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Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 last won the day on October 27 2016
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About Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
- Birthday 03/31/1956
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SASS #
27332
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SASS Affiliated Club
Firelands Peacemakers
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0
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linnkeller
Profile Information
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Gender
Male
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Location
Lorain County, Ohio
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Interests
History, calligraphy, any game that burns powder
BOLD 103, Center Township Combat Pistol League
Skywarn, ham radio, and no idea what I want to do when I grow up!
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SHORT STORIES!
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
PARDON ME, SIR, IF I SPEAK THE TRUTH When the chief editor looks up and sees a clerk speaking harshly to a child, it scarcely merits a frown. When the elevator closes behind the child and descends, and the chief editor only then realizes who that child was, the moment grows somewhat more concerning. When the elevator opened four minutes later and the same child – a lad of about ten years, rides out of the elevator on an Appaloosa mare, his jaw set and his eyes hard and accusing as he glares at the clerk who’d obviously confused himself with someone important – well, this sight is enough to bring a newsroom to a fast and absolutely silent halt. The chief editor came over, looked up at the young man who’d distinguished himself on the street just outside, not two nights before. “John Rowley,” he said, reaching up and extending his hand. “Michael Keller,” the rider replied, leaning down and gripping the older man’s soft hand with a firm and callused hand. “How can we help you, Mr. Keller?” “Your newspaper spoke poorly of your police response,” Michael said, his voice carrying well – he was obviously accustomed to speaking, as he’d pitched his voice to be clearly heard at distance, and he enunciated his words with a precision not usually heard in one of his few years. “Oh?” “Sir, there is an expected response time. They don’t have a crystal ball and neither do I. Someone has to call them, they have to decide and assign who goes where. My sister and I were already there and we saw what needed done, so we … did.” “ ‘Expected response time,’ “ the editor said slowly, eyeing young Michael with an appraising eye. “I don’t usually hear such language from a boy.” “No, sir, I don’t reckon you do,” Michael agreed, grinning, “but most of your boys don’t grow up listening to my Pa talk like that.” “Your … ‘Pa.’ Did he put you up to this?” “No, sir. I read your paper and I knew you likely didn’t have the whole story.” “And what is the whole story, sir?” Michael leaned over, crossed his forearms on his saddle horn, shoved his Stetson well back on his head and grinned – a contagious, sincere, boyishly innocent grin. “It’s just as I said, sir. Your police had to be called, they had to make sense of the call, then they had to start from the word go. That takes time.” He paused, then added, “Angela and I were already there.” “Shouldn’t you have waited for the police to take proper charge of the situation?” “No, sir,” Michael said firmly. “Something needed done right away, and we did what was needful, right away. “It’s like a house fire, sir. Every minute of fire progression requires many more minutes than that of extinguishment. If you have criminals that already shot the place up and now they’re shooting at one another, you have to shut ‘em down fast before they cause any more harm.” Michael’s eyes were just as direct as his words. “We did just that.” “You took a life.” “No, sir, we did not.” Michael’s young voice was firm, uttered with conviction, and he came upright in his saddle as he said it. “You shot the man dead.” “We did that, sir, but he killed himself. I bear no responsibility if a man throws himself on the spear I hold. If that fellow bears a weapon at me, he is bought and paid for and his blood does not stain my hands. He made the choice and he died by his own poor choice.” “That is … an interesting defense,” the chief editor said thoughtfully. “Thank you, sir.” The chief editor offered his hand again, and Michael took it without hesitation, and the photograph of a boy on a tall horse, a mounted child of the Colorado mountains, horseback in the middle of a major newspaper’s newsroom, shaking hands with a grandfatherly-looking chief editor, made the front page of the afternoon edition. Not an hour later, in a hospital corridor on the Confederate world of Tortuga, a clutch of nursing students were gathered around a still-warm, just-printed newspaper, an edition held open by several hands: there were murmurs, abbreviated gestures: the paper crackled a little as delicate, feminine fingers gripped the fold, pulled it down, as a pair of pale eyes under a winged cap looked at them and asked gently, “Something interesting?” The students swung around, surrendered the paper to their mentor: they were clustered around her like chicks in blue-and-white pinstriped dresses, more watching Angela than looking at their just-abandoned publication. Knowing glances shot across the small space between them: a voice whispered, “She’ll say it!” and more heads than one nodded in agreement. Angela’s pale eyes ran through the article, tightened a little at the corners, they way they did when she was pleased: she nodded a little, looked long at the picture, at the image of a young boy in blue jeans and a Stetson, astride a spotty, bored-looking, tail-slashing Appaloosa mare, in the middle of a crowded newsroom, with clerks, reporters, secretaries and a photographer openly staring: the boy was in an agreeable handclasp with an up-reaching older man: beneath the photograph, the caption, “Young deputy sets the record straight.” Angela knew her brother was not a deputy, she knew he would not falsely identify himself as such: from the article, she knew he’d come to give due credit to the jurisdictional constabulary. Angela folded the paper, handed it back with one hand, cupped her hand over her mouth with the other. “Well?” one of her clinical students prompted. “Say it!” Angela laughed, thrust a chin at the newspaper and declared, “Show-off!” -
FORTY ROD NEEDS YOUR PRAYERS!!
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Blackwater 53393's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
By golly now Blackwater, thank you for that most recent word! Still standing up on my knees! -
SHORT STORIES!
