Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST A well dressed couple sat in the darkened theater. His silk tie was carefully knotted; his suit was handmade -- he took it as a matter of pride that his clothes were made at home, and not bought off the shelf. His pearl-grey Stetson, of course, was store bought. It was also carefully brushed, kept in a hat box when the occasion did not demand his dress cover. The woman was equally well dressed: her gown was of the very latest fashion, the colors complimenting both her emerald green eyes, and her rich auburn hair. The red-velvet upholstery was new, the padding thick, comfortable: their seats were the best money could buy. The gentleman had an iron-grey mustache, carefully curled into a symmetrical handlebar; beneath the lapel of his carefully-fitted suit was a six-point star, and beneath the coat, a pair of Colt revolvers. The demure beauty of his wife completely disguised her own deadly nature as well: should the need arise, she too could address a sinner in an unmistakably violent and deadly manner. There were times, in her past, when she'd done exactly that. Tonight, though, tonight they were a fashionable couple who'd ridden the steam train into Denver, a couple who'd clattered through gaslit streets in a hired hack, a couple who'd come to the City to enjoy a relaxing night at the theater. Shakespeare was the night previous; a grand orchestra would be the following night. Tonight was a singer of some repute, a young woman with a voice that could charm angels into rapturous silence, or so those who'd heard her, claimed. She was to sing in French, the couple knew, the language in which a new song had been written. Esther Keller spoke French, as did one of Bonnie McKenna's maids; Bonnie herself spoke a little French, but understood even less: it was Bonnie who recommended this singer, and this song, and so the Sheriff and his wife made plans to go into the City for a day and a night and a day again. Linn and Esther Keller sat in a private box, very near the stage; they had an excellent view, or would have, as soon as the curtains were parted. The lime lights were lit and warmed up, casting their harsh glare on the closed burgundy drape: the curtains twitched, hissed open. The little orchestra in the recessed pit raised their instruments at the conductor's arms-raised summons: the orchestral introduction was delicate, the music flowing like silver waters with little mouse-feet dancing on its quicksilver surface: the singer was not impressive -- she wore a fine gown, her hair was carefully arranged -- in truth, she looked rather plain. Until she opened her mouth, and sang. The Sheriff had an extremely limited vocabulary, when it came to the French language: a French-Canadian of his aquaintance taught him a surprising number of profanities, which the man was prone to vent when provoked, such as when his office chair insisted on dumping him over on his back: in spite of this linguistic handicap, his wife knew that the singer's voice drove through her husband's reserve like a lance, and penetrated to that crusty, hard-shelled, tough-as-nails heart that beat in his manly breast. Linn's hand tightened a little -- just a little, for it was wrapped carefully around Esther's gloved palm -- Esther was entranced, for the singer's skill was everything her dear friend Bonnie said it was. Had the Heavenly Choir peeled the roof off the building and floated down in adoring ranks, she would not have been in the least bit surprised. Linn leaned forward, a little, just a little, as he too was caught up in the beauty of this truly beautiful voice. It was the first time he'd ever heard 'O Holy Night' sung. It would not be the last. It would, however, be absolutely the most gorgeous rendition he would ever hear in all of his life. Esther Keller remembered how her husband seized the tramp who tried to seize Esther's reticule, she remembered when they were newly wed and footpads tried to seize the emerald from her neck, and how her husband brought immediate and violent justice upon these criminals. She thought of these things as she glanced over at her hard-knuckled, callus-handed husband, this old veteran lawman who'd survived injuries that would've killed ten healthy men ... She thought of this, and she watched this strong man weep for the beauty of what he heard. She knew he was disciplining himself most sternly, willing himself not to betray how deeply this audible beauty touched him: his face was carefully impassive, he was still as a carved statue, but the brightness of his eyes, and the slight tightening of his hand, told her that this hard-edged man who'd survived more violence than should ever be asked of anyone, was what she'd known since the moment she met him: Old Pale Eyes, scarred and blooded warrior, uncompromising bringer of justice ... Old Pale Eyes, who'd faced up to, and faced down, large and angry men with a variety of weapons ... Old Pale Eyes, who in his time had been shot, stabbed, cut, run into, run over, a man who'd gone to war, a man who'd fought with a musket, and with what was left of a musket, a man who'd seized an ax from a woodpile and laid about the enemy, screaming with rage and with fury, a man who'd swum a hungry river to keep a child from drowning, who'd taken a runaway horse by the bridle and leaped from his own mount to bring this panicked horse to the ground to keep a wagon and its cargo of another man's wife and their children from wreck and from death ... ... this tough old man with the hard and harsh reputation ... ... was kind of soft on the inside, and sometimes it took a trip to Denver, and the voice of an angel, to lower that wall of iron just enough that Esther could peep over its riveted edge and see what lived secretly behind that armored breastbone.

