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Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

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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

Previous Fields

  • SASS #
    27332
  • SASS Affiliated Club
    Firelands Peacemakers

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    linnkeller

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Lorain County, Ohio
  • 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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  1. My arthritic old Prayer Bones thank you kindly. We got rid of all the carpet and went entirely with laminate so as not to aggravate my wife's many allergies, and attair floor gets uncomfortable after a while. Besides, I'm just naturally lazy!
  2. TEARS, DELIGHT AND ACCOMPLISHMENT Sheriff Jacob Keller, Firelands, Mars, grinned as broad as two Texas townships as his wife handed him their child. Ruth Keller smiled quietly, silently rejoicing at the expression on her husband's face. Jacob hefted their laughing little boy, hoist him well overhead, to the juvenile delight (and squeals) of his son, brought him down, bounced him a couple times, looked at Ruth and asked, "What have you been feedin' him? T-bone steaks and high nitrogen fertilizer?" Ruth laughed, tilted her head. "He has his father's appetite." Jacob swung their fist-chewing son up on his left hip, gathered his wife into him with his right arm, buried his face in the side of her neck, nibbling at her with his lips. "Darlin', I missed you," he mumbled, and Ruth giggled -- Jacob's richly-curved handlebar mustache tickled -- she hugged him back and whispered, "I missed you too!" Ruth felt Jacob's body change when the annunciator chimed. Jacob released his wife, turned quickly, one hand on his pistol: Ruth felt the static sizzle of a midfield that split the room in two -- she was behind it, Jacob was on the other side of it. He keyed a command into his desktop keyboard. Ruth saw his shoulders rise, then fall, and she knew he'd just taken a long breath and blown it out. He did not, however, lower the field. The door slid open, Marnie came smiling through the portal, an oversized picnic basket in hand, covered with a tucked-in, red-and-white-check tablecloth -- "I didn't think you'd want to make your wife fix supper when she's just getting home!" Marnie suggested quietly. Jacob nodded, took the basket, touched a control on his belt: the invisible field sizzled out of existence, and the two women embraced, a chubby set of arms reached for his Aunt Marnie, and the table was quickly set for three adults and a child. Supper was a cheerful event: Ruth turned her attention to feeding their little boy in moments where Marnie described young Michael pulling a clandestine pistol and hitting an area the size of a man's thumbnail to stop an extremely poisonous reptile from killing his twin sister; she turned big and startled eyes toward the description of Victoria riding a fighting twisthorn stallion -- Ruth knew twisthorns, and she'd seen their stallions fight -- she smiled as Marnie described Dana, disguised as one of the Faceless Sisters, singing in adoration before the ornate Altar in the Rabbitville monastery. Ruth had heard Dana sing -- in fact, she'd sung duets with Dana, and delighted in how well they harmonized -- and then she looked, puzzled, at her husband and back to Marnie at the description of Dana's sojourn East, to bathe her wounded soul in the sonic waters of the restored, fully functional, Roosevelt pipe organ. Marnie and Jacob both knew Ruth loved music in all of its forms, and when they realized Ruth had absolutely no idea what a pipe organ was, they looked at one another and smiled. Inquiry was made, then arrangements, and while The Bear Killer and Snowdrift collaborated on riding herd on a laughing little boy who'd never seen a pair of truly huge, mountain Mastiffs before, three people sat in the front pew of the Barrington Congregational Church as a guest organist brought tears to a pale eyed lawman's cheeks, delight to his wife's face, and a sense of accomplishment to a pale eyed Ambassador in a McKenna gown.
  3. Awaiting a UPS that's SUPPOSED to arrive today by ... seven minutes ago. Rechecked tracking, now it says by 7 pm. If it was FedEx this would translate by "Sometime after the weekend even though we promised it last Wednesday." Edit to Add -- Mine arrived 1 hr 45 min after the window they gave me originally. Dee-lighted!
