Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

HELLWALKER Shelly Keller stepped out of the Iris, into the cool, shadowed interior of her old, familiar firehouse. She stopped, eyes closed, leaned her head back, took a long breath of air that smelled of fire coats and sweat, of smoke and tire rubber and Diesel exhaust, of coffee and fresh baked bread. It smelled … It smelled like home, and right now, home is what she needed. Shelly Keller straightened her head and opened her eyes. She stepped over to the drain rack and picked up an oversized mug. Shelly Keller, Paramedic, firefighter, wife to that pale eyed Sheriff and mother to several genuinely remarkable children and a whole herd of local young who happily adopted her every chance they got, drew a big mug of scalding, steaming coffee. The longer she stood, the more tired she looked, until finally she walked over to the table and set her mug down. She moved to the fridge, pulled out a plastic gallon jug of milk, added a long drink to her coffee – she capped the jug with what looked like the last of her strength, set it back, closed the door, then leaned the front of her shoulder and the side of her head against textured white enamel and closed her eyes again. She’d led an after-action debrief. She was the only one who could. Neither Chaplain nor Counselor was every truly, genuinely, trusted, unless that Chaplain knew, firsthand, what it was to go through what they’d gone through. She'd been teaching, Offworld, a remarkably competent paramedic class, when she stopped suddenly, when she felt herself come alive again. It wasn’t until Shelly’s head came up like a bird dog’s hearing a shotgun break open, not until she’d run for the equipment bay with the rest of her offworld class – it wasn’t until Shelly drove sock feet into her personal fireboots, pulled up galluses and her personal bunker pants with them, not until Shelly shrugged into her Firelands Fire Department firecoat and dunked her stained helmet on her short, efficient haircut, not until Shelly leaped onto the tailboard with two other firefighters and screamed “GO GO GO GO GO!” – not until the truck stopped and one firefighter pulled off firehose and a shutoff valve, wrapped the hydrant and waved the driver ahead, not until the truck laid in from a newly-installed hydrant on a newly-installed municipal water line, not until Shelly dropped off the tailboard with the other firefighter at scene – it wasn’t until she’d grabbed an ax in one hand, hose in the other, and hauled after two running firemen, running the preconnect toward a heavily involved structure – not until she charged into an involved structure did anyone really realize, really genuinely fathom, that she, their paramedic instructor, was actually a fire paramedic in the finest sense of the word. They kicked the door and made entry – they kept low as heat and a gout of flame exhaled above them – Shelly hauled hard on swollen, woven-linen hose jacket, keeping herself laid against the backup’s back, helping him hold the back pressure: she dropped a knee on the line to hold it as he raised the nob and spun a straight stream in big circles against the crumbling ceiling. Shelly looked around, planned her initial first-floor search. They heard someone scream, upstairs… a high, shrill scream, a child’s song of desperation, a single, pure note of silvery despair, the sound of an innocent soul realizing with the dread certainty of Doom that it was about to DIE! To hear the other fellow tell it later, Shelly cut loose with a string of bad language before she keyed the mike and ordered a backup search team, someone was screaming upstairs and she wanted a ladder on the front side second floor window YESTERDAY! Shelly charged the stairs on all fours, kept low, looked around at what little could be seen with smoke banked down almost to the deck. “FIRE DEPARTMENT! WHERE ARE YOU?” Her voice was muffled by her mask: she took a breath, pulled the mask away and shouted again: “FIRE DEPARTMENT! WHERE ARE YOU?” Outside, a camera drone moved in response to an anonymous hand’s remote control, back at an Inter-System news station: it was cloaked, so as not to distract rescuers from more vital labors. Below her, the Elkhart nozzle hissed as it blasted a straight stream in controlled, circular sweeps against the disintegrating ceiling, shattering into coarse drops, raining down onto the conflagration, wet death with futile fingers trying to stop a hot, ravening monster. Another team dropped into a crouch, advanced, almost duck-walking: the backup man on the hose line thrust an arm out – Search there – the ground floor search team moved forward, calling out, using a fire ax as both a buffer against unseen furniture, and as a seeing-eye cane in an atmosphere that was banked down, hot and low, with visibility reduced to the last few inches above the deck. Shelly took a breath, pulled her mask again: “FIRE DEPARTMENT! WHERE ARE YOU?” A terrified child, crouched behind the clawfoot tub, cried wordlessly, knees hugged to her chest, smoke stinging her eyes and burning her throat. She screamed again as the door SLAMMED open, as something that looked like a great, powerful, one-eyed, two-legged monster stomped into the room – as it turned that smooth, polished, faceless eye at her – She squeezed her eyes shut, whimpered as something powerful grabbed her, snatched her up, hugged her – Shelly’s Confederate field, set on STANDBY for training purposes back at the firehouse, sensed a second life form in close proximity. Its emergency override activated. Shelly felt her field activate and she swore, silently, damning her stupidity for not even THINKING about activating it. No matter. She had one arm under a child’s bottom, the other around the child, hugging her tightly: Shelly stood, ax in one firegloved hand, no longer feeling the heat, the crushing, humid, incinerating atmosphere, no longer feeling flame or movement of hot, deadly air. The camera drone backed up, lowered, looked very directly into the wide-open front door with two hose lines running into it, looking into what appeared to be Hell at war with itself. A figure stomped down what had been an immaculate, well-built, carefully-varnished stairway – a stairway with flames coming up around both sides, a stairway with smoke rising from around the treads, a stairway that collapsed in a bright, spark-blasting cascade as the firecoated figure, clutching a scared child, came out the front door into the daylight, into clear air, into life, into another chance. The picture was snapshot, extracted, frozen, attached to the Inter-System’s evening broadcast, with a single word above as the headline. The commentary that inevitably accompanied this still photo featured interviews with their planet’s firefighters, their paramedics, with a young family who suddenly had not lost everything of value, after all. There was a ten-second clip of the soul walking out of an absolute inferno with a young life safe in her arms. Shelly was seated on the tailboard of the pumper she’d ridden in on, eyes closed, head leaned back against hand-buffed, immaculately-waxed compartment doors, a half empty bottle of water in her hand, her firecoat laid carelessly on the diamond plate beside her. In response to the reporter’s question, she smiled tiredly and replied “Yes, I'm a medic. No, this is not unusual. If you’re going to be a fire paramedic, you have to fight fire, and that’s what we do.” “But don’t you usually fight it with … water?” the reporter asked. Shelly looked past him, at the memory of a crying mother receiving her child from the arms of an anonymous firefighter in smoke-dirtied turnout gear and an air mask that made her look more like a distorted Cyclops than a human being. “Water, dry-chem, purple-K, CO2,” she murmured, "but sometimes … “Sometimes,” she said, fatigue in her voice, “you have to just have to go hand-to-hand.” Shelly never heard which of the firefighters tagged her with it, but the name made it to the reporter, into the Inter-System, into local newspapers. Eventually an honestly, frighteningly, realistic, framed oil portrait arrived anonymously at the Firelands firehouse. It was a phenomenally accurate rendering of the image from the Inter-System’s news broadcast, complete with the title, Shelly stomping out of the mouth of Neffelheim’s furnace, and the name was rendered in flames against the black smoke of combustion overhead: HELLWALKER!

It took me a little to realize why it was so hard for me to understand what that fellow was sales pitching after about the first 45 seconds. Then I realized what I was hearing was part cackle, part howl and part hyperventilation. I have not laughed that hard, that long, or that well, for some long time now! (wipes eyes) (chuckles) I gotta see that one again! 'Scuse me!

THANK YOU A door opened and a man stepped inside. The detective looked up, his eyes tired: it had been a long day. Too long. I'm too close to retirement to work this hard. He'd been at it twelve hours, but he'd felt the collar of three wanted men, he'd cracked two cases and testified in one, and now he'd just closed his computer station when someone came in without knocking. He looked up, expression carefully neutral. He saw a tall man in a tailored black suit and an immaculate Stetson with an understated silver-and-turquoise hatband: pale eyes under the shadowing brim swung left, swung right as he sidestepped from the door, the familiar move of a veteran lawman: come through the door and get a wall to your back. He took a step toward the detective's desk, laid a file folder on the man's just-cleaned-off, coffee-ringed, ink-scribbled, green desk blotter. The detective raised an eyebrow. "What's this?" The silent man opened the file for him. The detective saw a photograph -- an 8x10 glossy, an honest to God photograph, not a computer printout. It was a man in the act of putting something on a tombstone. Someone took a photo of the detective visiting someone he knew. The silent man in the old-fashioned black suit placed a dark grey, round nosed bullet on the photo. "He was my grandfather," he said, his voice deep, resonant: the detective's mouth opened, he looked up -- Gone -- He blinked. What the hell just happened? Sheriff Linn Keller stood in front of a rented Jeep, parked near the end of a north-south straight stretch of blacktopped state route. He stood still, listening, smelling, unmoving, pale eyes busy. He'd been here before, with his mother, and after, with his own young, to remember. He gauged the location by remaining landmarks, nodded, once. Here. It was here. He closed his eyes and saw it again, saw it through his Mama's description. Not far north, less than a quarter mile, a drunked-up twenty-year-old tried to run over a town cop. Gunshots. Accurate shots, fast but ineffective, bouncing off the vehicle's tire. The car screamed south, the cop yelling into his talkie. The Sheriff's eyes looked north, at the empty stretch of freshly-striped blacktop state route. He came south. Granddad Ted had his POV pulled across both lanes. My Grandma was in the passenger seat, raising the talkie, she'd just keyed up when the oncoming car hit theirs and sheared off Granddad's legs at the knees and Grandma's scream went out on the local police frequency. They got him to surgery in record time but he died just shy of the surgery doors. He closed his eyes, hands tightening into fists. The sun just touched the Western ridgeline when a pale eyed man in an old-fashioned black suit stood at a grave. He'd taken a photograph earlier that day. Now he bent a little and set a dark grey bullet on top of the tomb stone, beside the one that was placed there earlier, when he tripped the shutter on his telephoto lens Nikon. A pale eyed Sheriff removed his Stetson, tucked it under his off arm. "Granddad," he said softly, "I'm not the only one to come here today, but I took the time to talk to the man who did." Sheriff Linn Keller swallowed, looked at the tombstone in an Athens County cemetery. "He didn't forget you, Granddad, so I stopped to talk to him." He blinked, took a long breath. "I stopped to tell him thank you."