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
I FOUND THE ANSWER THERE This is the end of the story: Ambassador Marnie Keller cupped her hand over her mouth, her pale eyes widening as she looked at the contents of the shallow, white-cardboard box: she reached in, lifted a pair of jogging pants free of tissue paper, held them up. She read the discreet embroidery on the front of one thigh, the embroidery on the front of the other thigh, blinked, bit her bottom lip, then she turned and ran into the next room, threw herself across the bed, drove her face into a thick, fluffy pillow, and released the memory her unexpected gift just triggered. Ambassador Marnie Keller, a woman of dignity and persuasion, wife and mother and Sheriff Emeritus, shrieked her honest, genuine, hysterical laughter into the pillow in the privacy of her personal bedchamber. This is the middle of the story: Sheriff Linn Keller looked sidelong at his daughter. Marnie Keller sat with her family in the front pew of the Firelands church. Marnie, like her Mama, sat very properly, looking very ladylike: she wore her Sunday best, of course, as did each member of the family; at the Parson's quotation of the Psalm -- "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life," she blinked innocently -- then, feeling her father's eyes upon her, she turned her head and looked at the pale-eyed Sheriff with the colorful cheekbone, and blushed a bit, for she was the reason he'd sported this new look. Linn was Sheriff, and had a talkie about his person; he discreetly wore an earpiece, and there were times when he rose and paced quickly, silently down the aisle, waiting until he was at the rear of the church, or preferably outside, before addressing Dispatch on his talkie. When Linn pulled out his cell phone, began tapping out a text, Marnie assumed it was in response to a summons given him over his white-plastic earpiece. The next day, Marnie found a flat, white-cardboard box on her bed: she opened it, withdrew a pair of grey flannel jogging pants. On the front of the left thigh, in half-inch-high red script embroidery, the word Goodness: on the front of the right thigh, in blue, half-inch-high script embroidery, the word Mercy. Marnie heard her father's step outside her bedroom door; she turned, just as he knocked discreetly at her bedroom doorframe. Linn's grin was broad and genuine as he saw his daughter holding them up. "I thought it appropriate," he said quietly. This is the beginning of the story: Sheriff Linn Keller bent over the back of the couch and seized his daughter's wrists. Marnie was relaxing -- she'd showered, she'd bested all comers in hand-to-hand, she'd punched, blocked, grappled, she'd thrown men well bigger than herself, she'd put opponents on the deck fast, hard and nasty, and she'd come home with a sense of triumph and her father's delighted approval. Had she been given a trophy the size of a Mack truck, she'd not have been as pleased as she was with her father's crushing hug, his seizing her under the arms and hoisting her into the air -- grown young woman that she was -- and in a moment of reverie, she lifted her eyes from the Psalms, hearing his voice, loud and rich and full, "I AM PROUD OF YOU!" When someone suddenly leaned over the couch and seized her wrists, her action was pure reflex. She snapped double, drove sock feet under the attacker's armpits, snapped her lean, sculpted, athletic horsewoman's legs down. Sheriff Linn Keller flew through the air with the greatest of ease. His landing was less than graceful, and as he admitted later, the human cheekbone is a poor tool for trying to bust a hole in a hardwood floor. Marnie's hand came down on the open scripture. She glanced down at what she'd just read, looked at her father, just rolling over, one hand to his cheekbone: he raised his head, looked at his darlin' daughter with a crooked grin and said, "I deserved that!" Marnie Keller gave her long tall Daddy her very best Innocent Expression, stood, picked up her Scripture and read aloud, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all of my days!" She closed the Book, dropped it on the sofa, looked very directly at her Daddy. Marnie slapped her left thigh. "This is Goodness," she said, then slapped her right and said, "This is Mercy!" Ambassador Marnie Keller returned to the guest parlor and the congratulations of dignitaries, at having concluded a successful, if contentious, negotiation: she accepted a sparkling crystal flute of something bubbly, raised it as a toast was proposed to another successful negotiation, and after the ceremonial sip, one of the Planet Vicksburg negotiators drifted over to her and inquired her inspiration for throwing a loud and obnoxious representative over her shoulder and into the swimming pool. Ambassador Marnie Keller looked at her well-dressed colleague with big and innocent eyes, sipped her bubbly, smiled. "The poor man was so hot tempered I feared he might catch fire," she said quietly, "so my action was in the interest of sparing us a conflagration. Besides" -- she smiled -- "I have found the Psalms useful in such moments." "You mean when he grabbed your arm and shouted in your face?" Marnie lowered her crystal flute and smiled quietly, blinked. "One can meet violence and hostility with violence and hostility," she murmured, "and sometimes that is the right solution. "Sometimes a more ... Scriptural ... approach is called for." She tilted her head, smiled gently. "I remembered a Psalm from my days at home, and found the answer there." -
SHORT STORIES!
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
A DISPLAY OF WESTERN ART Two pale eyed children rode side by side down the nighttime city street, under the twin moons of a planet they’d never seen before today: their Appaloosa mares were well matched, their tack was identical, their riders' attire very nearly so. Their only real difference was that one rider had twin braids, laid over the front of her shoulders, and the other rider, didn’t. They each had a scabbarded rifle under their right thigh, they each wore tan Stetsons and electric-blue, silk wild rags, each had mirror-polished Wellington boots thrust into black doghouse stirrups. Even their saddle blankets were identical: heavy, serviceable, brown, with a gold six point star embroidered just behind the saddle skirt, and black lettering across the star’s equator. A gold six-point star, bearing the single word: SHERIFF. They rode erect, at ease, comfortable in the saddle, stirrup to stirrup, watchful, as alert as two hounds striking a hot scent. The city street they rode, was momentarily, unusually silent, and absolutely without traffic: steam broughams were stopped in the street, abandoned, doors open; people ducked, cowering behind light poles, behind post-boxes, at the unaccustomed sound of gunshots: a stray round found the coil of a brougham, a cloud of steam hissed out, loud, angry, throwing an absolute, opaque wall of floating condensation over most of the street. Michael Keller leaned down and gripped the wrist of his engraved Winchester. Victoria Keller leaned down and gripped her Winchester at the same moment. Twin children from another world pulled blued steel authority free of their floral-carved, background-dyed scabbards. Their mares needed no further urging. Rival thieves tried to hold up the same shop at the same time: the shopkeeper pushed a round at one of them and his back wall inherited two rounds in reply, then two rival thieves, believing themselves shot at, shot at the first two thieves: people scattered, the city police responded, brought their black steam-wagons up outside the involved shop. Confusion, gunshots: a man was hit – his scream wasn’t as shrill as a woman’s, but was just as sincere – two Appaloosa mares, noses punched straight out ahead of them, blasted free of the steam-cloud, charged two pair of scared, head-twisting, pistol-swinging holdup artists. Michael’s mare hit first. The collision of a fast moving horse’s chest with a human can have only one result. To the onlookers it was magic: