Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

GUESTING Linn's counterpart accepted the stone jug with a quiet, knowing smile. Father of the bride and father of the groom looked to the door of the man's study: the servant drew the doors shut, bowed as he backed out, left the two alone. "I have no idea," Linn said slowly, "what a proper gift might be, so I asked the Daine boys if they had any jugs of Uncle Will's Finest." Jacob's father in law smiled quietly: "If it's anything like our local product," he said, "I look forward to a touch. Will you join me?" "I will, thank you." Two glasses were produced; Linn watched with approval as the man worked the corn cob stopper loose, set it carefully aside, picked the jug up by its ring and dropped it over his bent elbow to decant two volumes: it was evident he was used to handling a jug, or at least had been, at one time. Two men raised their glasses in salute, two men considered the rose-colored payload that filled the glasses to the one-third mark -- again, Linn thought, a sign of the man's experience. They drank. Ruth's father closed his eyes and savored the sip, letting it scald the hair off his tongue, sterilize his tonsils and warm him clear down to his belt buckle, where it ignited a warm and comfortable fire in his boiler, so to speak. "Now that," he said with satisfaction, "is sippin' likker!" "We've a tribe of Kentucky mountain folk nearby," Linn said quietly. "Master gunsmiths, best craftsmen when it comes to wood work I've ever seen, and this" -- he swirled his glass a little -- "is another of their skills." "I've never had anything quite like it," McGillicuddy said thoughtfully. "Half and half moon likker and homemade wine. This batch was aged about 75 years." "I've never had its equal," McGillicuddy admitted. "Nor I," Linn admitted. "It's potent. Goes down like Mama's milk and blows the socks right off your feet." Two men laughed, raised their glasses to one another again, drank. Shelly's gift to her counterpart was equally ceremonial, but far more modest: a length of silk ribbon, a paper of pins, a pincushion with exactly 21 sewing needles, arranged in a precise circle. Why this was the proper greeting-gift, Shelly did not know, but she was most grateful to Jacob's wife Ruth for letting her know the propriety of this first meeting-gift. They'd met before -- it was a careful meeting, almost an overly cautious meeting, as it involved offworlders, and offworlders related to the Ambassador herself, friends to their own Ambassador: this meeting, after the first child established the fertile bond between their peoples, was considerably more relaxed. Neither Shelly Keller nor Mary Ruth McGillicuddy had any real liking for stiff formalities: after the ceremonial giving of ribboned pins and pincushion, the ladies sat down to talk as women will, to discuss their husband, to lean toward one another and share confidences: we will leave such matters to the ladies, for there are other activities to consider. There were horses on this world, as there were on nearly all the Confederate worlds; just as Jacob had his beloved stallion back on Earth, Ruth had her favorite mare here, but she also had her Papa's chestnut, a horse he forbade her to ride, as he raced the chestnut stallion on occasion. Ruth, of course, exercised a child's prerogative and rode the stallion at every opportunity, a fact her father politely ignored: Jacob admired this fine animal, regarded it with a horseman's eye, ran his hands over the stallion's neck, down his forelegs, examined the hooves -- he straightened quickly, shook a fist at the stallion's mischievous attempt at biting Jacob's backside -- Jacob ran his hands down the horse's flanks, turned with his fist up again as the stallion came around, made another try. Jacob shook his fist, frowned, set his heels: "Glue Hoof," he said warningly, "I'll knock you into the middle of next week!" The stallion's head came up with what looked to Jacob's amused bride, to be an expression of utter, equine, innocence. Jacob turned back to the horse, bent over, made to pick up the horse's hindhoof. The stallion's dentistry clamped shut with the speed of a striking viper -- Jacob straightened -- Ruth clapped her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide, surprised -- Her Papa's prized stallion had Jacob's bandanna in its teeth and was waving it triumphantly. Jacob planted his knuckles on his belt, his jaw thrust out, and he shook his Daddy-finger at the offending equine. "Youuu dooty rat," he said in a truly awful Jimmy Cagney voice, "Youuu dooty, dooty rat! I'd oughta give to you, see, nyaah, nyaah!" -- which prompted the stallion to turn and nudge its forehead into Jacob's chest, which prompted Jacob to rub the stallion under the jaw and around its ears, and elicited sounds from his beautiful bride somewhat reminiscent of a chicken laying a meteor. The corn cob was carefully replaced into the jug's glazed neck: each man agreed that a third of a glass was God's aplenty of Uncle Will's Finest. Shelly and Mary Ruth relaxed and fussed over their first grandchild, pink cheeked and healthy, bright-eyed and smiling: by the time Jacob and Ruth came back in, smiling, supper was almost ready, and it was a toss-up as to which grandfather was making a bigger damn fool of himself with the grandchild. Grandfathers do that.

Very definitely will stand up on my knees for her and for yourself both! Looking forward to your After Action Report!

TEAM FIRELANDS Marnie Keller flipped her twin braids over her shoulders with a quick twist of her head: she held out her hand, received the two rounds from a grinning, older man wearing a carpenter's apron bulging with shotshells, she thumbed them into the Ithaca's magazine. Marnie Keller set her saddle shoes at shoulder width, her left a little forward, she brought the red rubber recoil pad to the shoulder of her cheerleading sweater, and she smiled. "Pull," she said quietly. A claybird disappeared in a cloud of orange dust, bright against a cloudless blue sky. A second clattering thump behind her, another clay bird, sailing through the cloud of pulverized, baked predecessor: Marnie's Ithaca spoke again, another empty hull hit the ground, and a pale eyed high school freshman raised her shotgun's stubby muzzle to the vertical, turned and looked at her broadly grinning Daddy. There were twenty students on the line today: they'd reserved the range, they were competing to see who would go to the Regionals, and Marnie was first to shoot. She knew she'd have a few more rounds to go; like the other shooters, she waited until the last station shot, then they all turned and went back to let the next squad come forward. Marnie was shooting her Daddy's shotgun, the one he carrried in his cruiser: he told her it was a little long for her, and she hugged him and leaned the side of her head into his chest and said "Oh, Daddy," the way she did when she was wheedling him out of something, then she laughed and kissed his cheek and said, "If you'll screw the Modified tube in your shotgun, I'll bet you a hot fudge Sundae I can break twenty!" Now, when the first squad came off the line and the second squad came up, Marnie hung the shotgun, muzzle up, from its carrying strap on her left shoulder and stood beside her long tall Daddy. "Nice work," Linn murmured. "You didn't want to shoot your own gun today?" "Daddy's shotgun is lucky," Marnie smiled, and her ear pulled back a little as the Sheriff's talkie chimed the quick two-note repeater tone. Marnie's face went from happy and girlish to pale and solemn in a tenth of a second or less: she slipped the short shotgun from her shoulder, seized the choke tube wrench: she switched the Modified for the Improved Cylinder, which her Daddy preferred: the Sheriff was half-bent-over, noting information on his flipped-open pad that lived in his shirt pocket. Marnie snugged the choke tube, dropped the choke wrench back into the plastic tacklebox they kept extra tubes, parts, cleaning supplies and miscellaneous necessities: she shoved the magazine full of 00 buck, thumbing the last round into the magazine as her father reached for the gun. "Got to go, Princess," he murmured: "Be careful, Daddy," she replied, and watched as the Sheriff strode for his tan cruiser. Marnie picked up a gun case, unzipped it, gripped another shotgun by the hand-checkered wrist: she lifted the two-tone gun case free, draped it over the table, frowned as she read the stamp on the little flat on the exposed choke tube's knurled collar. Marnie slung this shotgun from her off shoulder, like she'd done with her Daddy's cruiser gun. It would be several minutes before her squad cycled back onto the line, so she leaned back against the heavy wooden table, a pretty high-school girl in her cheerleader's uniform. Mary Lou came over, stood beside her: like Marnie, she wore her pleated-skirt cheerleader's uniform; like Marnie, this one also employed a long sleeved sweater, worn over a white blouse; like Marnie's, she wore a gold pin on the top bar of the gracefully-curved script-F. Mary Lou's pin was a shotgun, in profile: Marnie wore the same shotgun, with a gold rifle on the second bar, and a gold pistol on the curved upright. "Did he take the bet?" Mary Lou asked hopefully. Marnie looked at her, smiling a little, the way two girls will when talking about boys or other girlish subjects: "He took the bet." "Good." Mary Lou smiled. "When he buys you a hot fudge Sundae, he buys for the team!" "But he only buys if I break twenty today." Mary Lou giggled, nudged her with an elbow, gave her another conspiratorial look. "Don't miss," she said, "I really want that hot fudge Sundae!" The Valkyries were not the only students competing to see who would go to Regional. Marnie's stiffest competition came from two upperclassmen, local boys with custom stocked over-and-unders: they'd worked and scraped and saved for these high grade trap guns, and an anonymous benefactor paid for custom fitting of Circassian walnut stocks: the boys had no idea who'd made the donation, and try as they might, they weren't able to find out. They had to satisfy themselves with expressing their thanks to their shooting coach. By the time Linn returned -- which was well into the afternoon -- he was just in time to see Marnie, on the line, her extended-magazine 870 stoked: he heard her quiet, confident, "Pull!" -- he saw the doubles sail out, saw the trap crew reset and throw without prompt: he knew Marnie was challenging herself, this was an optional stage, where twenty birds would throw out as fast as the loaders could cock the thrower and drop birds on, two and three at a time. Marnie's rhythm was steady, her aim unerring: her left hand had eyes -- she fired three times, loaded two into the magazine, fired twice, shoved in two more, then a third: her hand dropped from the loading gate, seized the fore-end: she breathed easily, she knew her pupils were dilated, it was all she could do to keep from quivering like a bird dog on point, waiting for the next salvo of clay birds to come sailing out. Linn leaned back against his cruiser, arms folded, smiling quietly: he nodded just a little, watching his daughter punish the sky with cloud after cloud of orange dust. Linn was not the only proud parent present. He was, however, the only one who caught his daughter, as she came running to him, shotgun slung over her off shoulder, screaming "Daddy, I did it, I did it, I did it!" as Linn caught her under the arms, swung her high in the air, dissipating her running momentum by spinning her around, his head back and laughing, Marnie's delight and wide eyes plain for the camera to see. That was the picture Bruce Jones caught for the Firelands Gazette's next issue: a pale eyed Sheriff, his uniform Stetson just falling off his head, his delighted daughter, pigtails flying, skirt flared, legs bent up behind her as her big strong Daddy whirled her around, and the shotgun carried by Marnie's Gammaw Willamina, slung over her shoulder, secure in spite of the triumphant hoist toward the blue heavens above: that afternoon, Team Firelands adjourned to the chrome-and-mirrors, 1950s-decor drugstore and ice cream parlor, and triumph was celebrated with chocolate hot fudge Sundaes, all around.

OLD NICK "I'll be damned," Marnie said softly. Dr. Greenlees joined his wife for lunch, and as was their habit, they sat side by side to catch up on news from home. Marnie was scrolling through the obituaries. "Anybody you know?" Dr. Greenlees murmured, leaning into his wife and running his arm around her back. Marnie purred and laid her head over on his shoulder. "I'll give you a week to stop that." Doc began scratching her back with long, practiced strokes: Marnie arched her back like a cat, snapped her head back, eyes closed as she savored the sensation of a skilled back scratching. "Purrrrrr," she said. "Oh, purrrrr." Doc Greenlees laughed, scratched a little more, rubbed her back with the flat of his palm. "It looked like you saw somebody you knew." "Yeah," Marnie said, almost drowsily: "Old Nick died, damn him!" "Who's Old Nick?" Marnie looked at her husband, tilted her head back, accepted his careful kiss, laid her head back over onto his shoulder. "He's one of the few people my Daddy ever really disliked!" Sheriff Linn Keller stepped in front of a man, pale eyes cold, his jaw set. "Nick." "Sheriff." "You went into Willy's employment." "So?" "You told him if you saw him with your wife, you'd take a shotgun and shoot him." Nick shifted his weight, his eyes shifting down and to the side, giving him all the sincere appearance of a gutter rat on a mission. "You left your wife, Nick. You're shacking up with a younger woman. That's your business. You threatened to kill a man. Now it's mine." Nick glared at the Sheriff, not daring to deny what the man apparently already knew. "I gave him orders, Nick. I told Willie if he sees you with a weapon, he is to shoot you dead on the spot. I'll see to it you're buried face down so you can see where you're going." "You can't do that!" "I've done it before," Linn said quietly. Nick's hand drifted backwards a little and a voice behind him said, "Don't," and there was the unmistakable triple-click of a revolver coming into battery. Nick was wise enough to freeze. Linn put him up against the nearest wall, pinned him with one ranch-hardened hand clamped around the back of the man's neck: he relieved him of a switchblade, snapped the blade open, then stuck the blade in a gap in the brickwork and broke it off. "You ever do that again and I'll shoot you myself," Linn said quietly. "Never reach for anything when you're talkin' to a lawman. You could have been shot just now and it would have been no-billed. You made what's called a furtive move, and with a knife in your hip pocket, why, the jury would say 'twas justified." Linn pulled him away from the wall, spun him around, slammed him against the brickwork, his hand hard on the man's windpipe. "You left a good woman," he said quietly, "you left the mother of your children and you're shackin' up with a sweet young thing. You have no claim on the woman you left. Willy didn't want to press charges but he did want to let me know what you said. You ever talk to him again, you go near him, if you survive I'll lock you up on as many charges as the law will tolerate." Marnie eased the hammer down on her Smith, holstered, fast up the thumb break on her floral carved holster. Linn released his tight grip on the man's throat. Nick's eyes swung over to Marnie, looked away: as hard as the Sheriff's eyes were, the sculpted ice of this Daughter of the Law, turned a coward's face from her as quickly as a grasping hand seizing him by the cheekbones and twisting his head. Marnie stood beside her Daddy as Nick walked quickly away, glancing over his shoulder at them as he did. "You don't like him," Marnie murmured. "I hate few things, Marnie," Linn replied, "but one of them is a coward, and he is King among the breed." "Did you know him?" Dr John asked as he rubbed his wife's shoulders, kneading the tension out of the base of her neck. "I knew him," she replied. "I take it you didn't like him." He felt her silent laughter, felt her lay her hand over his skilled fingers. "I had a chance to kill him once," she said, "and if I had a bushel basket of gold shekels, I'd pay the Witch of Endor to resurrect his miserable carcass so I could twist his head off and ball bat it over the backfield fence!"

