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Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

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Everything posted by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

  1. PARDON ME, SIR, IF I SPEAK THE TRUTH When the chief editor looks up and sees a clerk speaking harshly to a child, it scarcely merits a frown. When the elevator closes behind the child and descends, and the chief editor only then realizes who that child was, the moment grows somewhat more concerning. When the elevator opened four minutes later and the same child – a lad of about ten years, rides out of the elevator on an Appaloosa mare, his jaw set and his eyes hard and accusing as he glares at the clerk who’d obviously confused himself with someone important – well, this sight is enough to bring a newsroom to a fast and absolutely silent halt. The chief editor came over, looked up at the young man who’d distinguished himself on the street just outside, not two nights before. “John Rowley,” he said, reaching up and extending his hand. “Michael Keller,” the rider replied, leaning down and gripping the older man’s soft hand with a firm and callused hand. “How can we help you, Mr. Keller?” “Your newspaper spoke poorly of your police response,” Michael said, his voice carrying well – he was obviously accustomed to speaking, as he’d pitched his voice to be clearly heard at distance, and he enunciated his words with a precision not usually heard in one of his few years. “Oh?” “Sir, there is an expected response time. They don’t have a crystal ball and neither do I. Someone has to call them, they have to decide and assign who goes where. My sister and I were already there and we saw what needed done, so we … did.” “ ‘Expected response time,’ “ the editor said slowly, eyeing young Michael with an appraising eye. “I don’t usually hear such language from a boy.” “No, sir, I don’t reckon you do,” Michael agreed, grinning, “but most of your boys don’t grow up listening to my Pa talk like that.” “Your … ‘Pa.’ Did he put you up to this?” “No, sir. I read your paper and I knew you likely didn’t have the whole story.” “And what is the whole story, sir?” Michael leaned over, crossed his forearms on his saddle horn, shoved his Stetson well back on his head and grinned – a contagious, sincere, boyishly innocent grin. “It’s just as I said, sir. Your police had to be called, they had to make sense of the call, then they had to start from the word go. That takes time.” He paused, then added, “Angela and I were already there.” “Shouldn’t you have waited for the police to take proper charge of the situation?” “No, sir,” Michael said firmly. “Something needed done right away, and we did what was needful, right away. “It’s like a house fire, sir. Every minute of fire progression requires many more minutes than that of extinguishment. If you have criminals that already shot the place up and now they’re shooting at one another, you have to shut ‘em down fast before they cause any more harm.” Michael’s eyes were just as direct as his words. “We did just that.” “You took a life.” “No, sir, we did not.” Michael’s young voice was firm, uttered with conviction, and he came upright in his saddle as he said it. “You shot the man dead.” “We did that, sir, but he killed himself. I bear no responsibility if a man throws himself on the spear I hold. If that fellow bears a weapon at me, he is bought and paid for and his blood does not stain my hands. He made the choice and he died by his own poor choice.” “That is … an interesting defense,” the chief editor said thoughtfully. “Thank you, sir.” The chief editor offered his hand again, and Michael took it without hesitation, and the photograph of a boy on a tall horse, a mounted child of the Colorado mountains, horseback in the middle of a major newspaper’s newsroom, shaking hands with a grandfatherly-looking chief editor, made the front page of the afternoon edition. Not an hour later, in a hospital corridor on the Confederate world of Tortuga, a clutch of nursing students were gathered around a still-warm, just-printed newspaper, an edition held open by several hands: there were murmurs, abbreviated gestures: the paper crackled a little as delicate, feminine fingers gripped the fold, pulled it down, as a pair of pale eyes under a winged cap looked at them and asked gently, “Something interesting?” The students swung around, surrendered the paper to their mentor: they were clustered around her like chicks in blue-and-white pinstriped dresses, more watching Angela than looking at their just-abandoned publication. Knowing glances shot across the small space between them: a voice whispered, “She’ll say it!” and more heads than one nodded in agreement. Angela’s pale eyes ran through the article, tightened a little at the corners, they way they did when she was pleased: she nodded a little, looked long at the picture, at the image of a young boy in blue jeans and a Stetson, astride a spotty, bored-looking, tail-slashing Appaloosa mare, in the middle of a crowded newsroom, with clerks, reporters, secretaries and a photographer openly staring: the boy was in an agreeable handclasp with an up-reaching older man: beneath the photograph, the caption, “Young deputy sets the record straight.” Angela knew her brother was not a deputy, she knew he would not falsely identify himself as such: from the article, she knew he’d come to give due credit to the jurisdictional constabulary. Angela folded the paper, handed it back with one hand, cupped her hand over her mouth with the other. “Well?” one of her clinical students prompted. “Say it!” Angela laughed, thrust a chin at the newspaper and declared, “Show-off!”
  2. By golly now Blackwater, thank you for that most recent word! Still standing up on my knees!
  3. I FOUND THE ANSWER THERE This is the end of the story: Ambassador Marnie Keller cupped her hand over her mouth, her pale eyes widening as she looked at the contents of the shallow, white-cardboard box: she reached in, lifted a pair of jogging pants free of tissue paper, held them up. She read the discreet embroidery on the front of one thigh, the embroidery on the front of the other thigh, blinked, bit her bottom lip, then she turned and ran into the next room, threw herself across the bed, drove her face into a thick, fluffy pillow, and released the memory her unexpected gift just triggered. Ambassador Marnie Keller, a woman of dignity and persuasion, wife and mother and Sheriff Emeritus, shrieked her honest, genuine, hysterical laughter into the pillow in the privacy of her personal bedchamber. This is the middle of the story: Sheriff Linn Keller looked sidelong at his daughter. Marnie Keller sat with her family in the front pew of the Firelands church. Marnie, like her Mama, sat very properly, looking very ladylike: she wore her Sunday best, of course, as did each member of the family; at the Parson's quotation of the Psalm -- "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life," she blinked innocently -- then, feeling her father's eyes upon her, she turned her head and looked at the pale-eyed Sheriff with the colorful cheekbone, and blushed a bit, for she was the reason he'd sported this new look. Linn was Sheriff, and had a talkie about his person; he discreetly wore an earpiece, and there were times when he rose and paced quickly, silently down the aisle, waiting until he was at the rear of the church, or preferably outside, before addressing Dispatch on his talkie. When Linn pulled out his cell phone, began tapping out a text, Marnie assumed it was in response to a summons given him over his white-plastic earpiece. The next day, Marnie found a flat, white-cardboard box on her bed: she opened it, withdrew a pair of grey flannel jogging pants. On the front of the left thigh, in half-inch-high red script embroidery, the word Goodness: on the front of the right thigh, in blue, half-inch-high script embroidery, the word Mercy. Marnie heard her father's step outside her bedroom door; she turned, just as he knocked discreetly at her bedroom doorframe. Linn's grin was broad and genuine as he saw his daughter holding them up. "I thought it appropriate," he said quietly. This is the beginning of the story: Sheriff Linn Keller bent over the back of the couch and seized his daughter's wrists. Marnie was relaxing -- she'd showered, she'd bested all comers in hand-to-hand, she'd punched, blocked, grappled, she'd thrown men well bigger than herself, she'd put opponents on the deck fast, hard and nasty, and she'd come home with a sense of triumph and her father's delighted approval. Had she been given a trophy the size of a Mack truck, she'd not have been as pleased as she was with her father's crushing hug, his seizing her under the arms and hoisting her into the air -- grown young woman that she was -- and in a moment of reverie, she lifted her eyes from the Psalms, hearing his voice, loud and rich and full, "I AM PROUD OF YOU!" When someone suddenly leaned over the couch and seized her wrists, her action was pure reflex. She snapped double, drove sock feet under the attacker's armpits, snapped her lean, sculpted, athletic horsewoman's legs down. Sheriff Linn Keller flew through the air with the greatest of ease. His landing was less than graceful, and as he admitted later, the human cheekbone is a poor tool for trying to bust a hole in a hardwood floor. Marnie's hand came down on the open scripture. She glanced down at what she'd just read, looked at her father, just rolling over, one hand to his cheekbone: he raised his head, looked at his darlin' daughter with a crooked grin and said, "I deserved that!" Marnie Keller gave her long tall Daddy her very best Innocent Expression, stood, picked up her Scripture and read aloud, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all of my days!" She closed the Book, dropped it on the sofa, looked very directly at her Daddy. Marnie slapped her left thigh. "This is Goodness," she said, then slapped her right and said, "This is Mercy!" Ambassador Marnie Keller returned to the guest parlor and the congratulations of dignitaries, at having concluded a successful, if contentious, negotiation: she accepted a sparkling crystal flute of something bubbly, raised it as a toast was proposed to another successful negotiation, and after the ceremonial sip, one of the Planet Vicksburg negotiators drifted over to her and inquired her inspiration for throwing a loud and obnoxious representative over her shoulder and into the swimming pool. Ambassador Marnie Keller looked at her well-dressed colleague with big and innocent eyes, sipped her bubbly, smiled. "The poor man was so hot tempered I feared he might catch fire," she said quietly, "so my action was in the interest of sparing us a conflagration. Besides" -- she smiled -- "I have found the Psalms useful in such moments." "You mean when he grabbed your arm and shouted in your face?" Marnie lowered her crystal flute and smiled quietly, blinked. "One can meet violence and hostility with violence and hostility," she murmured, "and sometimes that is the right solution. "Sometimes a more ... Scriptural ... approach is called for." She tilted her head, smiled gently. "I remembered a Psalm from my days at home, and found the answer there."