GRAMPA BURNT THE BACON! Two men hunkered under a rock overhang. There was room enough for their horses, room enough for a big Bear Killing dog, there was room enough for a fire. The weather was pleasant, they had bacon, they had a genuine, honest to God can opener and dumped a can of beans in the hot bacon grease after they'd knife-tipped thick slices of fragrant, fried bacon and laid the almost-stiff strips across a leafy fork to cool. Two men ate in silence, drank cold streamwater, their backs to the overhanging rock, looking out at the drizzly wet countryside, at their mounts, drowsing on soft grass, heads hanging, looking like they were ready to fall over dead. That was a lie, of course: a sound, a movement, and they would be suddenly heads-up and ears-up and scenting the source of the alarm, as would The Bear Killer. For his part, The Bear Killer did not look dead. He looked with a dark-eyed intensity, with an expression calculated and calibrated to tug at the hearts of those who had edibles. This, of course, worked and worked well: both father and son shared torn bread, swiped in bacon fat and beans, and each donated a couple half strips of the thick, fried, Dead Pig to The Bear Killer's health and well being. Hunkering is something they were used to, a posture with which they were both completely comfortable, as were most outdoorsmen of the era. Finally Michael spoke, his voice quiet. Jacob's eyes went to his son at the near-susurrant syllable. "Sir?" "Yes, Michael?" "Sir, there is something in your eyes." Jacob's smile hid behind his face, and he nodded. It was not long after he'd gotten the death notice from the government that his son Joseph had been killed, overseas: they weren't even decently into that damned European war and already he'd lost a son. Michael, his second born, was too young for the draft, but not by much. Jacob looked down at the fire, trying to hide his thoughts. "It's Grampa, isn't it, sir?" Jacob looked up, his reserve dropping to the ground, honest surprise on his face, then he chuckled, his mind working fast. His thoughts had not been of Old Pale Eyes, but there was a story associated with this very rocky overhang, and Jacob pulled it off the shelf of his many memories and looked it over kind of quick. "Michael," he said finally, "your Grampa and I had bacon under this very same overhang, long before you were born." "Yes, sir?" Michael grinned, looking less like the serious young man he tried to present himself as, and more like the eager boy Jacob wanted to remember. "Pa burnt the bacon." "Sir?" Michael's young forehead wrinkled in surprise, his eyes wide with near-dismay at the thought of ruining some Perfectly Good Bacon! Jacob nodded solemnly. "He was not happy," Jacob sighed, shaking his head. "I don't think anyone in the world is harder on him than The Man In The Mirror, and I reckon he was cussin' himself inside somethin' fierce." Michael's expression slid from surprise to sorrow. Jacob knew Michael could be stoic when the need arose. Hell, Michael had faced down unpleasant sorts more times than one, and he'd give the impression he was whittled out of white oak a-doin' it, but in unguarded moments -- in moments that involved family -- Michael could be ... vulnerable? ... soft hearted, perhaps. Jacob took pains not to tread on this vulnerability. 'What happened, sir?" "Pa, he pulled the fryin' pan off the fire and set it down on the sand -- 'twas damp, the water had been up not long before -- the pan hissed out a big cloud of steam and I didn't hesitate one bit. "I run my knife into that cloud of steam and speared me the blackest, burntest strip and I fetched it out and laid it acrost half a sweet roll I'd tore open and I allowed as that's just how I like it." Michael considered this, nodded carefully. In the fullness of time, Michael started to notice women folk, and Michael became sweet on a girl, and Michael spoke with her Papa first before he went to one knee before her with a ring, and when his new bride distracted herself and ended up searing supper, Michael pulled the bedsheet handkerchief from his coat-sleeve, dried the distaff's distressed eyes, kissed her forehead and whispered, "That's just the way I like it," and he smiled a little as she half-laughed, half-cried into his shirt front, and he remembered hunkering beside a fire with his Pa, with bacon in the frying pan and a family story being shared. The rock overhang was undistinguished. It never had any grand exploits attached to it. No shootouts, no outlaw hideouts, no great achievements nor terrible disasters lent their names to its location. In time, it did acquire an official name, entered into local government records and onto official maps. To Michael, and to his sons, and to their sons afterward, it was Burnt Bacon Rock, where fathers and sons ceremonially hunkered, to share bacon, and family legend.

Just reading the title, I thought this referred to our local railroad, and was about to offer comment on the fellow driving the locomotive who thinks he gets paid a bonus every time he blows that whistle.

THINGS JUST KINDA ... HAPPENED Michael Keller held up a device he'd described, sketched out, and finally had to build. He wanted to build it, rather than just get one from home: he knew his efforts were being watched, studied, considered. Businessmen, blacksmiths, woodworkers, cooks and bakers were gathered -- fascinated and very willing students of Michael's appetite, and his problem solving efforts to assuage that particular condition. Michael's mother described her pale-eyed son (many times) in the selfsame manner (and identical wording) as her pale-eyed mother-in-law described Shelly's husband. Michael, and his father before him, in their younger years, were somewhat exasperatedly (but honestly) described as "A Walking Appetite on Two Hollow Legs!" It should probably be mentioned at this point, that Michael was an unholy number of light-years away from the land of his nativity. Had he sustained this degree of hunger "back home," he would very likely have stopped at the All-Night and picked up two large slices of pizza, consuming this before supper after the studied principle that it is not necessarily wise to eat too much on an empty stomach. As it was, there was no equivalent to the All-Night on an entire planet, nor was there pizza. Michael's solution grew from his verbalized desire for a particular Earth dish for which he had an appetite. The very first pizza on this particular world was surprisingly similar to the product Michael remembered, though not exactly -- he'd had to hunt through local markets to find something that resembled tomatoes (never mind their coloration, purple with yellow stripes) -- these cooked down, when diced very fine, into an acceptable sauce -- it wasn't the tomato sauce he remembered, but if you overlooked texture, seeds, and of course color, which lightened when baked -- well, he was able to come up with tomato sauce. He'd described pepperoni, which drew blank looks, until he'd likened it to a Brightly Spiced Sausage -- exemplars were obtained, sliced thin, fried, sampled: the crust was simplicity itself; Michael and a half dozen culinary specialists of this particular world, went though the local market like a diplomatic tornado: Michael made liberal use of the Coin of the Realm, as their snatching up different spices, grinding them between palms and taking a good sniff, interfered with the merchants' business (which it really didn't -- the sight of a Diplomatic personage, made famous by the Inter-System, in the middle of men and women alike, all talking at the same time, animatedly, loudly, with the gestures that seem to be part and parcel of the profession, attracted attention, the curious, and business!) Michael Keller took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves -- literally -- he washed his hands thoroughly, carefully, he was handed a towel to dry off: he stopped and looked very directly at the blushing young woman who'd slipped close enough to hand him the towel, and thanked her quietly: he turned back to his culinary construction, never noticing that the towel, as soon as his back was turned, was clutched to a developing bodice as if it was something precious. Michael asked the baker to form the dough, and roll it out: he knew if he took over and did everything, it might look like showboating, or it might look like he was trying to be Big Chief I Know Everything Hotshot, and -- despite his few years -- he knew involvement was key to any learning experience. Purple sauce was ladled carefully onto the round, rolled-out crust; an excited young man came in with that planet's very first Pizza Spatula, just finished, broad, thin wood on a long handle: Michael asked the right people, and these right people recruited the brickmasons who built the pizza oven, who fired it carefully to set the clay: cheese graters were known, though not cheap; Michael had a woman of about his Mama's age apply sprinkled cheese, and when asked why not lay on thin slices instead, he held up both palms and said "This is a test run, folks. This is the way I've always made it, but y'know, if you can get uniform thin slices, that just might work!" The thin sliced, fried, cooled, spiced sausage was then spread with a skill Michael admired: he likened it to halfway between a professional card sharper, and the precision of a chess player: card sharpers were known, but chess, for whatever reason, was a game not known here. It didn't matter. Michael slid the brand-new, never-used, thin-wood pizza spatula under the prepared product with a single, controlled, precise thrust, the kind of thrust a professional pool player might use. Their First Prototype Pizza in this Entire World was then borne out to the hot, ready oven: Michael slid it in, and with a lift, a pull, he deposited the product on hot, smooth stone, afternoon's sun coming down, illuminating the interior with indirect brightness: Michael knew roughly how much time it would take to bake, and by then, the lowering sun would shoot into the oven's interior. "Heirloom tomatoes?" Victoria asked: she stood in an ornate and well-kept flower garden, wrist bent and brought up close to her lips. "I recall Mama got heirlooms so we could keep growing from our own seeds." Victoria smiled a little, remembering how she delighted in gardening, smelling the rich earth, bringing plants a-sprout indoors and carefully transplanting them, covering them with bottomless plastic two-liter bottles to protect them from nighttime frost. "And I'll need the formula for making pepperoni." Victoria blinked, then looked at her wrist-unit's screen. "Michael," she said, "just what are you up to now?" "I got hungry for pizza." "Michaelll," Victoria said, turning her head a little, her voice with that slight rising note her Mama used when interrogating an unwilling subject. "It's not my fault, Sis," he protested, "really it's not, it's just ...things just kinda happened!"

Nylon? (brr!) No thanks ... ... every copter pilot I ever knew wore leather boots ... one kindly explained that the nylon mesh boots issued in-country would weld itself to your hide as it burned. Avoided nylon outer garments ever since!