POPEYE THE ROTT Michael fished in his coat pocket, pulled out a set of keys, opened the door. Two shining dark eyes and a wet nose greeted him. Michael shut the door behind him, locked it, fooled with the happy, tail-whipping Rottweiler. "Popeye, you wanta go ouuuut?" he asked, drawling the word out: Popeye, an aging, greying-muzzled Rottweiler, fake-sneezed loudly to emphasize that yes, his bladder was ready to bust, open that back door fast! Michael unlocked the back door, let Popeye out into the spacious, privacy-fenced back yard. His neighbor was still recovering from having most of one leg cut off, diabetic infection: the man's wife was spiraling down into Alzheimer's, she'd been taken away by squad and she was under a 72 hour mental health hold, somewhere. Michael knew Pete asked his Pa to have someone let his dog out, and Michael did, four times a day, and he stayed a bit and fooled with the sociable Rott. He also washed dishes, carried out the trash and mopped the kitchen linoleum, because Popeye tracked in mud that last trip out, and Pete's house was always tidy. Michael knew his Pa was a busy man -- hell, he was the Sheriff, he was always being called or asked or served or responding to this-or-that -- Michael took pains to tend what was needful, and when Pete asked his Pa to let Popeye out, Michael told his Pa he'd tend that detail, and did. Michael knew Jacob used to bring the tractor over and give the man's yard a haircut every Monday, like clock work, he'd more often than not bring a weed cutter and string trim where it was needful: Pete was diabetic and had trouble with his legs, and now he was healing up from an amputation. Michael took out his phone and took Popeye's picture, close-up and happy, sent it to Pete: the day before, he'd brought in the man's mail, laid it out on his kitchen table so the return addresses showed, one above the other, took that picture and sent him: he knew Pete's sister tended his bills these days, he knew Pete would instruct his sister according to the mail received. It was little enough he did, and Michael felt it wasn't enough, but short of moving in -- or taking Popeye home with him, which his mother allowed as she didn't want him to do -- well, he was doing the best he could. Michael changed which lights were on, with every visit, and he left the TV set on in the living room, to try and make it look like someone was home, and active, and once a week, he started Pete's pickup truck and let it idle, then he drove it to the end of the driveway and back, to keep things limbered up, keep seals from drying out, keep the battery charged. Michael sat down with Popeye, rubbing the old dog's chest, murmuring to him, calling him a good boy: Popeye licked Michael's chin, happily accepting the attention: Michael sat down on the backless sofa and Popeye piled up behind him, warm against his back, and Michael smiled a little. Few things feel quite as good as a sizable, happy-to-see-you dog, piled up against your tenderloins. "You're quiet tonight," Linn said softly. Michael looked up from his supper plate, his face solemn. "Yes, sir." "Story at eleven?" Linn asked. Young eyes watched them; Shelly considered the pale eyed father and the pale eyed son, and she knew from the gentleness in her husband's voice, that he was remembering the authoritarian nature of his own father. It was not the first time Shelly was most grateful Linn did not repeat the parenting mistakes that were made with him. "Sir," Michael said, "I've been doing my schoolwork over at Pete's." "Sounds like an efficient use of time." "Yes, sir," Michael agreed. "Popeye listens well." Linn nodded, forked up another stab of pot roast: he looked at Shelly, his eyes smilling. "That's good pot roast," he murmured, and Shelly warmed a little inside: Linn's mother made a truly superb pot roast, and for him to complement his wife's, was an achievement indeed. Linn looked back at Michael. "Are you doing memory work?" "We have to give a Shakespearean." "Takes practice," Linn agreed. "That's why I'm talking to my windshield when I drive. Helps me with degree work." "Yes, sir." "Popeye listens well?" "He does, sir, though when I'm working on algebra, he'll come along and nose my elbow 'cause he feels ignored." Linn chuckled. "I understand that one!" he said, nodding, then tore a roll in two, mopped his plate clean: he looked at Michael and said "It's impolite to mop your plate. Makes it look like you're still starved out, but your Mama's good cookin' is too good not to!" "Yes, sir," Michael agreed. "A man's character is revealed," Linn said slowly, "when he does the right thing when nobody's lookin'. I understand you keep Pete's house clean." "Yes, sir. Popeye has big paws and he tracks in mud." Linn nodded. "Nobody sees what you're doin'." "No, sir." "You know Pete doesn't have two nickels to rub together." "Yes, sir." "He's got nothing by way of worldly wealth." "No, sir." "He can't pay you for your efforts." "No, sir." "But you're still helpin' him out." "Yes, sir." "Michael," Linn said, looking very directly at his son, and knowing full well that younger ears were listening, younger eyes were watching, "you reveal your character by these things. You are doing it right, and I am proud of you." Michael's grin was quick, genuine. "Thank you, sir." Linn leaned back as Shelly and one of the girls collected their plates, as a slice of fresh baked chocolate cake descended to the tabletop before him. Further conversation was suspended in favor of dessert.

TWO ANGELS AND A HORSE His given Christian name was Victor, but everyone knew him as Hoghead: matter of fact, the wanted dodger in the Sheriff's saddlebag was headed with the black blocky letters, WANTED: HOGHEAD MATTHEWS, followed by a poor rendering of the man's likeness, a physical description: his crimes were listed, the reward was named. The Sheriff knew Hoghead was somewhere close. He'd been tracking him, and his son Jacob was tracking his little girl Angela, who'd wandered off from her horse high up and by now was who-knows-where, chasin' butterflies or birdies or picking flowers, the way happy little girls will. The Sheriff was a patient man, but part of him wanted to swat her little bottom for wandering off and leaving her saddlehorse like that. Hoghead's knuckles were scarred, his face was dirty and stubbled, and he'd just swallowed the last of his coffee. It was cold, it was bitter, but it was his, and now it was gone. Just as well, the bottom was burnt out of his coffee pot and the only way he had any left was because the pot sat crooked near the fire and it all didn't leak out the rotted out seam. Hoghead's expression was sour, he had scars visible and otherwise, and he knew the Law was after him: could he but make the Nations, he'd be safe. He'd managed to get himself gloriously lost, shaking the skilled pursuit: he'd gone into the mountains, he'd worn out one horse, stole another from a remote cabin, left the exhausted nag in its place: hardly a fair trade, he knew, but he wasn't going to go concerning himself with fairness when 'twas his neck Hangin' Judge Hodson wanted to stretch. Hoghead stood up and froze. A little girl with bright blue eyes, a little girl in shining slippers and a frilly, little-girlish frock smiled at him, tilted her head: she looked for all the world to this staring, astonished outlaw, as if she were smiling at a favorite grandfather. "Hello," she said, waving a little pink hand, and Hoghead realized ... it had been a very long time ... a very long time! -- since he saw anything as pink, as pure, as ... clean ... as the palm of this little girl's hand, raised in greeting. He raised his own hand, almost ashamed at his unwashed condition. "My name's Angela," she said, tilting her head and looking absolutely charming and innocent, "an' my horse is losted." Hoghead expected a lawman, Hoghead expected a bounty hunter, Hoghead expected ... anything ... but this. Ol' Hog went slowly to one knee, openly staring, his mouth open: he finally said, "What are you doin' clear out here, little lady?" Angela giggled, clasped her hands in front of her, turned her shoulder bashfully toward him, rotated left and right the way a giggly little girl will do: her skirts swung and flared a little, and a very dim memory of his own little sisters swam closer to the surface, and this hard man -- this outlaw, whose profession was to take what was others' and to hurt anyone who tried to stop him -- this man with a soul as stained as his unwashed hands, felt himself soften a bit at the sight, the sound, of this smiling little child. Jacob Keller followed Angela's mare's tracks. He cursed himself for ever saddling the mare for his little sis. He'd taken pains to shorten the stirrups for her, he'd made sure the saddle pad was just right, the saddle was screwed down snug, he'd hoisted Angela up onto the placid old mare's back. He thought he was going to walk around the corral, maybe out into the field, leading the old veteran nag by the cheekstrap, but the moment Angela got settled in and found both stirrups, the mare bunched up and shot ahead, driving for the far fence like a dapple-grey arrow. Jacob curled his lip and whistled, seized saddleblanket and saddle, and for the first time that day -- very definitely not the last -- damned himself for seven kinds of a careless fool! Jacob never claimed to be an expert tracker. He'd heard the town's attorney, Mr. Moulton, offer the studied opinion that "An ex is a has-been, and a spurt is a drip under pressure" -- he never forgot the lawyer's definition of an expert -- but fair is fair, he was pretty damned good at following someone who didn't want to be followed. Macneil was long dead, and the world was a poorer place for it, but before the man died, he'd taken a liking to Jacob and taught him what to look for, and how to look for it. Jacob's pale eyed Pa was good. Jacob was better. He urged his stallion ahead, following his little sister's mare's trail. "What kind of horse do you have, little lady?" Hoghead asked carefully. "She's losted," Angela sighed with a dramatic rise and drop of her shoulders. "Your ... mare ... is lost." Angela nodded, her big blue eyes wide and sincere. "But you're not." Angela shook her head, then swung her entire body again: she extended her arms and spun around like a dancer, and Hoghead remembered his own sisters doing that very thing, when he was still a boy at home. The thought of a fresh horse overrode any altruism, and his sneaky nature came to the fore. A trusting child, a fresh horse? My lucky day! "Let's find your mare," Hoghead said, and Angela's smile was sunrise-bright as she happily piped, "O-kay!" Jacob rode quicker now, as the trail was plain -- that his, he rode until his horse stopped abruptly and he realized his attention had been too much on puzzling out tracks and not enough ahead. A horse stood crossways of Angela's mare's faint hoofprints, and on the horse, a stranger. "Mister," Jacob said, "I'm lookin' for my little sister. She's on a dapple grey mare --" "You can't have her," the man interrupted. Jacob's eyes went dead pale: Apple-horse threw his head to the side as Jacob's right-hand Colt whispered from carved leather and chuckled to itself as it rolled into battery. "I'll have her," Jacob said, his voice tight: "you can stand aside or I can kill you or take you to jail." "You will do nothing of the kind," the man said, dismounting and opening his coat. "I'm not armed." Jacob holstered his revolver. "Mister, I'm a Firelands County deputy Sheriff, and my little sister is lost. You can get out of my way or I can get you out of my way." "How?" The man's insolent smile, the sneer in his voice, triggered Jacob's young pride. He swung down, unbuckled his gunbelt and hung it over his saddle horn: righteous anger fired his boiler and he paced forward. The stranger was fast: Jacob was faster, he slipped his head to the side and missed the punch, drove a quick one-two into the man's ribs, stepped back, blocked a punch: he seized the wrist, twisted, tried to down him with leverage. The man drove a fist into Jacob's wind, broke his grip: they separated, Jacob fought to get air back into his lungs. The pair crouched, then drove into one another again: Jacob's boot heel caught the man squarely on the kneecap, he seized the stranger by the throat and the crotch, hauled him off the ground, slammed him down, hard. Sheriff Linn Keller heard a familiar voice -- Angela? He dismounted, dropped the bitless reins, his golden stallion obediently halting: the big Palomino blinked sleepily, looking bored, looking like he might drop his head and take a nap. Linn catfooted around a rock, saw the man he was looking for, saw his daughter, still out of his arm's reach. Linn's left hand Colt was in his hand, the sound of its cocking lost in his challenging shout: "HOGHEAD! THIS IS SHERIFF KELLER! HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE 'EM! ANGELA, BACK UP!" Hoghead weighed his chances. He'd never met that pale eyed lawman with the iron grey mustache, but he'd heard plenty about him, and he knew the little distance between himself and this pretty little girl was not enough to keep him from inheriting a thumb sized slug between the shoulder blades -- knowing that pale eyed old lawman, likely it would be through the back of his head! -- Hoghead raised his hands, slowly, waited. "Angela, back up." Angela looked disappointed. "Okay, Daddy," she said in a small, little-girl's voice. Angela turned, dejected, head down, her bottom lip pooched out and nearly down to her belly button, or so it seemed from her expression, then she looked up, brightened. Her mood went from sorrow to joy in a tenth of a second or less. "Dapple!" Jacob crouched a little, and so did the stranger. Civilization was gone, manners and gentility did not exist: here were two warriors, each intent on besting the other: Jacob, fueled by a young man's rage, against this stranger who refused to stand aside. Mighty blows they gave, and took: each grappled, seized, threw, punched, kicked: finally they drew a little apart. "Enough," the stranger said. Jacob felt one eye swelling almost shut: he wiped the back of a bent wrist across his agonized nose, realized from the bright burst of pain it was likely broken: his ribs hurt and he knew they'd hurt worse later, but he was warmed up and his blood sang with the joyful rage of a young man at war who knew he was absolutely in the right! The stranger looked no better: Jacob had genuinely taken his measure, and Jacob heard ribs crack when he drove his elbow into them, or his boot heel, he was satisfied the man's knee should have broken when he drove the stacked-leather heel hard into the kneecap. "You fight well," the stranger said: he wiped a hand across his own face, and the damage was gone: he straightened, all sign of injury, of exertion, just ... gone. The stranger took a step toward Jacob, took another. Jacob could not move. The stranger's hands were feather-light as they passed across his face, down his ribs: everywhere he'd taken a blow, the hands passed over, the pain disappeared: Jacob's eye wasn't feeling swollen, his cheekbone -- he thought he heard a crack when he got hit below the eye -- there was no pain. The stranger stepped back. "You fought for your sister," the stranger said. Jacob could move again. He reached up, touched his nose with the backs of two fingers. No pain, he thought. He looked at his bent fingers. No blood. "You did not fight for yourself," the stranger said. "You fought to keep your sister safe. You knew you could not do that until you found her." Jacob turned his head a little, eyes locked on the stranger, debating whether to go for the gunbelt still hung over Apple-horse's saddlehorn. The stranger changed, Apple-horse screamed, Jacob seized his stallion's cheekstrap and was hauled off the ground for his troubles. "How's for coffee?" Linn asked in a mild voice. Hoghead's hands were still up, shoulder high: he looked warily at the pale eyed lawman. "M' pot's rusted out," he admitted, "an' I run plumb out of coffee." Linn nodded. "I've enough for two. Angela?" Angela came scampering past Hoghead -- out of arm's reach -- she ran over to her Daddy, hugged his leg happily, looked up with an absolutely adoring expression. "Angela, if I fetch out the coffee pot, could you get us some clean water?" "Okay, Daddy!" she piped, her voice as happy as her beaming expression. Linn looked at Hoghead. "Stand easy," he said, "and don't go anywhere." Hoghead stared as the lawman went back to his saddlebags. Likely going to get a set of irons, he thought, I'll fight him then, I've got a knife and a hideout gun. The Sherff untied a canvas poke behind his off saddlebag, pulled out a blue-granite coffeepot and handed it to his little girl, who ran happily downhill to where a stream bent against the rock. "Stoke up the fire," Linn said quietly, tossing ol' Hog a cloth wrapped bundle. Hog caught it, smelled it, looked up, surprised. "Ground that one yesterday morning." Linn's face was unsmiling, but Hoghead heard no threat in the man's voice. Linn used a stick to shift one of the fire rocks, brought the little blue granite pot to level: he opened the cloth bundle -- it contained two smaller bundles -- he untied the smaller bundle, dumped it into the cold water. "Ground eggshells," he explained, seeing Hog's eye catch a glimpse of small white particles falling into the pot. "Helps settle the grounds." "My Mama used to do that," Hog said slowly. Linn went back to his stallion, back into the cloth poke, pulled out two tin cups: he got into the saddlebag, fetched out the wanted dodger, brought it back. "Can you read?" "I can read." Linn handed him the dodger. Hoghead read it, read it again, stared at the poor quality engraving of a man's face. "That don't look like me," he said. "No it don't," Linn admitted. "How do you know I'm him?" Linn's pale eyed glare was answer enough. Hoghead looked at the wanted poster again, stopped at the bottom. "Hodson," he grunted. "Hangin' Judge Hodson," Linn echoed. "I'm not takin' you there." Hoghead's surprise was genuine as he looked up at the Sheriff. "We're goin' back to Firelands. Food's better, the bunk doesn't have bugs and Judge Hostetler is a fair man." Linn was good at reading men, and he read relief in Hoghead's shoulders as they sagged just a little. Two men drank scalding coffee on a mountain trail while a pretty little blue-eyed girl watched them, hugging her knees under the drape of her skirt. Jacob seized his screaming fear, his hand flat on the Appaloosa's neck: with word and with caress, he calmed the stallion, and the stallion, with the familiar voice and the familiar touch, calmed enough not to haul Jacob off the ground again and drag him along behind like a black-suited kite tail. Jacob turned to what used to be a man: he buckled the gunbelt around his middle, looked very directly at this terrifying vision, all eyes and wings and light. "You're an angel," Jacob said -- a statement, not a question. Yes. The voice was little more than a whisper, heard in his mind and not with his ears. "You were sent to delay me." Yes. "Is my little sister safe?" Jacob had the momentary vision of his little sister, looking with interest at his father and another man, drinking coffee beside a small, smokeless fire. "Will she remain safe?" Yes. Apple-horse pulled, hard, his eyes walling: he was dancing, clearly unhappy, and suddenly this terrifying apparition with more eyes and more wings than Jacob could easily count, just ... ... disappeared ... ... and Apple-horse stopped fighting. Jacob stood, staring at where the angel had been, then out of habit he looked to the ground for tracks. He saw Angela's mare's prints -- here, one track, where the sand was pocketed, and there, where the steel shoe scarred a rock -- Jacob stepped into the stirrup, followed the tracks, considering he was pretty damned lucky this fellow didn't put his hip out of joint. "You realize," Hoghead said, "the man you're after is dead." "Which one?" Linn grunted. Hoghead set the cup down, smiled, stood. "Thank you for the coffee," he said, and he disappeared. Linn blinked, looked around, looked at his little girl, who was looking up at a shallow angle, smiling as if hearing something very pleasing. Jacob met his father and his baby sister riding toward him. Each stopped, each looked long at the other. "Sir," Jacob said, "have you noticed anything ... unusual?" "Daddy was tested!" Angela's voice was almost joyful in its certainty. Father and son turned and regarded the pretty little girl as she walked her mare between the two lawmen, stopped. "Daddy could have shotted the man 'cause the poster said dead or alive but he didn't. He made coffee." Jacob looked at his little sister, raised an eyebrow. "Daddy could have taken him back to the bad judge that likes to hang people but he was gonna take him to Judge Hots-tetler 'cause Judge Hots-tetler is fair!" Angela emphasized the word fair! with an emphatic nod of her head, setting her curls a-bounce as she did. "An' den da Angel disappeared!" Angela's words were almost a happy shout, and she spread her arms overhead as if to illustrate the burst of a great soap-bubble. "Angel," Jacob said slowly. "Jacob, what did you see?" the Sheriff asked, and Jacob smiled with half his mouth and said "I reckon I could ask the same thing, sir, but you asked first, so here's what happened."