a spotty white horse with a rifleman astride, blasting out of the roiling wall of pain hissing like vaporous blood from the wounded vehicle – a horseman, leaned forward in the saddle, charging these enemies to the public order: the dull, grunting thud of a collision, a spray of arms and legs, then another collision, another awkward, spinning tumble to the pavement: Michael’s mare skidded a little as she came about, Victoria’s mare reared, screaming her challenge, dancing on her hind legs, Victoria’s young legs clamped hard around her mare, her denim covered backside plainly welded to saddle leather. Horses’ screams echoed between the buildings, shivering through the drifting cloud of steam: Victoria’s mare came down to earth, there was the sound of Winchester steel slamming open, slamming into battery. Two blued-steel barrels came down level. Michael’s mare stood dead still, waiting: Victoria’s mare threw her head to the side, waiting for the gunshot. “THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS!” a child’s voice challenged, loudly, commanding: “DROP THE WEAPONS OR I DROP YOU!” Two were too badly hurt to offer any further hostilities. The other pair, on Victoria’s side of the street, looked at one another. One raised a revolver. Two rifles spoke. The revolver fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. The other threw his pistol into the street and ran. Michael’s mare was off like a shot. Michael’s thumb laid over the rifle’s checkered hammer, he felt it half-cock, thrust it into the scabbard: as fast as the runner was, the mare was faster. Michael Keller, a mere boy, a child of the granite mountains, was riding a mare his father trained, a mare trained for riot, for war, for hostilities: Michael had ridden her in barrel races, he’d ridden her in balloon shooting competitions, he’d practiced roping from his mare’s back: his fingers had eyes as he brought his lariat free, shook out the loop, floated it through the air. The mare dropped her hind quarters and splayed her forehooves: two quick turns around the saddlehorn, the line snapped taut. Michael casually coiled his plaited-leather reata, in no hurry at all: his mare’s forehoof was on the prisoner’s back where the man tried to roll over, presumably to try and come up on all fours and attempt a desperate, scrambling escape. It’s kind of hard to escape when a steelshod hoof plants itself between a holdup’s shoulder blades, when a percentage of a mare’s weight bears down through the focus of a hard hoof. Michael turned in the saddle, looked behind. His father was beside Victoria. Michael’s pale eyes tightened a little at the corners as he took a mental snapshot of the moment. As big as a full grown Appaloosa mare is, his father’s golden stallion was that much bigger. As competent, as confident as his twin sister sat a-saddle, his father was that much taller, that much more impressive. Michael saw his father was speaking quietly to his little girl, saw his father nod once: Michael saw Victoria had already scabbarded her rifle. Michael’s eyes tightened a little at the corners as he watched. Victoria was looking at her Daddy with big and innocent eyes, oblivious to staring city folk regarding this new and novel experience. It was well known their City was to have visitors – their City, of all on the planet – and no less a personage than a genuine Western Sheriff and members of his family! Nobody – not residents, not dignitaries, not the police, nobody – ever thought circumstances might require the response of a Western Sheriff – this creature of legend, this storied demigod, something known only in stories, in books! The police were quick to converge: the Sheriff did not dismount – he knew his position gave him a psychological advantage – but he was quick to spot the senior ranking officer present, address himself to the senior rank, to give him full command of the scene, to make it clear that he, the Sheriff, had no intention of usurping their collar … although they may wish to take the fellow in custody down the street yonder. By the time running feet reached young Michael’s prisoner, this pale eyed young Keller was dismounted, was on one knee beside his prisoner, talking quietly: the prisoner was only too happy to allow the responding officers to take him into custody, and when they’d secured him, loaded him into a steam powered transport, once they asked the prisoner what he and the Sheriff’s son were talking about, the holdup’s eyes widened at the memory and he said in a husky whisper, “He said if I didn’t behave, he’d let that horse of his eat me!” Angela Keller was not the featured offworlder on the evening’s InterSystem broadcast, though she did watch it, she and her classroom full of nursing students. The class would normally not watch the evening news on the blackboard-sized screen, but word spread among the students that Miss Angela’s family would be visiting: Angela knew the class would be distracted, wondering, and so she turned on the InterSystem broadcast. They’d expected to see a stiff, formal reception in the stiff, formal, ornate chambers reserved for meeting dignitaries with diplomatic credentials. They honestly did not expect to see the adventure, complete with horses’ hooves, loud and clattering on pavement, gunshots, a live action drama, broadcast as it happened! The ladies watched their wing-capped instructor smiling behind her cupped hand as she stood to the side, watched with them, watched as a pale eyed lad thrust a rifle into the scabbard under his leg, as a young boy untwisted in the saddle, as his arm raised with a deceptively gentle but obviously controlled swing, as a lariat became a living thing, as plaited leather dropped over the prisoner, brought him to a sudden, unexpected, very effective, feet-in-the-air, flat-on-his-back, HALT! The voice-over was professional, polished, almost oily: “And here we see that legendary Western art of the Lariat, employed to capture the criminal without the need of further effort.” The lariat snapped taut, a criminal’s feet swung out, still running in mid-air, at least until his body hit the ground, hard, until he tried to scramble upright, until a horse’s hoof planted him solidly down against the sidewalk. “We’ve seen the beauty of horses on our own worlds,” the voice said, the syllables carefully shaped, precisely enunciated, “but we have never seen genuine Appaloosas from the American West. We have read about them, we have seen holovids that drew on writers’ imaginations, but this is the first time our world has seen the genuine article.” The image shifted to the moment two hard-charging mares punched out of a cloud, an absolute, street-covering wall of steam, hooves pounding, ears laid back – “Two young riders with Winchester rifles, driving forward into the face of a running gunfight, fearless in the face of danger, both horses and riders obviously skilled and well trained in the art of keeping the peace, even at their riders' tender ages. “It is noteworthy that when their father, Sheriff Linn Keller of Firelands County, Colorado, who’d been delayed in conference with their reception committee, arrived on the scene, he was quick to return authority to our police respondents, and to give them full credit in the event.” Angela Keller’s face reddened a little as she turned from the screen, looked at her students. Every one of her nursing students, and two other instructors in the back of the room, were looking at her. Every last one of them, looking at her, as if she’d had something to do with this living adventure they’d just watched. Angela Keller looked back at the screen, at the image of a long, tall, lean waisted Western Sheriff astride his tall, strutting, shining-gold Palomino stallion, flanked by two children who rode with the same ease, the same confidence as their father, as the Sheriff touched his hat-brim to one of the police officers, as they turned and rode slowly away from the camera. Every student smiled, but none laughed aloud as Angela shook her head and declared at the screen: “Show-off!” -
SHORT STORIES!