  4. A DISPLAY OF WESTERN ART Two pale eyed children rode side by side down the nighttime city street, under the twin moons of a planet they’d never seen before today: their Appaloosa mares were well matched, their tack was identical, their riders' attire very nearly so. Their only real difference was that one rider had twin braids, laid over the front of her shoulders, and the other rider, didn’t. They each had a scabbarded rifle under their right thigh, they each wore tan Stetsons and electric-blue, silk wild rags, each had mirror-polished Wellington boots thrust into black doghouse stirrups. Even their saddle blankets were identical: heavy, serviceable, brown, with a gold six point star embroidered just behind the saddle skirt, and black lettering across the star’s equator. A gold six-point star, bearing the single word: SHERIFF. They rode erect, at ease, comfortable in the saddle, stirrup to stirrup, watchful, as alert as two hounds striking a hot scent. The city street they rode, was momentarily, unusually silent, and absolutely without traffic: steam broughams were stopped in the street, abandoned, doors open; people ducked, cowering behind light poles, behind post-boxes, at the unaccustomed sound of gunshots: a stray round found the coil of a brougham, a cloud of steam hissed out, loud, angry, throwing an absolute, opaque wall of floating condensation over most of the street. Michael Keller leaned down and gripped the wrist of his engraved Winchester. Victoria Keller leaned down and gripped her Winchester at the same moment. Twin children from another world pulled blued steel authority free of their floral-carved, background-dyed scabbards. Their mares needed no further urging. Rival thieves tried to hold up the same shop at the same time: the shopkeeper pushed a round at one of them and his back wall inherited two rounds in reply, then two rival thieves, believing themselves shot at, shot at the first two thieves: people scattered, the city police responded, brought their black steam-wagons up outside the involved shop. Confusion, gunshots: a man was hit – his scream wasn’t as shrill as a woman’s, but was just as sincere – two Appaloosa mares, noses punched straight out ahead of them, blasted free of the steam-cloud, charged two pair of scared, head-twisting, pistol-swinging holdup artists. Michael’s mare hit first. The collision of a fast moving horse’s chest with a human can have only one result. To the onlookers it was magic: a spotty white horse with a rifleman astride, blasting out of the roiling wall of pain hissing like vaporous blood from the wounded vehicle – a horseman, leaned forward in the saddle, charging these enemies to the public order: the dull, grunting thud of a collision, a spray of arms and legs, then another collision, another awkward, spinning tumble to the pavement: Michael’s mare skidded a little as she came about, Victoria’s mare reared, screaming her challenge, dancing on her hind legs, Victoria’s young legs clamped hard around her mare, her denim covered backside plainly welded to saddle leather. Horses’ screams echoed between the buildings, shivering through the drifting cloud of steam: Victoria’s mare came down to earth, there was the sound of Winchester steel slamming open, slamming into battery. Two blued-steel barrels came down level. Michael’s mare stood dead still, waiting: Victoria’s mare threw her head to the side, waiting for the gunshot. “THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS!” a child’s voice challenged, loudly, commanding: “DROP THE WEAPONS OR I DROP YOU!” Two were too badly hurt to offer any further hostilities. The other pair, on Victoria’s side of the street, looked at one another. One raised a revolver. Two rifles spoke. The revolver fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. The other threw his pistol into the street and ran. Michael’s mare was off like a shot. Michael’s thumb laid over the rifle’s checkered hammer, he felt it half-cock, thrust it into the scabbard: as fast as the runner was, the mare was faster. Michael Keller, a mere boy, a child of the granite mountains, was riding a mare his father trained, a mare trained for riot, for war, for hostilities: Michael had ridden her in barrel races, he’d ridden her in balloon shooting competitions, he’d practiced roping from his mare’s back: his fingers had eyes as he brought his lariat free, shook out the loop, floated it through the air. The mare dropped her hind quarters and splayed her forehooves: two quick turns around the saddlehorn, the line snapped taut. Michael casually coiled his plaited-leather reata, in no hurry at all: his mare’s forehoof was on the prisoner’s back where the man tried to roll over, presumably to try and come up on all fours and attempt a desperate, scrambling escape. It’s kind of hard to escape when a steelshod hoof plants itself between a holdup’s shoulder blades, when a percentage of a mare’s weight bears down through the focus of a hard hoof. Michael turned in the saddle, looked behind. His father was beside Victoria. Michael’s pale eyes tightened a little at the corners as he took a mental snapshot of the moment. As big as a full grown Appaloosa mare is, his father’s golden stallion was that much bigger. As competent, as confident as his twin sister sat a-saddle, his father was that much taller, that much more impressive. Michael saw his father was speaking quietly to his little girl, saw his father nod once: Michael saw Victoria had already scabbarded her rifle. Michael’s eyes tightened a little at the corners as he watched. Victoria was looking at her Daddy with big and innocent eyes, oblivious to staring city folk regarding this new and novel experience. It was well known their City was to have visitors – their City, of all on the planet – and no less a personage than a genuine Western Sheriff and members of his family! Nobody – not residents, not dignitaries, not the police, nobody – ever thought circumstances might require the response of a Western Sheriff – this creature of legend, this storied demigod, something known only in stories, in books! The police were quick to converge: the Sheriff did not dismount – he knew his position gave him a psychological advantage – but he was quick to spot the senior ranking officer present, address himself to the senior rank, to give him full command of the scene, to make it clear that he, the Sheriff, had no intention of usurping their collar … although they may wish to take the fellow in custody down the street yonder. By the time running feet reached young Michael’s prisoner, this pale eyed young Keller was dismounted, was on one knee beside his prisoner, talking quietly: the prisoner was only too happy to allow the responding officers to take him into custody, and when they’d secured him, loaded him into a steam powered transport, once they asked the prisoner what he and the Sheriff’s son were talking about, the holdup’s eyes widened at the memory and he said in a husky whisper, “He said if I didn’t behave, he’d let that horse of his eat me!” Angela Keller was not the featured offworlder on the evening’s InterSystem broadcast, though she did watch it, she and her classroom full of nursing students. The class would normally not watch the evening news on the blackboard-sized screen, but word spread among the students that Miss Angela’s family would be visiting: Angela knew the class would be distracted, wondering, and so she turned on the InterSystem broadcast. They’d expected to see a stiff, formal reception in the stiff, formal, ornate chambers reserved for meeting dignitaries with diplomatic credentials. They honestly did not expect to see the adventure, complete with horses’ hooves, loud and clattering on pavement, gunshots, a live action drama, broadcast as it happened! The ladies watched their wing-capped instructor smiling behind her cupped hand as she stood to the side, watched with them, watched as a pale eyed lad thrust a rifle into the scabbard under his leg, as a young boy untwisted in the saddle, as his arm raised with a deceptively gentle but obviously controlled swing, as a lariat became a living thing, as plaited leather dropped over the prisoner, brought him to a sudden, unexpected, very effective, feet-in-the-air, flat-on-his-back, HALT! The voice-over was professional, polished, almost oily: “And here we see that legendary Western art of the Lariat, employed to capture the criminal without the need of further effort.” The lariat snapped taut, a criminal’s feet swung out, still running in mid-air, at least until his body hit the ground, hard, until he tried to scramble upright, until a horse’s hoof planted him solidly down against the sidewalk. “We’ve seen the beauty of horses on our own worlds,” the voice said, the syllables carefully shaped, precisely enunciated, “but we have never seen genuine Appaloosas from the American West. We have read about them, we have seen holovids that drew on writers’ imaginations, but this is the first time our world has seen the genuine article.” The image shifted to the moment two hard-charging mares punched out of a cloud, an absolute, street-covering wall of steam, hooves pounding, ears laid back – “Two young riders with Winchester rifles, driving forward into the face of a running gunfight, fearless in the face of danger, both horses and riders obviously skilled and well trained in the art of keeping the peace, even at their riders' tender ages. “It is noteworthy that when their father, Sheriff Linn Keller of Firelands County, Colorado, who’d been delayed in conference with their reception committee, arrived on the scene, he was quick to return authority to our police respondents, and to give them full credit in the event.” Angela Keller’s face reddened a little as she turned from the screen, looked at her students. Every one of her nursing students, and two other instructors in the back of the room, were looking at her. Every last one of them, looking at her, as if she’d had something to do with this living adventure they’d just watched. Angela Keller looked back at the screen, at the image of a long, tall, lean waisted Western Sheriff astride his tall, strutting, shining-gold Palomino stallion, flanked by two children who rode with the same ease, the same confidence as their father, as the Sheriff touched his hat-brim to one of the police officers, as they turned and rode slowly away from the camera. Every student smiled, but none laughed aloud as Angela shook her head and declared at the screen: “Show-off!”
  5. THE REASON WHY A pale eyed young woman in a white uniform dress spread a blanket on the cold, damp ground, a blanket manufactured several light-years from the planet on which it was being spread: the underside repelled the damp, the upper was soft, almost fuzzy, insulating, welcoming to the touch. The young woman knelt on the blanket, pulled the disposable protective covers off her thick-soled, white uniform shoes, then sat, legs folded: graceful, feminine, she looked around at the regular row of shaped stones that extended to her left, to her right. Below her, a place she knew as home, a small town in the Shining Mountains, a place more famous on distant planets than here. The woman smiled as she remembered listening to the legends and stories, handed down through generations of Southrons, those descendants of warriors plucked from Lincoln’s War by aliens who wished to assemble a disposable force of primitives. The history of the Confederacy, and how these few were able to use the learning devices forced upon them by the aliens, to learn enough to overthrow their captors, to annihilate their abductors, to prosper and spread and ultimately claim the Thirteen Star Systems, is well known, and will not be discussed further: no, let us instead remember those tales told this lovely young woman, those ancestral memories of the far West, the Shining Mountains, of rivers of big shaggy beasts thundering across endless prairies, of great granite crags that tore open the sky itself with granite teeth. Angela Keller had no wish for fame, no desire for notoriety, yet she was the best known face on all the Worlds: perhaps – no, not perhaps, definitely – because she herself was a daughter of the Shining Mountains, because her Daddy was a long, tall, honest-to-God Western Sheriff who rode an honest-to-God, spotted Appaloosa stallion. (Popular imagination gave this lawman's preferred mount fighting fangs and the ability to annihilate a regiment by exhaling a liquid river of immolating flame, but this was merely conjecture, and existed only in illustrations in children's books) Angela Keller looked at the twin tombstone and remembered what she’d been told, what she learned as her father spoke quietly, his voice heavy with guilt, that night she decided she would become a nurse after all. Angela Keller had spoken of this earlier that day, on a planet far from where she sat, legs tucked under her skirt in her family’s section of the Firelands cemetery. She’d been asked why she became a nurse – a not uncommon question. Her answer surprised her, but it did not surprise a young couple whose sons were alive because of this offworld healer. “My father had twins,” Angela said in reply to the question, “and they died of something called a glioblastoma. It’s fast moving and at that time it was incurable. My father knew here” – she’d tapped her forehead with a bent foreknuckle – “that he could not possibly have caused their condition." Her expression was serious as she tapped her breastbone with curved fingers and added, "Here" -- tap, tap -- "he had a harder time convincing himself. "That it hit them at such a young age was almost unheard of; that it hit identical twins, almost at the same moment, was so rare as to make being struck twice by lightning look commonplace.” She’d looked around, looked back at the questioner. “I remember the guilt and the sorrow in my father’s voice. “I determined that I would do anything I had to, that I would do everything in my power, to keep that sorrow from claiming his soul yet again.” A young couple heard her words in a news broadcast, a special edition covering the improvement in healthcare, with this pale eyed young woman as the face of advancing medicine, and the couple looked at one another and at the limp, lethargic, sleeping child propped up between them. Their own daughter was diagnosed with just such a deadly cancer of the brain, and they were told there was no hope, and then this pale eyed young woman appeared in their hospital with all the ladylike grace of the legendary Texas twister – even here on Tortuga, the most distant planet in the Confederacy, Texas was remembered, Texas was legendary, and a Texas twister had long been part of their vocabulary. This woman hadn’t suddenly appeared in a whirlwind, she hadn’t waved a wand or sprinkled sparkling dust and magically effected a cure: no, there were surgeries, there were machines and modalities and injections, there were tests and examinations and scans, most of which were not familiar to the medical community. Another remarkable young woman, just as lovely, but in a McKenna gown, arrived with this wing-capped Healer: her skills as a diplomat were tested, taxed, exercised, for nobody – no profession, no avocation, no physician – takes kindly the arrival of an interloper whose skills are greater than their own. Diplomatic skills and persuasion prevailed: the child was terminal, after all, and her death was assured: if nothing else, perhaps these efforts could learn something useful about the condition: and during these diplomatic discussions, diseased tissues were removed, the seeds were chased down, found, eliminated, the body’s own T-cells turned into killer T’s, programmed to find and utterly destroy cancers in any form: by the time the medical community reluctantly granted its consent for the child’s treatment, the cure was already effected, and the cure was complete. Angela looked at a double tombstone and remembered what it was to help a bald headed little girl relearn to walk, relearn how to eat, relearn how to speak: much of her memory was gone and would very likely never return: it was a mercy that she recognized her parents, that she reached for her Daddy’s hand, that she was able to slur “Mama” when her mother picked her up. Angela swallowed as she remembered, chewed on her bottom lip, looked up. “I never knew you,” she whispered. “Daddy spoke of you once. He was almost shattered when you died, but he hid it and never spoke of it. I did not know about you for a very long time, but you two” – she smiled, just a little, wiped at a trickle of wet running down her cheek – “you two are how I became a nurse, and then I got my hands on Confederate medicine.” A pretty young woman sat in the Colorado sunshine, protected from the chilly mountain wind by the invisible dome-field projected over her by the blanket she sat on: she looked at the names on the tombstone – KELLER, she read; on the left, EMIL, and on the right, GOTTLEIB: the stone was new, set less than a week before. Her Daddy, the Sheriff, was a man of deep feelings, but a man of self-flagellation, whose mistaken assumption of guilt prevented his marking the double grave with a stone, until he’d made peace with himself over the death of his twins. That evening, Angela addressed a new class of nurses on Tortuga: the subject turned to things not understood, and Angela brought out the example of her father’s twins, dead of a fast-moving and then-incurable brain cancer. “I do not pretend to understand how these things work,” Angela admitted. “I cannot say they were put on this earth to steer my course. I can tell you what I believe – and what I believe may well be completely wrong.” She looked into the depths of the class: half a hundred young woman were seated before her, half a hundred, every last one of whom admitted that she’d chosen this profession because of what each and every one of them saw in this pale eyed woman in a white uniform dress and a winged cap. “I believe that God Almighty does not cause trouble to befall us,” she said, “but I believe He is not at all bashful to use such troubles as teaching aids. My father’s twins died well before I was born, and the sorrow in my father’s very soul turned me in this direction. I do not believe Emil and Gottleib were born, to be killed for my benefit. I believe they were born, and what happened to them was a tragedy, and I took that grief and did something useful with it.” She smiled, just a little, and added, “On the other hand, if I know so damned much, why haven’t I made a million dollars and retired, eh?”