ONE OF THOSE TIMES Sheriff Jacob Keller practiced what his white-capped little sis called Therapeutic Communications. Jacob considered it definitely therapeutic if he communicated in such a manner as to clearly convey his meaning. When Sheriff Jacob Keller communicated clearly and unambiguously, it was because he wanted something understood, and understood with not the slightest amount of doubt. Jacob Keller well knew his father's observation that "Show me and I'll forget it, tell me and I won't remember, but involve me and I've got it forever!" Sheriff Jacob Keller, accordingly, smiled gently as he held his wife's hand, as the two of them walked through fusion-smoothed tunnels, as they passed through airlocks and into the practice chamber. Jacob had an old-fashioned, red-velvet-padded chair, almost a throne, ready for his wife: he seated her, raised her knuckles to his lips, and looked at her with light-blue eyes. His expression was that of a husband, very much in deep and most affectionate love with his wife. "My dear," he said softly, "I find I need you to know something important." Ruth gave him a puzzled look. "Dearest, do you remember, when you slipped up behind me and laid a hand on my back, and I spun and knocked your arm away? -- and you were upset for a moment?" Ruth blinked several times, remembering, feeling the hurt, the rejection at her husband's sudden and violent action. She remembered he'd hit her arm -- hard -- it bruised, it ached for a time after, she remembered the crushing clamp of his hand on the slenderest part of her forearm, just before he released and jerked back as if he'd just grabbed a forge-heated length of cherry-red, steel rod. Jacob turned and hung his hat and his coat on pegs. He turned and smiled at his wife, winked. Ruth blinked, surprised. She knew her husband sparred with mechanical simulacra, but somehow she didn't think these humanoid devices would be as realistic as ... as the one coming up, fast, behind Jacob. Jacob did not so much move, as he exploded. His response was reflex, too fast for his wife's startled mind to keep up with. The first featureless, grey, smooth-surfaced training golem was only just hit the ground when the second one lunged, trying to thrust a blade into her husband's tenderloins. Again -- his move -- fast, startling, violent. Ruth's breath caught, her splayed fingers went to the base of her throat, her lovely eyes widening to a remarkable degree. Part of her mind -- but only part of it -- realized the second attacker's arm now bent the wrong way, that the leg bent inward, as if the knee joint were installed sideways. Jacob turned, hands up, bladed. Another attacker, running toward him from behind Ruth's throne. Jacob swept up the knife, charged. Ruth stopped breathing. Her husband's face was dead pale. Jacob's flesh stretched taut over high cheekbones, two scarlet dots of color standing out on pallid parchment. He had this attacker by the throat -- she heard the crunch of a windpipe -- his hand drove repeatedly into its belly, driving a foot of honed steel up and under its breastbone, until her husband's fisted grip was wrist-deep in his opponent. Jacob released the knife, still shoved up behind the training golem's breastbone: he shoved, hard, threw the dead grey simulacrum from him. He turned, smoothly, hands open, eyes dead white, his head lowered slightly: his mouth was closed, his breathing deep, steady, his moves still those of a prowling cat. It was the very first time Ruth ever -- ever! -- saw her husband as the feral creature he kept carefully hidden. Jacob stopped, turned again, straightened. "Endit," he said, and Ruth heard the tinny double-beep of the computer's acknowledgement. Jacob took a long breath, blew it out. He went over to an alcove, pulled out a coarse white towel: he wiped his face, wiped behind his ears, the back of his head, back of his neck, under his chin: he looked at Ruth. Sheriff Jacob Keller picked up his coat and spun it around his shoulders, thrust arms into sleeves. Only then did Ruth realize ... He's wearing his pistols. He didn't use them. Jacob fast up his coat, plucked his brushed black Stetson from its peg, settled it on his head. He approached his wife, offered his elbow. "I believe," he said gently, "there is cold tea to be had, and I am thirsty." Husband and wife walked from the practice room where broken, man-sized mechanicals lay on the floor, dead in reality as well as simulation: Jacob's efforts were vicious enough, complete enough, to terminate their function. "Dearest," Jacob said, his voice soft as they walked slowly through glassy-walled, fusion-smoothed tunnels, "I train for attack." Ruth waited. "I've made it clear throughout the Colony that no one is to touch my back." Ruth's step remained steady. Jacob stopped, turned his wife toward him. Ruth was honestly surprised to see how sorrowful her husband's eyes were become. "Dearest," he whispered, "please ... as you love me ... please, do not ever come up behind me and startle me!" Jacob hugged his astonished wife -- sudden, hard, desperate -- he crushed her into him, his cheek laid hard against hers as he whispered, mustachioed lips an inch from her pink-scrubbed ear -- "Dearest, please, if I ever hurt you from that ... if I hurt you because ..." She felt his shiver, heard his swallow. "I could not live, knowing I'd hurt you!" Ruth pushed away from him, held his face firmly between her palms. "Jacob Keller," she whispered, "don't you dare die before I do!" Jacob blinked, then nodded. They turned and resumed their journey toward the mess, toward cold sweet tea with home grown mint. "My Gammaw," Jacob said slowly, "told me there are times where the only right answer is 'Yes, ma'am.' " He looked at his wife. Ruth saw the slightest tightening of the corners of his eyes, saw the smile trying hard to not be seen. "I believe," Jacob said, the smile shouldering through his reserves and broadening his face, "this is one of those times!"

NOT TODAY "Sir?" "Yes, Michael?" Two lean and pale eyed men sat their saddles well, there in the Colorado sunlight: father and son, both in tailored black suits and neckties. Lightning was very near foal, and Michael would return to her later that day, unless he received a zippo from one of the veterinarians tasked with monitoring the gravid Fanghorn, but for today, he felt the need to straddle his Apple-horse and ride with his father. "Sir, am I correct in concluding the world does not want saving?" A pale eyed father considered his son's words carefully, frowned a little as he considered his reply. "It sounds," he said finally, "like a question that comes from disappointment." It was Michael's turn to consider his reply. "Michael, I've known good men to leave law enforcement because they didn't like telling people things they didn't want to hear." "Yes, sir?" "Sometimes, Michael, what they want to hear is unimportant. What they must hear may make them unhappy, but they have to be told." "Yes, sir." "As far as us -- any of us in the emergency services, bustin' our hump to keep people safe ..." The Sheriff took a long breath, looked to mountaintops in the distance, then looked at his son. "Sometimes it does feel like you're beatin' your head against a wall, and sometimes it's easier to give up and drop out and let the world go to hell." "Yes, sir?" "If all of us under the Lights and Siren did that, where would the world end up?" The Sheriff's voice was heavy, as if he genuinely appreciated the weight of his question. "God knows I've been tempted to just walk away, Michael. I've run myself nubbin-down to build a case only to have it either pled out or out-on-probation." Michael was surprised to hear this. He very carefully said nothing, and slipped on his long-practiced poker face. He felt more than saw his father's jaw harden. "I keep at it, Michael, and so does your mother. She sees people OD'd or dead from their own foolishness, the same ones over and over again until they finally do something so stupid they can't be saved." "Mama thought about walking away too?" "We all do, Michael. At one time or another, every one of us thinks of just saying to hell with it and walking away." "But ... you haven't." "No." Two Appaloosa horses walked, slowly, down the dead center of the pasture. "Do you reckon to, sir?" The silence was longer this time. "Not today," Sheriff Linn Keller said finally.

Granddad was in his early 80s when he had an abdominal aneurysm removed and replaced with what he swore was flexible plastic tubing. He's the incurable wise acre who visited a friend in hospital some years before, after said friend had a heart valve replaced. He greeted the good worthy with "Hell, I can do a valve job cheaper than they're chargin' you!" As I recall (this from an old veteran nurse who had to run him out) Granddad got his old and dear friend laughing hard enough they had to separate them for the good of the repair!

Reading L'Amour was like reading the native dialect of the land of my Appalachian nativity. I also recognized his particular phrasing as something that would sound strange to the more civilized ear. Might be that's why I liked it so well!