  4. STRUT Sheriff Linn Keller assumed the badge when Tom Landers allowed as he'd had the job long enough, he was tired, his aches and pains persuaded him to hand the star off to someone younger. The new Sheriff promptly arrested the saloon's owner, the bank's manager, took a Territorial Marshal's kindness and hired in a bookkeeper, who listed the financial sins and wrongdoings of both businesses: Linn gave Dirty Sam a choice, by virtue of setting a table in front Sam's jail cell, dropping a bag of silver in the middle and stobbing two knives into the tabletop: Sell the Silver Jewel for this poke of hard coin, or pick up a knife and we'll settle it once and for all. Dirty Sam and the crooked banker did not last long in prison, Linn turned the Silver Jewel from a dirty saloon and whorehouse, into a respectable business and restaurant: when word spread that the games were straight and the new owner had a screw loose -- he just honestly gave the restaurant part to an Irishwoman he'd only just met, he'd handed the saloon part off to the barkeep as his own -- then he threw out the weighted wheels, he'd burnt marked and tapered cards, he'd thrown card sharpers and cheats out with great ceremony (and vigor) -- it took some time, it took all the funds he had, but the Silver Jewel became just that -- a jewel -- clean and sparkling, there on the main street, freshly painted, brightly trimmed, with offices and hotel rooms in the second story. Sheriff Linn Keller was seen taking a man by the throat -- not just pinning him against the wall, but hauling him off his feet and holding him there -- he was seen facing up to and facing down large and angry men armed with a variety of weapons, he was seen taking troublemakers by the collar and the belt and dunking them in the nearest horse trough, and he was seen to throw his recalcitrant four legged office chair out into the street and take an ax to the damned thing when it dumped him over backwards one time too many. This hard man, who'd survived a cannon blowing up beside him and stoving in some ribs, this man who'd been shot, stabbed, cut, run into and run over, earned the respect of hard men, not just because his word was Law, but because he was unfailingly, even-handedly, fair. He never failed to hear a man out: if there was a dispute, he would hear one man out completely, then he would hear the other man out completely. For this he was respected. This hard man, this pale-eyed badge packer with a temper he tried hard not to let slip, raised a hand to a woman this one fine day. In fairness, the woman was quite young. Quite young. I believe she was about four years old, as a matter of fact. The Sheriff's green-eyed wife was very carefully not watching as he did, for this ladylike little four year old was walking the narrow top plank of the wooden corral fence, her hand laid over her Daddy's knuckles: as long as she had a hand on her Daddy, she was steady and sure footed: the moment she raised her hand from his, she got kind of wobbly. The Sheriff was a strong man, a man of authority and of justice, and as such, he cultivated a very reassuring voice, and he put this voice to work with this four year old daughter of his. Angela Keller survived a terrible train wreck that killed her birth-parents -- an iron rail worked loose, as too often happened with iron rails; it rose when the train's wheels passed over and drove up like a snakehead, ripping the belly out of a passenger car, killing everyone in it and derailing the rest of the train. The Sheriff came upon the wreck right after it happened and started throwing debris aside and found this still, silent figure lying under what used to be the side wall of the passenger car. He'd seized the wall, threw it aside (a feat for three strong men, but in extremis, a man can do incredible things!) -- he'd knelt and brushed the blond hair from her face, then he picked her up and stood and threw his head back and cried out to the Heavens themselves. This was the child that walked the top corral rail, one hand on her Daddy's upraised knuckles, the other held delicately out to the side, her wrist bent back a little, the way she'd seen her Mommy stand. Angela found if she looked straight ahead, and not down at her shiny slippers treading the whitewashed plank, she was steadier: she looked straight ahead, lifted her hand from her Daddy's reassuring knuckles, took two steps -- and her third step was too close to the edge, and she fell. Jacob Keller was only just come into the Sheriff's life: his story is well known, and tragic: he was pacing silently inside the corral, keeping exact station with his father, his eyes upraised to the pretty little girl tightrope walking that top rail. Jacob had a very dim memory of doing just that as a wee child, and seeing Angela's confidence when her hand touched her Daddy, warmed a memory of doing something similar in his very early existence. He was looking up, he saw her step come to the edge, her next step half-off, when she lost her balance: she gave a little squeak, and fell neatly into his arms. Linn's hand thrust impotently into empty air, trying to catch what was already gone: he stepped back, saw Jacob holding Angela, saw her wide-eyed expression, her even white teeth as she laughed with childish delight: Jacob looked at her, looked at his father and asked quietly, "Sir, what shall I do with her?" Sheriff Jacob Keller stood a-straddle of his firstborn. His Pa was dead and gone a year now; he'd lived long enough to become Grampa to his own blood, and unofficially to a handful of young who more or less adopted him: Jacob held two wooden pegs he'd whittled out earlier, and his firstborn's upraised hands gripped these pegs. As long as young William Linn had hold of his Pa's fingers, he could walk -- no, not walk: Jacob's son strutted across the floor, chubby arms upraised, little pink fingers holding onto his Pa's fingers. Today William Linn held those smooth-whittled pegs. Jacob looked over at his wife, who smiled knowingly, nodded: Go ahead. Jacob started walking across the floor, William Linn holding onto those pegs, little bare feet patting soundlessly on the long rag rug: Jacob let go of the pegs and William Linn happily charged across the floor, arms up in the air, laughing. When he realized he'd been fooled, he stopped, wobbled, set down hard on his round little bottom, but it didn't take long after that to realize he could walk without holding onto anything, and not long after that discovery, that Annette carefully did not look outside as her husband set their son on the top plank of the rail fence around their corral, and walked beside his son as William Linn laughed and strutted like a tightrope walker, one hand laid over on his Pa's upraised knuckles.