... exactly right ... at a raised volume, including certain Anglo-Saxon labiodental fricatives ...

... and this is why we have safety briefs ...

THE CONSULT Michael turned to one of several references stacked on the desk top. His Geneva Bible was open, he had a legal pad beside it, he had multiple other volumes at hand: a concordance, a Strong's, a couple others: most had bookmarks sprouting from between their pages. He'd been working on this, when he wasn't tending chores, for about three days. Like his pale eyed Pa, this pale eyed son of the Keller line seized on an idea, and he was chewing on it, determined not to let go until he found the answer he was looking for. One of his younger sisters -- Victoria, twin to his younger brother -- came up the stairs, silent in sock feet: she came over to his desk, tilted her head, regarded Michael with concern. "You okay?" she asked in a tentative little voice. Michael blinked, leaned back, rubbed his eyes: he twisted one way, twisted another. Victoria winced to hear the cartilaginous complaints from her big brother's spine. Michael scooted back, leaned forward, took his Baby Sis's hands and smiled, just a little. "You know what?" he asked in a gentle voice. Victoria looked at him with wide, wondering eyes. "What?" Michael laughed a little. Victoria smiled: Michael laughed like her Daddy laughed, quietly, as if it were a secret between the two of them. "I'll tell you what," Michael said softly. "It's good to look at something other than print!" Victoria wasn't quite sure what to make of his pronouncement, but she squeezed his hands just a little anyway. Michael stood. "I need to make a consult," he said, emphsizing the first syllable. "What's a con-sult?" "It's what doctors do when they need a second opinion. They'll call up another doctor and say 'I need a consult.' " "Oh." Vickie considered this, then tilted her head curiously and asked, "Who will you con-sult?" Michael smiled, stood, reached for his rifle. "Gammaw." A young man in a faded Carhartt coat and a Stetson, and a pretty young girl on the buggy seat beside him, wrapped up in a quilt and leaned happily against her Big Brother's solid shoulder, rattled up the hand-laid brick driveway that curved around the hillside, their carriage passing under the cast-iron arch that said FIRELANDS CEMETERY, the chestnut mare head-bobbing as she towed the shining, pinstriped carriage up and into the family section. Victoria was too young to understand that her big brother was being very considerate. When she said she wanted to go with him, he could have dropped her behind his saddle and ridden up -- at risk of comments of impropriety, a pretty little girl in a pleated skirt, riding astride, her bare legs stuck out in the late December wind and getting cold: no, he took the trouble to harness up their carriage-mare, to make sure the tuck-and-roll upholstered seat was wiped free of any dust, he brought up a step-stool so she could climb into the carriage without difficulty, he wrapped her in the quilt the kept for that purpose,and they drove the short distance to the cemetery. Michael drew the mare to a halt and set the brake: he reached up, took his Baby Sis under the arms and swung her down, then he reached in, retrieved his rifle, eared the hammer back and checked the chamber, then thumbed the hammer down to half cock. Two pale eyed Keller grandchildren walked up to a polished quartz tombstone that bore a six point star, and a woman in an oval, laser-engraved portrait. "Gammaw," Michael said, going to one knee, his rifle's butt grounded and the octagon barrel to the vertical, "I've been studying death." Victoria looked around, wandered toward a rose on another stone: bright, scarlet, almost shining, it appeared fresh-cut: she picked it up, smiled at drops of morning dew beaded on its soft, fragrant petals: she closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, then giggled as the petals tickled her little pink nose. "I love roses," a gentle voice said, and Victoria opened her eyes and smiled into another set of pale eyes. "You grew this?" she asked. "I had something to do with it," the woman smiled. Victoria tilted her head, regarded the woman's shining emerald gown, the ruby-set brooch at her throat. "You look like Daddy's picture of Sarah McKenna," she said, and the woman laughed quietly. "We're related," came the smiling admission, then she swung her wise, pale eyes over to the young man, down on one knee at a grave, talking to the tombstone. "Michael wants to know something." "Oh?" "I don't know what," Victoria admitted with the innocent candor of the very young. "He's been studying lots of books." "He certainly has," the woman in the emerald gown agreed. "Let's go see if we can help him." Victoria took the woman's warm, gloved hand and the pair walked over to the grave. Michael looked up, surprised, then rose, removed his Stetson: the woman swept her skirts under her and sat on the tombstone. Victoria held out her flower. "Look, Michael, a rosie!" and the woman laughed a little. "Gammaw?" Michael asked, surprised. "It would not be polite to sit on someone else's tombstone, now, would it?" she smiled. "You have a question, Michael." "Yes, ma'am." Michael frowned, his bottom jaw sliding out a little as he did. The pretty woman with pale eyes looked at Victoria and said quietly, "He looks so very much like his father, doesn't he?" and Victoria nodded, wide-eyed and solemn. "Ma'am ... I'm trying to learn about death." "Oh, now, there's a subject men have been trying to learn about forever," the pretty woman said. "Gammaw, is Death a person?" She smiled, just a little. "No," she replied. "Death is not a person." "Oh." Michael looked disappointed. "You were going to hunt him down and kill him." "Yes, ma'am." "It's been tried, but nobody could find him. Death is not a person, Michael, it is a conditions, and it comes to us all." Michael looked disappointed. "I understand you've been doing considerable research on the subject." "Yes, ma'am." She held out her hand: Michael parked his Stetson over his rifle's muzzle, took her hand. She's warm, she's real, he thought. She's not a ghost. She looks just like Gammaw. "Michael, my father told me when I was younger than your sister here, that all the world's knowledge is contained in books. I love books and I love reading. You are learning from your research." She nodded slowly, approvingly. "Michael, you are very much the gentleman, and that is most worthwhile." "Thank you, ma'am," he said, genuinely flattered. "You took the trouble to harness up the carriage rather than make your sister ride double." "Yes, ma'am. I didn't want her getting cold." Michael felt a wave of matronly approval wash over him as pale eyes regarded him closely: as pale as the woman's eyes were, they were filled with grandmotherly warmth. "Now I can't guarantee I'll be able to see you every time you have a question," she said, "but I can guarantee that researching a subject will get answers." "Yes, ma'am." The woman stood. Michael looked very directly at her. "Ma'am," he said, "are you our Gammaw Willamina?" The woman squatted quickly, looked at the oval portrait, looked at the tall boy with a Winchester rifle and a double handful of curiosity. She smiled, looked down beside her as a great, furry, white, lupine head shoved itself under her gloved hand. "The White Wolf," Michael breathed, and the woman smiled: she faded, and there was a corkscrew wisp of fog where the wolf had been a moment before, and then the twist of fog sank into the ground and was gone. Brother and sister looked at one another. "Sis," Michael said, "do you suppose Mama has some hot chocolate at the firehouse?" Victoria looked at him and smiled the brilliant smile of a delighted little girl: she held the rose up under her nose again and closed her eyes, inhaled, savoring the scent, then scampered, giggling, toward the carriage.

"AND HE MADE 'EM NOT!" Shelly Keller was a paramedic. Shelly Keller was used to thinking fast and performing under pressure. Shelly Keller was a dancer, and a good one. Shelly Keller was a wife and a mother, and very good at responding to the unexpected, especially when her husband's arm snaked around her belly, pulled her back, hard: she seized the back of a passenger-car seat as Linn twisted past her, blocking the aisle, a tenth of a second before multiple concussions slammed her entire living soul. When the gunfire started, Shelly let go of the seat, fell back, the twins falling with her. The stolen car, abandoned, still rolling, coasted into a utility pole, knocking it over: wires snapped, fell, the car rolled forward more slowly, its doors open, until it crunched into the corner of one of the buildings, stopped, airbags blasting out into the empty cabin, and collapsing just as fast. Nobody got a good look at whoever abandoned the car and took out running. The conductor didn't get much of a look at them either. The conductor turned as running feet hit the steps, as a frantic face shoved through the open door, as something black came down on the side of the conductor's shiny-billed cap. The conductor's world turned into a pained burst of bright light as he fell, hit the floor. He was only vaguely aware of being stepped on by a running foot. Linn turned. A little girl saw the Sheriff move faster than she'd ever seen him move: his coat spun open and his hand knifed under the flared fabric and she clapped her hands to her ears, her quick young mind knowing that very bad things were about to happen: her eyes were wide and fascinated, and her young heart quickened, in this bright tenth of a second before reality shattered, and she felt -- momentarily, quickly, fleetingly, with the instantaneous realization of the very young -- excited! Linn's arm thrust around his wife's belly, pulled hard as he twisted sideways, then back, squaring off with the threat, blocking the aisle with his discreetly-armored body. His eyes were the color of a glacier's heart and his face was tight, pale, looking like parchment stretched over a skull: war sang in his heart and he was ready to sell his soul at a very high price in order to keep his wife and their twins behind her, safe. Linn saw the hand descending for the pistol shoved into the waistband. Linn's hand was welded crushing-tight around the black-polymer handle of his issue sidearm. His tunnel vision microscoped down to the threat and he saw the threat-hand grip the threat-weapon and his pistol fired and his vision suddenly widened and he looked up and saw another weapon and his pistol fired and he saw the head snap back and the third one, the one behind, turned and ran, thrusting a pistol toward the Sheriff and firing and the Sheriff fired once and the third in line went down and Linn lowered his pistol to the first one and he saw his sights, bright, clear, highly detailed, he could have counted the serrated lines on the back of his front sight. The first felon was only just hitting the floor. Linn saw bright blood, saw the felon's hand was shattered, saw the handle of the pistol he'd grasped was bloody and busted and he took a step forward, looked at the other two and counted them dead, no threat. Sheriff Linn Keller realized his body was SCREAMING with adrenaline, he realized he was running about ninety miles an hour inside, he deliberately seized his manic and shoved it into an iron kettle and screwed the lid down tight. A little girl with bright eyes and both hands over her ears watched the Sheriff take several deep breaths, then she saw his deathly pale face color and darken and she put her hands tighter over her ears 'cause she knew he was gonna get mad and he was gonna get real loud. The little girl was right. "STAY DOWN, DAMN YOU!" he roared, and his angry shout was clearly heard by the staring, startled folk on the depot platform. "NOBODY SHOOTS MY WIFE!" One week to the day earlier, Sheriff Linn Keller practiced that very move that kept his wife alive in the passenger train car. He'd had no idea fleeing felons would abandon a stolen vehicle, would flee for the nearest refuge, he'd no notion a'tall they would run for the passenger car of the Z&W Railroad, that they would board it, intending -- Intending what? Doesn't matter. They were fleeing pursuit. They were unlawfully armed. Unlawful flight, under arms, aggravated specification, automatic prison term. Add additional charges for Aggravated Stupidity. He knew he had 72 hours before he had to make a statement; he had that long to decompress, to allow the investigators time to gather witness statements, to download surveillance, to take their measurements and make their ballistic comparisons, to get statements from the surviving felon. Sheriff Linn Keller gave himself Administrative Leave for those 72 hours, during which he consulted with legal counsel, during which he rode to the far corners of his ranch, during which he made extremely precisely fitted repairs on the wooden section of his corral fence: the State investigators knew the man and they knew how absolutely hard headed he was, and they knew if they pressed him to make a statement before 72 hours was up, they'd run squarely into a stone wall. Linn's statement, when he made it, was concise, it was complete, and it was given in the same passenger car, sidelined and sealed until the investigation was finished: he ran through it with dummy pistols that fired paint capsules, he had two assistants in padded suits and visored helmets, and he walked the investigation team through the event according to his memories. He was, of course, no-billed; the Sheriff returned to work, sauntering in the front door as he did every day, as casual as if nothing exciting ever happened. Sharon looked up, smiled. "Welcome back, Boss, coffee's hot." "Bless you darlin'," Linn grinned, "I love you from the bottom of my heart." He winked and added, "I've got two other girls in the top!" Sharon stuck her tongue out, stuck her thumbs in her ears and waggled her fingers: Linn laughed and headed for the coffee pot. He drew a mug of hot and steaming, and he looked into its shimmering black depths, and he remembered. He remembered setting up rows of folding chairs, with an aisle down between them. He remembered practicing with an assistant, swinging his arm around his helper, thrusting forward, firing the practice pistol at the cardboard silhouette. He'd recruited one of the high-school Valkyries -- he'd specifically asked for a Judo-trained Valkyrie, on the theory that they know how to fall without being hurt, and knowing his practice would progress to full-speed and full-power -- he stared into the steaming mystery of his coffee mug, and he remembered a high-school Valkyrie who knocked on his door, all pigtails and cheerleader's uniform and solemn expression, and he remembered how surprised he felt when she seized him in a surprisingly strong hug and whispered in his ear, "The bruises were worth it!" -- then she let go and ran back to the waiting car, and he stood there with his teeth in his mouth, wondering what the hell just happened. He remembered at the inquest, how a little girl in a ruffly dress marched up to the Judge and declared in the high, pure voice of a little child, "I saw it too! I wanna testify!" Her mother, red-faced, started across the floor, stopped when His Honor raised his gavel and shook his head. "Young lady," the Judge said solemnly, "please take the stand. Bailiff, please swear in the witness." Linn smiled a little as he heard her little-girl voice again, stored between his ears, and he bit his bottom lip as she declared, with an emphatic nod and the absolute certainty of a little child, "The Shewiff said nobody shoots his wife an' he made 'em not!"