WOMEN! Michael Keller raised a hand to his hot, stinging cheek and blinked in surprise at the retreating shoulder blades storming away from him. The slap had been swift, unexpected: she'd caught him a good one right on the cheek, then she turned and almost ran. He replayed the preceding few moments, sorting through the memories of the words that fell out from between his teeth, trying to puzzle out just what he'd said that earned Loraine's sudden displeasure. He'd stopped, he'd touched his hat-brim, he'd called her by name. He blinked as he remembered. She stopped as if astonished out of a daydream: she looked at him, her expressions flowing across her face. Michael's forehead wrinkled a little as he found it. "Michael Keller!" she'd demanded, "you graduate early, you disappear, and you think you can just come back like nothing ever happened?" -- SMACK! -- and while Michael was trying to get his mental legs under him again, she turned and stormed off, arms stiff, hands fisted. He arrived at the home place at the same moment Angela emerged from her pretty purple Dodge. Michael drew up his Apple-horse, frowned at his big sis. He saw she was closing her car door slowly, carefully ... ... precisely ... ... and this did not bode entirely well. When Angela was upset, when she was boilin' mad, when she was ready to run her arm down someone's throat, grab them by the ankles and rip them inside out with one hard pull, she tended to close doors with a quiet precision, rather than slam them as Michael had seen elsewhere. Angela saw Michael. She closed her eyes, she took a long, steadying breath, then she opened her eyes, walked around the car toward the house, and she looked back up at Michael. She stopped, and Michael saw the intensity of his gaze. Is she going to belt me too? Michael thought. I haven't said a word! "Michael," Angela said quietly, "what happened to your left cheek?" Michael's bottom jaw slid out, he pressed his lips together, then he looked down and shook his head. "Loraine Thrapp slapped me," he said. Angela's expression changed -- she was suddenly calculating -- "Why?" Michael shook his head, dismounted, walked up to his sister. He's nearly tall as I am, Angela thought. I'll have to start wearing heels again! "She said I graduated early and just disappeared and when I called her by name, she allowed as I thought I could just come back like nothing ever happened, and SMACK!" -- his hand arced through the air, in pious imitation of the unexpected palm to the side of his face. "Were you ... involved?" Angela asked carefully. Michael's expression was startled, honest: "No!" "Ever have her out on a date?" "Sis, I never had a girl out on a date until I went offworld!" "So you never promised to marry Loraine." "No." "Never kissed her." "No." Michael looked closely at his big sis. "You're trying to keep me from noticing." "Noticing what?" Angela asked innocently, giving her pale-eyed brother her very best Look of Utter Wide Eyed Innocence. "Somethin' has you wound up, Sis," Michael said quietly. "I've got a rifle and Pa's got a backhoe. Who do I need to go after?" "Oh, Michael," Angela groaned: she opened her arms, hugged her brother, held him for a long moment. When Michael leaned back a little, he looked very directly into his sis's light-blue eyes. "I made sure a little boy will live," Angela whispered. Michael turned his head a little -- just like Papa! she thought -- Michael frowned and said slowly, "That's a ... good thing?" Angela bit her bottom lip, nodded. "Then what's got you tore up?" Angela's hands dropped from Michael's shoulders to his hands. She bit her bottom lip, she looked down. "Sis?" Michael asked quietly as the first saltwater ran liquid crystal down her cheek. "It's a good thing, Michael," she whispered. "So tell me what's a good thing." "He's going to fight it, Michael. He's going ... he set a goal and he's not going to quit!" Michael's grin was broad, instant, bright, his hand tightened on hers: "Sis, that's great!" "I know," Angela squeaked as her face reddened, as her expression crumpled and screwed up and she let go of his hands and ran for the front door, trying to muffle womanly sobs and not having much success. Michael Keller stood with his Apple-horse hanging his long jaw over his shoulder, with Snowdrift warm and companionable against his leg: the three of them watched Angela run for the front door, fumble the mechanism open, almost fall inside: the moment the door shut, hard, they heard the wail of distress she'd held in until she was inside. Michael Keller, son of a pale eyed lawman, brother to several women, stood with a stallion and a pure white Snowdrift-dog, staring at the closed door, considering that everything he knew about the opposite sex could probably be tamped down in a sewing thimble, and have room enough to pour in a quart of whiskey on top. Michael looked at Apple-horse's big dark eye, looked down at Snowdrift, looked at the closed front door. He shook his head and raised his hand to his still-scarlet cheek, and said the one word uttered by perplexed men, in similar situations, since time immemorial. "Women!"

I DON'T WANT TO QUIT Of all the lessons Angela's pale eyed Daddy taught her, the one she took the most closely to heart, the one she practiced most assiduously, was one he taught her on a finger-aching, feet-freezing, snow-down-the-back-of-your-neck winter evening, when they were making what he called a "Running Ree-pair" where a deadfall mashed their back pasture fence. Angela was a child of the mountains, an equestrienne, and although she was very much a feminine soul, she was also -- by her own admission -- a Daddy's Girl, and she listened closely when her Daddy spoke. His use of a come-along to true up two fence posts, rather than grab them and wallow them into position, was accompanied by his quiet, "When in doubt, cheat." She must've given him a funny look, because he stopped, leaned against one of the straightened posts, tamping rod in hand: "Cheat every chance you get, cheat as often as you can, cheat to the greatest degree possible." His grin was contagious and almost boyish as he clarified, "Not as in illegal, immoral or fattening, but take every advantage. Let the machine do the work and take every advantage." He lowered his head a fraction and winked, the way a father will in a private moment: "Use-a the head and save-a the back!" Angela Keller was no stranger to hard work. It was a distress to her Mama that Angela would rather run a big John Deere and pull a hay baler, than to go shopping in the City; it was a matter of maternal concern that her daughter, rather than taking body sculpting lessons and choreographed, leotard-clad exercise sessions, preferred to pull on boots and leather gloves and throw -- throw! -- bales of hay. Shelly knew what it was to lose the battle of wills with a daughter; in a bright moment of frustration, she'd backhanded Marnie when Marnie said she didn't want to go to the City, shopping, with her Mama: Shelly realized in that moment just how many sets of young eyes were watching, then she saw every trace of color drain out of Marnie's eyes, and she had the distinct feeling she'd pulled the pin on a live grenade. Angela was home now, Angela was in the field throwing hay -- she was helping a neighbor, whose baler lacked a thrower, like her Daddy used -- Angela seized a bale with one hand, twisted, slung it onto the wagon, turned, SLAMMED her leather-gloved hand down on another, gripped its strings right-handed, and slung it after the left-launched counterpart. Angela sought out such things when she was frustrated. It helped to handle bales of hay in the same manner she'd like to handle bottom polishing bureaucrats, supervisors who had more authority than good sense, and other low and aggravating forms of life. Angela stopped, unscrewed the cap from the red-and-white water jug, tilted it up and took a long drink, pouring it into her open mouth without touching the nozzle: she capped it, set it back in the shade, skipped ahead and seized another hay bale, two-handed, tossed it viciously into the wagon. When she came back to the house, after a shower, clean clothes and sitting down with a tall glass of good cold wellwater at the empty kitchen table, Angela closed her eyes and took a long breath. She was still simmering. She hadn't let herself get mad as hell. Just as fear is a choice, so is anger: danger is very real, persons can block a good soul's actions for good reason, or for no reason: Angela thought of "The Talk" she'd been given in the Supreme Confederate. She'd been instructed that she couldn't cross-transfer medical procedures, devices, even knowledge, from one society to another. She'd immediately pointed out that she'd already done this, that multiple patients were benefitted as a result -- her own brother, for instance, received the attentions of three worlds' worth of medical skills and discoveries. Angela thought of the latest shift she'd worked in the Firelands hospital. She remembered having caressed a child's head with her gloved hand, surreptitiously introducing a particular variety of nanites to attack this terminal patient's cancer. The Supreme Confederate told her she couldn't do anything like that. Angela was her father's daughter. She was also her Gammaw's granddaughter, and that meant she was: a) sneaky, b) fast, c) deadly when occasion demanded, and d) she honestly did not give a good damn with rules she disagreed with. Her investigation revealed the Supreme Confederate, in this case, was one self-important, bottom polishing, seven carbon son of a bureaucratic paper shuffler who decided he'd cause Angela trouble in order to justify his own job. Angela knew the condition of another pediatric cancer patient in the Firelands hospital. Angela knew she had a little time to work with. Angela knew she didn't have any intention to conform to nor abide by this bureaucrat's well-worded justification to prevent cross-cultural contamination. Angela did, however, know it was wise to cool off, if one had a good head of steam built up, and so she welcomed a day in the hay field, seizing bales of hay as if she were seizing a particular rulebound rascal by the nape of the neck and the seat of the pants. It wasn't until after she'd showered and changed, not until after she'd set in the cool and the silence of the home place's kitchen, that she decided bureaucracy could go fly a kite. Snowdrift laid her muzzle on Angela's thigh and regarded her with dark and adoring eyes. Angela's hand automatically began caressing the big, snow-white, mountain Mastiff's shoulders and neck. "Snowdrift," she murmured, "would you like to take a ... riiide?" Snowdrift's ears came up, her mouth opened, she minced back, dancing on her forepaws. Angela laughed, drained the last of her water, rose: her glass went in the sink and Angela went upstairs, and came skipping down in her nursing whites, her red-trimmed, blue cape about her shoulders and her dark-blue warbag diagonal across her body. Angela breezed into the pediatric wing, Snowdrift beside her: the big Bear Killer of a mountain Mastiff tik-tik-tikked happily from one bed to another, happy young hands greeting her, subdued but obviously delighted young voices greeting both Angela and the happy, tail-swinging canine. Angela went straight to a particular bed. "Thomas," she murmured, taking his hand. Young eyes opened slowly and she felt his hand squeeze hers, just a little. Angela smiled at the other nurses; they looked up, smiled -- somehow the shift went better when Angela showed up, even if she never appeared to do anything -- Angela found it easy to conceal a scanner, gave young Thomas a confirming assay. She bent a little, looked very directly at a face that was more pale, more drawn, than any child should ever be. "Thomas," she murmured again. He opened his eyes as if winching his eyelids open. "Thomas, do you still want to ride horses with me?" She saw the smile in his eyes, the smile that tried to lift the corners of his mouth. "I've been fighting," he whispered slowly. Angela slipped the scanner back in her blue-canvas warbag, brought out a small silver injector: she pressed it quickly, lightly, against the side of his neck, knowing full well this simple act was felony level in multiple jurisdictions -- no doctor ordered it, no overseeing board approved this medication, this treatment; she had neither obtained, nor even sought, permission from Thomas's parents. Angela Keller was not going to let this child die of cancer. Angela was an artist, and had been sketch artist for her Daddy's Sheriff's office; she had subbed for a bank teller, when they had intel that a robbery was being planned, and in the courtroom, her sketches were entered into evidence, which won the case. Angela was also rebellious enough to defy the direct order of an individual who fancied he actually had some authority with the thirteen star system Confederacy. Thomas's eyes cracked open again. "I want to ride the stars," he whispered. Angela palmed the injector, the silver device disappeared into her warbag through sleight-of-hand. "Kind of hard to saddle a star," she smiled. "You ride horses between the stars," he managed to whisper. Angela held his cool, limp hand between both of hers. "I've been known to do that," she admitted. "I want to ride with you." "Thomas," Angela said quietly, her voice serious, "you remember we were watching TV two nights ago and you asked about the medical nanites they were talking about." Thomas blinked slowly, his eyes steady on hers. "I just had a custom batch made. That's what I just injected you with. It'll start your recovery but it won't do all the work." "Will it help?" he whispered. "It'll help." "Good." He swallowed with an effort. "Hate chemo." Angela nodded, just a little. "After the last," he whispered, his throat rough, dry, "I wanted to give up." Angela tilted her head slightly, her eyes never leaving his. "I realized I could quit fighting and it wouldn't hurt anymore." Angela blinked, nodded just a little. "If I get better ... can I ride with you?" Nurse Angela Keller bit her bottom lip and nodded. "You're damned right," she whispered back, her voice suddenly husky. "Good." He took another quick breath, as if he'd come to a decision. "I don't want to quit." Security was passing by the Chapel, stopped. It sounded like someone was beating on ... something. He pushed the door open a little, took a cautious look, then stepped inside. A nurse was kneeling before the altar. She was bent over, as if her forehead was on the altar rail. She raised both fists, brought them down on polished wood -- hard -- in a regular, powerful, punishing rhythm, and finally she stopped, and he saw her shoulders were working, as if she were containing some great, private sorrow. The officer withdrew. He'd known staff to slip into the Chapel after something particularly bad; more rarely, after something unexpectedly good. He knew this nurse. He knew if she'd had something that brought her to drop ranch-hardened hammerfists onto varnished wood, that she was best left to her grief. Angela Keller lifted her face to stained glass and a brass cross. Water ran down her cheeks as she remembered a young voice. "I don't want to quit." Security saw the only nurse who wore whites, leave through the automatic ER doors, with a white dog the size of a young bear. He stood and watched, his expression thoughtful, as one of the ER nurses came over to him, curious. He didn't look over at her. She followed his gaze, watched Angela get into her pretty purple Dodge, a truly huge, pure white, curly-furred copilot sitting upright in the passenger front seat. "I don't know what happened," the officer murmured thoughtfully. "She either had really, really bad news, or she had equally good."