  5. SHE HAS A GIFT Michael stood as their guest crossed the threshold. He’d been seated at the family’s breakfast table – dressed, ready for school, saddlebags waiting by the front door – his father raised an eyebrow at the early morning rat-tat, tat – “Dana?” Michael asked, glancing to the narrow door to his left, the one where a loaded .22 rifle lived. “She has a key,” Linn replied quietly: he glided toward the front door, silent on sock feet, interrogated the computer screen, smiled. He opened the front door without hesitation. A tall man with a little hair fringing around the back of his head, a lean, tanned soul with a staff in one hand and the other extended and gripping the Sheriff’s, stood at the doorway, his lined face wrinkling into a delighted grin. Michael rose, breakfast forgotten. Victoria had no such polite reserve: she scampered across the intervening floor, ducked around her Daddy, seized the white-robed guest in a happy hug and a delighted, “Woom Coffee!” Abbot William laughed, knelt, handed his staff to the Sheriff and hugged the delighted little girl (who wasn’t nearly so little anymore!) – he slacked his embrace, looked up at the Sheriff, looked at Victoria and said “Your pardon, my Lady, I was looking for a little girl of my acquaintance. Her name is Victoria, but you cannot be her, for you are much too grown!” She laughed again, and he hugged her again, and she felt him take in a long, shivering breath, and let it out. The Sheriff saw this, too, and saw the man’s eyes close against the sadness Linn knew he felt. William knew what it was to bury a daughter – that was part of the reason he became a Religious – and every time Linn saw that unhealed grief in his old friend’s soul, he swore he would never, ever, take any of his children for granted! William rose, looked across the intervening space at Michael, standing beside his chair: William cocked an eye at Linn and murmured, “Permission to come aboard, sir!” “Aboard, hell,” Linn laughed, “we’re settin’ down for breakfast! I’ll get you a plate!” “I won’t turn you down,” the Abbot smiled. Breakfast finished, the four adjourned to the broad front porch to wait on the school bus. The twins scampered down the gravel drive when they saw the big yellow school bus turn off the main route, start down the side road: they, and The Bear Killer, were at the end of the drive just as the bus choo-choo’d to a stop with the unmistakable hiss and sigh of air brakes: Linn waved from the front porch, The Bear Killer turned and galloped happily back up the driveway as the bus pulled away. Linn picked up his rifle where he’d parked it beside the front door, opened it, stepped aside to let William and The Bear Killer enter first, then followed them in. Linn and the Abbot sat at one end of the table, Linn at the very end and William on his right. Linn already had the breakfast dishes soaking in soapy dishwater, he’d poured William another mug of coffee – the Abbot soaked up coffee at twice the Sheriff’s rate of consumption – Linn sat, looked at his half empty mug and smiled quietly. “Abbot,” he said gently, “are you sure I can’t get you anything more?” The Abbott patted his flat belly, smiled. “I’m full as a tick,” he said. “Bacon and eggs are always better with good company!” “Victoria was glad to see you.” The Abbot laughed gently, nodded. “I remember when she was … younger.” His voice was soft, the voice of a man sharing something cherished. “She… her voice was excited … and she could not frame to pronounce ‘William.’ “It came out ‘Woom.’ “ The Sheriff nodded. “I remember.” “But she could say ‘Coffee.’ “ They laughed, they nodded, the Abbot looked speculatively at the Sheriff. “Dana.” Linn looked at his old friend: his expression did not change, but the Abbot could feel the change in the man, and he knew the Sheriff was listening closely to whatever words he was about to utter. “You know she sings with the Sisters.” Linn smiled a little, nodded. “I’ve heard her sing.” “She is quite the Bible scholar. She’s the equal of most seminarians I know.” Linn nodded again, took a short snort of coffee, swallowed. “She came to see me, Linn.” “Confession?” “No. Well, yes, but not …” Abbot William leaned back, his fingers flat on the table: he looked away, looked back, a look of amusement on his expressive, weathered face. “Linn, your daughter has both a strong sense of history, and a flair for the dramatic!” “I see,” Linn replied, affecting his best Innocent Expression. “She’s