AN EVENING, JUST BEFORE SUNSET Ambassador Marnie Keller smiled a little as she dropped a birdshot round into the open chamber, ran the fore-end firmly forward, thumbed the magazine full, took her stance. The Ambassador was, to be honest, a fine looking woman: she moved with a feminine grace, she was modestly gowned, gloved, she wore her hair elaborately upswept, with a fashionable little hat pinned in place: she was -- obviously, very obviously -- all woman, and at the moment, she had what her pale eyed Daddy referred to as one of the Working Tools of This Degree in her gloved hands. She shouldered the twelve-gauge, took a practice swing, lowered the gun's muzzle, and smiled. "Pull." She heard the thump-rattle of the thrower behind her, the claybird was only just into view and it disappeared in an orange cloud of orange powder. "Give me a double," she called as the smoking empty bounced to the hard ground underfoot. "Pull!" Marnie scored a left-and-a-right, shoved three through the loading gate, her trigger finger stiff alongside the receiver as she did. "Smoked 'em," a voice murmured, and Marnie smiled, just a little, took a long, cleansing breath. "Load the second thrower, give me two doubles." She waited for the boy to call "Ready" before she called for the birds. Four clouds of dust spread against a fiery sky, streaked with all the glories of a truly beautiful sunset. Marnie called for singles, until her gun was dry: she slid the twin to the riot gun she carried as a deputy, into its gun case, zipped it shut, slung the gun case over her off shoulder. She turned, regarded the glorious horizon, the second moon, nodded. "I needed this," she said softly. Michael Keller drew his left hand revolver, punched the blued-steel gun muzzle toward a number 2 tin can: the mechanism rolled smoothly under his finger's command, a puff of dust squirted into the air where the .22 Short hit the bare dirt. A minor correction and he put five into the can, hip shooting. Michael pulled the revolver in close, quickly smacked out the empties, dropped in a fresh cylinder full. Like his pale eyed Pa, he was particular about his hardware. He wore a matched pair of .22 revolvers, he'd worked with a gunsmith of their acquaintance until each had an identical weight of pull as the other, until each action mirrored the other: he still had them engraved, so he wore one on the left -- always -- and one on the right -- always. Ideally, he'd like to've had a matched set in .22, .32, .38 and .44, but he was also practical: thus far, he had the rimfires, with a five inch barrel, and he had a brace of .357s, in five inch, all adjustable sight, all engraved with gold inlaid into the engraving. It took effort and it took patience but he'd ended up with four revolvers that balanced the same, weighed very nearly the same, pointed the same: Michael, not yet able to grow a lip broom, several years yet from his Age of Majority, was an accomplished pistolero, a crack rifle shot, and just as absolutely bad wing shot as his pale eyed father. He did well enough if a bird surprised him: the day before he'd taken two as they flew up, he'd reacted without thought, he'd shouldered the gun and fired on the rise, the feathered meal fell from the sky -- but put him ahead of a clay pigeon trap and he was utterly incompetent. His sisters were artists with a scatter gun. Both Marnie and Angela were absolutely deadly with a shotgun, and he was content to grant them their expertise. Michael policed up his brass, dumped the little brass empties in a little plastic bag he'd scavenged from the trash can, dropped this in the well-ventilated tin can and packed them out, leaving nothing but boot prints when he rode off for home. Michael drew up when he came to the saddle, eyes busy: like his pale eyed Pa, he took pains to look for possibilities: it was possible that someone could wish him harm, and it was possible someone could try to waylay him on his return home, and he looked for this possibility. Twice his vigilance prevented what his pale eyed Pa would've called "A Misunderstanding" -- Michael's vigilance meant he'd intercepted the trespassers, rather than them intercepting him, and his approving Pa spoke afterward of Michael's vigilance. Tonight, with the sun going down, there appeared no threats, and so Michael allowed himself the admiration of a truly glorious sunset, with mountains tearing at the fiery clouds with jagged granite teeth. His smile never traveled beyond the corners of his pale eyes, but it was there: he took a long breath of the cold mountain air, then eased his Apple-horse ahead, and steered a course for home. Angela Keller stood on the roof of her hospital, looked tiredly at the sunset. Coffee steamed in its foam cup in her left hand; she sipped it thoughtfully as the doctor came up behind her, beside her. "I never get tired of this," she said softly. "The sunset?" "Mmm." Angela sipped again, swallowed. "The Master's hand." She felt the man's smile. "That was a good save, earlier." "Which one?" He laughed silently. "You were a paramedic, weren't you?" "Still am." "Thank God for it." "I had a nursing instructor who didn't like the fact that I showed up for my first day of nursing school in my medic's uniform. She sniffed as if at a bad odor and said that when I wear the shoes of an EMT, I am merely an EMT, and when I wear the shoes of a nurse, I am only a nurse." Angela sipped again. "The next day I wore my Sheriff's uniform to class." "What did she say?" "Their legal counsel had to have a talk with her. She didn't like me very much after that." "I think you set some kind of a record yesterday. You Heimliched an airway in the cafeteria, you delivered a baby out front when the car came screaming in sideways, and you had a CPR save ten minutes later in the front lobby." Angela drained her coffee, sighed. "I don't know which is better," she said softly. "This sunset, or this coffee." She turned, tilted her head a little, regarded the man with a frankly appraising expression. "You don't get enough credit," she said. "You keep up a practice and you're still the chief administrator." He nodded, swirled the dregs of his coffee. She patted his shoulder. "I want to keep you around for a while," she said softly, then headed for the roof access door. He turned and watched her go. It wasn't until the heavy steel door closed behind her that he realized ... He felt like a bashful kid again.

A SHERIFF'S QUESTION Jacob held his freshly-changed, just-fed, warmly-wrapped infant son and eased himself down in his favorite chair. He studied the tiny face, considered the tousled hair (what little there was), and he carefully, gently, unwound blanket enough to allow one tiny little hand to come into view. He slipped his finger into this little pink grip, and he felt the corners of his eyes tighten a little as the child gripped his Pa's finger. He felt his wife's eyes upon him, knew she was smiling quietly ... her smile was different somehow ... he remembered that shining, bright smile of the maiden she'd been, the blushing, almost bashful smile of the newlywed she'd become, and now, now when he looked at her, she looked ... well, motherly. Jacob studied that little pink hand and dismissed the momentary side tracking thought. Likely that much was his own wild imagination. He looked up. Ruth's head was tilted to the side and she was looking with open affection at her husband and their infant son. "Consider his hands," Jacob almost whispered, knowing his wife's hearing was excellent: "I have long marveled at how perfect they are. So tiny, but so perfect." He couldn't help but grin as he looked up at his wife again. "Whoever says there is no God, has never looked at the perfection in a newborn's hands." Deputy Angela Keller seized the complaining party's wrist, brought it around fast -- a slim young woman she was, but she was fast, fast and strong, and when she grabbed the wrist behind the fist, it was with the strength of someone who really didn't want to be punched, someone who intended to bring this sinner to the understanding of justice. Her .357 whispered from its floral carved, background dyed holster. "Drop it," she said quietly, twisting the bent-over prisoner's wrist painfully behind her back: the other combatant's blade hesitated, then dropped to the pavement. Running feet, hard hands: Uncle Will Keller seized the second prisoner, spun her around and put her face-down on the cement sidewalk. Angela cuffed the woman, quickly, tightly, watched as her Uncle Will fought the other woman into irons, waited until he hauled his struggling prisoner to her feet. "May as well walk 'em," Will said: Angela kept a firm grip on her prisoner's hand, keeping a pain compliance hold to guarantee cooperation and minimize an attempted escape. She fished two fingers into her uniform blouse pocket, pulled out a card and read them their rights before they headed for the hoosegow. Once they were secured -- after they were processed and locked in separate cells, isolated from each other so neither could communicate -- after Angela sat down at the computer terminal and wrote up her report, her Uncle Will handed her a steaming mug of coffee. "You always read from the card?" Will asked, blowing on his steaming, almost-overfilled mug and taking a careful sip: as usual, it was hot enough to scald the hair right off his tongue. Angela smiled, sipped hers delicately. "I read from the card and staple the card to the report. Unless I'm running the computer, then I scan it in." She sipped again, savoring the shared moment. Will nodded. "Makes sense." Angela sighed, twisted a little, and Will heard a subdued *pop* as she worked a kink out of her spine. "That sounds like it hurt." "Hurts good. Jacob used to pick me up by the elbows and shake me. Sometimes it sounded like my spine was a zipper." Will grimaced. "I'll pass." "You always did have a good back." "Did you inherit Old Pale Eyes' sway back?" "No, and neither did Jacob, God be praised!" Will nodded, drank, stepped over to the little stainless sink to rinse out his mug. Angela finished hers as well, stepped over to Sharon's desk, pulled a picture out of her breast pocket: "This is Jacob's little boy." Sharon made over the picture the way women often do; she and Angela talked about the things women do in such moments, while Will pretended to pay no attention: he finally made for the main doors, pushed through the heavy glass portals, Angela following. "I'm glad you were there," Angela said. "I didn't realize there would be a switchblade involved." Will laughed. "I know when one takes a swing at you, things change fast." Angela nodded. "I am disappointed, you know." Will raised an eyebrow. "How's that?" "I had my Used Car Salesman's Line of Baloney all ready to lay on 'em both with a trowel," she whined, then laughed. "Believe that and I'll tell you another one!" "Angel One, Dispatch." Angela reached up, gripped the epaulet mic, squeezed the rubber coated transmit bar. "Go for Angel One." "Have report of reckless op, Fay Iver and Claybank." "Enroute." Angela skipped over to the cruiser, waved at her grinning Uncle: a moment later, she was outbound, and back on the radio, getting a description and direction of travel. "Darlin', are you sure?" "I'm sure," Ruth said quietly, smiling down at their son: as usual, he was feeding with a good appetite. "You've been hovering for a week, Jacob. I'm quite sure our son will continue to grow and do well without your help." Jacob put a dramatic hand to his breast: "Wounded!" he lamented. "Wounded, I say!" He and Ruth both laughed: with no one to see them, they were easy and relaxed, even silly, with one another: Ruth lowered her head, looked at him through long eyelashes: "You know what I mean!" Jacob leaned down, kissed his wife carefully, delicately. "I know," he whispered. Jacob looked at his son, or as much of him as he could see: "Your old man's got to go back to work," he said softly. "I'll be back for supper." He grinned at Ruth. "Typical man, the both of us, we're thinkin' of our stomach at a time like this!" Ten minutes later he located his sister as she headed for the education section. "We've a twelve year old who's been into the juice," she said, her words clipped. Jacob swore, once, loudly, his scatological comment echoing between the hallway's heat-glazed walls. "You expected any different?" "Never gave it any thought," Jacob admitted. "Reckon I'd hoped we'd do better here." The airlock hissed open and two pale eyed peacemakers surged into the classroom, seized a tall, dreadfully thin twelve-year-old who was trying to throw a chair. The child was Mars-born and Mars-raised, under the one-third gravity of his Martian home instead of the one-normal Earth gravity: Jacob and Marnie, on the other hand, we Heavies -- they kept the gravity in their quarters, their workspaces, at Earth-normal or more, and their strength showed it: they had no trouble confining the combative young man. Jacob had him by the upper arms, picked him up, packed him out the airlock and into the hallway. He was handling the tall boy carefully, for he knew Martian bones would not be as dense, not as strong as Earth bones: Jacob's bones developed with the resistance of Earth gravity, and he strongly suspected Martian bones would therefore be only one-third as strong as Earth ossicles. Marnie stayed in the classroom, took statements, and put her diplomatic skills to good use, helping the teacher restore calm and reassurance to the understandably distressed classroom. Marnie waited until after the intoxicated pugilist was seen in the Infirmary, waited until he was secured in a cell, to look at Jacob with a little bit of a smile and comment that she was surprised he was back to work already. Jacob shrugged. "I reckon William Linn can dine at the topless restaurant without my help," he shrugged. "Don't tell Ruth that," Marnie said quietly, giving him a conspiratorial wink: "she'll be just scandalized!" Jacob grinned. "You're right, Sis. I'll not." He looked through the one-way door at the dejected looking lad in the bare, featureless cell. "He'll feel really good once he sobers up." "He's got quite a load on. Doc wants to monitor him, he's interested in liver function differences between Mars gravity and Earth gravity." "I thought growing up Mars meant you didn't have the kidney stones and bone loss." "You'd have to ask Doc. I know he lives in Earth gravity so he doesn't have those problems." She looked at the prisoner, looked at Jacob. "How's fatherhood, by the way? You teachin' him to smoke cigars and chase women?" Jacob grinned -- it was the unguarded, brotherly grin she remembered so well from when they grew up together, back on their pale eyed Pa's ranch -- "Sis, I've got a question." Marnie folded her arms, raised an eyebrow. "Sheriff, what is your question?" "Sheriff," Jacob replied, "I was lookin' at the absolute perfection of William Linn's hands, and then I looked at my wife, and I realized I had a question." His grin was broad and genuine as he continued, "How did I get so damned lucky?" He shook his head and added, "I've got no idea how I must've deserved this, but I'll take it!"