  6. Opened & played fine on my laptop. I do nothing on my phone but text, talk and take an occasional picture.
  7. THAT’S WHAT I WANT It was Friday night. Two lean figures shrugged into backpacks, ran the water tubes over their shoulders, clipped the tubes in place. Two lean figures opened their rifles' bolts, thumbed in five rounds of dull metallic cartridges, pulled the stripper loose, slipped the stamped-metal clip into a pocket, thumbed the rounds down and closed their rifles’ bolts. Surplus Soviet bolt-action rifles were slung. One rifleman looked at the other. They walked down the hand-cut stone steps, off the grey-floored porch, walked to the neatly circumscribed border between the driveway and the yard. Two figures leaned forward into the dark, started to run, well-polished and tight-laced boots silent in the moonlit darkness. "I don't know why you even try," Shelly said quietly. "It's Friday night, you know you're not going to relax." Linn held his wife around the waist, leaned his head down, kissed the side of her neck, brought his mustache up until it tickled her ear. "I took Friday night off so I can have some time with you," he whispered. "Mmm, tell me more," Shelly hummed as her husband nibbled her earlobe, carefully, mindful of the pierced earrings. "The kids are getting some size to them. I thought it wise to be home. Girls Marnie's age are going out on dates." Shelly looked up at her husband, smiled. "I remember when you started dating me." "I do too," Linn grinned. "You made popcorn." "I didn't know you then. I figured if you turned out to be all mouth and hands, I'd just stuff popcorn in your mouth." They laughed quietly, Linn's eyes sliding over to the cupboard where they kept the popcorn popping kettle. "You know if we make some we'll have to make a couple batches." "Mm-hmm." Conversation was suspended as husband and wife held one another in the quiet of their immaculate kitchen. When they came up for air, Shelly whispered, “I’m liking this. How long will the kids be gone?” “It’s Friday night,” Linn whispered. “You know kids and their Friday night dates.” His mustache tickled her lip and conversation was suspended for a significantly longer period this time. Two figures ran through the mountain darkness, their boots setting a regular cadence on the lonely ranch road. They spread apart, running just outside the tire tracks -- a depression in the dirt roadway passed between them, shining-wet with standing water, reflecting the increasing starlight -- they converged again, continued their run, turning a little now, heading uphill. Jacob and Marnie ran steadily, not competing: each ran in step with the other, each brought the slung rifle off the shoulder, carried at high port: they slowed, stopped, moved behind what looked like a 55 gallon drum over on its side, set up on some kind of platform. Marnie went first. She cycled her bolt, thrust the rifle into the end of the drum, sighted on the rectangular target in the distance, pulled the trigger. A white-painted silhouette twitched, gave a satisfying CLANK as the surplus Soviet slug smacked into it, knocking cheap white spray paint into dust. Every shot was the same -- a dull fump! *clank!*-- their labors in constructing a muffling chamber had been successful; Marnie fired four more times, then Jacob. They would police their empties the next day, in the daylight: Marnie topped off the Mosin's magazine with single rounds while Jacob fired, she waited while he reloaded, then they resumed their run. No words were exchanged, no conversation held; each one heard, in their memory, the singing chant their pale eyed Gammaw used when running with Willamina's Warriors: they could have recorded such running songs, played them back on a miniature player of some kind, but neither wanted anything that would interfere with their hearing. Marnie had been wounded, deeply and severely injured, at too young an age, and this honestly scarred her psyche: Jacob grew up a lawman's son, and had listened to his father's, and other lawmen's recounting of close encounters of the unpleasant kind. Both knew that unpleasantness, that violence, visited itself upon all souls at one time or another. Both knew they were going into the law enforcement profession. Both knew they intended to be ready when violence came to them. Both lean young figures ran steadily through the night. Linn carried his wife up the broad, hand-fitted stairs, the same set of stairs his ancestor’s best friend Charlie Macneil built into this fine old house more than a century before, the same stairs up which Macneil carried his own bride for the very first time, the same stairs up which Linn carried this same bride for the very first time, many years before, and not a few times since. Linn’s eyes were a light blue as he looked into his wife’s face, into her eyes: he stopped halfway up, leaned his head down, kissed her, whispered “I could swim in those eyes,” and as Shelly giggled with anticipation, he resumed his ascent. There was just enough moon to see by, with their eyes acclimatized to the dark: Jacob stood, breathing deeply, controlling his respirations. Marnie exhibited no such control. Her face was contorted in a teeth-bared grimace, a mask of hate as she assaulted the bayonet dummy, a plastic mannikin on a spring-mounted pipe stand: Marnie’s grunts and snarls were genuine – Jacob knew these were not the sounds of a weaker-muscled girl trying to generate more power with each strike, these were honestly the sounds of someone who hated! – who hated with a deep purple passion – someone who drew on the hell that scarred her young soul at far too young an age, and only now, now that she was far from the place that hurt her, far from the now-dead people who’d done such terrible things to her, now she could let that hate out, and she did. Viciously, violently, with absolutely no reservation whatsoever. Jacob watched as Marnie assaulted that bayonet dummy, using her rifle the way their pale eyed Gammaw taught them: Marnie used the rifle with the deadly efficiency their Gammaw learned overseas – muzzle thrusts, butt strokes, rakes, cuts: Jacob knew the Mosin was built by the same people who built anvils, he knew the rifle was made for uneducated, ham handed peasants to use in wartime, and watching his sister’s controlled, full-power assault on the mannikin, he was glad for the rifle’s more than robust construction. Part of his mind remembered his pale eyed Gammaw telling him the US Military no longer mounted a bayonet lug on their issue M16s and M4s because “the Mickey Mouse gun is too delicate to take the stresses of bayonet fighting” – her words – which is why she’d been known to snatch up an AK and lay about the enemy like Samson laying about with the jaw bone of a jack mule. Jacob watched his pale eyed sister’s fast-moving fury and wondered if that’s what their Gammaw looked like when she waded into the middle of the enemy, and then he remembered someone who’d served with her, someone who’d told him in quiet voice that his Gammaw went into an ambush at the top of her lungs, murdering from within the enemy’s close-packed ranks, how she’d screamed like a damned soul falling into the vortex of Hell itself, and how that long, sustained scream froze men’s hearts while she drove Soviet steel into men’s guts and ripped it free, spraying blood and men’s lives as she did. Jacob shivered, blinked: Marnie was backing up, breathing heavily: here in the mountains, this granddaughter of a fighting Marine was silent, pale eyes glaring at what used to be a bayonet dummy. “That one’s dead,” Jacob grunted. “On to the next.” A pair of sixteen-year-olds turned, continued their run, deeper into the mountains. “Next dummy’s mine,” Jacob grunted. “Yeah,” Marnie grunted back. Linn came downstairs, freshly showered: his wife was relaxed, smiling in her sleep. Linn was restless, as he always was, knowing it was Friday, knowing things happened on Friday, knowing he might yet be called. Coffee gurgled in his big ceramic mug, steamed as it warmed in his hands: he trickled in a little milk, prowled restlessly, turned out the kitchen light and looked out the night-darkened window over the kitchen sink. I don’t see a white wolf. This is a good thing. He looked at the clock. He had no worries about his young: their younger children were asleep, you could fire a cannon and they’d not wake; his eldest two, Jacob and Marnie, were out, but Linn knew they would not be on the road, or partying, or carousing. He’d helped them lay out their running course, and he’d helped them design and build the steel drum muffler, lined with Styrofoam and insulation and set up on a well built platform of crossbucked scrap lumber. I wonder how well it’ll work for them, he thought, smiling a little as he remembered hanging the steel silhouettes, delegating their painting to Marnie’s precise hand: when the first can of the cheapest white paint they could buy, hissed dry, Marnie stepped back, yelled “Quarter a shot!” and tossed it skyward. Father, son and daughter all three drew and fired: what used to be an aerosol can spun, fell, hit the ground, six holes – three entrance holes, caved in a little, three exit holes, torn metal petaled out, bore mute testimony of the accuracy of the draw-and-fire of three pistoleros. Linn smiled as he remembered the moment, sipped his coffee, half expecting the phone to ring: I know my luck, he thought, there’s damn little chance I’ll get a night’s rest of a Friday night. The Bear Killer's head came up, his ears lifting: Linn saw the great black brush of a tail start polishing the floor. Jacob and Marnie came in, breathing deeply, controlling their breath: Linn knew they'd been out for a run, and anyone else running for the distance they’d just covered, would have been taking deep, air-hungry, gasping breaths. He himself knew he could not have sustained the run his eldest children just managed. Linn knew they'd been busy in the barn, cleaning corrosive residue from the bores; they stood the rifles muzzle-down in the gun case, muzzles resting on folded rags, to catch any surplus oil that ran out of the now-scrupulously-clean barrels. Jacob and Marnie came in, sock foot, set their unlaced boots on the rubber boot tray, came over to him, breathing deeply, their cheeks healthy pink and cool to the touch. "How'd it go?" Linn asked quietly. "Marnie outshot me," Jacob admitted, grinning, "as usual." "Not by much," Marnie countered, "and I couldn't outrun him!" Linn smiled quietly, nodded, looked across the kitchen. "Popcorn?" Marnie laughed quietly. "You have to ask?" "Sis?" Marnie shook grated Parmesan on her popcorn, flipped the bowl carefully, distributing the powdery flavoring evenly: she looked at her brother, raised an eyebrow. "Sis, every girl in school is strapping on high heels and chasing boys on Friday night. You're out running with me. I know I suffer a sparkling personality and ravishing good looks, but your social life really sucks!" Marnie lowered her head, glared playfully at her brother over a set of nonexistent spectacles. "I could say the same for you, Little Brother!" "I'm serious, Sis." "So am I. Why aren't you out drinking beer, chasing girls and running hot cars?" Jacob sook his head, frowned. "My automatic pilot hasn't taken over yet, Sis. I'm honestly afraid of what I might become once it does." "You look pretty controlled to me." Jacob's jaw eased out thoughtfully as he frowned at his fragrant bowl of freshly popped corn. "I don't want to betray a girl," he whispered. "I've seen too much of that already." Marnie nodded, sampled her popcorn: Jacob saw the approval in her eyes -- whether for his answer, or for her popcorn, he wasn't certain. "Sis, we carry the genes for addiction. Gammaw's Mama was a drunk and a damned drunk. I'm told it skips a generation. That would be us. Passion can be as addictive as alcohol or drugs." Marnie closed her eyes, nodded, shivered. "I'll meet the right girl and raise a family, just not yet, and I don't want to start because I have to." Marnie rested her hand on her belt, stood hip-shot, regarded her brother with a an appraising look. "You sound hopelessly old-fashioned, Jacob." "Yeah," Jacob nearly whispered, looking bleakly into his popcorn. "Passion. Uncontrolled strong emotion. Once I start I might not be able to stop." "Able? Or want to?" Jacob's young eyes were haunted as he replied quietly, "That's what I'm afraid of, Sis. I might not want to stop, and that's addiction!" Linn looked across the kitchen, at the wall phone hanging patiently beside the door frame. “At the risk of throwing a jinx on it,” he said finally, “I’m going to give up and go to bed.” Marnie set down her bowl of popcorn, skipped up to her long tall Daddy and gave him a quick, tight, happy hug, pressing the side of her head against his chest: Linn chuckled, hugged her back, buried his face in her hair, took a noisy sniff. “You smell like outside,” he chuckled, and Marnie giggled to hear his voice rumbling deep in his chest, and Jacob grinned to see this interaction. For a moment, for one quick little moment, Jacob saw Marnie as a giggly little girl, and Linn as the laughing big strong daddy, and Jacob thought to himself, That’s what I want. In due time, yes, but that’s what I want!