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
THE REASON WHY A pale eyed young woman in a white uniform dress spread a blanket on the cold, damp ground, a blanket manufactured several light-years from the planet on which it was being spread: the underside repelled the damp, the upper was soft, almost fuzzy, insulating, welcoming to the touch. The young woman knelt on the blanket, pulled the disposable protective covers off her thick-soled, white uniform shoes, then sat, legs folded: graceful, feminine, she looked around at the regular row of shaped stones that extended to her left, to her right. Below her, a place she knew as home, a small town in the Shining Mountains, a place more famous on distant planets than here. The woman smiled as she remembered listening to the legends and stories, handed down through generations of Southrons, those descendants of warriors plucked from Lincoln’s War by aliens who wished to assemble a disposable force of primitives. The history of the Confederacy, and how these few were able to use the learning devices forced upon them by the aliens, to learn enough to overthrow their captors, to annihilate their abductors, to prosper and spread and ultimately claim the Thirteen Star Systems, is well known, and will not be discussed further: no, let us instead remember those tales told this lovely young woman, those ancestral memories of the far West, the Shining Mountains, of rivers of big shaggy beasts thundering across endless prairies, of great granite crags that tore open the sky itself with granite teeth. Angela Keller had no wish for fame, no desire for notoriety, yet she was the best known face on all the Worlds: perhaps – no, not perhaps, definitely – because she herself was a daughter of the Shining Mountains, because her Daddy was a long, tall, honest-to-God Western Sheriff who rode an honest-to-God, spotted Appaloosa stallion. (Popular imagination gave this lawman's preferred mount fighting fangs and the ability to annihilate a regiment by exhaling a liquid river of immolating flame, but this was merely conjecture, and existed only in illustrations in children's books) Angela Keller looked at the twin tombstone and remembered what she’d been told, what she learned as her father spoke quietly, his voice heavy with guilt, that night she decided she would become a nurse after all. Angela Keller had spoken of this earlier that day, on a planet far from where she sat, legs tucked under her skirt in her family’s section of the Firelands cemetery. She’d been asked why she became a nurse – a not uncommon question. Her answer surprised her, but it did not surprise a young couple whose sons were alive because of this offworld healer. “My father had twins,” Angela said in reply to the question, “and they died of something called a glioblastoma. It’s fast moving and at that time it was incurable. My father knew here” – she’d tapped her forehead with a bent foreknuckle – “that he could not possibly have caused their condition." Her expression was serious as she tapped her breastbone with curved fingers and added, "Here" -- tap, tap -- "he had a harder time convincing himself. "That it hit them at such a young age was almost unheard of; that it hit identical twins, almost at the same moment, was so rare as to make being struck twice by lightning look commonplace.” She’d looked around, looked back at the questioner. “I remember the guilt and the sorrow in my father’s voice. “I determined that I would do anything I had to, that I would do everything in my power, to keep that sorrow from claiming his soul yet again.” A young couple heard her words in a news broadcast, a special edition covering the improvement in healthcare, with this pale eyed young woman as the face of advancing medicine, and the couple looked at one another and at the limp, lethargic, sleeping child propped up between them. Their own daughter was diagnosed with just such a deadly cancer of the brain, and they were told there was no hope, and then this pale eyed young woman appeared in their hospital with all the ladylike grace of the legendary Texas twister – even here on Tortuga, the most distant planet in the Confederacy, Texas was remembered, Texas was legendary, and a Texas twister had long been part of their vocabulary. This woman hadn’t suddenly appeared in a whirlwind, she hadn’t waved a wand or sprinkled sparkling dust and magically effected a cure: no, there were surgeries, there were machines and modalities and injections, there were tests and examinations and scans, most of which were not familiar to the medical community. Another remarkable young woman, just as lovely, but in a McKenna gown, arrived with this wing-capped Healer: her skills as a diplomat were tested, taxed, exercised, for nobody – no profession, no avocation, no physician – takes kindly the arrival of an interloper whose skills are greater than their own. Diplomatic skills and persuasion prevailed: the child was terminal, after all, and her death was assured: if nothing else, perhaps these efforts could learn something useful about the condition: and during these diplomatic discussions, diseased tissues were removed, the seeds were chased down, found, eliminated, the body’s own T-cells turned into killer T’s, programmed to find and utterly destroy cancers in any form: by the time the medical community reluctantly granted its consent for the child’s treatment, the cure was already effected, and the cure was complete. Angela looked at a double tombstone and remembered what it was to help a bald headed little girl relearn to walk, relearn how to eat, relearn how to speak: much of her memory was gone and would very likely never return: it was a mercy that she recognized her parents, that she reached for her Daddy’s hand, that she was able to slur “Mama” when her mother picked her up. Angela swallowed as she remembered, chewed on her bottom lip, looked up. “I never knew you,” she whispered. “Daddy spoke of you once. He was almost shattered when you died, but he hid it and never spoke of it. I did not know about you for a very long time, but you two” – she smiled, just a little, wiped at a trickle of wet running down her cheek – “you two are how I became a nurse, and then I got my hands on Confederate medicine.” A pretty young woman sat in the Colorado sunshine, protected from the chilly mountain wind by the invisible dome-field projected over her by the blanket she sat on: she looked at the names on the tombstone – KELLER, she read; on the left, EMIL, and on the right, GOTTLEIB: the stone was new, set less than a week before. Her Daddy, the Sheriff, was a man of deep feelings, but a man of self-flagellation, whose mistaken assumption of guilt prevented his marking the double grave with a stone, until he’d made peace with himself over the death of his twins. That evening, Angela addressed a new class of nurses on Tortuga: the subject turned to things not understood, and Angela brought out the example of her father’s twins, dead of a fast-moving and then-incurable brain cancer. “I do not pretend to understand how these things work,” Angela admitted. “I cannot say they were put on this earth to steer my course. I can tell you what I believe – and what I believe may well be completely wrong.” She looked into the depths of the class: half a hundred young woman were seated before her, half a hundred, every last one of whom admitted that she’d chosen this profession because of what each and every one of them saw in this pale eyed woman in a white uniform dress and a winged cap. “I believe that God Almighty does not cause trouble to befall us,” she said, “but I believe He is not at all bashful to use such troubles as teaching aids. My father’s twins died well before I was born, and the sorrow in my father’s very soul turned me in this direction. I do not believe Emil and Gottleib were born, to be killed for my benefit. I believe they were born, and what happened to them was a tragedy, and I took that grief and did something useful with it.” She smiled, just a little, and added, “On the other hand, if I know so damned much, why haven’t I made a million dollars and retired, eh?” -
A Little Windy Here
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Subdeacon Joe's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
Opened & played fine on my laptop. I do nothing on my phone but text, talk and take an occasional picture. -
SHORT STORIES!