become an actress!” “Oh, she’s been that, for years,” William waved a dismissive hand. “She can become someone else or something else – do you remember when your mother discovered that long lost series of portraits, those … those glass plate treasures?” “I remember, yes.” “There were photographs of our early Monastery, of the Brethren ranked on one side, the Sisters on the other, how two chickens in the front looked like they were long and blurry because of the long exposure?” Linn laughed. “I remember those chickens look like they’re three feet long or better!” William leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingertips steepled. “Do you remember your mother describing how Sarah Lynne McKenna became an Agent of the Church?” Linn stopped and looked very directly at the Abbot. William waved a hand again: “No, no, Dana isn’t an Agent, don’t worry, the Holy Mother Church isn’t stealing her away to do clandestine investigation!” Linn raised an eyebrow. “From your introduction, I was beginning to wonder.” “No … but your daughter does have a penchant for disguise.” The Sheriff turned his head a little, as if to bring a good ear to bear. “Sarah Lynne McKenna became one of the White Sisters. She sang with them, and so does your Dana. Dana has not become a Religious, she does not wear the silver ring of Sisterhood, but when she is among us – when she comes to the Monastery – she assumes the Veil and she is indistinguishable from the Sisters.” “I see.” The Abbot removed one elbow from the table, gripped his lean chin between thumb and forefinger. “Linn,” he said softly, “she has absolutely the purest, most magnificent singing voice I have ever heard in my life!” Linn nodded. “She went back East on vacation. She felt it wise to go in disguise, after the … excitement … here locally.” Linn nodded again. “She has a love for a good pipe organ and she sought out one of the oldest working organs in the country, a Congregational Church in Massachusetts.” Linn tilted his head, favored his friend with a curious expression, clearly very interested in the man’s words. “She said it was one of the most powerfully beautiful experiences of her life,” the Abbot said softly. “She wept for its beauty.” “There’s something you’re not telling me.” “Ever the investigator, eh?” William smiled, nodding. “She had me write an introductory note, in case there might be resistance in admitting a Catholic Nun into a Congregational Church. I served on the Leyte Gulf with their chief pastor.” Linn nodded. “When she went in disguise, she went in a very old disguise.” “Old?” Linn frowned a little, his brows puzzling together as he did. “She came to see me afterward. It seems she took a cosmetic brush and nonflexible collodion, and painted an awful looking scar – from the corner of her eye, diagonally down and across her face, another across her throat.” “Sarah McKenna used that dodge, back when.” The Abbot snapped his fingers, pointed at the Sheriff. “Bingo. She said she raised the veil and said in a hoarse whisper she used to sing opera.” “Distraction technique. All the witness will remember is that awful scar and the husky voice.” “Your daughter could make a good living on Broadway, with the skills of disguise and that lovely voice.” “Her choice,” Linn grunted. “Now you’re holding something back.” Linn looked long at his old friend, as if weighing a decision. “Abbot, some things are not fit for the confessional.” “I’ve heard things, Sheriff. I’ve heard the blackest of stains on what the world thought were good men’s souls.” Linn leaned back, considered, his eyes tracking across the newly-painted ceiling. “Abbot,” Linn said quietly, “Dana does have an angel’s voice. I didn’t know she was into disguise as well, but I’m not surprised. Marnie …” The Abbott listened intently: he knew Marnie was recruited to Mars as their second Sheriff, he knew something happened to the Colony, there was almost no word about it these days. Linn slid his mug away from him, leaned forward. “Abbot, the Mars colonies are alive and well,” he said in a quiet, confidential voice, “and Marnie is quite the dancer. She was in disguise very recently, she danced the Can-Can with a professional troupe. I am trusting you with this information. There is considerably more that I cannot say, and what little I’ve given you would cause great … difficulty … if it were made known.” The Abbot nodded, frowned. “I’d feared them dead. There’s been almost nothing …” “Many of them were