  8. OVER, AND OVER, AND OVER AGAIN The New York Irishman sat where he and his fellows sat, shoulder to shoulder for the service. The church was empty now, and silent: the congregation long since filed out and gone, his fellows returned to the firehouse. His fellow red-shirted firemen looked back, looked at Sean: their broad shouldered, iron-muscled Chief followed their gaze, then looked back at his men, shook his head at their expressions of concern, tilted his head: they left the church, leaving one man alone with his God and with his thoughts. When the church filled with sound, it was with voices joined in harmony and adoration, but when silence filled the church, it was a damaged silence, a fractured silence, like a heat-crazed windowpane that hadn’t yet fallen into shattered crystal crumbles. The New York Irishman stared ahead, his expression that of a man lost. They’d had a bad one. He’d assaulted the fire as he always did, he’d charged in close and fought the Beast at belt buckle distance, he’d laid about with the weapons he had, and he’d charged up the ladder – he’d assaulted the climb, some said he’d gone up the extension ladder as fast as a man can run on level ground. Someone was screaming to death in an upper story. He’d gotten to the window when something let go, when fire roared out at him, when he smelled burnt hair and felt his skin sear, when he dropped his head to shade his face with the brim of his helmet and the heat beat him back and when they lowered the ladder its upper end was black and alligatored a little from the heat. The New York Irishman sat in the silent, empty church, alone, hearing a desperate voice screaming, wordlessly, helplessly, one long, sustained, shivering, agonized shriek: he knew when the sufferer took in a breath, after this one scream, they’d inhaled the same liquid hell that was burning their outside, and they burned to death from the inside as well. His breathing was quicker now and he smelled it, the smell of flesh burning. His fingers raised to what used to be his handlebar mustache, now a shadow, a memory, a singed stubble: he touched the blisters on his face, he lifted his fingers before he could cause himself further pain: his hands closed, fisted, pressed down against his knees and he lowered his forehead against the pew in front of him. He sat, alone, hearing that one, long, shivering, desperate, agonized shriek, more terrible than could possibly come from a human throat. They’d found what was left of her, on overhaul. They’d put her in Digger’s box and carried the box to the wagon at shoulder height, six men in seared and filthy rubber coats, six men with grim expressions and black chins. The New York Irishman said not a word through overhaul, through cleanup, through scrubbing the hose and hanging it to dry in their tall, chimneylike hose drying tower: he’d let the Doc work on his face, he’d traded sweaty, wet, filthy clothes for clean, he’d hung his boots to dry, and he’d done it with all the expression of an automaton. No one outside the Irish Brigade really understood why they phrased things the way they did. They didn’t say “It was burnt through the roof before we were even called.” They said, “We lost a house today.” They didn’t say, “They were dead before we were called.” They said, “We lost someone today.” They didn’t say, “There was no way humanly possible to have gotten to her.” Each man said the same thing. It wasn’t “We” lost one today. It was, “I lost one today.” It was personal. When the deceased was interred, there was no family to grieve this one soul, returned to its Maker, but there were men in red shirts gathered for the occasion: every member of the Irish Brigade, with the gold Maltese Cross embroidered on their red wool bib front shirts, all but one with a fiercely curled handlebar mustache: they carried the coffin at shoulder height, they bowed their heads at the graveside, and each man helped lower the box into the ground. Burial was of a Saturday. In Sunday’s service, the name of the deceased was uplifted in prayer, and after Sunday service, one of the Irish Brigade remained behind, in the ringing silence of the empty church, listening to that one shivering, desperate, wailing scream, over, and over, and over again.
  9. DISCHARGE A drone hovered invisibly in the space between here and there – silent, stationary, waiting: high-res cameras swung at movement, locked onto their subject. Below the drone, closer to ground level, another of the kind – instead of hovering at twenty meters, this one was about shoulder high to a tall man. Both recorded the same subject. A horse, at full gallop, reaching out and stabbing the earth with steelshod hooves, shoving the earth away behind it, and astride the shining-black gelding, a pale eyed woman, her blue cape floating behind her: she was leaned forward in the saddle, she was standing in her stirrups, her hands pressed flat against the shining-black racer’s neck just under the mane. The lower-altitude drone zoomed in, enough to catch her lips move: augmentation supplied her voice as she encouraged her mount, “Run—run – run –RUN!” A woman in a white dress, a woman in a white winged cap, led: behind her, two more, astride spotted Appaloosa mares, two grinning children, both with their Stetsons bouncing on their backs, held with storm straps, pulled loose by the velocity of their travel, and between them, a third horse, with an empty saddle, with shortened stirrups, even shorter than the eight-year-olds that flanked it. The shining glass doors of the hospital opened, a cluster of people emerged: balloons, bouquets, smiles, and at its center, a slight figure, bald, wearing a surgical mask, with delighted eyes visible over the mask: gone were the IVs, the monitors, the tubing: Carissa struggled to stand, there in the hallway, but stand she did: she rose, steadying herself for a long moment with one hand on the arm of the hated wheelchair, then she reached up, she seized the braided cord attached to the bell. Carissa seized that braided bell-pull and she yanked, hard as she could. She’d told that pale eyed nurse that when she left, she intended to yank the cord hard enough to rip it out of the wall. The bell flipped, shining in the fluorescent light, it gave a loud CLANG: Carissa released the cord, dropped back into her wheelchair. The mask hid only part of her expression. There was no way it could hide the absolute joy! in the young eyes that shone out over top that damned mask! Doors hissed open, people laughed and clapped and emerged, just in time to see a formation of hard-running horses turning, together, a living diamond of charging horseflesh: muscle and hair and willing hearts and a promise in living form swung around in a big circle, pointed directly at them. Few things are as impressive as a cavalry charge. When a pounding, surging, charging wedge of hooves comes thundering in a straight line directly toward someone, it is impressive, it is almost frightening: when they come clattering into the parking lot, slowing fast, when three of the four not only ride in formation, but also rear, that blood-freezing, screaming, whinnying challenge of two trained Appaloosa war-horses, striped forehooves windmilling in the morning sunlight, hearts quicken and soar – for not only is it a promise kept, it is a living link to the days when men and horses charged into battle, to carry the mailed fist of Justice to the evildoers: when restless horseflesh came back to earth, head-shaking, hoof-dancing, impatient, when a shining-black racer danced, impatient, then walked slowly up to a delighted, bald-headed child in a wheelchair, lowered his nose to sniff expectantly, and the child, remembering, unwrapped two red-and-white-spiral peppermints, held them out on a flat palm for the shining-black racer to snuff loudly, to rubberlip gently, to crunch with laid-back ears … when a child who hasn’t been outside the hospital in far too long, caresses living horseflesh, when she stands, when she takes a staggering step, another, lays her hands on the living neck, and the horse drapes his head companionably over her shoulder – A white-uniformed nurse swung down from the saddle as her cohorts came up on either side, as they separated, as a patient (but deceptively fast) Appaloosa came head-bobbing up – “I promised you’d leave here horseback,” Angela said firmly, her voice encompassing the entire entourage, including everyone, parents, staff and patient alike, and brooking no disagreement whatsoever from anybody at all. The drones kept their silent vigil, recording a personal victory, a promise kept: a medical monster hadn’t eaten a child alive, a disease was vanquished from this young soul, a patient was being discharged, in triumph and in victory, and the pale eyed nurse who’d take care of this child, this dedicated soul who’d made this happen and who’d made this promise, hoisted her far enough to get her left foot in the doghouse stirrup. “Throw your leg over now,” she said quietly, “just like we practiced in physical therapy” – the child swung her leg, swung it again, and suddenly she was astride. She was sitting in a saddle, she was higher than she’d ever been! She reached up and tore the hated mask from her face, let it fall. A bald-headed child astride an Appaloosa mare threw her head back and laughed, the sun warm on her face, her voice echoing off the back wall of the hospital. Michael gripped her other foot, guided it into the stirrup, looked up. “She’s knee trained,” he said, “so she doesn’t have a bit in her mouth.” He grinned boyishly up at her – he turned, boosted into his own saddle, looked ahead. “Angela?” Angela swung aboard her Daddy’s shining-black racer, turned: the patient was a little girl, and she was dressed like girls dress, in pastel jogging pants and sneakers, in a loose top, but when Angela settled a pink Stetson on her, drew the storm strap up a little, a shutter tripped and a little girl’s expression of utter and absolute delight was captured for the weekly newspaper’s front page. The Confederate Worlds saw the images of a now-familiar nurse at full gallop, leaned out over the neck of a shining-black horse, blue cape floating behind her, the white winged cap giving the impression of greater speed: the image of this now-familiar nurse settling a pretty pink Stetson on a happy child’s head, with the same grace as placing a crown on a newly inaugurated royal, was viewed throughout the Thirteen Systems with absolute approval. One common element among all the Confederate worlds, was a love of horses and dogs, and when a silent, watchful Bear Killer bayed his approval, there was laughter and the polite pattering of applause. Angela raised her hands for silence. “I made a promise,” she declared firmly, “that when – not if – Carissa beat that cancer, upon her discharge, she would go home horseback.” Angela swept the assembled with pale eyes, her palms still toward them. “Carissa made a promise as well.” The sliding glass doors were still open. From within there was a thump, a metallic, distinct CLANK. Carissa tilted her head a little, her eyes wide, surprised: her mouth opened, she looked at Angela. “I did it,” she squeaked. “I ripped the bell out of the wall!”
