnly, "is reportedly dispatched, courtesy the cat, adopted the next day by Frances's wife -- who, by the way, started CPR the moment he hit the ground and very likely is the only reason he's alive today." He looked over at Angela, who managed to look completely innocent as powdered sugar dribbled down onto her white nurse's uniform bodice: "This is why I preach and preach and preach CPR training," she mumbled through her doughnut. "Early intervention before myocardial deoxygenation." "Yyyeahhh," the Sheriff replied slowly, gestured to his daughter with the remote: "What she said." Coffee, doughnuts and solemn nods were the general reply. "Frances has a brand new pacemaker and his wife said the rat is caught and killed." Another press, and the image of Frances, a fixture in their community, a man who sang in their church, who fixed their electronics and swore at malfunctioning laptops until he persuaded them to work again, a man who laughed and told outrageous lies about his Navy days and then laughed at his own stories. The image showed him in barefoot mid-gallop, ragged yellow bathrobe afloat in the night wind, bent over in mid-strike, toilet plunger bearing down on the grey streak of a fleeing rat he'd heard scampering around inside his galvanized trash can. The Sheriff could look innocent when he wanted, and he looked innocent now as he asked the assembled, "Do you reckon I'd ought to make an 8x10 glossy of this and give it to him?" Author's note: This is based on a call I responded to with the Marshal's office. His name wasn't Frances and doorbell cameras were long into the future, so no actual video. I was the one who started CPR, not his wife. The real-life rat got away and as far as I know, was never apprehended, despite the wanted poster the next door neighbor kid drew and duct taped to a pole not far from the scene.

Dantankerous' buddy's sixty mile an hour into a black Angus sends the cold shivers right down my back bone! Reminds me too much of a dark night where an Amishman's horse ended up in the back seat of a sedan, details omitted out of a general sense of I-don't-want-to-remember-that-one! I took a report one time from a shaken motorist who claimed an invisible deer come out of nowhere a'tall, hit his car and disappeared! Given some of the close calls I've had with Odecoleus virginianus, I'm inclined to believe his testimony!

(admiring whistle) That Indian looks SHARP! -- and I'm going to guess those with two wheels in front are Can Am? -- Dan and Casey, you two make a good lookin' couple! Well done indeed! Absolutely love that SAY WHEN!