THIN Angela Keller sagged through the front door, dragged herself to the nearest chair, collapsed as if she were beyond bone-weary, probably because she was. Linn found her an hour later, sound asleep: he'd come home slow and careful, for the fog was thick that night, and grateful he was for a good set of fog lights and no traffic. Angela's car was backed into its usual place. Linn smiled, just a little: he always felt better when his little girl was home, even if she was a woman grown, and making her own way in the world. Worlds, he corrected himself, for he'd seen recordings of her presentations on other planets: it was at once delightful, and a little disconcerting, for him to see this child of his loins, this giggly little girl who used to ride behind him, gripping his Carhartt and laughing "Faster, Daddy!" -- he stopped and blinked, shoved the memories aside, cranked the wheel and backed his Jeep into its usual space in front of the house with the other vehicles. He and The Bear Killer came through the front door, silent, not wanting to disturb the household: Michael waved from the top of the stairs -- it was past his bedtime, but he stayed up until Linn got home, on these nights when his Mama was overnighting at the firehouse -- Linn heard Michael's bedroom door shut, quietly, and he knew Michael would slip a set of headphones on and grip the paddles of a Morse code bug (why the hell do they call it that?) -- and he'd be walking the world itself without leaving his easy chair, just like Jacob used to. Linn looked at Angela, collapsed in the comfortably upholstered chair, looking absolutely exhausted. She used to fall asleep like that, when she was a little girl, and he'd pick her up and carry her upstairs, and put her to bed: now that she was grown, he'd not dare -- for one thing, 'twould not be proper, her bein' a young woman now -- but there was also the matter of his advancing age, and her adult size. The Bear Killer solved the quandary for him. Angela smiled a drowsy little smile and her hand lifted a little as The Bear Killer laid his big head on her white-skirted lap: she opened her eyes, slowly, as if the effort was greater than she anticipated. Linn stood there, Stetson in hand, looking at his little girl with an expression that was half admiration and half uncertainty. Angela took a long breath, rocked forward: she got her feet flat on the floor, pushed against the chair's tack-edged arms, stood. "Daddy," she said softly, "I'm tired." "You look tired," Linn said in a quiet Daddy-voice. "Are you hungry?" Angela rubbed her nose, squinting like the little girl she'd once been, and nodded. Linn eased forward, offered his arm, and Angela took it, leaned against her Daddy's shoulder. "Can I just fall asleep right here?" she murmured. "If you like," Linn said. "I'll set on the couch and you can stretch out with me for a pillow." Angela hummed a little, then giggled, patted her Daddy's chest. "You're kind of a bony pillow." "Yeah, trust me to cause trouble. What suits your appetite?" "Whatever's leftovers." Linn steered her toward the kitchen table, drew a chair out: she swept her skirt under her, sat, ladylike in spite of her fatigue: she lowered her forehead into her hands. "Daddy," she mumbled, "my eyes feel like they're drawn out into points!" "You were driving in the fog too." "Mm-hmm. Three hours." She looked up as Linn opened the refrigerator door, brought out a plastic film covered, glass casserole dish full of something. "You'll like this. Your Mama made Deconstructed Stuffed Peppers. She didn't feel like boiling and stuffing peppers, so she just diced 'em up and mixed 'em in with the filling. Cheese and tomato soup on top and it's quite good!" Angela lowered her forehead into her hands again and didn't realize she'd drowsed until the smell of her Mama's reheated Deconstruction rose up and seized her by the appetite. Linn ate his own, with a good appetite -- Shelly was many things, and one of the things she definitely was, was a Truly Excellent Cook -- father and daughter ate well, and when they were done, when they'd split fresh sweet rolls and buttered them and used them to mop their bowls clean, good manners be damned -- Angela looked tiredly at her Daddy and asked, "How come I can't just walk through a copier and make some more of me?" Linn laughed quietly, nodded. "I've wished for that same thing myself, darlin'." He looked more closely at his little girl. "How thin you runnin' yourself, Princess?" Angela's expression was absolutely unguarded. She was too honestly fatigued for any artifice, any prevarication, and it showed in the exhaustion in her eyes, the dark circles so out of place on her young complexion. "Daddy, I've been featured speaker for nursing recruiters on twenty planets. I'm the face of nursing in worlds unknown to Earth, I'm needed in two hospitals here on Earth, I don't have time to put in my hours to keep up my Deputy's commission and I want to hold onto that, if time was money I couldn't afford to pay attention, let alone pay bills --" She looked at her father, too tired to express her distress. "Daddy, I've stretched myself too thin." Linn nodded, and Angela's anxiety dropped several notches. Of all the people she knew, her Daddy would understand what it was to over extend himself. "We can talk about it now, if you like, or we can tear into it in the morning." Angela nodded tiredly. "Morning," she sighed. Linn nodded slowly in agreement, watched Angela's head drift down, watched her eyelids lower. Linn did not carry his little girl upstairs, but he did walk up to her bedroom with her, and he did tap discreetly on her door after he'd judged enough time passed: he slipped in at the drowsy wave of her fingers, sat on the side of her bed, leaned down and kissed her forehead before tugging the covers up around her chin like he used to when she was much younger. "We'll talk in the morning," he whispered, then smiled, for she probably didn't hear him. Just like when she was a little girl, she was sound asleep, just that fast.

TO START AGAIN Fagan regretted many things. At the moment, he regretted not swallowing his pride. His Pa spoke harshly to him one time too many. There comes a time in every young man's life when he figures he can whip the Old Man, and Fagan, stung by his Pa's harsh language, arrived at that moment. Fagan was young and Fagan was wiry, Fagan was hard muscled from working the family farm, and Fagan uncorked a punch while he was still bent over from where the Old Man larruped him one with the belt. He caught his Pa in the wind and doubled him over. Fagan knew if he didn't just plainly beat his Pa into the dirt, that fierce old man would come up and beat him into the dirt, so he grabbed a wood barn shovel and belted the man across the side of the head with the flat of the blade. The Old Man went down like he'd been clubbed, probably because that's what it amounted to: the barn shovel was thick and heavy and Fagan honestly hated the damned thing, and when he swung it and hit with it, he swung with all the built up hate of years of what he saw as unjust use of free labor. That, and the old man's free use of a harsh tongue and that damned belt of his. Fagan's Old Man laid out in a stall, his ear split and bleeding, and Fagan stopped, took several long, calming breaths, considered, then he threw the shovel across his Old Man's belly and turned and walked off. He didn't have much, never had, but what little he had bundled up quick enough: socks and smallclothes, hat and knife, a sharpenin' stone, two lumps of bread and some jerked meat -- the stone and the food warn't his to take, but he figured the Old Man owed him that much at least -- he come out of the cabin, looked to the barn. He remembered the belt across his back again and his heart hardened like unto a Pharoah, and he set out across the back field and into the woods. He was not sure where he was headed, but wherever he ended up, he figured on being far from here. The railroads hired detectives -- enforcers, club swinging enforcers of the railroads' policies against unauthorized riders: hoboes had an especial fear and loathing of the railroad dicks, and railroad detectives held just as great an antipathy against those would steal their passage. Fagan knew this, and Fagan got lucky: he gathered himself an armful of boxcar and rode a day and a night and a day again, cursing himself for not thinkin' to bring water: the train ran swift and steady to the west, and into the mountains, and Fagain shivered and bundled what little hay there was into a pile, and shivered his way to sleep, and dreamed of his threadbare quilt back home. He felt the train slow: he woke, listened, then pushed his head up, shedding hay and itch: there were footsteps overhead and he froze, then breathed easier as they kept on going, jumping to the next car. He knew the railroad detectives didn't walk the roof -- that was likely the brakeman, they were the only ones daring enough, skilled enough to walk the rocking tops of moving railcars -- Fagan rolled to his feet, felt what was left of his last lump of bread, decided he was too dry to try and eat. The train was slowing. He looked out the door and realized they were in mountains and had been for some time. Likely they slowed because they were going up hill. Thirst decided his course of action: he waited until the train was slowed enough, then he leaned out and jumped, landed easily, took a couple quick steps to catch his balance, looked around. He saw a stream. Fagan wondered why his face felt funny, until he realized ... ... he was smiling at the sight of running water. Not long after, he came to a line shack. He didn't know that's what it was called, he'd been a dirt farmer all his life, but he knew shelter when he saw it. Nobody was around: he watched for some time, then walked up on the little place, opened the door, marveled. He backed out, looked around again, went inside. The wood box was filled. Glory of glories, whoever owned this place must be rich, he thought: there were genuine Lucifer matches in a glass jar! He opened the stove. A fire was laid already, just waiting for a lit match to turn tinder, kindling and firewood into welcome warmth. Fagan looked around some more, saw a bucket, remembered the nearby stream. Shortly he was heating beans in a frying pan, set up close to the stove, soaking up the welcome radiation. He hadn't realized, until he was getting himself thawed out, how cold he'd got in that big empty boxcar. Fagan burnt the empty tin can and stomped it flat, tossed it out on the trash pile behind the shack. He refilled the wood box and emptied the bucket -- he'd leave it the way he found it -- he considered he didn't know how far he'd traveled, but he was well into the mountains and that was far enough, he judged, the Old Man wouldn't come after him. Didn't matter if he did. He wasn't goin' back to a life of bein' yelled at and beat for no reason. Fagan looked at the two cans of beans left on the shelf and considered if he stayed there, he'd run out of food in a day. Might as well move on. About a week later, Deputy Jacob Keller was riding through the Ridenour ranch with a grin on his face and some good news in his pocket, at least for the rancher: he drew up in front of the house and the door opened and something fast moving, waist high and noisy came running out the front door and ran pell mell into his belt buckle, all giggles and a cheerful "Uncle Jacob!" Jacob bent, took the bright-eyed little girl under the arms and backed up, then spun her around the way his Pa spun his little girls, and a happy, bright-eyed child threw her head back and laughed in the Colorado sunshine, her legs and skirts flying in the air as she did. Jacob slowed and swung her down, he let go of her and took a little boy around the waist, hauled him upside down and walked toward the porch toward the grinning rancher. Jacob hauled the lad up, got his arm across young shoulder blades, set him down, stuck out his hand. "Mister Ridenour," he grinned. "Deputy," Ridenour laughed, seeing the delight on his children's faces. "Brought you some good news for a change," Jacob said, running two fingers into a vest pocket: he handed the man a folded, wax-sealed message, waited for the man to break the seal and open it up and cast his best eye upon the handwriting therein. Two men grinned with delight as bright-eyed and curious children regarded the pair. Ridenour went down on his Prayer Bones and opened his arms, gathered a little boy and a little girl in to him. Jacob, in all his born days, had never seen a man happier than when Ridenour said, "The ranch is ours now, free and clear!" "I figured 'twas worth the ride out, to give this to you the moment it come across." Ridenour stood, looked at the note again, nodded. "Could I but share this with ..." His voice trailed off and he looked at his little girl, at her innocent, big-eyed expression, and Jacob knew he held back the words that wished his wife were here to share the moment. "Now that you own your spread free and clear," Jacob said, "I reckon you might want to run some stock." Ridenour nodded thoughtfully. "Aye," he agreed in a quiet voice. "I've pasture enough and the graze is good." "Let me poke around a little and see if we can't scare you up some seed stock." Ridenour gave him a cautious look. "I'm not lookin' for charity," he said guardedly, for like most Western men, pride was a big part of his makeup. Jacob laughed. "Oh, don't worry," he said, "if I find it, likely it'll belong to some skinflint who wants to cheat you out of your eye teeth!" Ridenour grunted, then -- unable to contain his delight behind a grumpy facade another moment -- grinned and declared, "I've got a jug in there ain't been drunk up yet! J'ine me?" Jacob nodded, once. "It would be unmannerly," he said with a straight face, "to turn down a shot of liquid celebration!" Fagan knew cattle. Fagan knew the stock he was looking at was of a good line. He also knew the man on the Appaloosa stallion was looking at him the way a man will when he's measuring someone against a stack of memories. "You lookin' for work?" the man on the horse asked, and Fagan considered his empty belly and his empty purse and allowed as he was. A day or two later, a pale eyed Deputy rode up to the Ridenour door again. "Mister Ridenour," Jacob said, "it ain't charity if them cattle are strays." Ridenour frowned a little, confused, then Jacob thrust his chin at the field behind the house. "Even found a man to work 'em if you're interested. Seems to know cattle, too." "Well, hell," Ridenour said, "how much do I owe ye?" Jacob laughed. "They're all strays, every one of 'em," he grinned, "even that young fellow tendin' 'em. His name's Fagan and he looks all right." Jacob raised his arm; a lean young man came trotting over toward them. "Fagan, this is Mr. Ridenour, he's a friend of mine. I'll let the two of you make your workin' arrangements."

When William Shatner filmed one of his later Star Trek movies, he was jumping a horse over a gully repeatedly and spent time in the saddle otherwise. He was asked how he kept from getting saddle sores and said, "Pantyhose."