  10. I read (somewhere) that John Wesley Hardin was known to gunfight in such attire, I believe he may have been surprised at an indelicate moment in a bordello. I know in my own wild and misspent youth, back when I was still deputy marshal for a local village, I was beyond exhausted: the scanner woke me, I came a-boilin' out of bed, I was headed out the door in uniform Stetson, uniform shirt, socks and boots, my gunbelt slung over one shoulder. My wife called, "Aren't you forgetting something?" I looked down and realized ... ... my trousers hadn't come along for the ride ... What little functioning brain I still had running, reasoned that I was so fatigued I would not be much account when I got there, so I gave up and went back to bed. (Turned out to be a false alarm anyhow)
  11. Cox 0.10! Thimble Drome! My brother had a red-plastic Fokker with an 0.10 engine ... tiny little power plant but that little red control line plane would SCOOT!!!
  12. Still standin' up on my knees for you both, absolutely pickled tink delighted with progress, and still making mention of Imis in my discussions with the Almighty as it's become a habit if nothing else!
  13. I dunno ... I've seen cars with strategically placed political (and other freebie) stickers to cover rust bubbles and rusted out holes in the car's body!
  14. LESSONS IN GUNFIGHTING: PROPER ATTIRE Sarah Lynne McKenna was still standing in the smoke-filled hallway, her face the shade of a sun-dried corpse: the lighting, probably, for her complexion was always remarkably healthy, except when the Rage was upon her. Sarah Lynne McKenna stood with her feet apart, her sharp little heels driven into the carpet, giving the impression that she’d driven spikes through her heels and deep into the floor, to anchor herself in place: her expression was one of anger, and forgiveness was nowhere to be seen in her appearance. Sarah Lynne McKenna was wearing her sharp-heeled shoes, her stockings, her corset: her hair was loose, curled, cascading down over the front of one shoulder and the back of the other, and Sarah Lynne McKenna gripped a blocky, businesslike, bulldog .44 in one white-knuckled fist. Luck alone would have two constables in front of the hotel when the fracas began: a bellman ran out, snatched at one uniform coat-sleeve and said something about a group of men intending a guest harm: at the first shout from within, the other constable put his whistle to his lips, blew a loud, discordant blast, then the two ran inside, just in time to be hit in the face with two fists of funneled sound. Gunfire, from within. To their credit, they drew their weapons and charged, looking left, looking right, the bellman in pursuit: “Upstairs, upstairs!” he shouted, and two City constables charged up the fine, broad staircase, a passageway better suited to men in fine suits and women in elaborate gowns, than the sight of two uniformed officers of the law, weapons in hand. They came to the top of the stairs and stopped. They honestly froze. Smoke layered the air, four men lay dead and dying, and a woman with white eyes and a colorless face raised a hand to display a bronze shield. “AGENT McKENNA, FIRELANDS DISTRICT COURT!” she declared loudly. They saw the badge only because it was raised, for the human eye is drawn to movement. It was not until they’d been badged that they realized this woman, standing defiant and commanding over a field of slaughter, was wearing little more than her frillies and an irritated expression. Ambassador Marnie Keller stepped through the Iris, looked around. She grabbed Ruth by the shoulders, pulled hard, pulled her over backwards – Ruth gave a surprised little squeak, fell back, fell through the portal with Marnie, landed on her back atop of the Ambassador as the Ambassador landed on her back on the floor of her quarters – Marnie grunted a little as the weight hit her, then the two women struggled upright, Ruth’s arms clutching their blanket-wrapped son. “Stay here,” Marnie hissed: she picked up a stubby, businesslike shotgun, surged through the Iris, and was gone. Sheriff Jacob Keller’s eyes were dead white and his face was colorless, the flesh drawn tight over his cheekbones: his bloodless lips were peeled back, giving him the appearance of a living skull: early in his law enforcement career, he’d developed a profound liking for the police shotgun, an opinion he had absolutely no reason to change over the years, and with a pounding on the door to his quarters, with shouted voices and demands that he open up, he waited inside, a double handful of Remington justice ready and waiting for anyone to defeat his security protocols. Marnie stepped up beside him, the twin to his fighting artillery in her gloved hands. He looked at her, elegant in a McKenna gown and a ruby brooch at her throat. “Overdressed for a gunfight, ain’t you?” he snapped. “You’re a fine one to talk.” Jacob chuckled. When the first impact hit their door, when the first beeps of an override attempt came from the internal keypad, Jacob’s gunbelt went around his waist, he clapped his uniform Stetson on his head and snatched up the twelve-gauge. He looked at the screen, counted the attackers. “Front to back,” he said. He heard the metallic click of Marnie’s safety disengaging. “Explosive charge,” Marnie said quietly. “Now.” Jacob released the door, it slid open. Jacob and Marnie fired, fast, accurate: the fighting was close-in and brutal: of eight that sought to assault the Sheriff’s quarters, six were killed right away. Two tried to run. They died running. Jacob grabbed the explosive charge, opened the disposal chute – a precaution he’d installed just inside his door, for just such an occasion – the explosive went into the hatch, he slammed it shut. The payload and its timer were instantly annihilated, disassembled at the subatomic level: the components were automatically scanned as they went in, and could be documented at a later time for evidentiary purposes: the crisis was ended before the last of the smoking, empty shotgun shells quit spinning on the clean floor. Sarah Lynne McKenna thumbed fresh rounds into her shotgun, handed Jacob two rounds, two rounds again: as she fed them to him, he fed them to his own 870. Jacob emerged, swung his gunbarrel to the left; Marnie swung right, her own Portal of Death looking unblinkingly in the opposite direction. Each one advanced, silent, deadly: a quick interrogation of the screen beside the closed airlock doors showed the cameras were covered. Jacob turned, looked at his sister: Marnie turned, raised a gloved hand. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, then raised a hand, gestured as if raking her eyes closed: Cameras are blind. Jacob nodded grimly. The two raised their fists, rock-paper-scissors: Jacob secured the airlock door behind him with his personal override, ran barefoot down the hallway, took up a position against the wall, opposite his sister. He went to one knee, shotgun to shoulder, nodded: Ready. Marnie keyed in her personal priority-override code. The airlock swung open. Nothing. She stepped out, eyes busy, reached up, pulled black electric tape off four camera lenses: she brought these inside the airlock, laid them carefully, sticky side up. Forensics would examine them for trace DNA and fingerprints. She closed the airlock, secured it with her personal priority lockdown: she and Jacob went to the other airlock, took their positions just as something started hammering from the other side. Jacob went to the comm pad. The cameras were blind, but audio still worked: he keyed in a command: “Who goes there!” he demanded. “Damage Control!” came the return shout. “Deputy Rutter is with us!” “Eddie!” Jacob shouted. “Here!” Eddie Rutter shouted back. “Eddie, the cameras are blind. Look for black electric tape. Remove carefully and preserve for Forensics, do it now!” “Roger that!” “And scan for explosives!” The vidscreen lit up: Jacob saw Damage Control in protective suits, saw the equipment cart, saw his deputy: he keyed the unlock sequence, the airlock door hissed open. Eddie Rutter stopped, his jaw opening in honest surprise: he managed to winch it shut and asked, “Sheriff, do you usually gunfight naked?” Ambassador Marnie Keller, demure in a McKenna gown and gloves, savored the moment when her brother turned a truly remarkable shade of red, when he realized he’d just engaged in a gunfight wearing his hat, and his gunbelt, and an irritated expression, and absolutely nothing else whatsoever.