killed,” Linn admitted, looking away. He let an uncomfortable silence grow, then looked back. “Dana painted on a scar and said she used to sing opera.” The Abbot nodded, and Linn chuckled a little. “I knew Sarah Lynne McKenna would shake her trotters on the boards. Apparently my daughters have inherited some of her talents!” “ ‘Shake her trotters’?” the Abbot echoed. Linn grinned. “Slang for dancing on stage.” “Ah.” Linn’s eyes widened a little – it was rare for the man to be surprised, but that’s what the Abbot saw in the man’s expression as a memory came into focus. “Well I’d be sawed off and damned,” Linn said slowly. The Abbot raised an eyebrow, waited. Linn looked at him. “Dana. She’s been taking classes in the City. Dollars to doughnuts that’s been voice training!” “Encourage her, my friend,” the Abbot suggested. “She has a gift!”
  6. Mama called these a "Genuine Australian Go-to-Hell Hat!"
  7. Snowed twice last week. Yesterday there were still fist sized snowballs where I got mad and shoveled the stuff off my driveway. Last night the idiot neighbor mowed his lawn. I went out back and checked to make sure my back yard was still there, and we have standing water in the low places. As much cold and freeze as we've had here of late I doubt me not we've more snow on the way!
  8. Hardware store will fax anything I need for a quarter a sheet. Does just fine for renewing my nursing license. My last printer had fax capability, until it quit printing. Now it's sleeping in the basement ... somewhere ...
  9. MIRIAM Parson Belden was a man of routine. He’d put a morning into cutting and stacking wood – Parson or not, the cookstove needed fuel and so did the pot belly – he’d washed his hands and his face, he and his wife ate together, talking quietly, laughing a little as they discussed the stir that scandalous trick rider caused, riding through town all gussied up and doing handstands and summersets on that gaudy saddle, and the menfolk watching her with their tongues hanging clear down to their belt buckles – husband and wife each built on the other’s exaggeration, until both were laughing too hard to push the ridiculous further. The Parson finished his meal and withdrew to work on his sermon. As too often happens with men of the cloth, his desire to come up with something inspiring, informative, encouraging, and spiritual, was far greater than his ability to come up with something inspiring, informative, encouraging, or spiritual. He stared at the blank sheet under his hand; he turned the knife-whittled pencil in his fingers, remembering other clergy who would doodle or write random words, trying to prime the mental pump – he did neither, for he was a thrifty man, and wished not to spoil a perfectly good sheet of paper with anything but useful information. He sighed, parked his pencil: he rose, he knotted his necktie, he kissed his wife and settled his hat on his head and commenced to walk. The Parson had no particular destination; he trusted the Lord would guide his steps, would guide his thoughts. Sunshine was warm on his shoulders, the backs of his arms, his legs: he stopped, turned, looking around, relaxing his mind, listening for that Still Small Voice. He thought about talk he’d heard, talk of building a better structure for their Irish Brigade: he’d understood the Sheriff’s green-eyed wife invested monies she may not’ve actually had, in the building of a brick-works, and using the bricks to build the firehouse as the first showpiece of this local product. His mind wandered further: there’d been talk of building a hospital – their Doc had an office upstairs, in the Silver Jewel, which was fine if you had strength enough to walk up the stairs, or strong men to carry you up – the Parson’s mind went back to their own Irish Brigade. He knew there’d been a private effort to raise funds for a fire engine, for men to operate it, horses to pull the Steam Masheen and the ladder and hose wagon, and this was accomplished – how, he wasn’t entirely sure: he knew he’d find out, eventually, he always did. He thought of their little whitewashed Church. He wasn’t the first Parson here, but this was the town’s first Church: it wasn’t terribly big, it was built – as he’d said in a letter to an old friend, back East – on the New England Meetinghouse style: it was a rectangle, simple, functional, the only thing fancy about it was that the doors opened on the back corner instead of on a back wall or a side wall. The only other