BREAK THE GLASS The Ambassador was not fooled by Marnie's closed eyes. She sat on a rock shelf, high on a sheer cliff face, the only access a narrow path that led to another great flaw in the geology, which allowed another rocky, but slightly broader, path, down to a hanging meadow. The Ambassador knew there was a saddled horse below, a great, shining-black mare without bridle or bit, contentedly cropping grass where she'd grazed before, near a little stream that chuckled and whispered secrets to the rocks as it paused, pooling twice in places big as a man's hat, before narrowing and slipping modestly between clefts in fractured granite, to disappear downhill, like a maiden hiding her virtue from possessive eyes. Marnie never moved as the Ambassador took a step, as he removed his pearl-grey cover. "May I join you?" he asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the isolated stillness, his eyes on Marnie's thumb, laid across the twin hammers of the cut-down twelve-bore. "Have a set," Marnie murmured. The Ambassador sat gratefully, unconsciously pushing himself back against the granite backrest, not realizing until after he'd done so, that he was pushing himself as far away from that sheer drop not two feet in front of his boot toes as he possibly could. He placed his hat on his lap, looked out over the distance. "I'm surprised you're here." "I was concerned you might be ... intemperate." Marnie never opened her eyes, but she did smile, just a little, then she intoned in a truly terrible New York accent -- just like she'd heard her Daddy say on such occasions -- "Does yas knows me or what?" The Ambassador smiled, just a little: matter of fact, he almost chuckled, for she'd used that nasal voice before: he had no idea its antecedents, he only knew she spoke thusly when her mood was improved from its former fury. "It would not be wise to slam your native world's face into the knowledge that their colony is much more than what it was," he said carefully. "I know," she replied. "Nor would it be prudent to simply ride into town, you -- a most remarkable and well-known person, on a very recognizable horse, looking so very at home, when you're supposed to be on another planet in a barely-surviving colony." "I know that too." Marnie opened her eyes, turned her head, looked at the Ambassador. "Daddy told me about this place when I was a little girl," she said. "This is the High Lonesome. Old Pale Eyes used to come here to be alone when he needed to think. Generations of my family have come here for that reason." "It's not easy to get up here." "No it isn't. That's why there are two generations of The Bear Killer buried here -- there's a gap in the rock, it's been a wolf den off and on -- " "Wolf den?" "Oh, yes," Marnie murmured, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the rock face behind her. "The White Wolf." The Ambassador blinked, realizing he was about to learn something more about this most remarkable, pale eyed woman. "The White Wolf?" he echoed. Marnie's smile was thin. "Mr. Ambassador, are you familiar with the Scottish Fetch?" She did not have to look to know he'd blinked twice before replying slowly, "Nooooo ... no, I don't." "The Fetch is a ghost sheep that can be seen lying by the front door," Marnie explained, "the front door when the Laird is dying within. The worse the Fetch looks, the closer to death the man within be, and when the Fetch stands up, young and strong again, it walks through the front door and emerges with the soul of the dead and fetches the man's soul to its reward." "I see," the Ambassador replied carefully. "The White Wolf appears to our family in time of need -- a warning, a harbinger, a