APPROVAL The mare stood, shivering, recovering from having delivered, but determined not to let her suckling fall prey to the approaching predators. Her ears snapped back at the sound of a canine voice behind. Deep, powerful, the sound of war on approach: the mare's ears came forward again, toward the threat she faced. A hungry little nose punched, exploring, latched on to suckle. The Bear Killer drove past the mare and into the nearest of the hungry 'yotes: the collision was enough to discourage the hungry yodel dog, the mare lashed out with a hindhoof and kicked a second out of this lifetime and into eternity: the rest of the pack drifted away, snarling, looking back, not willing to challenge the mountain Mastiff standing between them and what they'd hoped would be an easy meal. A pale eyed rider approached on the gallop, rifle held across his chest, thumb laid over the hammer spur: one of the Sheriff's twin boys, not old enough yet to grow fuzz on his lip, guided by The Bear Killer's challenge. He leaned back in the saddle, sat up straight: his mare slowed, cantered across the cold ground: young Michael orbited mare and foal, caught but a glimpse of the retreating backside of one yodel dog and decided against chancing a shot. He'd have taken the shot if he'd thought he could have made a kill: he'd seen both animals and men wounded, and unlike many of that era, he refused to take the shot unless he felt sure of making a kill. Michael circled back, rode around mare and suckling again, drew to a stop, studying the few clues in the trampled, confused mess in the light snow. He walked his mare up to the new mother, saw her ears lay back, then come up: he knew she was guarded, defensive, and he had no wish to get into a catfight between two horses. "Mother," he said in a soothing voice, "can we get you closer to the barn?" Sheriff Linn Keller put the empty rifle case to his lips, blew across the neck, bringing a high, shrill whistle: he slipped the empty into his vest pocket, pale eyes busy at his herd's approach. We're shy that pregnant mare. Damn me for not checking last night! He'd heard The Bear Killer in the distance, he'd seen his youngest son, well in the distance, shuck his rifle and set off at a gallop. The Sheriff's hearing was damaged by war and by gunfire, but he could still hear, and he concentrated on listening through the constant, ringing whine that plagued his hearing for more years than he cared to admit: there was no gunfire, he'd heard The Bear Killer, once, and nothing since. He shifted his weight forward, his Apple-horse obediently leaning into a fast walk, then a steady trot. If Michael pulled his rifle, he thought, there's reason. A pale eyed Sheriff leaned down, gripped the wrist of his '73 rifle, pulled it free. Apple-horse's ears were forward, his head up, clearly interested in ... something. Michael slipped a loop over the mare's neck, and she obediently came alongside, moved at the same slow walk as the saddled mare. Beside her, a little spotty foal, steadier now, getting used to the idea that those are legs, and legs are meant to move, and that meant the foal was keeping up with the walking meal that was its dam. The Bear Killer flanked out, turned, faced rearward, bristling. Michael did not go terribly far. He leaned back and his bitless Appaloosa mare halted, as did the new mother. The foal, of course, was interested in a meal. Michael looked down, then turned in his saddle, looked back, saw The Bear Killer running an arc behind them. Michael's pale eyes were young, strong and clear. Michael -- for his few years -- knew the tricks of seeing at a distance. He knew what to look for, knew how to gauge where predators would run, how they would approach. He saw no threat from behind. Michael turned, looked forward, saw his father coming toward him, his rifle pointed skyward, crescent buttplate seated firmly on his lean, hard-muscled, horseman's thigh. Michael's rifle was still in two hands: he bent down, worked the muzzle back into the scabbard, slid it home, straightened. If The Bear Killer saw fit to go to war, he would too, but until then, he wished to get the mare and her vulnerable foal both safely back to the barn. Linn drew up ahead of his son and a little to the side: he looked to The Bear Killer, looked beyond; he looked down at the foal, at the mare, at his son. "How long do you figure since birth?" Linn asked quietly. "A day, sir, maybe two." Linn nodded his agreement. "Still wobbly?" "No, sir, not terribly." "I heard The Bear Killer." "He evened the odds, sir." "The mare hurt any?" "Don't believe so, sir." Linn nodded, turned his stallion, who came over and sniffed at the mare, then at the foal: the mare was clearly unhappy at the herd stallion's exploration. Linn eased Apple-horse back -- "Easy, now," he said, "she's short tempered just like my wife was!" -- he looked at Michael, and to his credit, the Sheriff's youngest son managed to look very innocent. It took them a couple of hours to get back to the barn: neither pale eyed Keller was in any kind of a hurry, and neither wished to tax either the dam or the foal. Michael's twin sister was waiting at the barn with Angela: both girls watched with delight as the Sheriff steered the dam into a wide stall, the curious, sniffing, wary little foal with her. "Michael." "Yes, sir." "You saw we were short a mare when came time to feed." "Yes, sir." "You know we don't have to feed." "I know, sir." He hesitated, then added, "It's the easiest way to count 'em, sir." Linn winked, nodded, and Michael felt a delighted surge of parental approval. "You saw we were short a mare." "I saw we were short the nearest mare to deliver, sir." "You went to find her." "I hadn't seen her for more than a day, sir, and you were busy." Linn gripped his son's shoulder with a gloved hand. "Michael," he said softly, "thank you. You did right." Michael tried hard to maintain a solemn expression, but his boyish grin broke through like sun through a cloudy sky. "Thank you, sir."

No delete. Thank you for this, and Merry Christmas to you too!

WORD TRAVELS FAST Jacob Keller had never been glad handed, back slapped or congratulated as much in his entire young life. Jacob was acting Sheriff during his sister's ambassadorial absences: he was accepted as Sheriff, both because of his pale eyes, his six point star, his skill at reducing the lawless to a more peaceful posture, and especially because he practiced his sister's unfailing fairness when coming into a dispute. Jacob was also a new father. Births on the Mars colony were a reason for celebration, and Jacob accepted a short swig of celebratory beer when offered: he begged off the entire proffered volume, as he was working, but he winked and said it would be impolite to just turn them down, y'see, his Mama worked hard to beat some manners into him -- hak-kaff! Har-rumph! -- that is, his Mama worked hard to teach him good manners! -- his grin and his wink and his line of bull turned the trick, no feelings were bruised, and he remained sober as the old Judge. Marnie sat with a colonist in an isolated tunnel, leaned forward and listening closely. The man lost his wife when the alien raiders tried to destroy their colony; they'd married after a year on Mars, and they'd been what Marnie thought of as a "Cute Couple" -- he'd been devastated, crushed, when she died of catastrophic decompression, and now -- now, at Christmas -- memories came to surface that brought him sorrow, and Marnie sat with him, and let him talk. Jacob was inclined to pack his baby boy around in a picnic basket to show him off, but he admitted he'd have to fit his wife into the basket as well, as the lad had a good appetite, and besides he was enjoying some time off. Truth be told, Marnie was enjoying getting back to being Sheriff. Jacob never knew exactly what Marnie said to that fellow in the isolated mining tunnel. He suspected that the two of them walked out of the tunnel and were safely behind the force-wall before the rotary cutters activated, slicing ore free with beams from the Ripper projectors, and he had the suspicion that the man she'd been talking with, intended to join his wife -- in the only way he could, as there were too many safeguards on body sized Rippers used for funeral purposes. Later that day, Ruth, looking ladylike and motherly in a proper gown, their son in an open bottom flannel sleeper, received callers for the first time since birthing their first child: the women of the colony converged, and Jacob stayed away, figuring it would be a good way for his wife to know more of the women. Jacob knew what it was to be a stranger in a strange land, and he wished not for his wife to feel isolated. Will Keller pulled the flat box out of the closet, smiled a little, then puffed his breath at the lid, dislodging a light cloud of dust. He'd put this away against the time when it would come in handy. He carried it to his kitchen table, set it down, looked up at the shave-and-a-haircut knock on his front door. He opened the door, stepped back to let Angela skip in, looking young and fresh and beautiful as a blooming rose after a light spring shower. Will hugged his niece and she hugged him back, giggling, then she kissed him on the cheek. "You spoke of a conspiracy!" she smiled, and Will motioned her to a seat. He waited until Angela smoothed her skirt under her, crossed her ankles under the chair, tilted her head a little and looked at the slot cars illustrated on the lid of the cardboard box. "I bought this years ago," Will said. Angela regarded him with bright-blue, innocent-wide eyes. "I bought one set and set it up on my living room floor," Will explained, "but it wasn't fast enough for my grandsons, so I took it back. I traded for this one." "And is this one fast enough?" "It is," he grinned. "I tried it out." "Which of the grandsons did you get it for?" "The one that will never be," Will said, his voice suddenly serious. "You know my son was killed in an undercover operation." "I remember." "I just put this away and forgot about it." His voice softened. "Crystal laughed at me ... I've got a picture somewhere ... I'm down on my Prayer Bones on the living room floor in a wife beater and opera slippers, running slot cars like a happy kid." "I see." "I'll never have sons, or grandsons." He looked at Angela and smiled, just a little. "I hear Jacob is a Daddy." Angela laughed. "I can only imagine how he'll panic at the first colic or when his little boy starts teething!" "He'll do all right," Will said, waving a dismissive hand. He looked at his niece, all girly and feminine in a red dress with white lace trim. "I'm not supposed to know about your clandestine trips to Mars." He looked very directly at the lovely young woman across the kitchen table from him, and for a moment, he wondered how the laughing, giggly little girl he knew, became a woman so fast. "If you could have this delivered to Jacob, I would be very much obliged." "How did you know about Jacob's baby, Uncle Will?" Chief of Police Will Keller laughed, leaned forward a little. "This is a small town," he said quietly. "Word travels fast."

MERRY CHRISTMAS, GRAMPA Two uniformed badge packers dismounted in the stable behind the Sheriff's Office. Two saddlehorses were unsaddled, grained, fooled with: the Sheriff punched a code into the keypad, opened the back door. Two pale eyed enforcers filed into the break room right at shift change. The Sheriff knew his people. He knew his men, he knew their families, he knew their kids ... hell, he knew their dogs, and their dogs knew him. "You, and you," he said, pointing with a knife hand. "Go home. You've got families, we've got your shift, you're getting paid." Two deputies looked at one another, looked at the Sheriff and his flanker. "You've got family too, Boss," one said. Linn smiled, just a little, looked at Angela on his left, trim and feminine in her Sheriff's uniform and boots. "I have," he said, "but your young are ..." -- he smiled, just a little, the smile of a man who remembered what Christmas was when his children were much younger -- "your young need your memories, and you need theirs." Two deputies expressed their thanks. It was not unusual for the Sheriff to take a road deputy's slot at Christmas, especially a road deputy that had young children at home: this year, he relieved three at once. Back on Mars, Marnie wore her familiar white skinsuit with the six point star embossed over the left breast, she wore her Uncle's blued Smith & Wesson in a carved gunbelt and holster, and she wore an embossed spray of holly above the gold Sheriff's star. She'd divested herself of a diplomat's more formal attire and resumed her original duty, to allow her brother and his wife their Christmas together. Ruth was not as active as she had been: she made good friends with her rocking chair now that she was big and pregnant -- "I look like a melon on a knitting needle," she complained, and when Jacob told her his sister was going to cover for him, so they could have the evening together, she smiled and asked her husband to thank his sister for her. Angela stopped in at the All-Night to fill her thermos. There were a few customers, most in a hurry to pick up some last-minute item that would be an ABSOLUTE CRISIS if they didn't get it -- milk or batteries or something of the kind -- Angela emptied one coffee pot, added a little from the fresh, stepped to the side as the clerk made a fresh pot. Angela added a squirt of honey, a stream of milk, looked around: she smiled at the clerk and said, "I was wondering where I put the vanilla, until I remembered I'm not at home!" -- she capped her thermos carefully, screwed the stainless cup down over the stopper, turned it over and shook it a little, then returned it to upright and packed it over to the register. The clerk looked at the scarred, dented, green-painted container and laughed a little as Angela handed her shekels enough to cover the cost: "I just now noticed someone wrote 'Gas Tank' on the side." Angela smiled a little. "Truth in advertising," she said. "Fill my tank and I can run all night!" The Bear Killer filled the passenger front seat of the Sheriff's cruiser. He headed for the far corner of the county: from here, he could respond to a third of his jurisdiction; Angela, he knew, would be at the opposite corner, and with their encyclopedic knowledge of their bailiwick, he had every confidence they could cover any location. Fitz tripped when he came out of the passenger side of their first-out pumper, went face first into a nice friendly pile of snow: he came to his feet, blowing, swatting cold crystals from his turnout coat, biting back his usual language: he knew the sight of a pumper, pulling up in front of a house, was unusual -- they weren't running their emergency lights, but something that big and that red tends to draw attention, and sure enough, young noses and splayed fingers were pressed against windowpanes, young breath fogged the cold glass as three of their Irish Brigade ran for the door. All wore firecoats, fireboots, bunker pants and helmets, all wore a broad grin, the two following their white-helmeted Chief each had a sack over his shoulder. Fitz raised a gloved hand to beat on the door and it opened before he could strike, leaving him waving his glove against the empty air: he frowned a little, drew back his knocking fist and glared at it, then looked at the curious husband and wife and two barefoot children in flannel jammies looking at him like he had a fish sticking out of his shirt pocket. Fitz stepped aside and the other two crowded inside, went into the living room, set down their sacks, ran back outside and ran for the apparatus. "Santa's short handed this year," Fitz declared happily, "ye'll have to sort through that lot yourself!" -- then he too turned, legged it for the pumper: the children ran for the sacks, their mother following, and the young father raised a hand in thanks, realizing he'd not spoken his thanks, so surprised had he been. Loot in the sacks was wrapped and labeled: gifts were stacked under the sparsely-populated tree, and the father opened an envelope with his name on it, and a hand-drawn spray of holly in one corner. He unfolded the single page, read the neat, feminine script. I have been where you are now. Things will get better. He considered the sheaf of fifty dollar bills folded into the letter, his stomach unwinding a little: he'd been laid off a month before, and Christmas had been looking terribly lean. The letter was signed, Santa, and he carefully refolded the single page, slipped it back into its envelope. He looked at his wife, blinked a few times, swallowed. "It's Crif-thas Eve," their little boy said hopefully. "Can we open one?" Linn eased his cruiser to a stop, stepped out onto the roadway. No vehicles to the horizon from either direction. Linn looked up, smiled a little as he considered the stars. "Which one of you fellows," he said softly, "led those Wise Guys to Bethlehem?" As if in reply, a meteor blazed silver through the atmosphere, flared, died. Angela pulled up in front of a house, talked to her microphone, came out of her unit, shotgun in hand. Like generations of badge packers before her, she had a profound fondness for her shotgun. She looked at the roof, looked at the individual crouched, afraid to move. "My ladder fell," he called, and Angela looked, saw an aluminum extension ladder laying on the ground. "Stand fast," she said. "Where did you have it set up?" "Here, below this chimney." Angela slung her shotgun muzzle down from her left shoulder: she lifted the dogs, collapsed the ladder, then she picked it up, carried it a little from the house, planted its feet and walked it upright: a little more effort and she had it extended, the dogs clattering loudly as they dropped over each rung. "Can you come down peacefully?" Angela called. "I can get help if you need it." A leg came over top of the ladder, found a rung: it was followed by the rest of the rooftop adventurer, and Angela footed the ladder, steadying it as the kid descended. Angela seized the scruff of his neck as he tried to duck away. "Wait a minute," she said quietly. "What were you doing up there?" -- she turned him, looked at his face. "Jimmy," she scolded, "what were you up to?" "I wanted to stomp around and holler 'Ho, ho, ho' down the chimney," he admitted shamefacedly, "and I slipped when I got up there and kicked the ladder and --" "Did you holler 'Ho, ho, ho' down the chimney?" Angela asked "Yeah," Jimmy said in a discouraged voice. Angela heard a door open, saw someone come around the corner. She stepped into the light falling from a window: "Jimmy was making sure you didn't have an intruder," she declared loudly, knowing there were young faces regarding them through the window. "When the reindeer launched for the next house, they didn't get altitude fast enough and the sleigh knocked the ladder down." Angela gave the father a challenging glare, as if to dare him to dispute her account. "I'll leave it to you two to lower the ladder." Angela raised an eyebrow. "Anything else for us tonight?" "How do I explain to the kids that Santa didn't leave anything?" Angela smiled. "He works in secret so nobody sees what or how he does it. Jimmy surprised him and Santa took out to keep his proprietary methods secret. Don't worry" -- she looked up, smiled at the children behind the window -- "he'll be back!" Jacob's head came up as his wife stood, one hand on her belly, as she looked at him with a mixture of fear and wonder on her face. "Jacob," she quavered, "it's time!" Jacob came over, took her hand, ran his other arm around her waist: "Can you make it to the infirmary?" Ruth nodded, breathing deeply: "Women of my line deliver quickly," she said, her voice strained. Jacob stopped, turned, hit the comm button. "Infirmary, this is the Sheriff." "Infirmary." "Mary is in labor." "We'll be ready." Jacob picked his wife up, rolled her into him, strode for the doorway: the plast door hissed open, Jacob stepped through, his long-legged stride carrying them at a good velocity toward the nearby infirmary. "I remember when you carried me like this," Ruth groaned. "Our honeymoon?" "Yes." "And here's me carryin' you because of the honeymoon." Ruth's breath hissed in between clenched teeth, and Jacob kicked the infirmary door three times before it opened. It's not that the infirmary door was slow opening, it's that he was reacting like a man whose wife was in labor. Linn followed the speeding vehicle, close enough to observe it, far enough not to crowd it: he eased up closer, until he could read the plate, until he got the report back, until he knew who it was. Linn dropped off the throttle, allowed a long time resident to finish his trip home, rushing to get there while it was still Christmas Eve. He followed long enough to make sure his resident made it safely home, then sailed right on past. The sun came up, two Sheriff's cruisers backed into marked areas on the Fire Department's apron. Two tired, pale eyed badge packers went inside. The Sheriff's family was there, waiting; the firehouse smelled delightfully of bacon and eggs, toast and coffee, the Irish Brigade greeted one another and their visitors cheerfully, and all hands sat down to a good breakfast. At least most of them did. Linn sat beside Shelly, looked at her, smiled a little. "You do look good first thing in the morning," he said, squeezing her hand just a little, and his phone rang. "Sheriff, I have a message relay from Mars," Sharon said. Linn pulled out a pocket notebook, flipped it open, clicked his pen and prepared to copy traffic. "Ready." "Merry Christmas, Grampa."