building of note he knew of, that opened on a corner, was a saloon back in Corning, the one where Froggy Schlingermann got punched so hard he flew backwards out the batwing doors and landed colder’n a foundered flounder in the gutter – never mind that ol’ Froggy deserved it, given the nature of his insult to another man’s wife. Tricky thing, that, he thought: honor was a touchy thing anywhere, even back East: here in the West, talk like that might earn a man bed space in the local boneyard. Pride, he thought: I might find a sermon in … pride … The Parson raised his eyes toward the town’s cemetery as he thought. The Sheriff’s son was riding off Cemetery Hill, toward him. The Parson stopped, admiring how well Jacob Keller sat the saddle. The Parson was a man who noticed things; though not a horseman himself, he could recognize one, and he knew the Sheriff’s son was very definitely what the French called a Chevalier, a “man of the horse,” if he understood the term correctly. His quick mind sidetracked, attracted to the word like a compass-needle to native lodestone. There were connotations of good breeding and good manners attached to the term, and as the Parson looked up at this lean-waisted, pale-eyed Chevalier, he considered that these qualities, too, fit Jacob well. “Howdy, Parson,” Jacob grinned, touching his hat brim. “Visiting a memory?” the Parson asked. Jacob frowned a little, then dismounted. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly. “I would counsel with you.” The Parson was struck by his phrasing: this was something he would expect a man of breeding to say, a man of education: Jacob’s few years precluded his being a University man, what little the Parson knew of him, would not lead him to think Jacob the son of means or wealth. This intrigued the sky pilot. “I am very much at your service,” the Parson said gravely. Jacob took a long breath, turned, looked back toward Cemetery Hill. “Parson,” he said, “I was just up there lookin’ at a tombstone.” The Parson nodded, slowly, listening carefully. “Her name was Miriam.” “Ah, the blind girl.” “Yes, sir.” Jacob frowned again. “Sir, she could play the piano … very well indeed, and she danced with me, and danced well.” “She was blind.” “Yes, sir, stone blind. Her eyes were bulged out some and that’s what killed her.” “I remember being told …” “That she died hard, yes sir, she did,” Jacob interrupted, looking away, clearly troubled. He looked back, his jaw set. “Sir, that wasn’t right. She’d done nothing to deserve that. She’d … she was decent and she helped her Mama as best she could when their wagon broke an axle and her Mama went a-laborin’ and I birthed her baby right there beside the wagon trail, and Miriam did the best she could in everything she did and she … “ His voice ground to a halt: he looked away again, controlling himself: he was silent for several long moments, his eyes closed, then he opened his eyes and looked back at the Parson. “It was not right, sir. I’ve been tryin’ to figure why things like this happen.” The Parson nodded again, once, carefully, his eyes never leaving Jacob’s serious young face. “Parson, I’m not the brightest candle in the chandelier, but I can’t see the Almighty causin’ these things to happen. Even when Job was deviled, ‘twas the devil doin’ those things to him, not God. I don’t reckon God causes the bad to happen, but I can’t help but … notice … He is not a’tall bashful about usin’ ‘em to teach lessons.” Jacob looked away again, smiled with half his mouth. “On t’other hand, Parson, if I know so much, why haven’t I made a fortune already, eh?” The Parson considered this lean waisted son of that pale eyed Sheriff, his expression thoughtful. “Jacob,” he said gently, “you have a greater wisdom than most grown men.” Jacob laughed – an easy, good-natured laugh – “Well, Parson, I’m glad you think so, ‘cause sometimes I don’t think I know straight up from go-to-hell!” The Parson’s wife looked up as her husband came through their door. He hung his hat on its peg, went straight to his desk and began to write. Mrs. Parson smiled a little as she kneaded the bread dough. She heard her husband’s pencil scratching purposefully, steadily, on good rag paper, and she knew this meant he’d found the subject for his Sunday sermon.
  10. To quote the previous century's wise old sage: "To err is human. To really screw it up beyond belief, use a computer!" (Been there, done that, felt like the north end of a south bound horse afterward!)