guardian. "My grandmother described seeing it in France." "France?" "Gammaw went to find an ancestor's grave. His revolvers are in the Museum below us, I'll show you sometime. She and the local dignitaries had a service at Joseph Keller's grave. Gammaw couldn't bring The Bear Killer -- quarantine regulations and all that -- the local gendarmerie had a canine officer, and the K9 attached himself to Gammaw's side. "When the bugler played Taps, the Malinois sat on one side of the grave, and the White Wolf paced up and sat on the other, and the two howled in harmony to the bugle's farewell." Marnie swallowed, continued. "I'm told there were troops there from the Bundeswehr and the Legion Etrangere, as well as their local Gendarmerie -- some were men Gammaw served with, in Afghanistan -- Gammaw wore a long, old-fashioned dress an old woman had in her shop, a dress sewn for another pale eyed woman decades before, and yes there's a story behind that one too -- Gammaw said that every one of those hard-as-nails, iron-willed soldiers, came up to her afterward, and kissed her on both cheeks, they saluted her and shook her hand and spoke to her, and more than one had water running down his cheek as the Malinois and the White Wolf sang their feral harmony. "They did not howl as the bugler's echo played, at the far end of the cemetery, on the little rise where an old 48 flew from the flagpole, and when the command was given to Order Arms, the White Wolf rose and shook himself, and then he turned into a twist of fog that kind of corkscrewed down into the ground, and disappeared." She tilted her head, looked at the Ambassador. "Gammaw was given a picture of the White Wolf standing beside the Malinois." "Does it still exist?" the Ambassador asked hopefully. "It does. A copy is in the Museum. I can show you." "Would that be prudent?" Marnie laughed -- a relaxed, natural laugh, something the Ambassador had not heard from her in some time. "I'll go in disguise," Marnie smiled. "I've passed for a ghost in the Museum before." The pair sat for some minutes longer. "I was worried about you," the Ambassador said finally. "You're worried?" Marnie sighed. "My husband is worried sick about me. He's afraid of stress responses and effects of long-term stress, and maybe he's right. It's been building up." "What should be done?" the Ambassador asked, his words as carefully neutral as his voice. "I should deal with it," Marnie said bluntly. "I should do like I always do, and wear a cast iron cloak and just let all that stress splatter itself against that cast iron cloak and slide to the ground dead." "Does it work?" "Generally." "And when it doesn't?" Marnie's eyes closed again; her head leaned back, rested once more against the cliff face behind her. "My Daddy," Marnie said tiredly, "has half the mandible of a Jack mule, framed in his office, hanging on the wall. The frame is bright red and there's a little brass hammer hanging from the frame by a brass chain." Marnie smiled a little at the memory. "There's a plaque on the top edge of the frame that says, "Jaw Bone of an Ass." Her eyes were still closed as she spoke, her voice as quiet as her smile. "On the bottom edge of the frame, another brass plaque: "Break Glass In Case of Emergency." The Ambassador chuckled; he'd seen a similar framed display in Marnie's Sheriff's office, and he knew that, under her pale-eyed brother's administration, it was still there, on the wall behind his high-backed, armless chair. "If it doesn't work?" Marnie lifted her head, looked at the Ambassador, her eyes that pale cornflower blue that he'd seen so rarely. "If it doesn't work, Mr. Ambassador, I go in my office and break the glass."