As if you haven't guessed already, I am an unmitigated nerd ... this one struck my fancy as well!

... and sometimes ya gotta have something just for the fun of it!

DO US A FLAVOR "I thought you'd be back in your office." "This time of year?" Linn smiled grimly. "It might look like I'm hidin'. Not about to do that." "What about the wreck earlier?" Linn sighed, shifted his two-hand embrace on that nice warm coffee mug. His fingers were chilled, he already had one joint going to arthritis and it felt like a couple more might be following their bad example: he considered, smiled just a little, took a noisy slurp of coffee, nodded. "Bruce," he said tiredly, "a friend of mine called this the Silly Season." "Oh?" Bruce Jones, editor, reporter, photographer and chief broom pusher for the weekly Firelands Gazette, sat when the Sheriff did: their chairs were close, they sat almost knee-to-knee, the newspaperman leaned forward, clearly interested. "He was a fire captain back East, well up into the Yankee North. City fire department. We compared notes on the seasonal lunacy this time of year and when he called this the Silly Season, I allowed as I called it something less kindly, and he laughed and said that's why he called it what he did, elsewise he'd profane the air blue." "Ah." Bruce frowned. "What about the wreck earlier?" "Seasonal impatience," Linn replied frankly. "That's the fancy term for it. Truth? Seasonal stupidity." "That doesn't sound very charitable." "I've seen too much of it." "You were still able to get an angry driver to laugh." Linn nodded slowly, then smiled, just a little, that quiet smile he only shared with family, and with his closest friends. "Which part you talkin' about?" he murmured. "The part where..." "Where you threatened to dunk his backside in the nearest horse trough, and the rest of him will be goin' along for the ride!" Linn laughed, just a little, nodded again: he took a drink, frowned into his empty coffee mug. "Hole in the damned thing," he complained, then looked up at Bruce. "This time of year we get domestics, we get family fights, we get knock down drag out hell raisin' brawls and when all's settled, why, Christmas trees get knocked over, Grandma's antique ornaments broken, presents trampled, kids are cryin', parents are being dragged off in irons and the whole world's gone sour." "You sound just awfully cynical." "I've seen too much." Linn handed his mug off to his dispatcher, who came over to discreetly relieve her boss of the empty implement: she rinsed it, set it in the drain rack, returned to her front desk. "Last year it was the South Plains fire. Fitz was about ready to cry when he told me how he walked through what was left of a burnt out living room, once the fire was out. He talked about a stack of black toothpicks that used to be a Christmas tree, and how he scuffed his fireboot through the ashes and turned up a few bright scraps of unburnt wrapping paper." "Christmas Eve last year." "The same." "They saved the house." "They did. A good save, but ... " Linn's voice trailed off and he looked past Bruce, his pale eyes seeing memories that rose from their graves, and Bruce was reminded yet again of Linn's observation that no matter how deep you bury some ghosts, they still come philtering up out of their grave to say hello, no matter how many rocks you pile on top to try and hold 'em in. "The horse trough," Bruce said, breaking the spell. Linn blinked, looked at his old friend. "I'm sorry. What was the question again?" "The wreck on Main Street." "Oh. Yeah." Linn rubbed his hands thoughtfully together. "Fender bender, nothing serious, enough to bust open all the frustrations one fellow had. He was jumpin' up and down stiff legged just a-raisin' hell and I grabbed his shoulder and allowed as he could calm himself down or I'd introduce his sorry backside to the nearest horse trough and give him his Saturday night bath early." Bruce wasn't near enough to hear what Linn said to the man, all he saw was Linn gripping the man's shoulder and speaking to him with a serious face, and then both motorist and pale eyed Sheriff laughed, and Bruce knew there was more to the story. "Y'see, when I told him about the horse trough, he allowed as they were drained for the winter, and I said he'd have to stand there and watch it fill, knowin' full well that God and everybody would be watchin' him as it did, and soon as it was deep enough, why, I'd take him by the scruff of the neck and slosh him around in that cold water like two oysters in a Bull Durham sack bein' drug through a wash boiler of boilin' milk to make oyster stew. "I was hopin' to tickle his funny bone. "Could I but get him to laugh, I figured his aggravation would crumble and run like dry sand down his pants leg and be gone, and I was right. "I talked to him some more and told him he'd paid that insurance company for years and it was high time he got some money back from 'em. The other vehicle had two scratches on the bumper, that was all, and I told him about watchin' Mike Hall drill a couple holes in a car's door dent, run a coat hanger through it and pop the dent out -- then I looked him in the eye just as solemn as the old Judge and said 'Sounds easy when you say it fast.' " "What did he say?" "It took him a while but I got him calmed down, but I'll tell you honest" -- Linn smiled with half his mouth -- "I genuinely slickered and soft soaped him like a used car salesman!" Bruce laughed, nodded. "You're good at that!" "Saves hurt feelin's." "And knuckles." "That too." Linn looked up. "Wonder if you could do us a flavor." "I can try." Linn rose, walked over to the coffee pot, picked up a string-tied box, handed it to Bruce. "The bakery give us a whole box of cookies for Merry Ho Ho. Wonder if you could eat those up for us so we don't get fat." Bruce smiled, nodded, accepted the white-cardboard box with its fragrant, fresh payload. "I think I can do that."