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS Ambassador Marnie Keller tightened her flight harness, set her high-button shoes very precisely on the rudder pedals, gripped the stick in her right hand and throttle in her left, and took a long breath. This was entirely unnecessary. Marnie knew, when she closed her eyes and relaxed her mind, that she would interface with the flight control system, and that stick-and-rudder controls would suddenly seem clumsy and ponderous, but it's what she was used to. Besides, she liked the feedback, the feeling that she was actually flying this crate, not just thinking about it! "Spam in a can," she murmured, remembering something she'd read from Earth's early spaceflight stories, which got her a curious look from the uniformed young captain seated beside her. "Madam Ambassador, are you sure about this?" Captain Tinkerson asked quietly. "Of course I'm sure," she replied. "A tornado is spinning up, and my brother is down there." Marnie's smile was quiet, her eyes were closed as she saw through the shuttle's sensors. "I am debating," she murmured. "Debating, ma'am?" "Do I want to go in like a fighter jet, or just slice through it like a pocket knife?" The Captain blinked, opened his mouth to ask another question, when it felt like the elevator suddenly dropped and his stomach didn't bother to come along for the ride. The Captain heard Marnie's quiet laugh. What kind of insanity did I volunteer for? Michael Keller grinned viciously as he scaled his hat toward the liveried and clearly uncomfortable maitre-d'. Michael was running, teeth bared. He headed for the hotel's heavy double doors like he was heading for a personal enemy. Wind shivered the weighty portals. Michael hesitated, looked through thick glass. It felt like the weather itself challenged him. Defiance unfolded in Michael's soul. He knew this weather and he knew what it could do, and that was an affront to a strong young man. He saw a thin cloud of dust blow down the street, and his wrist-unit vibrated and began the muted wail of the air raid siren that meant tornadic activity was detected. Michael dropped his shoulder against the doors, shoved: he squinted -- unnecessarily, he realized, his personal shield kept wind-blown debris from touching him -- he turned, looked up toward the lowering, fast-moving sky, set his jaw -- a stubborn expression, seen on multiple generations of pale eyed men, and not a few pale eyed women as well. He turned -- something, almost heard over the wind's roar -- his expression of boyish rebellion fell from his face like a dropped porcelain mask, replaced by the pale eyed, serious look he wore when he was about to tear into someone who'd just earned his serious displeasure. A young mother staggered, in the street, reaching for her little girl, who -- as Michael spotted them -- went down on all fours, red-faced, crying. Terrified. "We're not havin' this," he muttered, hands tightening into fists. Michael bent double, powered into a wind-staggered run. "I see them," Marnie murmured, her voice confident, her face relaxed. The Diplomatic shuttle's force-wings extended and the Captain felt them bank, felt them come about in a sweeping turn, felt the deck angled under him instead of level. He very definitely wasn't used to this. In his world, spaceflight was conducted in straight lines, or at carefully calculated angles. In all his years of traveling short-hop transports through vacuum, he'd never once flown in living air, at least not like this. Takeoffs, landings, were all vertical, precise. Not like this. Not like ... ... birds? This business of cutting through a living storm like slicing through meat with a blade was entirely foreign to him. Instead of fighting her for control, instead of powering into his own neural interface, he relaxed his mind, he took a long, steadying breath, dropped both his hands and gripped the edges of his seat with white-knuckled intensity. He felt acceleration and he knew this wasn't the storm's doing. Marnie took the boxy, rectangular Diplomatic shuttle's shielding and reconfigured it into an aerodynamic force-envelope -- she adjusted wing area, wing length, as necessary to optimize control in this fast-changing turbulence -- the Captain saw her throttle ease forward, felt their speed increase -- he interfaced with the controls, enough to read their velocity, something he never did in "Real Flight" -- he saw something foreign -- turn-and-bank and rate-of-climb indicators, things never seen in spaceflight craft, but seen now as if they were hard-mounted instruments bolted in front of his face. He had the mental impression of huge oval air intakes, yawning into the storm, inhaling great volumes of air, crushing air through metallic turbine buckets and igniting it with injected fuel and blasting it rearward as living flame, thrusting hard through tapeered, stainless-steel exhaust -- Marnie corrected, lowered her nose, came in over the town: she saw the pocket of still air, aimed for it, dropped her left wing and came around hard, fast, snapped level. He saw her hand reach forward, grip something invisible, pull down. Vague thuds shivered somewhere under him. He heard her mental whisper -- Gear down, three green, brakes checked -- God Almighty, what is she doing? This isn't how you land! He felt Marnie's quiet chuckle in his mind, he felt her murmured "Hold my beer, Captain." Somehow that didn't make it any better. Buildings passed under them, fast, almost blurred: they dropped toward the street, he felt them hit, bounce, hit again, then he was thrown forward in his harness as Marnie fired retros, he felt her angle the shields to direct searing-hot reaction exhaust forward and up, instead of straight ahead. She spread their shields, walled both sides of the street ahead for a hundred yards, then angled the flat force-wall up and over them, bringing silence and still air to what had been a storm-driven wind tunnel. Michael bent double and ran ahead, angled with the wind and ran an arm under the little girl's belly. He brought her up, ran for the mother, who was trying to shield her face from the blast. Clouds were low overhead, turning slowly, not far from forming a funnel. Michael raised his head, threw his shield into a head-high wall, ran to the woman. She fell as the wind stopped, as she was suddenly fighting ... ... nothing ... Michael caught her, his arm around her waist: he turned, using momentum and leverage to burn off her directional energy. For a moment it looked like they were dancing. For Michael, it was an automatic response: he was a dancer, and a good one, and the mother was also known to cut the rug -- but usually in less strenuous circumstances. Had Michael not been experienced in certain Oriental disciplines of throwing thine enemy over the nearest sedan, had he not been well practiced in redirecting unwanted advances, he could never have managed to keep himself, the child he held, and a startled, storm-fighting mother, upright. As it was, the wind stopped as if a door was shut. Something big, square, solid, suddenly occupied the street: it rose, dead silent, turned end-for-end, lowered again. Michael's arm slacked from around the mother's waist, handed the little girl to her Mama. He and the mother looked at one another and they both laughed -- she, uncertain, maybe a little embarrassed; Michael, grinning, strong and confident. Michael began singing, softly, turning, the mother turning with him. They stopped, the mother stared, open-mouthed, as the boxy back end of a shining-stainless-steel Diplomatic shuttle opened, its rear wall lowering into a ramp, as a very well known Diplomat rode out astride a shining-black mare that stood taller at the shoulder than most grown men. Marnie tilted her head a little and smiled, and Michael laughed and looked at the uncertain little girl with the wind-touseled hair in her mother's arms. Michael turned to Marnie and declared loudly, "Ain't this just a terrible way for friends and neighbors to get together!" Marnie laughed and leaned forward a little in the saddle. "If I'd known there was a dance," she countered, "I'd have brought my husband!"