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
THAT’S WHAT I WANT It was Friday night. Two lean figures shrugged into backpacks, ran the water tubes over their shoulders, clipped the tubes in place. Two lean figures opened their rifles' bolts, thumbed in five rounds of dull metallic cartridges, pulled the stripper loose, slipped the stamped-metal clip into a pocket, thumbed the rounds down and closed their rifles’ bolts. Surplus Soviet bolt-action rifles were slung. One rifleman looked at the other. They walked down the hand-cut stone steps, off the grey-floored porch, walked to the neatly circumscribed border between the driveway and the yard. Two figures leaned forward into the dark, started to run, well-polished and tight-laced boots silent in the moonlit darkness. "I don't know why you even try," Shelly said quietly. "It's Friday night, you know you're not going to relax." Linn held his wife around the waist, leaned his head down, kissed the side of her neck, brought his mustache up until it tickled her ear. "I took Friday night off so I can have some time with you," he whispered. "Mmm, tell me more," Shelly hummed as her husband nibbled her earlobe, carefully, mindful of the pierced earrings. "The kids are getting some size to them. I thought it wise to be home. Girls Marnie's age are going out on dates." Shelly looked up at her husband, smiled. "I remember when you started dating me." "I do too," Linn grinned. "You made popcorn." "I didn't know you then. I figured if you turned out to be all mouth and hands, I'd just stuff popcorn in your mouth." They laughed quietly, Linn's eyes sliding over to the cupboard where they kept the popcorn popping kettle. "You know if we make some we'll have to make a couple batches." "Mm-hmm." Conversation was suspended as husband and wife held one another in the quiet of their immaculate kitchen. When they came up for air, Shelly whispered, “I’m liking this. How long will the kids be gone?” “It’s Friday night,” Linn whispered. “You know kids and their Friday night dates.” His mustache tickled her lip and conversation was suspended for a significantly longer period this time. Two figures ran through the mountain darkness, their boots setting a regular cadence on the lonely ranch road. They spread apart, running just outside the tire tracks -- a depression in the dirt roadway passed between them, shining-wet with standing water, reflecting the increasing starlight -- they converged again, continued their run, turning a little now, heading uphill. Jacob and Marnie ran steadily, not competing: each ran in step with the other, each brought the slung rifle off the shoulder, carried at high port: they slowed, stopped, moved behind what looked like a 55 gallon drum over on its side, set up on some kind of platform. Marnie went first. She cycled her bolt, thrust the rifle into the end of the drum, sighted on the rectangular target in the distance, pulled the trigger. A white-painted silhouette twitched, gave a satisfying CLANK as the surplus Soviet slug smacked into it, knocking cheap white spray paint into dust. Every shot was the same -- a dull fump! *clank!*-- their labors in constructing a muffling chamber had been successful; Marnie fired four more times, then Jacob. They would police their empties the next day, in the daylight: Marnie topped off the Mosin's magazine with single rounds while Jacob fired, she waited while he reloaded, then they resumed their run. No words were exchanged, no conversation held; each one heard, in their memory, the singing chant their pale eyed Gammaw used when running with Willamina's Warriors: they could have recorded such running songs, played them back on a miniature player of some kind, but neither wanted anything that would interfere with their hearing. Marnie had been wounded, deeply and severely injured, at too young an age, and this honestly scarred her psyche: Jacob grew up a lawman's son, and had listened to his father's, and other lawmen's recounting of close encounters of the unpleasant kind. Both knew that unpleasantness, that violence, visited itself upon all souls at one time or another. Both knew they were going into the law enforcement profession. Both knew they intended to be ready when violence came to them. Both lean young figures ran steadily through the night. Linn carried his wife up the broad, hand-fitted stairs, the same set of stairs his ancestor’s best friend Charlie Macneil built into this fine old house more than a century before, the same stairs up which Macneil carried his own bride for the very first time, the same stairs up which Linn carried this same bride for the very first time, many years before, and not a few times since. Linn’s eyes were a light blue as he looked into his wife’s face, into her eyes: he stopped halfway up, leaned his head down, kissed her, whispered “I could swim in those eyes,” and as Shelly giggled with anticipation, he resumed his ascent. There was just enough moon to see by, with their eyes acclimatized to the dark: Jacob stood, breathing deeply, controlling his respirations. Marnie exhibited no such control. Her face was contorted in a teeth-bared grimace, a mask of hate as she assaulted the bayonet dummy, a plastic mannikin on a spring-mounted pipe stand: Marnie’s grunts and snarls were genuine – Jacob knew these were not the sounds of a weaker-muscled girl trying to generate more power with each strike, these were honestly the sounds of someone who hated! – who hated with a deep purple passion – someone who drew on the hell that scarred her young soul at far too young an age, and only now, now that she was far from the place that hurt her, far from the now-dead people who’d done such terrible things to her, now she could let that hate out, and she did. Viciously, violently, with absolutely no reservation whatsoever. Jacob watched as Marnie assaulted that bayonet dummy, using her rifle the way their pale eyed Gammaw taught them: Marnie used the rifle with the deadly efficiency their Gammaw learned overseas – muzzle thrusts, butt strokes, rakes, cuts: Jacob knew the Mosin was built by the same people who built anvils, he knew the rifle was made for uneducated, ham handed peasants to use in wartime, and watching his sister’s controlled, full-power assault on the mannikin, he was glad for the rifle’s more than robust construction. Part of his mind remembered his pale eyed Gammaw telling him the US Military no longer mounted a bayonet lug on their issue M16s and M4s because “the Mickey Mouse gun is too delicate to take the stresses of bayonet fighting” – her words – which is why she’d been known to snatch up an AK and lay about the enemy like Samson laying about with the jaw bone of a jack mule. Jacob watched his pale eyed sister’s fast-moving fury and wondered if that’s what their Gammaw looked like when she waded into the middle of the enemy, and then he remembered someone who’d served with her, someone who’d told him in quiet voice that his Gammaw went into an ambush at the top of her lungs, murdering from within the enemy’s close-packed ranks, how she’d screamed like a damned soul falling into the vortex of Hell itself, and how that long, sustained scream froze men’s hearts while she drove Soviet steel into men’s guts and ripped it free, spraying blood and men’s lives as she did. Jacob shivered, blinked: Marnie was backing up, breathing heavily: here in the mountains, this granddaughter of a fighting Marine was silent, pale eyes glaring at what used to be a bayonet dummy. “That one’s dead,” Jacob grunted. “On to the next.” A pair of sixteen-year-olds turned, continued their run, deeper into the mountains. “Next dummy’s mine,” Jacob grunted. “Yeah,” Marnie grunted back. Linn came downstairs, freshly showered: his wife was relaxed, smiling in her sleep. Linn was restless, as he always was, knowing it was Friday, knowing things happened on Friday, knowing he might yet be called. Coffee gurgled in his big ceramic mug, steamed as it warmed in his hands: he trickled in a little milk, prowled restlessly, turned out the kitchen light and looked out the night-darkened window over the kitchen sink. I don’t see a white wolf. This is a good thing. He looked at the clock. He had no worries about his young: their younger children were asleep, you could fire a cannon and they’d not wake; his eldest two, Jacob and Marnie, were out, but Linn knew they would not be on the road, or partying, or carousing. He’d helped them lay out their running course, and he’d helped them design and build the steel drum muffler, lined with Styrofoam and insulation and set up on a well built platform of crossbucked scrap lumber. I wonder how well it’ll work for them, he thought, smiling a little as he remembered hanging the steel silhouettes, delegating their