DOPPLER SHIFT Marnie was still a mistrustful little girl. Marnie was also a bright, intelligent, curious little girl. Marnie did not trust this long tall fellow with the curly mustache, but she didn't quite mistrust him. She flinched when he touched her, and she saw sadness in his eyes when she did, and this troubled her. If her pale eyed New Daddy was a star, she was a small planet, in cautious orbit -- present, not always where he expected to find her ... always watching, always wanting something, but not knowing quite what she wanted. Marnie climbed the whitewashed boards and sat on the flat top and watched her Newdaddy working with horsies. He watched how they came to him, how they trusted him, how they rubbed against him and hung their chin over his shoulder, how even the Horsie Puppies came to him and looked at him with trust, and she realized -- on some level -- that if they trusted him, maybe she could trust him too. Marnie felt the fence shiver a little under her and she felt movement on her right. Jacob climbed the fence, threw one leg over, then the other, hooked boot heels behind the next rail down and scooted a little closer to her. Marnie reached out a hand and gripped his. Jacob was safe. Jacob was close to her size. Jacob's hand squeezed hers, cautiously, and she squeezed back, looked at him, then looked at her Newdaddy. They sat on the top rail and watched as the tall, lean man with pale eyes and a curly mustache moved -- surrounded by horses, all crowding in and competing for attention -- he went into the barn and came out of the barn and he spun a saddle pad onto a spotty horsie and then brought the saddle back, twisted and hoisted and slung the saddle nice and easy and it looked like he floated it on the spotty horsie's back. marnie looked over at Jacob and saw delight and a broad grin and Marnie wanted to feel like that but she'd built a wall around her young heart and she forbade herself from wanting anything. If she didn't want anything, she couldn't be disappointed. Young eyes watched as the Sheriff, their Pa, worked with his stallion, made sure the cinch was tight enough, watched as he kind of levitated off the ground with one leg slung up fast and easy and he come into the saddle and made it look easy. The stallion muttered something and the other close-crowded members of the herd backed up a little, as if they knew what was about to happen. Marnie's hand tightened as he eyes widened, as the spotty horsie spun under her Newdaddy: she saw delight in his pale eyes, though his face remained impassive: the horsie jumped a couple times -- "That's a crow hop," Jacob breathed -- then the horsie stopped, and shivered, and paced off just nice as you please and Newdaddy and the horsie kind of flowed across the pasture and doubled back and come up beside the fence where Marnie in her frilly dress and shiny slippers, and Jacob in blue jeans and boots and a big boyish grin, sat and watched. "Who's first?" Marnie heard warmth in the voice and delight hiding in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and she watched as Jacob swarmed off the fence and onto the horse, as he settled in behind the saddle and run his arms around his Pa and gripped his belt, holding on just behind the holster that was such a regular part of the man's attire Marnie paid it no mind anymore. She watched as they rode -- easy at first, then faster, and Marnie's eyes hadn't come down from the wide-with-I-want-to-do-that as they came back up the pasture, Apple-horse driving hard against the pasture sod, as her Newdaddy leaned forward and Jacob leaned forward with him and Apple-horse punched his nose into the wind and laid his ears back and ran! They made an orbit of the pasture and Marnie saw Jacob was grinning twice as broad as his face actually measured, the way a little boy will when he is absolutely delighting in something he loves, and the her Newdaddy and his spotty horse came back up the pasture, slower -- Marnie did not know the gait was called a trot. If she had to put a name to it, she'd probably have called it a strut. This would not have been at all inaccurate. They came up in front of her and Apple-horse stopped and looked at her like he was expecting something from her, then he sidled up against the fence and her Newdaddy said "Marnie's turn" in a quiet voice, and something grabbed Marnie's young stomach and pulled it down deep into her belly. Jacob got a boot onto a fence rail, threw his weight to the side, grabbed the fence and climbed back onto whitewashed planking. "Darlin'," her Newdaddy asked in a soft voice, "would you like to try ridin'?" Marnie's eyes were big and vulnerable and Marnie's feelings were at war with themselves. "You can ride ahead of me," her Newdaddy said, "or you can ride behind, like Jacob did." Apple-horse sidestepped and turned and shoved his nose into her belly and snuffed loudly, for all the world like he was inviting her personally. "Tell you what," Linn said thoughtfully. "How about you try the saddle yourself, and I'll walk?" Marnie blinked in surprise. Linn swung down out of the saddle, then he came around and reached up: Marnie felt big strong hands under her arms and around her ribs, he brought her easily off the fence and swung her down and swung her back up and she was paralyzed, she was terrified, she was exhilarated, she was in the saddle, blinking, wondering what-all just happened. Linn rubbed Apple-horse under his long jaw, bribed him with some thick shavings off his plug of molasses twist: Marnie heard her Newdaddy's knife snap shut, watched him take off walking, seized the saddlehorn in almost a panic as the saddle moved under her and she didn't quite know what to do. Apple-horse's reins were knotted and dropped over the saddlehorn. Marnie did not reach for them. She didn't know enough to grip the reins. Apple-horse was bitless; rein pressure against his neck, a shift of the weight, pressure from one knee or the other -- Apple-horse responded to his rider, and he was used to the Sheriff's weight and the Sheriff's connection, and this little weight on his back was unfamiliar but not at all objectionable. Apple kept pace with the Sheriff. Linn stopped, sidestepped to his left, called "Haaawwww," and Apple-horse came around to his left -- slowly, almost majestically in response to the Sheriff's having drawled out the word. Had his voice been sharp and curt, Apple would have swapped ends to cut the course change. "Yup now," Linn called, and Apple paced off into a nice easy trot, the kind that doesn't look like much but covers ground in good shape -- it wasn't a singlefoot gait -- Linn had horses that could run a nice smooth singlefoot, but Apple wasn't among them -- Linn turned, watched, saw Marnie straighten in the saddle. She's doing better than most adults, he thought approvingly: she's even let go of the saddle horn. Apple got close to the far end of the pasture and came around, smooth, easy, a nice, wide turn, and Linn's belly tightened up as he recognized Apple's change. He couldn't say later exactly what it was -- there was no laying back of his ears, he didn't punch his nose out, he didn't bunch up and gather himself like a spring coiled up ready to launch -- but Linn knew his stallion was about to take out way too fast for a green rider. Apple didn't care. Apparently neither did Marnie. Apparently Marnie knew Apple was about to try something, and apparently Marnie approved of whatever it was, because Marnie threw herself forward and grabbed a good double handful of coarse black mane and yelled "GO HORSIE!" Marnie had no stirrups, Marnie was in much too big a saddle, Marnie's knees were bent and her shining little slippers had nothing to grip and neither did her little bare legs and she did not let this stop her. Apple-horse, the Herd Stallion and favorite saddle mount of that pale eyed Sheriff, did what he loved to do, and that was RUN! -- he laid into a flat-out gallop and when Marnie spoke the memory, many years later, as Ambassador, she likened it in much the same words as her sainted grandmother described her red mare Cannonball -- "When that horse ran, it felt like I was a-straddle of a cannonball fired from a field gun!" Her Newdaddy's memory of he moment was somewhat different. He saw his stallion, neck thrust out straight, all four steelshot hooves a-diggin', he saw speed and he saw power and he saw a self propelled, red-spotted arrow driving right for him, he saw a little girl with HUUUGE wide eyes, with a grin broad as two townships in Texas, producing a delighted squeal, not quite a scream but close, that Doppler shifted as they whistled past, EEEEEEEeeeeeeee, and Linn only vaguely remembered Jacob, rejoicing on the top rail of the fence, both fists in the air, jumping up and down on the flat top rail in a triumphant, juvenile, war dance!