THE PINK HORSE TROUGH Sarah Lynne McKenna staggered up the night-darkened alley, one arm across her belly, one bloody-gloved hand holding her skirts up. Her other hand pressed intermittently against dust-filthied clapboard as she wobbled, as she swayed toward the street ahead, as she tried desperately not to fall. She bent double and heaved, spat, staggered another few steps. Almost there. Blood, bright, shining, moonlight-reflecting splotches, marked her passage. Sarah's face was bloodied, as was her bodice: she coughed, gagged, spat again, trying hard to regain her balance, her equilibrium. She stopped, willed herself to silence as she came to the mouth of the alley. She fell against the corner of the building, breathing ragged, her vision shrinking to what she was hoping to find. Another few staggering steps and she fell face-first into the horse trough. Sarah opened her mouth, swished horse trough water in and out of her mouth: she came up, blowing like a whale, gasped, coughed, fell forward on her knees again, went under. A strong hand drove through the water, seized her jacket between her shoulder blades, hauled her out: a street cop, his face hard, expecting to find another damned drunken whore. He saw a woman with a blood soaked bodice, a woman dribbling blood out her mouth, and he realized he had a victim and not a wastrel. Sarah coughed, pulled from his grip, leaned over the slick-slimed edge of the horse trough and threw up again, spending the last of her strength to grip the edge. She remembered her grip failing. She remembered falling, remembered the water closing over her again. When she woke, she was clean, she was in a fresh nightgown and lying on clean sheets in a room that smelled of soap and of carbolic. A woman a little older than she turned, tilted her head, flowed over toward her, gave her a long, serious look: Sarah's eyes closed slowly, opened again. "How long?" she wheezed. "A few hours," the nurse murmured. "I have to --" A hand over her collar bone: "No," the nurse said gently. She sounded like Sarah's Mama when Sarah was sick and fevered in bed, and wanting to get up. Just the one word -- No -- gentle, but backed by womanly authority. Sarah relaxed back against clean sheets and a thin mattress, closed her eyes again. The stock ramp dropped firmly into place. Jacob Keller was of no mind to wait. Had it been just him, he'd have launched his Apple-horse out the door the moment the stock car's doors rumbled open. It was not up to him. He was here with his father. Jacob tightened his cinch, checked it again, turned to look at his father. Sheriff Linn Keller's moves were deliberate, unhurried, precise, calm. This -- the deliberation, the lack of haste, the precision of his father's moves, told Jacob that his pale eyed father was beyond enraged. The Grand Old Man was more than furious. His pale eyed Pa had not said two words on the train ride from Firelands. Jacob well knew that, when the Old Man was absolutely controlling himself like this, that his father was more than willing to rip someone's head off and sling it over the nearest roofline, skin somebody else alive with a dull spoon, and after that, he was more than prepared to get just plainly unpleasant with anyone who was left. Linn checked his cinch, patted his big golden stallion's shoulder: he took a moment to bribe Rey del Sol with a few thick shavings of molasses twist, before he led his favorite go-to-war mount down the stock ramp. Jacob followed, leading his Apple-horse. Father and son stopped, mounted as one. Two pale eyed lawmen rode past the depot and down the street, into City traffic. It took some little time to figure out exactly what happened. The City detective knew his people, his bailiwick; the pale eyed Sheriff knew people, knew how they behaved, knew what to look for that told whether a man was lying, or uncertain, fearful, or truthful: they traveled the alley, the Sheriff reading sign like he was tracking a wounded animal. In a way, he was. Jacob could read sign as well as his Pa, better sometimes -- though he wished powerfully he had the ability of the legendary Charlie Macneil, who was reputed to be able to track a fly across a glass pane! -- still, there in morning's light, they found cord, a knife, a cosh: they found blood, an impact-point where a man's head was introduced at a fair velocity into the side of a bawdy-house. Then they saw the body, mostly because they saw blood first -- thick, dark, coagulated. The Sheriff motioned the detective to freeze: pale eyes moved, and nothing else: then the Sheriff stepped in, seized the dead man's shoulder, rolled him over. The detective pulled back fast, eyes wide, shocked, his stomach rolling over inside of him. Jacob took a step forward, interest on his face and a frown on his forehead: he studied the several injuries, grabbed the dead man's jaw -- broken -- he bent, moved a step to his right, bent low again, studying the head injuries. "She marked him," Jacob murmured. The Sheriff put two fingers under the dead man's broken jaw, looked at the broad and bloody wound under his ear. "Look around," he said quietly. The detective came back over, took a look at the chunk of meat missing from under the dead man's ear, turned away and tried hard not to heave. Jacob squatted, looked under a building. "There, sir," he said. "Looks like a stray cat is eatin' on it." The detective gave up and vomited at least a week's worth of meals. Another detective sat in with Sarah, with her father, and with her brother. The detective had three sharpened pencils laid out and ready. Sarah looked at the familiar face under the brushed Derby hat. "Mr. Milford," she said quietly, "do you remember your interest in a case recently involving the disappearance of a businessman's wife, and the subsequent discovery of her body?" "It was found in New Mexico, yes." "The deceased in our case today is the perpetrator." The detective leaned forward, clearly interested: his pencil scratched busily on his note pad. "I had business in the area," Sarah said, "and when he presented himself, I declined his attentions." The detective looked up from his note-taking; he blinked, looked down, looked up again to confirm his impression. Two pale eyed lawmen were not blinking. He looked back at Sarah. "He swung his slung shot at me," she said, "but I anticipated his swing, and caught the blow on my back. I'm afraid it'll be bruised." Detective's eyes met Sheriff's eyes; the unspoken agreement was to not corroborate this statement. "He had cord for binding, he seized me by the hair and tried to pull me off my feet. "I thrust myself into him. "He produced a knife. "I seized his wrist and drove my shoulder into his chest. "He went back into a buildling -- I intended that he should hit his head -- it was not enough to loose his grip on my hair. "I found his ear was available, but an ear can be bitten off and little effect it will have. "I opened my jaw wide and I bit the side of his neck. "I suppose a madness came upon me." Her voice was quiet; her hand sought Jacob's, squeezed hard -- the grip of a young woman who can look back on terror and know that she is safe, but a young woman who wants the reassurance of a strong man's hand. He squeezed back. His grip was not hard. His eyes sure as hell were. "He screamed and tried to pull away. "I knew if I lost my grip on his knife, my life would surely be lost, and so I shoved my face deeper and I bit until my teeth met and I tore loose what I'd bitten." Her voice was quiet, her eyes almost closed, her words very precisely enunciated. "He released my hair and I twisted, I got my knee in his gut and I threw him to the ground. "I felt his blood splash across me and I spat out his ... I spat out what I'd bitten, and I remembered what had been done to a young woman -- seized, beaten, bound, cut and tortured and found dead -- and I was ... sick." Sarah's breath was a little quicker now, her eyes still almost completely closed, her hand shivering where it was tight, tight around Jacob's. Jacob brought his other hand up and laid over hers, pressed gently, sandwiching her cold hand between his warm ones, the unspoken message plain: You're safe. We're here. Nothing bad can happen now. You're safe. "I'm ... afraid ... I went a little mad," Sarah said hesitantly, with an uncertain laugh. "I wished to be free of his gore. "I thought of a nearby horse-trough. "I staggered down the alley and I was sick, oh, I was so sick! -- I found ... the horse trough was ..." She stopped, took a few quick, shivering breaths. "I fell into the water and I tried to get that taste out of my mouth and a policeman grabbed me and pulled me out and he saw I was all bloody and I just want my Daddy --" Sarah, who'd borne up strongly, who'd been quiet and unshaken until this moment -- Sarah, whose voice had been quiet and controlled -- Sarah's voice tightened into a squeak and her face twisted up and she reached blindly for her father. She buried her face in his shirt and shivered, and Jacob released her hand and she seized her Daddy with the desperate grip of a terrified child. Jacob looked over at the detective, jerked his head a little -- Leave -- they two departed the room, leaving a daughter in her father's arms to try and regain some feeling of safety. Jacob drew the door quietly behind them. "I, ah," the detective said, "I think I have all that I need." "You solved a murder," Jacob said quietly. "Do ... you ... really ... think she" -- the detective's eyes went to the closed door -- "could she have done that to a man's neck?" Jacob considered for several long moments. "Sir," he said finally, "I don't know. I wasn't there. I did see a cat chewing on something. Might be some animal came along and chewed on his neck." Jacob's eyes went to the door. "Me, I'd say she did it." When the policeman blew his whistle, when he pulled the woman out of the water for the second time, when a wagon was summoned to take the unconscious, bloodied woman to the private hospital, one of the responding officers shone his Bullseye lantern into the still-moving waters. He looked, and he shivered, and he covered the lantern's lens. For some odd reason, the sight of a pink horse trough was troubling to him.