painting to Marnie’s precise hand: when the first can of the cheapest white paint they could buy, hissed dry, Marnie stepped back, yelled “Quarter a shot!” and tossed it skyward. Father, son and daughter all three drew and fired: what used to be an aerosol can spun, fell, hit the ground, six holes – three entrance holes, caved in a little, three exit holes, torn metal petaled out, bore mute testimony of the accuracy of the draw-and-fire of three pistoleros. Linn smiled as he remembered the moment, sipped his coffee, half expecting the phone to ring: I know my luck, he thought, there’s damn little chance I’ll get a night’s rest of a Friday night. The Bear Killer's head came up, his ears lifting: Linn saw the great black brush of a tail start polishing the floor. Jacob and Marnie came in, breathing deeply, controlling their breath: Linn knew they'd been out for a run, and anyone else running for the distance they’d just covered, would have been taking deep, air-hungry, gasping breaths. He himself knew he could not have sustained the run his eldest children just managed. Linn knew they'd been busy in the barn, cleaning corrosive residue from the bores; they stood the rifles muzzle-down in the gun case, muzzles resting on folded rags, to catch any surplus oil that ran out of the now-scrupulously-clean barrels. Jacob and Marnie came in, sock foot, set their unlaced boots on the rubber boot tray, came over to him, breathing deeply, their cheeks healthy pink and cool to the touch. "How'd it go?" Linn asked quietly. "Marnie outshot me," Jacob admitted, grinning, "as usual." "Not by much," Marnie countered, "and I couldn't outrun him!" Linn smiled quietly, nodded, looked across the kitchen. "Popcorn?" Marnie laughed quietly. "You have to ask?" "Sis?" Marnie shook grated Parmesan on her popcorn, flipped the bowl carefully, distributing the powdery flavoring evenly: she looked at her brother, raised an eyebrow. "Sis, every girl in school is strapping on high heels and chasing boys on Friday night. You're out running with me. I know I suffer a sparkling personality and ravishing good looks, but your social life really sucks!" Marnie lowered her head, glared playfully at her brother over a set of nonexistent spectacles. "I could say the same for you, Little Brother!" "I'm serious, Sis." "So am I. Why aren't you out drinking beer, chasing girls and running hot cars?" Jacob sook his head, frowned. "My automatic pilot hasn't taken over yet, Sis. I'm honestly afraid of what I might become once it does." "You look pretty controlled to me." Jacob's jaw eased out thoughtfully as he frowned at his fragrant bowl of freshly popped corn. "I don't want to betray a girl," he whispered. "I've seen too much of that already." Marnie nodded, sampled her popcorn: Jacob saw the approval in her eyes -- whether for his answer, or for her popcorn, he wasn't certain. "Sis, we carry the genes for addiction. Gammaw's Mama was a drunk and a damned drunk. I'm told it skips a generation. That would be us. Passion can be as addictive as alcohol or drugs." Marnie closed her eyes, nodded, shivered. "I'll meet the right girl and raise a family, just not yet, and I don't want to start because I have to." Marnie rested her hand on her belt, stood hip-shot, regarded her brother with a an appraising look. "You sound hopelessly old-fashioned, Jacob." "Yeah," Jacob nearly whispered, looking bleakly into his popcorn. "Passion. Uncontrolled strong emotion. Once I start I might not be able to stop." "Able? Or want to?" Jacob's young eyes were haunted as he replied quietly, "That's what I'm afraid of, Sis. I might not want to stop, and that's addiction!" Linn looked across the kitchen, at the wall phone hanging patiently beside the door frame. “At the risk of throwing a jinx on it,” he said finally, “I’m going to give up and go to bed.” Marnie set down her bowl of popcorn, skipped up to her long tall Daddy and gave him a quick, tight, happy hug, pressing the side of her head against his chest: Linn chuckled, hugged her back, buried his face in her hair, took a noisy sniff. “You smell like outside,” he chuckled, and Marnie giggled to hear his voice rumbling deep in his chest, and Jacob grinned to see this interaction. For a moment, for one quick little moment, Jacob saw Marnie as a giggly little girl, and Linn as the laughing big strong daddy, and Jacob thought to himself, That’s what I want. In due time, yes, but that’s what I want! -
SHORT STORIES!
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
OVER, AND OVER, AND OVER AGAIN The New York Irishman sat where he and his fellows sat, shoulder to shoulder for the service. The church was empty now, and silent: the congregation long since filed out and gone, his fellows returned to the firehouse. His fellow red-shirted firemen looked back, looked at Sean: their broad shouldered, iron-muscled Chief followed their gaze, then looked back at his men, shook his head at their expressions of concern, tilted his head: they left the church, leaving one man alone with his God and with his thoughts. When the church filled with sound, it was with voices joined in harmony and adoration, but when silence filled the church, it was a damaged silence, a fractured silence, like a heat-crazed windowpane that hadn’t yet fallen into shattered crystal crumbles. The New York Irishman stared ahead, his expression that of a man lost. They’d had a bad one. He’d assaulted the fire as he always did, he’d charged in close and fought the Beast at belt buckle distance, he’d laid about with the weapons he had, and he’d charged up the ladder – he’d assaulted the climb, some said he’d gone up the extension ladder as fast as a man can run on level ground. Someone was screaming to death in an upper story. He’d gotten to the window when something let go, when fire roared out at him, when he smelled burnt hair and felt his skin sear, when he dropped his head to shade his face with the brim of his helmet and the heat beat him back and when they lowered the ladder its upper end was black and alligatored a little from the heat. The New York Irishman sat in the silent, empty church, alone, hearing a desperate voice screaming, wordlessly, helplessly, one long, sustained, shivering, agonized shriek: he knew when the sufferer took in a breath, after this one scream, they’d inhaled the same liquid hell that was burning their outside, and they burned to death from the inside as well. His breathing was quicker now and he smelled it, the smell of flesh burning. His fingers raised to what used to be his handlebar mustache, now a shadow, a memory, a singed stubble: he touched the blisters on his face, he lifted his fingers before he could cause himself further pain: his hands closed, fisted, pressed down against his knees and he lowered his forehead against the pew in front of him. He sat, alone, hearing that one, long, shivering, desperate, agonized shriek, more terrible than could possibly come from a human throat. They’d found what was left of her, on overhaul. They’d put her in Digger’s box and carried the box to the wagon at shoulder height, six men in seared and filthy rubber coats, six men with grim expressions and black chins. The New York Irishman said not a word through overhaul, through cleanup, through scrubbing the hose and hanging it to dry in their tall, chimneylike hose drying tower: he’d let the Doc work on his face, he’d traded sweaty, wet, filthy clothes for clean, he’d hung his boots to dry, and he’d done it with all the expression of an automaton. No one outside the Irish Brigade really understood why they phrased things the way they did. They didn’t say “It was burnt through the roof before we were even called.” They said, “We lost a house today.” They didn’t say, “They were dead before we were called.” They said, “We lost someone today.” They didn’t say, “There was no way humanly possible to have gotten to her.” Each man said the same thing. It wasn’t “We” lost one today. It was, “I lost one today.” It was personal. When the deceased was interred, there was no family to grieve this one soul, returned to its Maker, but there were men in red shirts gathered for the occasion: every member of the Irish Brigade, with the gold Maltese Cross embroidered on their red wool bib front shirts, all but one with a fiercely curled handlebar mustache: they carried the coffin at shoulder height, they bowed their heads at the graveside, and each man helped lower the box into the ground. Burial was of a Saturday. In Sunday’s service, the name of the deceased was uplifted in prayer, and after Sunday service, one of the Irish Brigade remained behind, in the ringing silence of the empty church, listening to that one shivering, desperate, wailing scream, over, and over, and over again. -
SHORT STORIES!