  15. WHAT THE HORSE SAID Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller rode his stallion slowly up the wagon road to his fine stone house. He was tired, but it was a good tired. It was late; he wanted little more than to eat supper, and set down in his easy chair, and read from the Book. “Lord,” Jacob said aloud, “forgive me if I don’t read as much as I’d like.” Part of him smiled, a smile that did not quite make it to his face; he remembered reading from the Book, and being so tired he fell asleep as he did: his wife managed to get him to his feet, and to bed, and she’d observed quietly that the Almighty walked among us as a man, and He knew what it was to be tired, and He would understand Jacob’s having fallen asleep with the Word open on his lap. Jacob’s stallion was not tired at all: it had been Jacob who’d done the work that day, Apple-horse mostly drowsed, hip-shot, patient, except when he was grazing, or politely ignoring one of the local dogs who yammered and snarled as if Apple-horse was a ravening monster. Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller hung his coat over a handy fence post and turned a hand to help a man who was trying to set up a hoist. He and his sons were digging a well – they’d witched it and found where the vein of water ran, they’d found the convergence of two veins and decided to dig, but once they were beyond a man’s height in the hole, they needed a hoist, a winch mechanism. Jacob was a fair hand with an ax: he sounded the ground around their hole with the shovel’s bit, he discussed what the man had in mind, and he allowed as they could fashion a winch and it wouldn’t be hard at all, and so Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller proceeded to sink two post holes and set two posts, he selected healthy forks from the cut trees available, and cut them to length: he’d stopped to stone the ax head at frequent intervals, which interested both the man and his curious young son, and Jacob grinned and explained a sharp ax cuts and makes the work go faster, but a dull ax will bounce and cause injuries – he winked at the boy and added, “It also causes bad language, and I don’t want my Mama to stuff a bar of soap in my mouth!” Jacob helped another man load goods onto his wagon at the Mercantile – Jacob knew he’d hurt his arm not long before – vanity prompted the man to not wear a sling, and Jacob was obliged to lay a wager with the man that he, Jacob, could load that wagon in less than so many minutes, and so Jacob loaded his several purchases while the man watched: Jacob lost the bet, of course – he’d planned it that way, knowing the fellow could go home with honor intact, knowing there were sons at home to offload the goods and spare the man’s wounded wing. Jacob stopped in the Silver Jewel for a sandwich and a beer – he’d hoped to rest and refresh himself, and as ill fortune would have it, he’d ended up distracting an argument long enough for Mr. Baxter to hand Tom Landers a bung starter, and while Jacob was entertaining half the pugilistic party, the other hit the floor with a knot on his head: Jackson Cooper showed up, and two disputants were hauled off to the calabozo, one with a headache and one without, and Jacob tried to return to his interrupted lunch. There was a commotion down the hallway. Jacob turned, looked, the strode quickly toward Daisy’s kitchen. He ran into a cloud of Gaelic and a wall of indignation: Daisy was berating two fellows who were trying to muscle the biggest part of a new cast iron stove into the doorway, which wasn’t going well – one fellow was a bit more puny than he was willing to admit, and he honestly did not have the strength to carry that heavy, awkward stove up three steps and work it through the doorway. Jacob slid in beside him, crowded him aside: “Move your hand, I’ve got it” – he tucked his backside and gritted his teeth, for a cast iron stove is not a light thing at all: he backed up the three steps, he had the fellow at the other end swing to his right, they got the legs through, now swing left and come in: it took some more maneuvering, but they got it into Daisy’s kitchen, they got it generally where the old one had been, and Jacob let the fellow he’d relieved, take over assembly and final installation. He turned and nearly ran into Daisy, who seized his face in both hands, pulled his face down and kissed him, once, quickly: she released his face and seized his lapels, pulled him close. “I’ve wanted t’ do that t’ yer father f’r years,” she said quietly, “don’t tell him, but ye’ve made an Irishwoman happy” – she whirled and commenced to supervise the stove’s final positioning, and Jacob, having absolutely no idea what reply to make to this most unexpected admission of feminine admiration, wisely executed that military exercise known as Getting the Hell out of There! Later in the day, a pair of draft horses decided they didn’t want much to do with a loaded freight wagon, and started to fight in the harness: Jacob kneed his Apple-horse into a pursuing gallop as one of the two bolted down the street, trailing reins and trying to throw his collar: Jacob caught up with the big gelding, managed to grab one of the reins, and by virtue of persistence and profanity, got him slowed enough to get the other rein: they returned to the scene of the crime, where Jacob brought the big footed fellow around, backed him back into position, and let the teamsters set about repairing the damage the now-peaceful pair had done. Deputy Sheriff Jacob Keller walked his Apple-horse past his fine stone house, to the big, solid-built barn, swung down out of his saddle and just stood there for a long moment. He knew young eyes were watching him as he unsaddled his stallion, as he brushed him down, grained him, as he trudged toward the house, hung his coat by the washbasin and pumped fresh, cold water, washed his hands and his face and snorted the water from his nose. Jacob rubbed his face with a clean flour sack towel, reached up and plucked his Stetson from where he’d set it on its peg, dunked the skypiece on his grinning son: he pulled his coat from the other peg, draped it over his boy’s arm, ran his arm around his son’s shoulders. They walked toward the house. “Your Mama got anythin’ worth eatin’ in there?” Jacob asked. “Yes, sir.” “She got anythin’ ain’t been et yet?” “Yes, sir!” “Sounds good to me.” Jacob’s hand tightened on his son’s off shoulder. “When I was ridin’ up here I told Apple that I was hungry enough to eat a horse.” “Yes, sir?” “Know what Apple said?” “Moooo,” Joseph grinned. Father and son laughed and went into the house.
  16. SUDDEN GAIN "I have something for each of you." Linn rose, walked over to the gun case. He opened the door, brought out a pair of lever action rifles, brought them back. "You two have proven yourselves responsible and trustworthy." "Thank you, sir," two soft little voices replied. He handed one to Michael and one to Victoria. "Chamber check." Two young children jacked the levers open, looked into the action, looked back. "Clear," they said in one voice. "Close and half-cock." Actions closed, carefully, young thumbs laid over hammer spurs, pulled triggers; the hammers went to half cock. "You each hold a model of 1892 Winchester rifle. They are chambered in .357 Magnum. They were originally .25-20, but they were converted, and I'd like to kick the fellow who converted them." "Sir?" Michael asked: Victoria's question was spoken with her eyes and not her voice, as was usual with them both. "I know in practical terms the .357 is a better choice, but my father had a 92 in .25-20 and I loved that little rifle. He traded it off for a Remington Matchmaster and never liked it. I've been hunting for a .25-20 ever since. When I found these a few years ago, I had them engraved and gold inlaid, and I set them back for the right time." "A few years ago, sir?" Michael asked. Linn grinned, nodded. "The day you were both born." Two young heads nodded solemnly. "Ground the butts." Two rifle butts came down on the holder's right foot. "Look at the muzzle engraving." Young eyes regarded gold-inlaid vining encircling the muzzle, slithering with a barbaric splendor rearward for three fingers' width. "Now take a look at the breech." Michael took a step back, looked behind, then swung the rifle level, having satisfied nothing of importance, that no one, was behind him: he considered the matching, gold-inlaid vining around the breech end of the barrel, then the side of the receiver. In an ornate circle, an armored angel bearing a flaming sword: above, in a banner's arc, Michael: in the banner beneath, Angelus custos. "Victoria." Michael stepped forward, Angela stepped back: she frowned as she studied the barrel breech's vining, the receiver's gold inlaid, hand chased circle. Within, a mounted warrior in feminine armor, astride a rearing horse: in an armor-gloved fist, held triumphantly overhead, gripping a silver-headed lance: in the over-arching banner, Victoria; in the banner beneath, Soror Valkyria. "Now." Two solemn-eyed children grounded their rifles' butts on the arch of their right foot. Linn reached into one tin box, then the other. The cloth within was in surprisingly good shape: it appeared to be a light weight canvas, and appeared to be ... waxed, maybe? -- Linn held the edge of the nearest box with one hand, muscled the poke out with the other, set it on his desk. Solemn young eyes followed his efforts. He did the same for the second box. Each poke was tied with stout red cord. Linn worked the knot on each, a little, freed each sack's neck, drew them open, one, then the other. He looked in each sack and nodded. He reached in each one and brought out a tiny, individual cloth sleeve, handed one to Michael, the other to Victoria. "Take a look." Each child slid thumb-and-forefinger into their individual, flat little sleeve, withdrew a silver coin. "We'll have that inletted in your rifle stock," Linn said. "I know just the man for the job." Linn reached into the nearest poke, Michael's poke, and withdrew a gold double eagle, handed it to Michael: he picked one out of Victoria's poke, handed to her. "Take a good look," he said. "It's no wonder these were so heavy!" Michael and Victoria looked at their double eagles, looked at one another, looked at their Pa, handed them back. "This," Linn said, "represents a fortune. The way things are going, we will be wise to keep these as they are, in gold instead of Yankee greenbacks." "Sir, where did these come from?" "Do you remember Old Pale Eyes, way back when?" "Yes, sir." "He had the notion that he should provide for his children." "Yes, sir." "He had gold in a New York bank that wasn't found until after your Gammaw took office." "Yes, sir." "His son Jacob had the same idea." "Yes, sir?" "Jacob consulted a Gypsy trick rider named Daciana. She had a crystal ball and some said she was a witch-woman. I don't think she was a witch, really, but I do think she was a wise woman. “She told Jacob how he should provide for those to come." "Is that why mine says Michael and hers says Victoria?" Michael asked. "Yes it is." Michael frowned. "How do we keep all this safe, sir?" "What is the military principle of defense?" "Layered principle of defense," two young voices chorused. "What is the first layer of defense?" "Knowledge!" "Who do we tell about this?" The twins looked at one another, looked at their Daddy. “Nobody?” Linn winked, nodded approvingly. “Exactly that,” he affirmed. “Nobody. Why do we tell nobody?” “ ‘Cause the Baron von Ripemoff will break in an’ take it if we do!” Michael blurted. “I was gonna say that!” Victoria protested. “What else might they take if they broke in?” “Everything,” Michael said sadly. “Yep,” Linn nodded. “Everything not nailed down, wiring out of the walls, copper pipes, Christ off the cross and they’d come back for the nails!” Linn closed each box, turned the key in the lock. “I’ll arrange tomorrow,” he said, “to have those silvers inletted into your rifle stocks. I’ll give Marnie a call and see if she can help us out.” Delighted eyes looked at each other, looked at their Pa. “Marnie!” two young voices breathed in a quiet-voiced chorus. An attractive young mother sat down in front of her screen, her pink-cheeked, shining-eyed little boy on her lap, looking around, very obviously interested in the world around him. “Hi, Daddy,” Marnie smiled, then turned to the toothless, grinning little boy on her thigh: “John, say hello to your grandfather.” “Wa’l hello, John William,” Linn grinned. “You smokin’ cig-gars yet?” “He doesn’t have a grandfather nearby to teach him bad habits,” Marnie laughed. “I’ll have to remedy that!” Linn declared happily. “Say, you recall those two rifles I had you arrange to have engraved?” “I do,” Marnie replied happily. “Do you reckon you can arrange to have a silver dollar inletted into each rifle stock?” Marnie lowered her head, kissed her warm, wiggling little baby boy on top of his head. “Five minutes ago, or do you need it sooner?” Linn pushed back from his desk, looked to his right: Michael and Victoria moved in front of the screen, each holding their rifle like they considered their personal carbine as the most precious thing they’d ever handled. Marnie laughed quietly. “Daddy, how would you three like to make a road trip?”
  17. Ours were very similar, only with ornate cast iron scrollwork, screwed down to the wooden floor, and ours were singles instead of a side by side. Inkwell, yep ... but our desktops were nowhere this nice. Ours had initials, names, gouges ...