THE CHRISTMAS LETTER Jacob considered his father's workload, he regarded his mother's industry, he looked at the stack of Christmas cards -- Angela addressed them in calligraphy, and mention was made of possibly including a note with them. Jacob smiled. He sat down at his father's computer and began to write, and when he was done, he re-read what he'd written, laughed, and proceeded to print out his own version of the year-end summary. Here's what he carefully folded, slid into every envelope with the carefully signed cards. Obligatory, Generic, Anti-Serious, Pseudo-Scientific, Christmas Card Letter! Another year has passed, blah, blah. Years always pass. Deal with it. We did stuff. We always do. Our health is generally good, except for the parts that aren’t. We obviously haven’t died yet. When we do, I’ll beg your pardon ahead of time for not scheduling two weeks in advance, as I hate interrupting other peoples’ schedules. The girls are still Collar Bone Deep in Ancestry Research. So far we've found Mama is related to an incredible number of famous people, including Princess Di and Atilla the Hun. She’s still working on Pa's side. She did find some Scottish royalty, back in Pa's Mama’s side of the family. Pa was hoping to be addressed as “Your Lordship.” He suggested that to Mama. Didn’t work. Pa tried addressing her as “Your Ladyship.” She was busy with something else and all she heard was “Your Ship.” Now she wants Pa to get her a boat. Pa was going to harken back to his redneck roots and mount an outhouse on pontoons and call it the “Royal Flush.” He described this to his beautiful bride. Mama speculated on how many strikes with an eighteen inch frying pan it would take to drive Pa through the floor like a fence post. Weather commentary is expected. It’s winter, we had snow, we’ll have more, then summer will return and it’ll get hot: remember when the Vikings discovered North America, the weather was “Global Warming” enough that Newfoundland (Canada. Ice, snow, polar bears, igloos) was known as Vinland – Vine Land – owing to the predominance of native grapes. Seasons happen. Pass the galoshes.

Buddy of mine served on the Saratoga. He refers to the white cover as a Cracker Jack.

My daughter was, rest her soul. I recall the day she came bouncing up the sidewalk with a grin as broad as two Texas townships, covered in equal amounts of triumph, sunburn and Musquitter Bites ... She'd just outshot everyone in her Police Basic class. Bring 'em up right and they'll make ye proud!

STREAKER Shelly Keller very carefully laid her phone side-down on the whitewashed corral rail, turning it to keep the filly in frame. A little filly – small, all legs and speed – was running, dodging, weaving in between the other members of the Sheriff’s saddle stock, making a fast orbit of the matched white mares that pulled the Firelands Fire Department’s steam firefighting engine. Beside her, on her left, a pale eyed Keller lad, just elbow tall on her: silent in boots and Stetson and jeans that would be too short if it weren’t for his stitched boot tops, and a cuff-frayed Carhartt coat (worn, too big, but a warm and comfortable hand-me-down from big brother Jacob) – and on her right, forearms folded over the top rail, chin on his flannel shirtsleeves, her silent, watchful husband, his pale eyes tracking the filly as she ran. Shelly glanced at her husband and saw the wrinkles tightening at the corners of his eyes. Any other man would have a broad grin. Linn practiced stillness; nothing moved but his eyes, following the spotted filly. His son made up for his father’s stillness. Michael, seeing the colt running within the enclosure, stepped quietly for the gate: Shelly heard it open, heard it close, heard the latch slip easily into place, heard the brittle crackle of cellophane. Linn heard it as well, the corners of his eyes tightening just a little more as he saw three Appaloosa heads come up, as he saw them turn toward where a young Keller stood, shucking multiple mints from their noisy jackets. Michael knew the suckling was too young to properly crunch the round, red-and-white horse crack, but the nursing mare, watchful and suspicious, wasn’t: Michael stood still, his hand out, palm flat, then reached up to caress her neck as she rubberlipped the treat, then pressed her head flat against his young chest, very obviously bumming for attention and more peppermints. The filly streaked under its Mama, whirled, came back: she paid no attention to this two-legs communing with the mare, and instead investigated a meal at the equine version of the Topless Restaurant. Shelly touched the screen, shut off the video: the phone dropped