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
DISCHARGE A drone hovered invisibly in the space between here and there – silent, stationary, waiting: high-res cameras swung at movement, locked onto their subject. Below the drone, closer to ground level, another of the kind – instead of hovering at twenty meters, this one was about shoulder high to a tall man. Both recorded the same subject. A horse, at full gallop, reaching out and stabbing the earth with steelshod hooves, shoving the earth away behind it, and astride the shining-black gelding, a pale eyed woman, her blue cape floating behind her: she was leaned forward in the saddle, she was standing in her stirrups, her hands pressed flat against the shining-black racer’s neck just under the mane. The lower-altitude drone zoomed in, enough to catch her lips move: augmentation supplied her voice as she encouraged her mount, “Run—run – run –RUN!” A woman in a white dress, a woman in a white winged cap, led: behind her, two more, astride spotted Appaloosa mares, two grinning children, both with their Stetsons bouncing on their backs, held with storm straps, pulled loose by the velocity of their travel, and between them, a third horse, with an empty saddle, with shortened stirrups, even shorter than the eight-year-olds that flanked it. The shining glass doors of the hospital opened, a cluster of people emerged: balloons, bouquets, smiles, and at its center, a slight figure, bald, wearing a surgical mask, with delighted eyes visible over the mask: gone were the IVs, the monitors, the tubing: Carissa struggled to stand, there in the hallway, but stand she did: she rose, steadying herself for a long moment with one hand on the arm of the hated wheelchair, then she reached up, she seized the braided cord attached to the bell. Carissa seized that braided bell-pull and she yanked, hard as she could. She’d told that pale eyed nurse that when she left, she intended to yank the cord hard enough to rip it out of the wall. The bell flipped, shining in the fluorescent light, it gave a loud CLANG: Carissa released the cord, dropped back into her wheelchair. The mask hid only part of her expression. There was no way it could hide the absolute joy! in the young eyes that shone out over top that damned mask! Doors hissed open, people laughed and clapped and emerged, just in time to see a formation of hard-running horses turning, together, a living diamond of charging horseflesh: muscle and hair and willing hearts and a promise in living form swung around in a big circle, pointed directly at them. Few things are as impressive as a cavalry charge. When a pounding, surging, charging wedge of hooves comes thundering in a straight line directly toward someone, it is impressive, it is almost frightening: when they come clattering into the parking lot, slowing fast, when three of the four not only ride in formation, but also rear, that blood-freezing, screaming, whinnying challenge of two trained Appaloosa war-horses, striped forehooves windmilling in the morning sunlight, hearts quicken and soar – for not only is it a promise kept, it is a living link to the days when men and horses charged into battle, to carry the mailed fist of Justice to the evildoers: when restless horseflesh came back to earth, head-shaking, hoof-dancing, impatient, when a shining-black racer danced, impatient, then walked slowly up to a delighted, bald-headed child in a wheelchair, lowered his nose to sniff expectantly, and the child, remembering, unwrapped two red-and-white-spiral peppermints, held them out on a flat palm for the shining-black racer to snuff loudly, to rubberlip gently, to crunch with laid-back ears … when a child who hasn’t been outside the hospital in far too long, caresses living horseflesh, when she stands, when she takes a staggering step, another, lays her hands on the living neck, and the horse drapes his head companionably over her shoulder – A white-uniformed nurse swung down from the saddle as her cohorts came up on either side, as they separated, as a patient (but deceptively fast) Appaloosa came head-bobbing up – “I promised you’d leave here horseback,” Angela said firmly, her voice encompassing the entire entourage, including everyone, parents, staff and patient alike, and brooking no disagreement whatsoever from anybody at all. The drones kept their silent vigil, recording a personal victory, a promise kept: a medical monster hadn’t eaten a child alive, a disease was vanquished from this young soul, a patient was being discharged, in triumph and in victory, and the pale eyed nurse who’d take care of this child, this dedicated soul who’d made this happen and who’d made this promise, hoisted her far enough to get her left foot in the doghouse stirrup. “Throw your leg over now,” she said quietly, “just like we practiced in physical therapy” – the child swung her leg, swung it again, and suddenly she was astride. She was sitting in a saddle, she was higher than she’d ever been! She reached up and tore the hated mask from her face, let it fall. A bald-headed child astride an Appaloosa mare threw her head back and laughed, the sun warm on her face, her voice echoing off the back wall of the hospital. Michael gripped her other foot, guided it into the stirrup, looked up. “She’s knee trained,” he said, “so she doesn’t have a bit in her mouth.” He grinned boyishly up at her – he turned, boosted into his own saddle, looked ahead. “Angela?” Angela swung aboard her Daddy’s shining-black racer, turned: the patient was a little girl, and she was dressed like girls dress, in pastel jogging pants and sneakers, in a loose top, but when Angela settled a pink Stetson on her, drew the storm strap up a little, a shutter tripped and a little girl’s expression of utter and absolute delight was captured for the weekly newspaper’s front page. The Confederate Worlds saw the images of a now-familiar nurse at full gallop, leaned out over the neck of a shining-black horse, blue cape floating behind her, the white winged cap giving the impression of greater speed: the image of this now-familiar nurse settling a pretty pink Stetson on a happy child’s head, with the same grace as placing a crown on a newly inaugurated royal, was viewed throughout the Thirteen Systems with absolute approval. One common element among all the Confederate worlds, was a love of horses and dogs, and when a silent, watchful Bear Killer bayed his approval, there was laughter and the polite pattering of applause. Angela raised her hands for silence. “I made a promise,” she declared firmly, “that when – not if – Carissa beat that cancer, upon her discharge, she would go home horseback.” Angela swept the assembled with pale eyes, her palms still toward them. “Carissa made a promise as well.” The sliding glass doors were still open. From within there was a thump, a metallic, distinct CLANK. Carissa tilted her head a little, her eyes wide, surprised: her mouth opened, she looked at Angela. “I did it,” she squeaked. “I ripped the bell out of the wall!” -
Oh My Gosh !!! Mr. Keller
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
I read (somewhere) that John Wesley Hardin was known to gunfight in such attire, I believe he may have been surprised at an indelicate moment in a bordello. I know in my own wild and misspent youth, back when I was still deputy marshal for a local village, I was beyond exhausted: the scanner woke me, I came a-boilin' out of bed, I was headed out the door in uniform Stetson, uniform shirt, socks and boots, my gunbelt slung over one shoulder. My wife called, "Aren't you forgetting something?" I looked down and realized ... ... my trousers hadn't come along for the ride ... What little functioning brain I still had running, reasoned that I was so fatigued I would not be much account when I got there, so I gave up and went back to bed. (Turned out to be a false alarm anyhow) -
Cox 0.10! Thimble Drome! My brother had a red-plastic Fokker with an 0.10 engine ... tiny little power plant but that little red control line plane would SCOOT!!!