ANGEL ONE: HOGJAWS! Angela thumbed the release on her lap belt, almost ran up the short, narrow aisle into the cockpit. She dropped hard into the copilot's seat -- this was supposed to be a milk run, a shuttle run to Earth and back, just the pilot and the one passenger -- but when Angela saw a car below lose it on a road she knew well, when she saw the car hit the ditch and flip once, land on its wheels and bend in the middle when it slammed side-on into a rock well bigger than the car, she charged the cockpit, dropped into the empty copilot's seat, looked at the surprised young man doing the driving and spoke her mind. She saw a young man in Confederate grey, with the red piping and shoulder-boards of their air wing, grin, and she recognized the grin. She'd seen it on her own Daddy's face, when he was about to do something fast, vigorous and very impolite, and she'd seen the same grin on her brother Jacob's face, at the moment he realized he could cheerfully turn his badger loose on someone who really, really deserved it. Her Confederate pilot knew if his high-ranking passenger assumed the copilot's seat, something was about to hit the fan, and he was going to be right in the middle of it. Diplomatic shuttles were designed to work with gravity fields. Diplomatic shuttles were designed to run silently, unobtrusively, silently, invisibly, and very stealthily; they were designed to give a perambulator grade ride to their high ranking passengers, and most times, they did. Unless, of course, it was necessary to do otherwise. In those cases, the diplomatic shuttles were both armored, and armed, and had capacities a casual observer would not appreciate by simply looking at an oblong box with a flat chisel nose... like wings and control surfaces that could be deployed for flight in-atmosphere. "Belt in," the pilot said: his hands did an intricate dance as an auxiliary control panel hummed from its recess under the regular flight control panel, as a set of rudder pedals rose from the deck underfoot, as he traded the touch screen and neural link for his first love, a throttle and a stick, flaps and rudder, controls with which he'd practiced ten times ten thousand times, waiting -- just waiting -- for the day when he would have to fly an urgent mission, in atmosphere, instead of through vacuum. Angela grabbed the shoulder belts, hauled them down, drove them into the central buckle: she seized the lap belts, pulled them up as well, thrust them mercilessly into the circular buckle with the big red release button in the middle. A set of headphones deployed automatically, clamped over her ears, her peripheral vision picked up the boom microphone that extended to the corner of her mouth. Angela's stomach felt like it dropped two football fields as the pilot stood the shuttle on its wing, as he came about, as Angela looked out the side of the suddenly-transparent cockpit. "Set me down as close as you can," she said, her voice calm, but carrying the unmistakable authority of someone used to giving orders. "Yes, ma'am," the pilot said: the shuttle shot off to the north, turned, leveled, came in, slowing: wings retracted, as did rudder and rear stabilizer, landing gear thumped and whined as they were lowered, locked. Angela reached for a panel, keyed in a command, spoke. "Firelands Dispatch, this is Angel One. Need fire rescue and S.O. two miles west of town, one car off the road, partial rollover." Captain Crane looked up from his inventory of the drug box. Opposite the drug box, Shelly looked up, locked eyes with her father. The scanner normally ran 24/7, its feed piped through the entire firehouse: it was a background, it was never terribly loud, and the Irish Brigade developed the knack of conversation and work details while still listening, still comprehending anything that came over the scanner. When another agency reported they were needed, they responded, ready and generally in motion before they were called by the Sheriff's dispatcher -- not always, but most of the time. Father and daughter felt the immediate physiologic response of their kidney-mounted adrenaline pumps screaming into full wartime emergency. Whether it was the no-nonsense words that were used, whether it was the familiar voice framing those dread syllables, father and daughter knew with absolutely no doubt whatsoever that THIS NO DRILL, BOOTS AND SADDLES, GENERAL QUARTERS, and before Fitz could begin shouting for the Irish Brigade to turn out, ye lot, or I'll have yer guts for garters, men were running for fireboots and helmets, bunker pants and firecoats, Nomex hoods and heavy leather, Nomex-lined gloves: Captain Crane ripped the shoreline from its spring-covered receptacle on the rear of the squad, he and Shelly shoved the drug box into the back of the squad, slammed the rear doors, dove into the cab, hit the garage door opener and prepared for takeoff. The moment the first battery came on-line, their radio lit up, and with it, the followup message: Sharon, in the Sheriff's office, leaned over a little, then lifted the tips of three fingers before they could press the grey plastic transmit bar on her desk mic. Dispatcher, medics, Chief and firemen heard Angela's voice transmit a followup from the passenger seat of a boxy silver shuttle with a flat chisel nose. "FIRELANDS, THIS IS ANGEL ONE. HOGJAWS, HOGJAWS, HOGJAWS!" The squad was first out -- an Omaha-Orange-and-White, lights-and-siren, Diesel-powered torpedo, launched from a tall, narrow, hand-laid brick torpedo tube: the other three bays were all one-story, side by side, a new addition: the squad lived in the old horse house, tall and narrow, to accommodate the original hose drying tower and the horses' stables, where -- back in the day -- horsecollars and harness slept, suspended over three matched white mares, waiting for signal to be dropped into place and cinched up. Fireboots were heavy on Diesel throttles as turbochargers whistled, ramming compressed air into Diesel cylinders, as men were pressed back into their seats, as the rescue and the first-out pumper roared smoky defiance from polished chrome exhausts. Two of the Irish Brigade crossed themselves: eyes closed, they reviewed the assembly procedure for their Hogjaws, their hydraulic, high-pressure, car-ripping tool that could shear, or spread, or do any of several unkind things to automotive structures. Their Hogjaws ran off the rig's hydraulic system instead of a separate engine and pump -- though this was available, in case a situation was too far from the rig to be handled by their good length of twin hydraulic hoses. "FIRELANDS FIRE DEPARTMENT, ANGEL ONE ADVISES TWO TRAPPED, NEAR ROADWAY, PULL TWO LINES UPON ARRIVAL." Fitz reached for the mic just ahead of his left hand. "Dispatch, roll Tank One." "FIRELANDS FIRE DEPARTMENT SECOND CREW, ROLL TANKER, SAME LOCATION." Angela adjusted her belt box, felt the force field tighten against her skin, pressing her white nurse's uniform firmly against her: she knew her white winged cap would be protected, that she could drive her head into the side of a car and know the white wings of her nurse's cap would punch through the sheet metal, and she wouldn't even get a headache. She had no wish to do anything of the kind. All she wanted was to be armored, so she could make entry into the car without getting burned, cut or otherwise damaged. She ran for the car, twisted into its interior, grateful for the years she'd spent horseback, keeping her maidenly waist trim: no way a grown man could have slithered into this twisted mess, she thought. "Captain." "Yes, ma'am." "Patch me through, short-range, to the first-in vehicle when they arrive." "Roger that, ma'am." "Firelands, Squad One and Rescue One on scene." "I roger your arrival, advise further." "Firelands, Pump One on scene, break, break. Tanker One, come in behind and lay into the pumper, break, break. Firelands, Chief One, request Carbon Hill stand by for water shuttle." "Roger pump one arrival and toning out Carbon Hill now." Hose sizzled from the twin Mattydale crosslays, men with woven-canvas lances couched under fire-coated arms charged the smoking wreck, set up on either side: they heard the pump begin its rising white, heard the German Irishman roar "WATER COMIN' AT'CHA!" and nozzles hissed as trapped air was released, as water sprayed in broad fans from the preset fan setting, as nozzles were gated shut. Chief, two medics and two rescuemen assessed the situation: hydraulic lines were coupled, connections checked, valves opened: the rescue's Diesel throttled up slightly, then back down, in response to the change in hydraulic pressure, then throttled up again as steel jaws were driven into a gap, sheet metal groaned like a condemned soul as it was pried apart: men worked with chains, blocks, skill and the results of practice and practice and practice again, and the car was disassembled from around its victims, in a brutal, efficient and most effective manner. A scared set of little blue eyes regarded a bright set of Arizona-blue eyes. "My legs hurt," she complained. "Hold still, honey," the woman with the funny wingy hat said. "Let's take a look, shall we?" She looked up as an ambulance made a fast stop at the road's shoulder: in her ear, she heard her pilot's words, "Ma'am, first in is arriving, you're live." "Squad One, Angel One, one female child trapped back seat, leg under front seat, unknown whether distal pulse, conscious and talking. "Mother trapped front seat, strong regular pulse and spontaneous respirations, does not respond to verbal stimuli." Angela looked back to the scared, hurting little girl in the back seat, turned, caressed the child's cheek with the backs of her fingers. "Are you an angel?" the little girl asked, and Angela bit her bottom lip, hard, as she recognized the pain but the hopefulness in the child's voice. She'd heard her own voice sound just like that, when she was hurt, when she was this little girl's size, back in New York. Angela reached up -- her fingers had eyes -- she pulled the back off the holly pin on the tip of one of her nurse's cap's wing tip -- she pressed the pin through the collar of the child's blouse, pressed the pin's back firmly in place. "There," she whispered. "More angels are coming, and you" -- she touched the tip of a delicate finger on the tip of a little girl's freckled nose -- "will be just fine!" Then she disappeared. Angela pulled back, twisting out of the way, knowing she was invisible, but not wanting to bump into anyone. She'd caused enough questions for one day. She watched as her Mama and her grandfather took over, as the car was impolitely disassembled from its two trapped victims: she drew back to the shuttle, climbed inside, returned to the co-pilot's seat, switched off her protective field. "You're invisible?" "It's policy, ma'am." "Good." She looked at her pilot. "I need a silent liftoff," she said, "and a stealthy landing not far from here." A little girl and her mother were treated for their several injuries in the emergency department. The child looked all the smaller for being transported on an adult-sized gurney. Her legs were splinted, wrapped, she had an IV in her arm, and she was trying hard not to cry. She'd insisted on keeping her blouse: it was scissored from her, but she clutched half of it in her free hand, and she looked at it every few minutes. When she was x-rayed, the radiologist made a comment about a holly shaped artifact apparently clutched in the patient's left hand, and when the x-ray technologist left the room to check films, a door opened and someone came in. A set of Arizona blue eyes smiled down at a little girl, whose little blue eyes widened and she breathed, "Angel!" "Your mother will be fine," she heard her Angel say in a quiet voice, and she felt her Angel's hands, warm and reassuring, on her own, and then her Angel disappeared. A moment later, a door opened, and closed, but nobody was seen entering, or leaving. That night, after a midnight shift nurse checked on mother and daughter, another nurse came in: she was well-known to the med-surg nurses, she was not scheduled, but she came on the ward with a smile and a bag of mixed miniature chocolates, to be donated to the wicker basket on the floor supervisor's short filing cabinet. Angela was in the habit of bringing chocolate when she worked a shift, and was therefore not just accepted, but well thought of by her fellow nurses: she came onto the ward in her whites, instead of scrubs, she slipped into a room, and after a few minutes, she slipped back out, smiling the way a woman will when she knows a secret. Curious, the nurse assigned to these two patients went into the room, but the only thing she could find was the scrap of scissored blouse in the sleeping little girl's hand, and a holly pin in the fabric. The midnight shift nurse's head came up, and she smiled in the dim light of the patient's room as she remembered what she'd seen as Angela poured foil-wrapped, miniature chocolates into the boss's wicker basket. Angela's white nursing cap had a holly pin on the tip of one wing, but not the other.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE TANK Fitchie leaned his broom against the wall, sat in the ancient wooden chair, looked at the black-plastic microphone. He knew if anything went wrong, he could pick up the mic and speak into it, and a voice would speak back to him: the roundhouse was several miles away as the crow flew, but as near as the curly cord. He smiled a little, then rose and picked up the broom again. The Lady Esther was running in freezing weather. She may have fire in her heart, but she was a thirsty Lady, and his tank was a critical link in the Z&W's winter operation. Fitchie was one of a few who preferred to laager in at a tank, just stay there: he had a cot, a stove to cook on, he kept the bigger stove stoked, he monitored water levels and the pumps that kept it circulating: as long as the water was moving, as long as the insulating outer shell was intact, as long as there were no unexplained leaks, he knew he'd be able to slake the locomotives' thirst. Two steam engines, the inspection car, the steam crane: all ate coal and drank water, and their needs would not be denied, and he saw to it that when they wanted a drink, they could come and water at his faucet. There were two other tanks; they were not staffed, nor were they heated, though they could be: Fitchie could keep an eye on their levels, their internal temperature, the state of their pumps, from his station, and did: should a problem arise, he'd contact the roundhouse and they'd send a crew in one of the motor speeders to tend whatever needed looked at. When they were called out, Fitchie's habit was to wait at trackside with two insulated jugs of coffee for them, and more often than not, some cookies as well. These weren't necessary, but he knew they were welcome, and he knew that his hospitable habit was the reason each speeder had a stack of cups in one of the toolboxes. Fitchie liked tank duty. He'd been a railroader back East, he'd been an engineer on the secondary lines: when he first started, of course, he was just another hire and one of his first tasks was to help with a derailment's cleanup. He was wearing ankle high work shoes, which nearly everyone did -- steel toes, good solid construction -- but they didn't help any when one of the spilling cargoes was free-flowing, granular, caustic soda. He'd gotten some in a shoetop and the dry crystals abraded into his skin. Liquid caustic will burn and hurt but the dry caustic abrades in and burns ... painlessly. Half a century later, Fitchie still had an open sore the size of a silver dollar on one ankle, for a caustic burn of this type, never heals. He remembered when the Sheriff's wife Shelly drove up to their roundhouse looking for him, when she came in wearing her medic's uniform and she sat down with him in their breakroom and thanked him for telling her about dry caustic, and then her daughter Angela came in wearing that white nurse's uniform and looking very out of place in a dirty old railroad roundhouse -- and she thanked him as well. A little boy had a caustic burn on his hand, and had both Shelly and Angela not heard Fitchie talk about his own injury, they'd neither have recognized the dry-caustic burn for what it was, not would their hospital have been able to effectively treat the injury. Fitchie sat, alone, in the silence of Tank Seven's insulated pump room, and smiled at the memory. He looked at the big, old-fashioned gauges, then at the computer screen: pumps near and pumps far were running steadily, taking water from the bottom of the tanks and running it up the standpipe to the top, keeping it circulating: both tanks were insulated, both could be heated: there were no leaks -- his great fear was a leak, concealed by the insulation, that would require taking the tank down and welding a repair in cold weather. So far, thanks to regular inspections, that had never happened. He got up, picked up his binoculars, went out into the cold: he'd swept the fresh snow from the two steps, cleaned off the walkway to trackside: he stepped out over the first rail, stopped in the middle of the tracks: he raised his glasses and took a long, studying look to where the shining steel came around the far bend; he turned, looked in the opposite, satisfying himself that all was well, that there was neither fallen timber, landslide nor avalanche. He turned, squinted up at the ancient tank, well made in its day and still surprisingly solid: the outer, octagonal hull was the shell, he knew, with a thick layer of insulation, then the inner tank, lined with paraffin, and between the insulation and the inner tank, the gap through which his heater blew hot air to keep it from freezing. Fitchie knew the train ran regularly, even in winter weather: the pale eyed Willamina Keller, rest her soul, owned the railroad and now her heirs did, and they kept up enough business, hauling freight, ore, passengers, and in season, tourists -- to make it a profitable business. Probably not terribly profitable, he thought, but that was their business, not his. He was content to do this, in retirement. He'd started railroading when steam engines were just being phased out, and when the chance came to work on a rail line that still ran steam, why, he came out and looked the operation over, he liked what he saw, and he'd been there ever since. Fitchie went back inside, set his field glasses on the shelf, ran an experienced eye over shining brass housed gauges, looked suspiciously at the computer screen: satisfied all was well, he looked at the clock, nodded. An old retired railroader took off his shoes and lay down on the old familiar cot, he listened to the pumps whine, to the gas heater's deep rumble, and undisturbed by the thought of the many tons of water in the tank above him, closed his eyes and went to sleep. The Lady Esther came to an easy stop, the engineer bringing his train to a halt very precisely under the nozzle. He had a new fireman, Crosby, nice young fellow and curious as a Beagle dog: Crosby was eager but careful, and Bill waited while his beloved Lady's tank filled. Crosby swung the counterweighted nozzle back up, climbed back down into the cab, stopped, frowned. Bill looked curiously at the younger man as he pointed. "Bill, someone's swept snow off that sidewalk." Bill smiled, nodded. "Fitchie," he said. "Fitchie?" "Used to have an old retired railroader pretty much lived here. Widower he was. Heard tell he ran live steam back East. He helped design and build the insulation and the heater system to keep our two tanks from freezing in winter." "Be damned. Is he still here?" Bill considered his reply as he ran an experienced eye over his gauges, over the sight glass: he waited until Crosby picked up his shovel before answering. "I went in and found the man deader'n hell on that cot he used to sleep on. Ever since, we'll come through and sometimes we'll find the walk swept off like that -- but no tracks anywhere around, nothing disturbed. The Sheriff had motion sensors installed and they never went off. Cameras never caught anything inside, but if there's a problem and a speeder comes through with a work crew, why, sometimes there are two insulated jugs of fresh hot coffee and a sack of cookies waitin' for 'em." Bill smiled a little and added, "Every time that happens, why, I'll come out and check on the stores inside, I'll trade out the coffee to keep it fresh and I'll leave some fresh cookies." "You found him dead." "Yep." "Who swept off the walk, then?" Bill smiled. "Our Lady is hungry," he replied. "Best feed her." The fireman hooked open the firebox door, slung in a ringing shovelful of coal, and The Lady Esther began to move again.

NEED I turned cold eyes on the man and said, "When you speak, I listen without interruption. You'll do the same or you'll get your Saturday night bath a little early!" He made the mistake of blustering up and allowing as I'd do no such thing so once I kicked him and gut punched him, I fetched him off the ground by the throat and the crotch and I r'ared up and drove him down into the horse trough and I was not in the least little bit peaceful when I did. I knowed there was not but a skift of ice, not more'n a half inch or so, I'd checked earlier when I made sure the chunks we kept in the trough so she wouldn't freeze and bust, were still free enough to crowd up and relieve the pressure. I throwed him in and I skipped back a couple of steps and I let him bubble and waller and snort and I looked at the fellow he'd been disputin' with and said "Now that he's gettin' that hot temper cooled off, why don't you tell me what really happened." I talked to him and Jackson Cooper grabbed the other fellow by his soaky wet shirt front and hauled him the rest of the way out of the horse trough and inquired what did I want to do with this one and I said hell, you're Marshal, it's your town, so Jackson Cooper brought the man the rest of the way out of the horse trough and fetched him up real close so he could hear good -- Jackson Cooper was a big man, hell, he's a head taller'n me and I am reckoned a tall man -- and Jackson Cooper is wider acrost the shoulders by maybe half a cubit and I don't think there's much on this earth the man couldn't walk up to, and pick up, and walk off with, had he a mind. Now a granite mountain might be a problem, it'd be hard to get a good enough grip to fetch it out by its roots but if anyone could do it I reckon it would be him. Anyway Jackson Cooper, he hauled attair fella drippin' and shiverin' and hollerin' across the street and into the calabozo and I reckoned His Honor the Judge would address the matter right here directly. Now after I spoke with that other fellow, who was right reasonable, and I spoke with what witnesses we could rat up, I figured out the straight of it and me and Jackson Cooper we had us a talk for I dislike treading upon another man's jurisdiction, and Jackson Cooper he laughed and allowed as he warn't in the least bit troubled, he said he did admire watchin' a man who was good at what he did. Anyway that's how the day started. I had to ride out and handle a couple other details, most of which didn't amount to much, I checked on an old feller mostly to make sure he was still alive, him and his old dog, and I figured 'twas a toss up as to which of 'em would fall over dead first, but they were both happy to see me and we set down and just lied outrageously to one another, laughin' as we did, and attair tired old hound dog of his, he snuffed me some and then laid his chin on my leg and fell asleep whilst we were settin' at the man's table layin' big outrageous whoppers on one another. He cussed me for a sneaky sort, for last I was out, I'd left a cloth poke of frash ground Arbuckle's behind, I'd set it down while he was lookin' elsewhere and he didn't find it until I was rode off and he allowed as he was a prideful man and he'd kick my backside up between my shoulder blades was I to imply he was too pore to buy his own coffee so I stood up and walked out and come back in with a poke of coffee and a small sack of flour and set 'em on his table and I allowed as he was too poor to pay attention, let alone pay for groceries, and I set down a sack of sugar with 'em and I thought he was goin' to cry. I knowed he didn't have two shekels to rub together and the only way I could get him to accept help was to take me a mason's trowel and just putty him up one side and down the other with second hand full feed and then just set 'em there in front of him of a sudden and without asking any let-be. It didn't hurt none when I told him 'twas a blessin' on me and I was tryin' to scour my corroded soul clean and shiny 'gainst the time when my ticket got punched and I'd have to stand in front of Saint Peter and tell him why he'd ought to let me in. He allowed as well, if I was doin' it f'r my own selfish good, why, he'd take it, and we shook hands and then we laughed ag'in, for the man was as full of it as two sacks full of politicians. I'm full of it but he's got me beat. I caught up with a fellow I knowed was wanted but I also knowed he was not guilty of whatever he'd been accused of so we set and talked a spell and I give him a twist of molasses twist tobacker and he was happy with that, he allowed as he was headed down Mexico way and I fetched attair wanted dodger out of my saddle bag and showed him and told him to keep his head down for I knowed he was innocent and he laughed and allowed as he warn't quite innocent but he didn't do what attair wanted dodger accused him of, and he headed south with my blessin'. Had he stayed I'd have been obliged to haul him in to face them accusations and 'twould be a task to disprove 'em. As much as I was satisfied he'd got a raw deal and he warn't guilty of that dodger's accusation, I was just as happy to see him head out of my jurisdiction. I knew him to be honest and when he looked me in the eye and said he was headed for Mexico I believed him. Turns out he did, he made a good life for himself and I think he died either from scorpion or rattlesnake, I never did hear the straight of it, but he done all right. Things was quiet enough I locked up the Sheriff's Office and went on home before dark. His Honor come in and heard the particulars and fined attair fella who was still damp from his bath and Jackson Cooper turned him loose to shiver his way home, and I went on home and glad for it. First thing I saw once I come through my front door -- other'n for the maid takin' my hat and my coat, was the girls in the parlor. Since Esther died I never had the heart to take up with another woman, and Angela pretty much took over as the Woman of the House, bless her: she was motherly to her sisters, and to her younger brothers, though a time or two she did have to have my help when they back sassed her. I come in to see the girls in the parlor, in their holiday dresses and shiny little slippers, layin' with their heads under the tree, lookin' up through the branches, and gigglin'. I'd like to have had a photographer come and take that picture. Petticoats and stockinged legs stuck out in a colorful fan under that tree, and even Angela, who was maturing into young womanhood, was giggling with the others, looking up through attair tree at the shiny bulbs and the foo-far-raws they'd hung on scented pine branches. When Angela was just a little girl, I laid down on the floor and wallered my shoulders under attair tree the day after we got it all decorated and prettied up and Angela, she was a curious little girl so she got down on her widdershins and rolled over and wiggled under the tree with me, and I whispered to her that Sarah liked to do this, and later that evening, when Bonnie and Levi come over and Sarah and her little twin sisters come too, why, all them girls laid under the tree and looked up through the branches and giggled. I come through my front door and the maid, she taken my Stetson and my coat, and I stood there and looked into the parlor at the girls and their giggles, and I couldn't help but smile at the sight. This was something I needed.