into her vest pocket and she looked over to her husband. Linn had a broad grin on his face. Michael took out running across the pasture. The filly whirled, ran with him. Michael turned, ran back, the filly happy pacing him, then streaking past, running back – a man-child, and a horse-child, each running for the sheer joy of running, playing tag, and both winning. Shelly sidled closer to her husband; each ran an arm around the other, happily leaning their warmth and their strength into one other. It had been a rough couple of days. Shelly knew her husband had been first on scene for three separate tragedies: she knew he was first on scene for all three, one wreck, one drowning and one suicide by hanging – she knew how hard this triple play hit him, she knew how badly the wreck alone affected her. Shelly had been honestly worried about her husband. When a man puts enough years under the lights and siren, he’s going to soak up grief and loss enough to last ten men their lifetimes, and she knew he had: she and her father responded to only one of the three events her husband handled, and it had been bad enough to turn the stomachs of veteran firefighters – even her father, a man she’d never seen pale in the face of the worst events they’d shared, had to turn aside and empty his stomach before continuing the extrication. Linn was right in the middle of it, working with them. Their shift ended immediately after this third, this worst event of the day. They’d gone home together, stripped off in the back yard together. Linn thrust his uniform, and his wife’s, in a washtub of brine to soak out the blood, before each scrubbed off the memory of the day’s multiple tragedies in a long, hot shower, before they ate supper in absolute silence, before Linn leaned back in his easy chair in his study and stared, silently, at a spot where the wall met the ceiling, until he finally closed his eyes and slept a little, and Shelly knew that – asleep or not -- he was still seeing the day’s horrors, over, and over, and over again. Shelly leaned her head over on her husband’s shoulder and sighed with contentment, and she smiled as she felt her husband’s silent laughter at the fast moving filly, running among the herd. “I like it when you laugh,” she murmured, and she felt his arm tighten, just a little, holding her into him. “I like it when you watch with me.” Husband and wife watched in silence, laughing again at the fast moving antics of a little spotty filly, of their fast-moving son chasing after. Michael came puffing over to them, grinning, the healthy pink standing out in his cheeks, the filly hobby-horsing up to him, butting him with her nose, inviting another run. Michael rubbed the little filly’s neck, fell against the fence, breathing deep, his expression happy. He looked up at his Mama’s questioning voice. “Have you named her yet?” Linn’s reply was quiet, confident as he winked down at his son. “I was waiting to see what name suited her.” “Streaker,” Michael declared. Linn nodded, smiled just a little. “She moves like a streak, doesn’t she?” “Yes, sir!” “Our son has the right of it,” Linn said firmly, to the grinning delight of young Michael. “Streaker she is!”

THE POPCORN FRANCHISE Sheriff Jacob Keller slammed his palm on the control panel and said quietly, "Keller, Jacob, Sheriff. Emergency override NOW!" The inner airlock door opened with a SLAM of inrushing air. Jacob stepped through the now open doorway with a blued-steel pistol barrel in the lead. He did not raise his voice. "Hands," he said, and the air in the control room chilled several degrees at the sound of his words: "Hands where I can see 'em, NOW!" Alarms were screaming outside the control room, strobes firing both within and without: Jacob advanced slowly, shooting quick glances left and right to make sure nobody was waiting to bend a pipe over his head -- it had been tried before, and only his admitted paranoia kept him from suffering a terminal headache that an aspirin the size of a washtub, would not have cured. Damage control teams slapped the emergency studs on their slim, contoured belt boxes, personal forcefields snapped into existence, men ran for the control room with a desperate speed, expecting to find a catastrophic decompression -- the kind they feared more than any other -- a God's honest airlock blowout. Dr. John Greenlees looked up, startled, as alarms flashed, as the voder intoned, "Decompression, decompression, decompression," then, "Sector Twelve, level one, engineering." Dr. Greenlees snatched what he called his "Warbag" without looking, slapped the stud on his own belt-mounted generator, ran toward the clinic door. If he was running