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FORTY ROD NEEDS YOUR PRAYERS!!
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Blackwater 53393's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
Standing up on my knees for the man! -
We need a sticky cartoon thread
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Badlands Beady's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
I dunno ... I've seen cars with strategically placed political (and other freebie) stickers to cover rust bubbles and rusted out holes in the car's body! -
SHORT STORIES!
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 replied to Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103's topic in SASS Wire Saloon
LESSONS IN GUNFIGHTING: PROPER ATTIRE Sarah Lynne McKenna was still standing in the smoke-filled hallway, her face the shade of a sun-dried corpse: the lighting, probably, for her complexion was always remarkably healthy, except when the Rage was upon her. Sarah Lynne McKenna stood with her feet apart, her sharp little heels driven into the carpet, giving the impression that she’d driven spikes through her heels and deep into the floor, to anchor herself in place: her expression was one of anger, and forgiveness was nowhere to be seen in her appearance. Sarah Lynne McKenna was wearing her sharp-heeled shoes, her stockings, her corset: her hair was loose, curled, cascading down over the front of one shoulder and the back of the other, and Sarah Lynne McKenna gripped a blocky, businesslike, bulldog .44 in one white-knuckled fist. Luck alone would have two constables in front of the hotel when the fracas began: a bellman ran out, snatched at one uniform coat-sleeve and said something about a group of men intending a guest harm: at the first shout from within, the other constable put his whistle to his lips, blew a loud, discordant blast, then the two ran inside, just in time to be hit in the face with two fists of funneled sound. Gunfire, from within. To their credit, they drew their weapons and charged, looking left, looking right, the bellman in pursuit: “Upstairs, upstairs!” he shouted, and two City constables charged up the fine, broad staircase, a passageway better suited to men in fine suits and women in elaborate gowns, than the sight of two uniformed officers of the law, weapons in hand. They came to the top of the stairs and stopped. They honestly froze. Smoke layered the air, four men lay dead and dying, and a woman with white eyes and a colorless face raised a hand to display a bronze shield. “AGENT McKENNA, FIRELANDS DISTRICT COURT!” she declared loudly. They saw the badge only because it was raised, for the human eye is drawn to movement. It was not until they’d been badged that they realized this woman, standing defiant and commanding over a field of slaughter, was wearing little more than her frillies and an irritated expression. Ambassador Marnie Keller stepped through the Iris, looked around. She grabbed Ruth by the shoulders, pulled hard, pulled her over backwards – Ruth gave a surprised little squeak, fell back, fell through the portal with Marnie, landed on her back atop of the Ambassador as the Ambassador landed on her back on the floor of her quarters – Marnie grunted a little as the weight hit her, then the two women struggled upright, Ruth’s arms clutching their blanket-wrapped son. “Stay here,” Marnie hissed: she picked up a stubby, businesslike shotgun, surged through the Iris, and was gone. Sheriff Jacob Keller’s eyes were dead white and his face was colorless, the flesh drawn tight over his cheekbones: his bloodless lips were peeled back, giving him the appearance of a living skull: early in his law enforcement career, he’d developed a profound liking for the police shotgun, an opinion he had absolutely no reason to change over the years, and with a pounding on the door to his quarters, with shouted voices and demands that he open up, he waited inside, a double handful of Remington justice ready and waiting for anyone to defeat his security protocols. Marnie stepped up beside him, the twin to his fighting artillery in her gloved hands. He looked at her, elegant in a McKenna gown and a ruby brooch at her throat. “Overdressed for a gunfight, ain’t you?” he snapped. “You’re a fine one to talk.” Jacob chuckled. When the first impact hit their door, when the first beeps of an override attempt came from the internal keypad, Jacob’s gunbelt went around his waist, he clapped his uniform Stetson on his head and snatched up the twelve-gauge. He looked at the screen, counted the attackers. “Front to back,” he said. He heard the metallic click of Marnie’s safety disengaging. “Explosive charge,” Marnie said quietly. “Now.” Jacob released the door, it slid open. Jacob and Marnie fired, fast, accurate: the fighting was close-in and brutal: of eight that sought to assault the Sheriff’s quarters, six were killed right away. Two tried to run. They died running. Jacob grabbed the explosive charge, opened the disposal chute – a precaution he’d installed just inside his door, for just such an occasion – the explosive went into the hatch, he slammed it shut. The payload and its timer were instantly annihilated, disassembled at the subatomic level: the components were automatically scanned as they went in, and could be documented at a later time for evidentiary purposes: the crisis was ended before the last of the smoking, empty shotgun shells quit spinning on the clean floor. Sarah Lynne McKenna thumbed fresh rounds into her shotgun, handed Jacob two rounds, two rounds again: as she fed them to him, he fed them to his own 870. Jacob emerged, swung his gunbarrel to the left; Marnie swung right, her own Portal of Death looking unblinkingly in the opposite direction. Each one advanced, silent, deadly: a quick interrogation of the screen beside the closed airlock doors showed the cameras were covered. Jacob turned, looked at his sister: Marnie turned, raised a gloved hand. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, then raised a hand, gestured as if raking her eyes closed: Cameras are blind. Jacob nodded grimly. The two raised their fists, rock-paper-scissors: Jacob secured the airlock door behind him with his personal override, ran barefoot down the hallway, took up a position against the wall, opposite his sister. He went to one knee, shotgun to shoulder, nodded: Ready. Marnie keyed in her personal priority-override code. The airlock swung open. Nothing. She stepped out, eyes busy, reached up, pulled black electric tape off four camera lenses: she brought these inside the airlock, laid them carefully, sticky side up. Forensics would examine them for trace DNA and fingerprints. She closed the airlock, secured it with her personal priority lockdown: she and Jacob went to the other airlock, took their positions just as something started hammering from the other side. Jacob went to the comm pad. The cameras were blind, but audio still worked: he keyed in a command: “Who goes there!” he demanded. “Damage Control!” came the return shout. “Deputy Rutter is with us!” “Eddie!” Jacob shouted. “Here!” Eddie Rutter shouted back. “Eddie, the cameras are blind. Look for black electric tape. Remove carefully and preserve for Forensics, do it now!” “Roger that!” “And scan for explosives!” The vidscreen lit up: Jacob saw Damage Control in protective suits, saw the equipment cart, saw his deputy: he keyed the unlock sequence, the airlock door hissed open. Eddie Rutter stopped, his jaw opening in honest surprise: he managed to winch it shut and asked, “Sheriff, do you usually gunfight naked?” Ambassador Marnie Keller, demure in a McKenna gown and gloves, savored the moment when her brother turned a truly remarkable shade of red, when he realized he’d just engaged in a gunfight wearing his hat, and his gunbelt, and an irritated expression, and absolutely nothing else whatsoever.