I cannot improve on Texas Maverick's penetrating statement! Well said, sir! Well said indeed!

STILLWATER Sarah Lynne McKenna was a ghost. She moved steadily, stealthily, flowing more than walking between trees, through brush, over deadfalls, following a path that had seen more than wildlife pass this way. Sarah wished mightily for her brother Jacob. Jacob was a tracker. Jacob had been schooled i the art by the legendary Marshal Charlie Macneil. Jacob would be able to puzzle out the story printed on this mountainside broadsheet. Sarah faded back into the shadowed background and froze, cloth-wrapped Winchester rifle across her thighs: eyes busy, ears alert, she listened, she smelled, she waited. It was rare for Sarah to leave the schloss -- not with the old Count weak and ill, not with her infant daughter needing her Mama -- but Sarah was uneasy, Sarah was not contented, Sarah's instinct was to scout the mountainside above the schloss. Her maid looked up, smiling, when Sarah slipped back in through the hidden passage, emerging from behind a bookcase that opened silently, and closed just as silently: Sarah carefully spragged the mechanism so intruders could not use the same entry. Sarah accepted her little girl-baby from the maid, bouncing her ever so gently, marveling yet again at the perfection in those tiny fingers. "I found the spring," Sarah whispered. The maid's eyes widened and she nodded, once. You were right," Sarah whispered, looking down at her infant daughter again: "the water was exquisite!" Marnie Keller rarely rode the mountains back home, not since she'd very publicly climbed aboard the Mars shuttle with her new husband, not since she'd been featured in the infrequent news broadcasts from Mars: in the public's mind, she'd gone there in a sleep-ship, and she would die there, and being found here at home would raise too many questions. Still, there were times ... there were times when nothing would do but that she saddle up and ride the mountains. Confederate technology assured her she was alone. Marnie rode up to the mountain pool where Sarah Lynne McKenna used to dive, naked, from the high cliff above, until she was obliged to set powder behind a formation and drop a huge boulder into the still water to keep a murderer's body on the bottom -- a boulder which made further diving too dangerous -- a boulder which hid the accumulated gold that would not be discovered until Marnie found it, and then drilled and shot the rock, until Marnie set up a small, hidden, entirely unofficial mining operation to process all the sand in the deep, natural, rock bowl. Marnie sat on one of her Daddy's mares and looked around, and populated the stillwater pool with memories. She realized she was thirsty. She also knew Beaver Fever was endemic in these mountains now, and she'd absolutely no wish to come down with the Wichita Awful-Awfuls, as she'd called the condition -- though she'd also attributed the name to a variety of ailments. Marnie dismounted and ground-reined the mare, slid her rifle from its scabbard and slung it across her back. There's a spring hereabouts, she thought. A spring should be safe. Surface water is easily contaminated but a spring should be all right. It took her a half hour to find it, and she still ran a scan of the springwater before she cupped both hands and drank: the water was ache-your-teeth cold, but it was good -- mineralized water is always better than the recycled, purified, sterile water back on Mars. For one thing, it just naturally tastes better. Marnie made it back to her Daddy's ranch without being seen, and Marnie unsaddled the mare and brushed out the mare and bribed the mare again, and she stood with one arm hooked over the mare's neck until shadows stretched purple and cool over her Daddy's pasture, soaking up the comfort a horse provides, something she did often as a child, something she did whenever possible as Ambassador. It would be too difficult to try and maintain a horse in the subterranean Martian colony -- the low gravity would lead to electrolyte imbalance, decalcification of the bone structure with concomitant hypercalcemia of the blood and its inevitable cardiac complications -- so Marnie leaned her cheek against the mare's mane, and she smelled horse and she smelled mountains and she closed her eyes and gave a long, quiet, contented sigh, and for a few happy moments, her inner turmoil calmed, thanks to time spent beside still waters.

Those tenderizing hammers do good work!