toward a decompression event, he wanted his own fieldsuit active. He'd seen what happened to a living human being in a sudden, catastrophic decompression, and he had no wish to emulate their bad example. Several light-decades away, Ambassador Marnie Keller, seated at the head of the negotiating table, thrust to her feet, put two fingers to her lips, whistled, loud, sharp and shrill: her eyes had gone from mild, almost light blue, to ice-pale in a tenth of a second or less, and every bit of color was gone from her cheeks. Her sudden drive from seated to standing, the startling, ear-piercing conversation stopper, guaranteed the fractious, hostile, uncooperative conference, was at a sudden, startled standstill. Marnie glared at one side of the table, then the other: her voice was sharp, loud, and utterly devoid of the diplomatic charm she'd shown for the past week. "SEE HERE!" she shouted, her voice honed to a cutting edge, "YOU HAVEN'T BUDGED AND I'M TIRED OF IT! I HAVE TO LEAVE BECAUSE SOMEONE JUST TRIED TO KILL MY BROTHER AND I'M GOING TO RIP THE GUILTY PARTY'S HEART OUT AND STOMP ON IT!" The sudden fury in what had heretofore been a beautiful woman's face was in and of itself, shocking. "WHEN I GET BACK, WE WILL FINISH THIS, BUT BY THE LORD HARRY!" -- her lips were drawn back, her jaw clenched, gloved hands fisted -- "IF YOU ARE STILL SO OBSTINATE AND THICK-HEADED, I WILL TURN EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU OVER MY LAP AND SPANK YOU!" Representatives and dignitaries looked at one another, stared at the retreating backside of what had been a gentle, genteel, feminine, persuasive arbiter of their dispute, blinked as the elliptical Iris opened, as she stepped through, as Ambassador and Iris both disappeared. A lone voice said, " 'By the Lord Harry?' " He looked around and asked, "Who's Lord Harry?" Jacob holstered his engraved Smith, thrust a bladed hand toward the tech. "Your supervisor?" he said, his voice thick with menace. "Here," a voice with the damage control team said. "I nearly got spaced," Jacob snapped, "and Jack Doe here was at the controls." Jacob turned at the sound of a fist hammering on a closed hatchway: he looked as the hatch slid open, as Dr. Greenlees lowered his fist, surged across the threshold. "No injuries," Jacob called. "You're sure?" Dr. Greenlees snapped. "No one exposed?" "No. My suit protected me." Dr. Greenlees' eyes dropped to the slim, contoured box on Jacob's belt, nodded. "What happened?" Jacob turned to the supervisor. "Get into the record. I need to know if this was deliberate." An iris split reality a yard behind the pale eyed Sheriff. It looked for a moment like a black ellipse, tall as a man and half as broad: Marnie stepped through -- but instead of the long dress and matching little hat she'd worn for her diplomatic negotiations, she wore a flannel shirt, a denim skirt, a pair of red cowboy boots and an irritated expression. She also had a double-barrel shotgun in her white-knuckled grip, a shotgun that might've come from an earlier century, for it bore a distinct resemblance to the cut-down Greener carried by a short-tempered, pale-eyed ancestress. As a matter of fact, if one were to look at the breech, one might see a gold-inlaid, hand-engraved Thunder Bird over each chamber, and the initials SLM -- for Sarah Lynne McKenna -- but that's beside the point. No one was looking at the breech of the shotgun she gripped in one hand, a shotgun she carried laid back against her right collar bone. All conversation came to an absolute stop at the brittle, metallic click, click, as the stubby street howitzer's hammers were thumbed back to full stand. "Jacob," she snapped, "who tried to kill you?" Several sets of eyes turned toward a fellow who looked like he wished mightily that he could crawl under the rock floor and slink away. Jacob raised a hand: "We're finding out right now." Marnie turned and paced silently up to the man whose shoulders were pressed against the wall, the man who wished most sincerely he were somewhere else. She took him by the arm, turned. "Excuse us, please," she said quietly: they turned, walked over to the corner. Men's eyes followed them as their Sheriff -- or at least, their first Sheriff -- talked quietly, inaudibly with the tech. He nodded, swallowed, thrust his chin at the panel where his boss and two computer techs were interrogating the system. Marnie looked over at the panel, back at the tech: her voice was still quiet, still pitched so their conversation was just that -- theirs, and no one else's. They saw the man relax a little, just a little: Marnie paced back over to the group clustered around the closely