TO SEEK, IN UNCERTAIN TIMES Angela Keller wore a pair of round lens, wire rimmed spectacles, sized to ride halfway down her cute little nose. Angela Keller wore a McKenna gown and an expression halfway between pleased and surprised. Angela Keller looked at three rows of chairs, occupied with serious faced youth in suits and Sunday dresses. Angela Keller looked over her spectacles at the well packed, standing room only room, at the gowned members of the Ladies' Tea Society, at the new young who suddenly swelled their ranks to the room's capacity. Angela was a nurse, and Angela exercised a nurse's efficiency. "We are known as students of history and of research, of genealogy and discovery," Angela said, her voice carrying well as the air handler system kicked on to handle the heat of more bodies than usual in the back room of the Silver Jewel. "Thanks to my pale eyed Gammaw, the Tea Society is also a training organization." Angela gripped the wooden forestock of the same Mini-14 her Uncle Will carried when he rode his sister Willamina's horse to rescue his late wife Crystal, many years before. "Gammaw also saw to it that any who wished instruction on keeping yourself safe, received proper instruction." Angela stood behind the small podium, rifle upright in her gloved hand. "We continue that fine tradition. "I've been approached by several who wish to partake of such training, and thank you all for coming." Angela looked very directly at the silent, solemn youth, neatly ranked in folding chairs. "That you come dressed for the occasion, tells me you respect the organization. Thank you for that respect." She smiled, laid the rifle back down on the table. "We can't cover everything in one meeting, of course, but we can get a good start." Victoria propped a polished boot up on the stone in front of what was his Gammaw's house, pulled the knot loose, loosed the laces and tugged at the tongue and then re-laced them, tied them in a quick, efficient, secure knot. Her Gammaw's house, behind her, was still in the family, of course -- it was too full of history to sell to strangers -- Victoria straightened, began arranging plates, setting out fresh home baked cookies and bottles of good cold well water. She smiled a little as she heard the sound of approaching feet, running in cadence. She smiled a little more as she heard the sound of young voices, chanting a mildly obscene running song. Her twin brother Michael crested the slight rise to her left: beside him, a broad shouldered football player, staff upright, red pennant at its end, a bleached-bone-white Totenkopf hand painted on the wind-rippling, scarlet triangle. "DETAAAAAIL, HAALT!" Michael's strong voice called, then "FALL OUT!" Strong young men, red-cheeked young women, breathed deep, their breathing controlled: some arched back, hands on their belts, others bent forward, hands on their knees: water was handed out, eager hands grabbed cookies -- there is a universal affinity between the energetic young, and fresh, still-warm-and-soft, homemade, chocolate chip cookies -- this was originally the purview and custom of the Firelands High School Football Team (unofficially, Willamina's Warriors), but now it included a few young mothers from the Tea Society. Angela ran with them, as had her pale eyed Gammaw, in boots and ruck and rifle at sling arms: she and Michael circulated among football players, high school girls and grown women alike: a hand on the shoulder here, a reassuring hand-squeeze there, a few were guided to the side of the road and parked on quickly-spread blankets, in the shade of an accommodating tree. Mountain folk are a hardy lot. Football players and cheerleaders kept themselves in shape, year round: newcomers had been working up to this for a few months. This was their first full run behind the scarlet guidon. Two of the young mothers felt like they were ready to collapse, but Angela saw something in their faces she hadn't seen before ... a deep feeling of triumph, visible, glowing. She knew if they kept running they would over tire and might discourage: she had them remain with her, explaining that she did not want them to overextend, that they were not used to both halves of the run, that their muscles needed recovery -- "I do not doubt you could go on," she said, "but I want you to build steadily, not catastrophically." Fatigue is a powerful persuader, and besides, Willamina's Warriors would be running in cadence back to the high school, where they would shower and change and then disperse back into the community-- their coaches saw these as recognized team exercises, and so were sanctioned and encouraged by Administration. The mothers, the other newcomers, stretched carefully under Angela's guidance: Victoria and Michael both ran with the Warriors on their long loop back to the high school; they would run, cross country, back to their house, two lean children of the mountains moving easily in the thin, high altitude atmosphere, they would arrive home with apple cheeks and matching grins, and they would tend the necessary chores before showering and changing clothes. The twins had supper on the table when their pale eyed Pa made it home. Their Mama wouldn't be home until the next morning, when B shift took over, but they made it a point of pride to have breakfast ready for her when she got home. Angela ate with them that night. As usual, laughter was a visitor to their table; there was the ceremonial "Pass me a biscuit," and that's exactly how it arrived -- airmail -- there was talk of the day's activities, and Angela sat with her Daddy later that evening and they went over the lesson plan for the Tea Society's next meeting. World situations led to anxiety, and anxiety, without direction, can bore into a tizzying downward spiral. The Tea Society would not all embrace physical conditioning to the degree of Willamina's Warriors. Few there besides Angela and the twins could drop and knock out a fast twenty push-ups, other than the Warriors. The Tea Society could, however, improve not only their personal fitness -- a confidence boost right there -- they could also take definitive measures to keep themselves safe. It was no accident that Angela had the Sheriff's issue Mini-14 on the table when she presented last, and had one conducted an assay of ownership of certain, long distance, hole punching devices -- if one were to spectate at the Tea Society's meeting at the Sheriff's range -- one might be impressed by the percentage of honest burghers who chose to improve their skills with high speed, heavy metal injection devices, of varying kinds. The Tea Society held additional classes, there were cooperative and collaborative efforts: as soon as soil thawed sufficiently, soil was tilled and gardens planted: elevated garden beds were constructed, as they warm more quickly in spring, and can be tilled, planted, cultivated and harvested without bending over, which made them a favorite in monasteries and Medieval castles that may have to withstand siege for lengthy periods -- canning jars and lids, pickling salt and vinegar came into greater demand at the Mercantile. The world as a whole was steadily becoming less a certain place. The Tea Society, founded by the green-eyed, red-headed wife of that pale eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache, was established for social networking, back when. It continues, to this day: then as now, it serves those who seek, in uncertain times.

Thou all speak'st the truth! I'll hear a snatch from a commercial. One that drove me utterly NUTSKIS until I finally (and completely by accident) found it, was the theme to "Beef, it's what's for dinner" commercial. Copland's Hoe-Down. Love the music. Have a stubbornly low opinion about commercials!

DADDY, IN THE MOONLIGHT Marnie smiled as she read. Angela dropped onto the padded bench beside her, harvested from a church gone out of business back East, and shipped out at their late Gammaw's direction: she'd had it thickly, comfortably upholstered, and installed in her office in the Firelands museum. Marnie sat, smiling, cupped her hand over her mouth as her sister skipped up the stairs, silent on white crepe soles. "It's not the newspaper," she said, "so it's not who got caught this week." Marnie looked up, looked back, laid her splayed fingertips along her collarbone and laughed quietly. "Listen to this," she murmured, then straightened, shifted her weight, harrumphed delicately, and read an account she'd gotten God-alone-knows-where, and as she read, Angela leaned toward her a little with that same quiet smile the two sisters frequently shared. Sean Finnegan set his beer down firmly, turned to the younger man. "So ye think ye can knock an Irishman down wi' one punch?" he challenged, his voice loud, powerful, but not hostile. A young fellow -- well built, rangy, like most workin' men in that part of the country -- blinked and realized what he'd drunk had come up as bragging words, and from the look of this red headed, broad shouldered mountain that just squared off at him, his battleship mouth just might have overloaded his tadpole backside. Still -- he'd said the words -- he couldn't go back on those -- He squared off, raised his fists. "One punch," Sean warned. Men's heads turned, watching, listening. They were in the Silver Jewel. The Jewel was a saloon, and a saloon was a men's refuge, and within this masculine enclave, with risqué paintings on the walls, with occasional dancing girls for entertainment, with jokes and oaths and coarse jests, with gambling and drinking and outrageous lies, it was a place where men could be ... well, men. This was an era where men practiced the immaculate manners of the gentleman, so far as they knew them: even common men were deferential and respectful to Ladies, less so to saloon girls, or fan dancers, and not at all to the women in bawdy-houses or cribs. It was an era where a man's word was his bond, where a liar, once found to be such, would never be believed again, and so when a young fellow who'd liberally partaken of Tongue Oil uttered his declaration that he could deck any man with one punch, and this big blacksmith-armed Irishman took him up on it, he could not back down from his own challenge. He squared off to the big Irishman, considered the height of the fellow, realized a punch to the face was not feasible due to reach, and besides it tended to break bones in the hand: no, his best bet would be to drive a good one right under the wish bone. His punch was swift, he stepped into it, at the moment of contact he twisted slightly to bear the weight of his lean young body through his muscle-locked arm. Sean did not even grunt. The young man paled slightly as Sean smiled and said in a quiet voice, "My turn." The prudent thing would be to run, he realized, but that would mark him a coward: no, better this return punch kill him, or cripple him for life, than to be known as a coward. He swallowed, nodded, prepared to receive the punch that -- from the size of this fellow's shoulders, and from the lack of effect of his best punch to the man's gut -- he'd likely sail backwards through the nearest wall, and skid to a dusty stop halfway into the next county. Sean reached forward and laid an almost fatherly hand on the young man's shoulder. "Many a man's tongue has got his own nose broke," he said quietly. "Do you now finish your beer, an' go on your way." Angela smiled, her eyes distant, her head tilted back a little as Marnie's words spun the scene in the still air. Silence, when she finished reading, then: "Our pediatrician is leaving." "Oh?" If Marnie were wearing spectacles, she would have lowered her head and looked over them. That a pediatrician was leaving was hardly the conversation she'd anticipated. That Angela's expression held something, told Marnie there was more to the story. "Transcription caught me in the hall," she said, "the only guy in that department. Nice fellow, shirt and tie, nerdy but he's okay. He handed me a folded note and asked me to give it to the doctor that's leaving." Marnie's eyebrow lifted a little as she considered the possibility that a young man was smitten with an older woman. "I read it before I gave it to her," Angela said, her eyes bright, her expression pleased. "You didn't want to hand her an illicit proposition," Marnie suggested. Angela thrust a combination point-the-finger and palm-up affirmation: "Per-zacktly!" "What was it?" Marnie prompted. Angela took a long breath. "It was handwritten -- gorgeous handwriting, by the way -- it was from that transcriptionist, and it said he was genuinely sorry she was leaving: her dictations were clear and understandable, and when she dictated on a well-child visit" -- Angela's eyes met Marnie's, as if to emphasize a point -- "her voice smiles. "I gave the note to the doctor, and she read it, and I thought she was going to cry." Marnie considered this for several moments. "Angela?" "Hm?" "You said it was hand written." "Mm-hmm." Marnie's expression was that of a child who knew a secret. "You're sure it was his handwriting." Angela's brows puzzled together a little and she turned her head as if bringing a good ear to bear -- you got that from Daddy too, Marnie thought -- Angela nodded, then added, "He even signed it, why?" Marnie closed her eyes, like she was looking at a favorite memory. She smiled when she looked at her sister. "Because that sounds like something Daddy would do." Marnie leaned confidentially toward her sister and asked quietly, "I thought maybe Daddy was moonlighting!"

Texas Lizard speaks wise counsel indeed! Received the new wireless keyboard this morning, it sits atop the original without compromising function of the original (doesn't press on any keys!) -- it's a little bigger than the laptop's keyboard, which suits my big paws! Problem solved, yippee!

She needs a second fiddler for Pachelbel Canon, one doesn't do it justice!

Color me jealous, exclamation point! Carried a 3 inch Chief's Airweight as my backup gun all the years I wore a wheel gun as a lawman. My best friend, rest his soul, worked a local gunshop and got a Dick Special very close to your fine piece's vintage. You made a good find! Well done indeed!