CHARGE! The hospital operator's voice was not entirely steady as it came out of our black-plastic talkies' grilles. It was me and my partner and a custodian, we stopped and looked at one another as commo came through in a hospital code that fooled no one at all, then we heard the *pop* of the overhead speakers. I remembered thinking it must be serious, to key up radio and hit the overhead speakers at the same time. The message was brief. 'CODE STRONG EMERGENCY ROOM, CODE STRONG EMERGENCY ROOM." I launched. I was working hospital security because I'd shot the monster that kidnapped a girl I knew, I'd set the cross hairs just left of the edge of his wish bone and put a .308 through him the moment I saw him. The girl was with him, she was blindfolded, she was tied and gagged, she was in no shape to do anything but stumble along with him as he dragged her through the woods as a human shield, least until I had eyes on him. I'd dropped him where he stood. Mama slapped me right in the middle of the Sheriff's office and she'd stripped my badge and that girl's mother wound up and backhanded my Mama just as hard as she could hit her and I turned my back on my mother and I left. I went to the hospital and talked to a man I knew and just that fast I was hired on for hospital security, and now my partner and I and a janitor were pounding down the long hallway to ER. I hit the double doors hard and we slammed through them and I saw it was down to my partner and I. Doug was older and stouter and he was a good man to have at your side and I laid the coal to my efforts and lowered my shoulder and turned a little to hit the doors with a good percentage of my back as I wanted that door OPEN and I didn't want to break my collar bone hittin' it at this velocity. I came into ER and I saw the problem. The problem was a head taller than me, and I am six foot and two fingers in my sock feet, and this fellow was throwin' a nurse across the exam room and I locked on like I was a missile and he was an enemy vessel and I caught him halfway between belt buckle and breast bone and I hit him full speed and I didn't hold back none a'tall. I drove him backwards -- hard -- when we looked at the surveillance later and slowed it down, when I hit him, it whipsnapped his head back against that brick wall and it didn't Cold Cock him but it slowed him down considerable. Trouble was, when he fell, he collapsed down on top of me, so there I am layin' on the floor with seven foot of skinny dead weight down on me not movin' and Doc Greenlees is standin' over there laughin' his damned fool head off. I worked out from under this Jack Doe's carcass and we get him hauled up on a gurney and we got the leathers on him, the nurses got an IV started and they shot an x-ray of his head while he was layin' there nice and peaceful. Doc patted me on the shoulder and showed me what he was carryin' -- a laser grip five shot .44 revolver -- he said, "Don't worry, Linn, I had you covered!" I worked my shoulder for I'd bruised up some hittin' two heavy doors at speed, and I didn't feel like cussin' the man for just shootin' the mook instead of makin' me work for a livin'. Once they had things quieted down, why, Uncle Will and a young officer came in and I let ER give him their statement. If Uncle Will needed anything from me, why, he knew where to find me. Turns out he did, so we all ended up in the doctor's lounge drinking surprisingly good coffee and watching the video playback. Uncle Will looked at Doug and at Doc and he must've felt safe enough to talk, so he raised an eyebrow at me and I knew that meant sit still. Uncle Will allowed as Mama made that scene of firin' me because there were politics involved. I didn't much care. A young man's pride is easily stung, and anything Mama had to say to me, she'd have to say her own self. Me, I had no regrets at all about putting a .308 through that fellow, and I knew I'd sleep well that night. I didn't find out until later the kidnapped girl's mother ripped Mama a new one, she called Mama anything but white, she SCREAMED in Mama's face and told her exactly what she thought of someone who would fire the only soul on this earth who did ONE DAMNED THING to get her daughter back -- which of course everyone in our department and plenty of folks in several others were working our collective backsides off to find the girl and get her home safe -- Mama told me later that it was politics and I finally found out the whole of it, and as painful as it was to my pride, I can see why she did it. I still think she went overboard, but I wasn't Sheriff yet and she was, I wasn't dealin' with politics and she was. I did hear her out, after I got off shift and went home, and she was waitin' up for me. I did get the badge back, after the shots-fired investigation cleared me. When she pinned the badge back on me, I stood there in the middle of the Sheriff's office in front of two shifts who'd gathered for the investiture, and right there in front of all of them told Mama, "Sheriff, if you ever do that again, it will be quits between us, personally as well as professionally." She realized then just how badly she'd erred. I saw something in her eyes that told me she realized just how badly she screwed up, then I saw those pale eyes harden up and she said "Understood." I worked hospital security about two weeks, until my reinstatement, and we never had any more seven foot hell raisers.

sunset tonight at 8:08 PM so dark is creeping up on us ... temps still quite warm ...

... Mother Nature hates to see us enjoy ourselves up here ...

WWVA, Wheeling, W VA through the day, with Paul Harvey News and Comment at twelve noon. WLS Chicago, working midnight shift -- Boogie Check Boogie Check Hoo Hah! -- and as shift was ending, Larry Lujak, Super Jock, and his harsh and cheerful HEEELLL-LOOO! WWL New Orleans, first I ever heard Jerry Clower, my best friend and I each in a rocking chair close to the coal furnace in the basement, listening to winter wind sobbing like a grieving child in the chimney, the ancient, yellow-plastic radio set up on the sill plate, glowing in the shado, singing about the Charlie Douglas (clap! clap!) Road Gang!.