  18. BELLIED DOWN Victoria Keller was a very proper little girl. She wore frilly dresses and shiny slippers and her Mama fussed over her hair and delighted that she had a pretty little girl she could raise as a girl. Victoria was obedient and Victoria was gentle, and Victoria had pale eyes and Victoria watched and listened. Sometimes Victoria decided she'd had enough of being a girly little girl. Michael, of course, was as close to his sister as any twin, but Michael was most definitely all boy: Michael was his Pa's shadow, Michael loved getting into "Stuff" with dear old Dad, and Michael delighted in getting away with anything he could ... never anything terribly bad, but like generations of his predecessors, he had an adventurous spirit and a curious nature. Michael and Victoria learned to read, each one determined to out-do the other, yet each equally determined to bring the other up to their level: what one learned, the other learned, and quickly, and so it was that two pale eyed children of that long tall Sheriff disappeared as they sometimes did, leaving behind nothing more than the fading sound of hoofbeats. The solid built barn beside the Firelands Museum still stood, still sound, still protected by a granite wall on one side, in a natural lee: winter's snows never piled terribly deep, it was easily accessed to clean out second hand horse feed, or to haul in hay, and two spotted Appaloosas walked between the barn and the museum -- a stone museum that used to be a house, the home of one Sarah Lynne Llewellyn, until she took her maiden name back after becoming a widow. The pair rode up the narrow passage, through a hidden opening, into the high meadow above, dismounted: they climbed with the fearlessness of children, they delighted in looking out over an incredible distance, visible from this high up, and they took turns looking down the sheer drop, giggling as they dizzied themselves, then leaning back against the sun-warmed granite, looking up at the incredibly blue sky overhead and dizzying again. They navigated the narrow, ancient path with the ease of the fearless young, came out on the shelf known to their ancestors as a place of refuge, a place of contemplation. "Did you bring it?" Victoria asked quietly. Michael nodded. "Bring yours?" Youthful hands thrust into pockets, brought out small, high-intensity flashlights. "It might be a den," Victoria cautioned. "It has been, you know." "I know. I'll take a look first." Two children moved to the low opening, knelt, then bellied down: they squirted beams of incredible brightness into the dark. "I don't see much." "I don't see any eyes." Michael slithered in, fitting easily -- he thought he would, an ancestral Jacob made it in, and back out, when he interred his ancestral Bear Killer here. "Michael?" "Huh?" "To your right. What's that?" Michael swung his light, blinked. There was not enough room to come up on hands and knees; he slithered forward without difficulty. "Ummm," he said, wiping at something on what looked like a square tin box. "Victoria ... you ever been here?" "No." "This has your name on it." "What is it?" Michael gripped the square tin, or tried to: he frowned, tried gripping his light in his teeth. "Shoot your light over here. I gotta use both hands." Michael shut off his light, thrust it into a pocket: he gripped the tin with both hands, worked it back and forth, dragged it toward him. Another, behind it: he stopped, shifted so Victoria's light could sear past him, illuminate the plate on the second square box. He rubbed the plate across the front. "Victoria?" "Yeah?" "This one has my name on it." "Are there any others?" Michael pulled his light out, clicked it on, swung it around. "No." He turned his light off, thrust it away: he worked backwards, dragging one box, then the other. They backed out, emerging into daylight: Victoria got up, squatted impatiently as Michael wiggled backwards out from under the gap in the mountain, dragging one heavy tin box, then the other. “Ow.” “Ow?” Victoria bellied down again, squinting into the darkness, then wiggled to the side as Michael’s boot soles advanced toward her. It was more spacious inside than at the opening: Michael’s quiet-voiced “Ow” was because he’d banged his gourd on the narrowing opening as he slithered out backwards. Victoria stood, swatted at her front, frowning at how filthy she'd gotten: Michael stood, did the same. Two pale eyed children studied the tin boxes, gripped the handles on top: they were easier to pick up, now that they were standing – the boxes were heavy, awkward; they managed to duck walk down the narrow path, leaned back a little, hugging the boxes to their bellies, their shoulders rubbing the granite as they did, the edge of their tin box hooked on their belt buckle. It helped, a little. They got down to their horses, stopped and washed their hands in the near-freezing stream: Michael slung his hands off, frowned at his front -- typical boy, he almost wiped his hands down his belly and thighs -- he stopped, reached back, dried his hands on the seat of his blue jeans. Victoria tilted her head, considered this, then did the same thing. Two riders walked their Appaloosas down the hidden path, came out between the still-solid old barn and its drowsing ghosts, and the museum, watching them with glassy, unblinking eyes: they made it home, they donated what they'd been wearing to the friendly local Maytag and got it thrashing, then scampered upstairs in underwear and socks. They were showered and into clean clothes, their wet duds anonymous on the populated clothesline behind the house, before their Mama got home. That evening, Michael and Victoria presented themselves at their Papa's desk: they stood, shoulder to shoulder, each carrying a wiped-clean tin box that Linn thought appeared heavy, judging by the way they held them. Michael said "Sir, your advice?" Linn hadn't gotten to whatever it was he'd been thinking about. It was rare for his children, his youngest, to face him with such solemn expressions, even moreso for them to present with an obviously-heavy burden in hand. Michael flipped a folded towel onto his Pa's desk. "I don't want to scrape up your desk," he said, "this is kind of heavy." Linn reached over, put a hand under the box, raised a surprised eyebrow. "Yes it is," he murmured. Victoria was barely able to pack hers, using both hands: Linn gripped her box as she offered it. Linn saw her name was hand-chased on a plate, riveted to the front of the age-darkened metal. "They're locked," Michael said. Brother and sister watched a light dawn in their father's eyes. He looked at one box, then the other: he looked at his children, at the boxes: he rose, took two long strides to a shelf, ran his finger along the row of reprinted Journals. He pulled one down, flipped quickly through it: closed it with a snap, thrust it back, hooked the next with one finger, tilted it back, gripped it, brought it down. Michael's hand opened as Victoria's hand opened and turned: they held hands, silently sharing an uncertain anticipation as they watched their father's suddenly-serious eyes scan quickly, as he ran fingertips down the page, as an unguarded expression of discovery tightened the corners of his eyes, broadened into an actual smile. He snapped this Journal shut, carefully threaded it back into its place on the shelf: he turned, looked at his desk, looked beyond it to his Mama's ancient roll top desk. Linn nodded, looked at his two youngest. Michael felt Victoria's hand tighten in his. Linn went to his desk, pulled open one drawer, another: he pulled out a keyring, fingered through the jingling sawtoothed collection, separated one key out – instead of flat and toothed, it was old-fashioned-looking, dark and round-shafted, a hollow in its end, with a single, spade-shaped projection at its end. Linn went to a shelf, removed two books, two more, set them aside. He reached in -- Michael and Victoria saw his elbow move a little, but they could not see what was out of sight on that eye level shelf -- Linn did something, turned something, it looked to the twins as if he turned his arm a little and pushed something, then turned his hand again: he replaced the volumes, strode quickly to his Mama's antique, ancient, heirloom rolltop desk. Linn unlocked the ancient desk, carefully raised the curved, flexible wooden roll top, then brought it back down, silently counting the wood crossmembers as they passed a dimple, placed with a centerpunch by its appearance: he held the rolltop with one hand, inserted the key, turned it, opened a little hinged door: he removed the key, inserted it deep into the cubby the little hinged door revealed. Carefully, slowly, he withdrew his hand, and with it, a small drawer, with a lid. He withdrew the key from its front, inserted it straight down into the drawer's lid, turned the key. Michael and Victoria saw him remove the key, place the well populated keyring on the desk's writing surface. He lifted the lid on the drawer he'd just brought to light and withdrew a single key. Linn turned, walked over to the two metal boxes. His thumbnail explored a little tarnished-silver plate -- he found something -- a click, the plate slid aside, revealing a keyhole. Linn slid the just-retrieved key into the darkened metal box's keyhole, turned it, lifted the lid: he did the same for the second box. Michael was containing himself with an effort; Victoria was bouncing on her toes, grateful she was in sock feet, elsewise the hard little heels her Mama liked her to wear, would have beat a nervous tattoo on the hardwood floor. Linn sat down, looked at these, the youngest of his get. "Thank you for bringing these," he said. "You're welcome, sir," two young voices said in a soft-spoken chorus. "You got these from the High Lonesome." Two young voices again: "Yes, sir." “Good.” Linn looked at his two youngest. "I think ... it's time."
  19. Birthday? Wa'l now Happy Birthday Forty! I have it on the very best authority that Happy Birthday Cake contains no calories a'tall!
  20. LIGHTNING ROD Shelly Keller knew the touch of genuine fear twice in her life. Both times, it was shortly after she'd done something she shouldn't have. Once was when she backhanded her daughter, Marnie. Marnie's head snapped around with the force of the blow. Her head returned slowly to face Shelly as the air turned frosty-cold and Shelly saw her daughter's face drain of color and her eyes went absolutely white as her adrenaline levels spiked. Shelly tasted copper and Shelly expected Marnie to rip her head off her shoulders and throw it through the nearest window without benefit of opening same. Marnie's voice was quietly spoken, coldly spoken, as she told her mother that if she ever, ever hit her again, she, Marnie, would rip her throat out. The second time Shelly felt that level of paralytic freezing realization was when her husband moved faster than Shelly's eye could follow. She heard the angry voice, she saw a man make a move -- a good sized man -- and she saw her husband turn, seize the man's wrist, wind it up behind him fast and, from the pained yell that followed, far less than comfortably: the Sheriff introduced the fellow's face to the rounded, stainless-steel corner of the ice cream freezer, just before he released this one, punched a second in the gut while ducking an incoming, hard-swung winebottle: Linn seized the second one by the throat and by the crotch, hauled him off the ground and SLAMMED him down to the tile floor, ending the fight and leaving absolutely no doubt as to the folly of picking on what looked like just some hick rancher stopping for gas. Shelly sat with the dispatcher while Linn made out the requisite reports back at the Sheriff's office. Not one word was said on the drive home. Shelly looked over at her husband. Linn was his usual relaxed, cheerful self: he reached over without looking, took Shelly's hand ever so gently in his own, gave her a reassuring squeeze. He was driving, his attention was on the serious business of guiding a half ton of steel and glass, a guided missile containing two human lives and capable of destroying many more if his attention were slacked right at the wrong moment. Shelly remembered how fast her husband moved -- how strong his grip had to be, to twist the first attacker's wrist out of joint -- or to pick a grown man off the floor and make it look easy. He'd have been justified if he'd done as much to her. Shelly went through the door first -- Linn, ever the gentleman, unlocked the door, let her through first, tapped the keypad to disarm the heads-up beeper -- Shelly stopped, turned, her eyes big and vulnerable. Linn turned from the pad, looked at his wife: his face went from cheerful to concerned: "Dearest, what's wrong?" he asked quietly. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her bottom lip quivering a little. Linn stepped into her, his left arm going around the small of her back: she froze, expecting to be picked up and thrown across the kitchen table, or worse. Linn took her other hand, brought it to his lips, kissed her knuckles carefully, gently, then he held her hand at extension, spun her around in a waltzing step, singing quietly: Shelly Keller, filled with guilt for having behaved as she had, waltzed with her husband, at least until they got to the head of the table. Linn spun her, slowly, as he always did, and Shelly stopped and looked at her husband with big tears rolling down her face and her expression crumbled and she squeaked "I'm sorry," and fell into his front. Sheriff Linn Keller, warrior and peacekeeper, father, grandfather and teller of tall tales, held his wife as she sobbed her submission into his shirt front. Nobody was home to see it, and likely a good thing, for Linn's expression was one of honest confusion: his own words, given quietly to Jacob in one of the rare moments when a father's advice is actually of use, "If your girl wants to cry, let her. Hold her and let her rain herself out, even if you have absolutely no idea what in the hell is going on." Linn had no idea, so he followed his own advice, and finally, when Shelly's tear storm rained itself out into his shirt front, he hooked a curled finger under her chin, lifted her face, kissed the tip of her nose. "Darlin'," he said, "if I've done somethin' to hurt your feelin's --" Shelly shook her head, dropped her forehead into his chest, shook her head again. She looked up. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I should never have slapped that cookie out of your hand and snapped at you like I did!" Linn blinked, frowned, raised an eyebrow, looked at his wife, pulled his head back a little. "That's all?" he asked. Shelly's mouth opened: she'd just apologized, she'd laid her soul bare, what more could he want -- Linn took Shelly's hands, brought one, then the other to his lips, kissed her knuckles, lowered her hands. "Darlin'," he said gently, "do you remember how genuinely bad a day you had?" Shelly closed her eyes, took a long breath, nodded. "Do you remember that new doc in ER gave you hell and turned out he was wrong, and the arrogant clod didn't have the grace to apologize?" Shelly chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes swung to the side, she nodded. "Do you remember that stray beef came RIGHT OUT IN FRONT OF YOU and if you didn't have a damned good set of reflexes you'd have had hamburger all over the Jeep?" Shelly nodded again. "Dearest" -- Linn's fingers were gentle as he touched her jaw, turned her face toward him -- "if a man can't forgive his wife when she's had genuinely a day from hell, he's not much of a man, now is he?" Shelly swallowed: Linn pulled out a handkerchief, laid it over her nose, pinched very gently, said in a fatherly voice, "Blow." Shelly reached up, giggled, hiccupped, blew: she wiped her beak, took a breath, gave a most unladylike blow that honestly sounded like a young foghorn. She wiped her nose again, sadly regarded how badly she'd fouled his clean white hankie. "I've got another right here," Linn said softly. "I always carry two." He took the soiled snot rag from her, stepped to the far doorway, gave it a backhand flip toward the laundry tub, came back. Shelly stepped over to the sink, leaned over it, stiff-armed, her head hanging. "I saw how fast you hit that guy," she said, then turned her head to look at him. "I would've deserved that." "You what?" "You'd just picked up a cookie off the cooling rack. I slapped your hand and yelled at you." Linn paced slowly over to his wife. He turned, leaned back against the sink, ran his arm around her shoulder. "Shelly, look at me. You would not deserve that," he said quietly. "I saw the look you gave me," Shelly said, her voice husky. "What did I look like?" "You looked so... disappointed." "I was," Linn admitted, his expressing sliding from concern to innocence. "You make really good cookies." Shelly leaned her head against her husband's chest. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "For being human?" Linn asked. "Darlin', you're one of the most patient souls I know. When you load up to where you've got to lightning rod to get rid of it ..." He bent his head, lifted her hair, kissed the back of her neck. "Besides, The Bear Killer helped me clean up the cookie crumbs."