watched analysis, her stubby, abbreviated shotgun still laid back against the front of her shoulder. Nobody missed the fact that both hammers were still cocked. It took just under twenty minutes. One of the computer techs said in a quiet voice, "Found it." "Show me." Keys clicked, screens shifted, scrolled up. "There." "I'll be damned." "Stevens. Come over here and take a look at this." A tech walked on wooden legs over to the cluster of screens, both the built-in and the folding, portable screens. "Look here -- this sequence. Here's your login. Here's ... let's look at that camera again." Another screen, an image: "Right there." "What?" "He couldn't have done that. No way he could've commanded an airlock depressurize." "It happened." "Oh, it happened, all right. You want the technical or you want the shirtsleeve version?" "I want a beer." "Good enough. The program's corrupted." "How?" "It wasn't local. Look at that subroutine signature. That's ... someone screwed up the programming back on Earth." Jacob looked at Marnie: pale eyes met pale eyes, and Marnie's head lowered ever so slightly. "Don't even," he cautioned. "Someone pays for this," she said quietly. "I won't lose my little brother because some bean counter didn't do his job!" "Marnie, listen to me," Jacob warned. "Don't. Don't even." "Watch me," Marnie hissed, then she closed her eyes, took a long breath, blew it out, looked at Jacob again. "I hate it when you're right," she muttered. "This means we go through every airlock subroutine. If this one's corrupt, we have to make sure the others aren't." Marnie turned, thumbed the lever on her shotgun, broke it open: one thumb over the right hammer spur and she pulled the front trigger, eased the hammer down; she switched her thumb to the left hammer, pulled the rear trigger, eased it down as well, then she closed the shotgun. The sound of a minor bank vault closing was loud in the room's sudden hush. Marnie turned, glared at her brother. "Someone screwed up and could have killed you," she said, her voice thick with suppressed anger. "I have killed men for less." She consulted her chrono. "If you'll excuse me, I need to get back to some negotiations." "Dressed like that?" Marnie reached over, plucked Jacob's Stetson from his head, clapped it on her own, laid her shotgun back against the front of her shoulder. "You're damned right." Men's eyes followed her as she turned toward the iris, stepped through and disappeared. "Do you reckon she'll make any headway?" Dr. Greenlees asked quietly. "I know she was negotiating some kind of a dispute." "Mad as she is," Jacob said softly, "she'll bring 'em to an accord or she'll beat 'em to death!" Dr. Greenlees gave Jacob his very best Innocent Expression and said, "If you're sellin' tickets, I want the popcorn franchise!"

TWO MENS' GIFTS "I knew you were coming." The man was tall, tanned, his face weathered, as was his bald head. A few of the Brethren shaved their scalps into the monastic tonsure. The Abbott had no need; his hairline began to recede in his nineteenth year, and was only just slowing its retreat, now that he had nought but a band around the back of his head and over his ears. His visitor was silent; his tread had not been heard, not from the moment he'd dismounted. The Abbott turned, smiled a little, advanced and thrust out his hand. The pale eyed Sheriff gripped it: the two men held their grip a moment longer than was required, as each one looked deep into the other's soul. "Have a seat," the Abbott said, gesturing: he and the Sheriff sat. Watered wine was brought, decanted from a locally fired clay pitcher, into cut-glass tumblers -- a gift, the Sheriff knew, from the grateful wife of a successful businessman, after the White Sisters tended their family when the plague of measles swept through. The Abbott waited: he wore his patience the way he wore a cloak; just as silence cascaded from the Sheriff, patience rolled off the Abbott, for both men had seen much of the world, and much of what they'd seen, both together, and in their separate lives, were things they wished they'd never experienced. A light meal was brought in and laid before the pair. They ate in silence; a discreet watcher slipped in, silent on bare feet, refilled their tumblers, withdrew discreetly. "You had a bad one." Linn looked up, considered, then nodded, once. "I understand you were in the middle of the situation." "Turned out that way." Linn's voice was quiet, almost reluctant. "You knew them." "Most of 'em." "You could have stood back and let Digger handle the dead." Linn set his tumbler on the table, turned it slowly with just the tips of his thumb and fingers. "No," he finally said. "No, I knew 'em. 