  11. NEXT STOP, HOME! Dana Keller saw the wreck happen. One car passing another, cut in too fast, too short: one vehicle spun out, stopped in the median: the other spun, hit the heavy I-beam of a roadside sign. Dana saw the spray and knew the gas tank just ruptured. She nailed the brakes, steered onto the shoulder, felt the antilock vibrating against her bootsole: her hand swung through empty air as she reached for the microphone that wasn’t there – she seized her Stetson, punched the seatbelt release, shouldered hard against the door, bailed out. She ran, ran with the desperate knowledge that the vehicle was going to light up, a tank of gas sprayed under hard impact, vapors, hot engine – Habit alone got her Stetson on her head and out of her hands, she ran for the driver’s door – Gasoline was a broad, shallow stain flowing toward her, two crumpled metal jerry cans on the tailgate draining fast – Dana saw the fire roar into life and come right at her. She clenched her teeth, lowered her head, ran into the river of living fire, and disappeared. Interviews were conducted, shaky phone videos were examined. All anyone knew was that someone stopped in a Jeep, maybe a Sheriff’s deputy but with a funny uniform, someone who ran into the flames and through them, someone who got the driver out and then a child from the back seat – whoever it was, ran right through those flames to get to them, got ‘em out and ran that way, away from the fire, uphill, on the shoulder of the road, laid ‘em down in the edge of the grass and stayed with them until the squad pulled up. No, it was a woman, everybody started showing up and she went back toward the burning car. That’s when the fire department showed up. No, she got in that Jeep and turned around on the shoulder, she ran the ditch line back and got across the roadway and across to the other side. No idea where she went after that. Dana Keller waited until the medics arrived, then ran down the bank, back past the burning car to her rented Jeep: she got it started, hauled the wheel hard right as the fire truck came in behind her: she doubled back, climbed the bank, shot across the eastbound lane, across the median into the westbound, and took the first exit, hung a left and ran a State route she’d seen on the map earlier that day: she went through the county seat, headed out the Appalachian Highway to the Ohio University airport. A Lear jet was only just fueled up: she wheeled her Jeep across the little airport’s cattle guard bridge within 30 seconds of her estimated arrival time. Her father’s old friend loaded what little luggage she had, into the Lear; they both took the opportunity to offload some second hand coffee before taking off, and Dana purchased a couple extra bottles of water from the machine, for the trip. The pilot gave her an appraising look as she handed him two sweating-cold water bottles. “Miss Dana,” he said, “if you’ll forgive me, you present as professional an appearance as your grandmother always did!” Dana laughed and stopped at the foot of the short stairway. “Flattery,” she smiled, “will get you everywhere!” It was not until the Lear began its takeoff roll, not until Dana was belted in, settled comfortably into her seat, not until she’d stowed her water bottles in holders built into the armrests, that she rested a hand on her belt-mounted magazines, laid gentle fingertips on the finger’s-width-thick rectangle on her belt. I will have to thank the Ambassador, she made a mental note: I’ve never had to test it against gunfire, but this field generator is sure as hell proof against a gasoline fire! The pilot turned, looked back, grinned. “Like to come up, Miss Dana? Quite a sunset we’ve got tonight!” Dana released her seat belt, stood: she took a bottle with her, settled into the copilot’s seat, laughed. The pilot looked at her – he was an older man, with the quiet confidence of a veteran pilot – “Something funny?” Dana looked at him and smiled, looking less like a Deputy Sheriff, and more like a happy girl. “A friend of Gammaw’s flew bomber in the Second Disagreement,” she said, her eyes slowly crossing the crowded, complex instrument panel. “Gammaw told me his favorite entertainment after the War was to fly commercial, when they only had a curtain between the passengers and the cockpit – he’d poke his head through the curtain and look around and roll his eyes and say ‘My, look at all those clocks!’ – and they’d look at him like he had a fish sticking out of his shirt pocket!” The pilot chuckled, nodded. “Somehow, I can believe that!” He looked at her with almost a fatherly expression. “Like to try flying her?” “Oh good Lord no!” Dana exclaimed, shaking her head and shuddering. “Give me my horsepower under a saddle and I’m happy! Give me something like this and … well, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and I know just enough about flying to get into an awful lot of trouble!” They laughed; they relaxed; Dana did not realize she’d fallen asleep until she heard a quiet, fatherly voice say “Next stop, home!”
  12. So many, many times I've wanted to post this as a glorious affirmation to something posted here!
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