  21. Celebration Day is RIGHT!! Blessings on Hatfield for tending you as he has! (Still laughing at Schoolmarm refusing to eat RUBBER CHICKEN! Don't blame her one little bit!)
  22. Proof yet again that cats go where they will!
  23. A SURE THING Jacob Keller sat across from Attorney Moulton's desk, marveling at the collection of volumes ranked behind the man. All the knowledge in the world, his pale eyed Pa told him once, is contained in books. Jacob considered that their big, blacksmith-shouldered Irish fire chieftain was also right when he observed, "Lad, th' intelligent man isn't th' one who can spout answers like a fountain. 'Tis th' man who knows where t' find those answers!" Sean's words, given with a wink, a fatherly hand on Jacob's shoulder, came back on the heels of the Sheriff's observation. Mr. Moulton was riffling through his files: he withdrew a sheaf of papers with a satisfied grunt. "Jacob," he said thoughtfully, "you chose well with your investments." "Thank you, sir." "These are copies of the original papers. You asked me to keep them for you." "Yes, sir. I feared one copy might be lost, but a second copy kept somewhere else would be wise." Attorney Moulton nodded slowly. "I wish some grown men would think that way," he said, almost sadly: "you remember Old Man Penrod very nearly lost his ranch when his house burned, and his papers with it, and a false claim on his property was filed at the State Capitol." "I remember, sir." "That's why I've taken pains to keep my files in a fireproof room. Cost me enough, too!" "I would imagine so, sir." "God be praised I've never had to test it," Moulton said absently, his pencil busy on the pad beneath his good right hand. Jacob waited patiently, his hat across his lap. "Your father ... suggested these investments?" "Two of them, sir. My mother suggested three. The others were mine." Mr. Moulton's eyebrows raised and he whistled admiringly, looked at the lean young man across the desk from him. "Frankly, Jacob, from these latest results, you are a wealthy young man." "Thank you, sir." "What do you plan to do now?" "I've given that some thought, sir," Jacob said slowly. "I'm not much of a gambler, but it strikes me that mines will play out in time, but there will always be need for meat on the plate, a roof overhead ... I've been looking at investing in building materials." Mr. Moulton unfolded the paper, read it, nodded. "Ames is a good and reputable firm," he said. "If they're selling shares, I would say a man would stand a good chance of making a steady income." "I like the sound of that, sir." "And your other investments?" "Sir, I am inclined to sell the first two silver mines. Men have been asking whether they'd be up for sale and I believe I can turn a profit with a sale." "You'll turn a handsome profit, but don't you want to keep making money from it?" Jacob frowned, shook his head. "Sir, my crystal ball rolled off the table and broke. I've no way of knowin' how much longer that silver streak will run. If I sell now, I'll have a sure thing. If another man makes a pile of money from that mine, good for him, but if the vein plays out tomorrow and I'm sittin' on it like a dog in a manger, no." "You're serious about liking a sure thing." "Life itself is uncertain, sir." "I can make the arrangements, same as last time." "If you could, please. Your usual fee?" "My usual fee." Jacob rose, thrust out his hand. "Mr. Moulton, thank you. I prefer not to make these deals in person. I am seen as still a boy and men don't like to do business with boys." " 'Mere boy' is not a term I would apply to you, Jacob." "Thank you, sir." Jacob hesitated, frowned: Mr. Moulton knew there was something more on his mind. "Sir ..." "Yes, Jacob?" "Sir, I would ... invest just a little bit more." Mr. Moulton waited, inclining his head slightly to indicate his assent. "Mr. Moulton, if you could arrange the purchase of a ruby red stickpin for a man's necktie, say, something the size of my little fingernail, and a matching lady's brooch with some fancy goldwork around it ... I would be very much obliged to you." "For the Sheriff, and for your mother." "Yes, sir." "I will see to it." "Thank you, sir."
  24. SIREN SONG Fire Chief Chuck Fitzgerald looked across the bay, raised a finger, thrust his arm out like he was casting a line. The German Irishman hit a cast aluminum button that hadn't been used for a decade anyway. He had no doubt the siren would work -- the Irish Brigade took pride in their equipment, in their station, in each other; they kept everything -- everything! -- ready for use at a moment's notice. The pale eyed Sheriff was clutching a K9 harness vest, with its built-in remote-trigger strobe, with its radio tracker, with its six point star and the words SHERIFF K9 embroidered in gold on the black Kevlar surface. Marnie gripped her father's shoulder. "Daddy," she said quietly, penetrating the black cloud of the Sheriff's self-absorbed anger, "you know what kind of a nose Tank has." Linn glared at his daughter, his jaw muscles bulged against the language he wanted to use. Marnie brought her other hand up, gripped his other shoulder as well. "Tank wants to please, you know that." An impatient finger hit the cast aluminum button again, pushed hard, held it. "He'll be scenting and he'll be looking. You know him. He's a scent-and-sight hound, even if he does like to steal your socks." Linn closed his eyes, took a long breath, his hands crushing into shivering fists, the harness material of Tank's unused vest wadding up in his palms as he did. "He got the scent and he took out. He's like that. He's fast." "He's fast and we don't know where he is." Linn looked at Fitz. The German Irishman turned from the switch, strode across the firehouse: he shoved the latch with his thumb, swung the grey breaker box panel open, ran his eyes down the row of breakers. "You know how he hates the siren," Marnie continued. "Now let's get outside and listen." Marnie did not wait for her father's reply: she turned, raised her talkie, pressed the textured, flush-mountted transmit button on the side. "This is Mary Seven. All hands, now hear this. We're about to blow the fire whistle. When we do, listen and listen good. Tank will howl when he hears the siren. Get a bearing and report when we run the inventory, Mary Seven clear." Marnie thrust a boot into the black doghouse stirrup, swung onto her Daddy's black gelding, kneed him about, gigged him into a fast trot. When the fire whistle blew, she wanted to have some distance. As much as Tank hated that fire whistle, the gelding hated it more, and if she didn't have some distance, she'd have to play rodeo right in the middle of the street, and she didn't want to do that. Not with God and everybody watching. There was a brittle click as the breaker was turned back on, the sound of hurried steps crossing the bay floor. The German Irishman raised a hand, looked across the firehouse, cheerfully called "Fire In the Hole!" A little boy can cover a surprising distance, but a little boy at high altitude will wear out kind of quick. A little boy sat on a handy rock and threw his head back, breathing hungrily, laid back, leaned over, curled his legs up: the sun was warm, he was out of the wind and he felt half sick. A brown-black-and-tan Malinois cast back and forth on the depot platform, tail swinging: he pattered down the stairs, stopped, turned, nose in the air, tasting the wind. The Malinois turned his head, swung around, mouth open, tongue curled, the happy expression of a dog doing what he loved. He took off running, running toward a path he'd run before, a path that went up the side of the mountain. Tank had a snootful of scent, thanks to the coat held down for his inspection: he'd cocked his head a little and shoved his nose deep into the quilting, his tail whipping. The Sheriff rose, turned: they were outside the firehouse, the wind was carrying down the mountain, toward them, when Tank drove his muzzle deep into the coat, when he drew his head back, when he raised his muzzle, sniffing the air: Linn turned to pick up the canine vest, turned back. He saw the retreating backside of his K9 partner, full sprint, disappearing around the back of the firehouse. Marnie gripped the gelding's barrel, snatched off her uniform Stetson. If we're going to dance, damn you, I'll beat you to death with my hat! Midnight hated that tower mounted siren with a deep purple passion, and Marnie knew it: she felt like a condemned man must feel, strapped to a keg of powder, when the sizzling fuse just disappears into the keg, in that bright tenth of a second before detonation. The ancient, surplus, tower mounted air raid siren began to rotate, began to howl, began to scream: the timer was handmade and ancient, strips of curved copper driven by a washing machine motor, a V-belt and two pulleys: as long as the curved contact strips were touching the metallic brushes, the siren ran; the curved strips broke contact, the siren began coasting down, its alarming howl dropping in pitch, if not volume. Midnight shivered, danced a little, shook his head, muttering. "Don't you dare, damn you," Marnie snarled. Her head came up, as did her hand: she mashed her Stetson down on her heat, snatched the talkie free. "THIS IS MARY SEVEN. KILL THE SIREN, KILL THE SIREN, KILL THE SIREN!" She sat very straight, listened, turned her head a little, turned it back, smiled. "Gotcha." A little boy rubbed his eyes, confused. He had no idea where he was and he didn't have any idea why he was hearing a wolf howl, then he opened his eyes and there he was. Big and brown and black and tan, a wolf, big as he was, sitting there looking at him, right before he raised his muzzle and sang again. It was not the first time the wild song of a yellow eyed canid sang for the joy of singing, and it would not be the last, but it was the first time a little boy sat up, delighted, threw his head back and sang with him. Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller urged Midnight up the path, toward the Wildsong, toward a happy and somewhat discordant harmony. She raised the blocky talkie and pressed the textured, flush mounted transmit button. "Dispatch, this is Mary Seven. I believe we've found him." A little boy's mother would include the picture cut from The Firelands Gazette in a scrapbook. The picture was of a delighted looking little boy riding in front of a mounted Sheriff's deputy, with the deputy's jacket around him: the picture was taken quartering-on, from a little distance: it showed the shining-black horse, the laughing deputy, the delighted little boy with his arms thrown wide, and a black-brown-and-tan Malinois trotting along beside them, looking up at the mounted pair, mouth open in a doggy grin, curled tongue declaring his absolute happiness.
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