A PROPER BLESSING Sheriff Linn Keller came downstairs -- or, rather, the Sheriff went upstairs, and Linn came back down. When he changed out of uniform and showered and put on clothes, he was just himself, for all that he wore a sidearm around the house as casually as he wore his jeans. The Sheriff was closed and quiet and watchful and not entirely trusting. The Sheriff carried himself with a quiet authority and an almost genteel reserve. Linn came grinning downstairs in sock feet, got as far as the kitchen, went down on his Prayer Bones and then on his side, and a grinning, toothless baby boy squealed happily and scooted towards him -- he couldn't quite come up on all fours yet, but he was close -- The Bear Killer had been coaching the big-eyed, wobbly-headed son of a pale eyed lawman, and so far, this particular fruit of the loins made a fair imitation of swimming to get from where he was, to where he wanted to be. Linn ran a hand under the lad and a hand over the lad, he rolled over on his back and a toothless, laughing child of the mountains found himself rolled up onto Da's flat belly: Shelly smiled as she looked away from the stove, wishing for the hundredth time for a camera, taking the mental snapshot instead. The Bear Killer flumped down beside Linn, muzzle thrust over his belly, jowl warm against a pink-skinned, bare little leg: Shelly knew here husband would delight himself with their youngest, and the more he laughed and made a Tom Fool Idjut of himself, the rougher his day had been. Shelly well knew her husband found antidote from the day's difficulties in coming home to his wife and his young. The Bear Killer closed his eyes and gave a long, contented sigh as Linn's hand caressed curly black fur: the family was complete now, he could relax, just a little. The front door opened, closed: Linn heard boots hit the boot tray, heard sock feet scampering toward him: young and enthusiasm converged with a joyful Laying On of Hands (to The Bear Killer's enthusiastic approval), and Linn managed to roll two tall, growing, giggling children into his embrace. Marnie lifted her head, looked at the youngest: Linn saw her look at him, then at the baby, then back. Linn looked, and grinned. As generally happened, the youngest of Keller Mountain's lineage, was sound asleep, safe and warm on dear old Dad's belly, just that fast. Linn knew both Marnie and Jacob could conk out just as fast. He also knew this was not a good thing right before supper. They felt his belly muscles tension, and rolled away, came up on their knees: Linn sat carefully, cradling the sleeping infant, hand cupped around the back of that fine-haired head. "I reckon we'd best warsh our hands before we eat," he said quietly, and two pale eyed children nodded and scampered upstairs to tend that detail. Sheriff Jacob Keller lay on the just-reconstituted rug, a sleeping infant on his belly, arms spread and draped bonelessly across warmth and security. The Bear Killer lay beside Jacob, his muzzle on Jacob's middle, laid up against a bare, pink little leg. Jacob's hand moved slowly, caressing canine fur, smiling as he did. He remembered such moments, when he was very young, back home in the mountains. He had no idea if his infant son would remember what it was like to sleep like this, laying on his Pa, but Jacob knew he would remember what it's like to come home, and hear that happy squeal, to pick up a grinning little boy, to lay down with The Bear Killer dropping his jaw beside Joseph, warm and content on Jacob's flat, hard-muscled belly. I will remember this, he thought. Another pale eyed lawman, fourteen light-minutes away, hesitated as he sat at his kitchen table. His wife set a steaming, fragrant plate in front of him, then sat, looked at her own filled plate, looked around the table. Linn reached over, slid his hand under his wife's. "I remember coming home," he said softly, "with you fixing supper, and a lid-dle boy baby in diapers would swim towards me on the floor." Marnie's hand tightened and she smiled with the memory. "I remember," she whispered, then they bowed her heads. Shelly frowned a little at Linn's hesitation, glanced over, frowned. "Linn Keller, don't you dare," she warned, picking up a sweet roll and shaking it at him. "Yes, dear," Linn said gently, and to her surprise, he actually said a proper blessing.

First of all, to my fellow fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers and the like, Happy Pappy's Day a day early while this infernal laptop will work after a fashion. Last major computer problem I had was of my own doing: I was in the habit of opening my laptop by gripping one corner and opening the lid. By ... the ... corner. It eventually cracked the screen, and a touch screen with a crack down its face is beyond aggravating. I replaced it with two, identical, laptops: one upstairs, my primary, the backup downstairs at my ham radio desk. Theory: identical programming, identical apps, identical bookmarked sites: should one fail, the other is its backup. I put enough miles on my primary keyboard the letters E and F began double striking without my permission. Purchased a wireless keyboard and solved the problem, but didn't have room to conveniently run them both on the same work surface. Switch laptops. Worked fine for two or three years. Now this one ... the letter E either doesn't work unless I touch it repeatedly, or it double strikes. Grr. First order of business will be another can of compressed air and see if Cheap and Easy fixes the problem. A replacement keyboard may or may not be feasible. In the meantime, I'm giving up on the glowing screen for the rest of the weekend, though Sheriff Willamina is researching the prevalence of roses in Old Pale Eyes' era, and I'd likee to keep up with heer as she puzzls this out... which can b frustrating whn thee keyboard doesn't want to cooperat! Arrah! A bothersome thing!

My partner Rosie and I were on duty one dark night in a little ex-coal mining town. We were out on foot patrol when someone came running toward us and blurted something about someone screaming in the jail and then a gunshot and now it was quiet and they didn't know what happened. We legged it for the lockup, we made entry, and the shift supervisor was sitting at the desk with his face in his hands and his shoulders working. We cleared the simple interior with no difficulty, we looked around, we approached Joe and asked politely what happened. He finally raised his hands from his face. His face was wet. With tears. Because he'd been laughing. Joe, y'see, was beyond terrified of snakes. One of the guys knew this and left a rubber snake in the top right hand drawer -- the one where we kept blank report forms. When Joe opened the desk drawer, he jumped back, executed a flawless fast draw from his borrowed Jordan holster, and put a full-house .357 through the snake. And the stack of blank forms. And the bottom of the drawer. And the next drawer down. We found the spall knocked out of the painted concrete floor but couldn't find the bullet. It was finally located, two years later, when they repainted the interior of the police station. It was somewhere up near the ceiling, just laying there on a small projection, as nice as if you'd set its misshapen self there. In my fertile and somewhat perverse imagination, I imagined Joe making the same noise as that Florida officer when the Yaller Gator started to thrash. Rosie had to go outside after we found out what actually happened. She stuffed her fist in her mouth to keep from guffawing where he could hear, she got a block away, she leaned her ample backside against a brick alley wall, bent double and made the approximate sounds of a chicken laying a meteor!

MOUNTAIN ROSE Esther Keller knew she was watched. She did not mind. Esther Keller wore a particular pair of gloves -- they were heavier than she usually wore, they were permanently stained, and as a result, they may not have been her favorites, but they were in the top three. Esther worked the soil beside their little whitewashed Church. The western side of the Church got the afternoon sun. Esther Keller made it a personal project, once she set her cap for the Sheriff, back when both she and Firelands were younger, to grow roses beside their Church. Esther's mother did so love roses, and grew beautiful rosebushes, back in the Carolinas, back when Esther was a girl. These were Canadian roses, not Carolina roses: Esther had to research, Esther had to consult with those who knew more about such matters, but Esther was diligent and persistent, and Esther marked out the soil, and worked up the soil, and enlisted necessary assistance to work improvement into the soil. Her result was a healthy, green, bloom-heavy growth that added its welcome fragrance to the mountain air. Esther worked the soil, even after her beloved roses were well established: the plants responded to her care, and long years after her death, they remained. Women of Firelands, daughters and granddaughters, grew roses as well: Sarah Lynne McKenna went so far as to rent an unused attic room over the Mercantile, a room to which she had more windows added -- glass was not common, glass windows were still a sign of prosperity -- but in winter, with what little sun could philter in, the attic room smelled of roses year round. Some said Sarah experimentally mounted a beehive in the attic in winter, though either her experiment was not successful, or it was sheer speculation; later generations mentioned the possibility in passing, but not even that pale eyed Sheriff Willamina's investigations could corroborate the apiarist in her honored ancestor's range of skills. Esther Keller knelt on a thick-folded blanket pad as she worked, as she bent forward, as her steel gardening trowel worked into the dirt, loosened the dirt, as weeds were pulled and water carefully added. As she worked, Esther knew she was watched, and she smiled a little, for she knew why. Men who look upon a woman, as she is being womanly, will see that woman as more feminine. It is a matter of documented fact that a cowhand would ride for hours to stop in front of a homesteader's shack, just to sit and watch the homesteader's furiously-blushing daughter, sitting on her front porch, sewing. A woman who sews, is seen as more feminine. A woman who carefully cultivates her roses, is seen as more feminine, and the masculine soul responds to such a sight. That night, after Esther changed her skirt and washed her hands, after she'd washed her gardening gloves in the washpan behind the back porch, after she'd dried her hands and glided into the house, she lifted her face to her husband's, melted herself into his front, and sighed contentedly to feel strong and masculine arms around her. The Sheriff held his wife for several long moments, his eyes closed. The Sheriff was a man who'd known war and loss, injury and defeat, grief and pain and terror. The Sheriff was a man who did not take a single good moment for granted. The Sheriff buried his face in his wife's coarse, red-auburn hair, smiled as he inhaled her scent. Husband and wife held one another, each content, in that moment, to be nowhere else in the entire world. Esther Keller, wife, mother, woman of commerce and society, felt strength and warmth and protection, smelled horse sweat and saddle leather and man sweat. Her husband felt warmth, and he felt her arms holding and not pushing away, and he smelled clean mountain air, he smelled his wife's bath salts, and he smiled with his eyes closed. He'd watched his wife, this bringer of life, mother of his young, bringing life from the earth itself as she cultivated around scarlet blossom stems. There was a name the Sheriff never spoke to anyone -- not even to his wife -- it was something he held, secret and hidden, and never even entrusted to his most personal Journal. You are my Mountain Rose, he thought, and his arms tightened ever so slightly more, and he nuzzled his face into her hair again as her arms tightened, just a little, in response.