'Twas best they had someone they knew ... warn't much family left to ... tend 'em." "How many men could have done that, Linn?" Linn raised his eyes but made no other move. "How many other men would have taken one look and wet themselves and then run in panic just to see it?" Linn's expression was bleak, memories looking out through his pale eyes like ghosts crowding behind the window of an abandoned building. "You remember ..." The Abbott stopped, considered: he picked up a slice of sourdough, buttered it, then folded it and broke it in two, handed half to the Sheriff. The Abbott pinched two fingers into the salt cellar and sprinkled a little salt on his half: it was a newly acquired salt, evaporated from ocean water, and traded for by his quartermaster. Linn took the bread and hesitated, waited until the Abbott garnished his half, then both men raised theirs and took a bite. "Damn that War," Linn finally said. The Abbott nodded. "I have, many times," he agreed. Linn's expression was haunted; the Abbott had seen this before -- good men, strong men who'd lived their lives after the War, but when they wore a particular look, when they stared through the wall at something a thousand miles away, it generally meant a memory had arisen and enveloped their soul, almost like an invisible fog surrounding the sufferer. Linn looked at the Abbott. "I reckon you're right," he finally said. "Oh?" The Abbott's reply was carefully neutral. "No normal man could have done what I did." The Abbott nodded slowly, eyes half-lidded. It did not surprise the Sheriff in the least little bit that his boon companion from back during that damned War knew exactly what had happened, what Linn had done, the hell this pale eyed old campaigner had seen yet again. Word of misfortune and sorrow travels fast, and the Abbott took pains to have information brought to him. Linn suspected that was another result of the Abbott's having survived that damned War. "I thought I'd buried it," Linn said softly, his fingertips restless on the smooth wood tabletop. "I thought all those hard memories were long ... not forgotten, but ... I'd thought there was enough years' worth of dirt and leaf-litter fell on 'em to bury 'em." "And then they came rip-roarin' out of their six foot deep grave and all the rocks you'd piled on top to keep 'em buried." "That," Linn agreed quietly, "is exactly what happened." The Abbott nodded slowly, took a sip of his cool wine. "You were needed," the Abbott said finally. "Reckon so." "How many family was left to tend the needfuls?" "Just one ... just one girl, and her not half Sarah's age." The Abbott shook his head. "Dear God," he whispered. "Has she any family elsewhere?" Linn nodded. "Back East. Sent 'em a telegram. Sean and Daisy took her in, Daisy said she needed another woman t' keep all those wild Irishmen in line!" The Abbott chuckled, shook his head. "Sean is an impressive man," he said softly, "but Daisy is more than his match!" The Sheriff chuckled, nodded: the Abbott did not miss the smile that escaped the man's careful reserve. "I seem to remember hearing about her scattering strong men before her, and her armed with a wooden spoon!" Linn laughed this time, a good honest laugh: the black cloud hovering over him was shattered by now, and gone: "You should have seen it," Linn affirmed, "men that weren't afraid of the Devil himself, scatterin' like leaves before the williwaw!" "Heaven keep me safe from a woman's temper," the Abbott intoned in a gentle voice: Abbott and Sheriff both raised their glasses in hearty agreement, drank. "You went back into the Church after the War," Linn said thoughtfully. "Atonement?" "Healing," came the reply: "I went back to my New Orleans seminary, then I went West and found I was still needed." He looked at the Sheriff. "You were needed too," he said, "and you still are." "Yes," Linn agreed, "but at what cost?" " 'Who heals the healer', eh?" "Yeah," Linn said, his voice suddenly husky. "Everything ... set aside everything from that damned War and I've still ... waded through ... more grief ..." "You've handled grief and loss that would last ten men their lifetimes," the Abbott agreed firmly. "You have done that. No other man could have. You were tempered like a spring in the forge of war. Evil that War was, evil those days were and terrible were those bloody days and nights, but they prepared you for all that came after!" The Abbott leaned forward, looked very directly, very intently at his pale-eyed guest. "You're still needed, Linn. You've done more good than you realize." Linn smiled with half his mouth, reached up, tapped the middle of his own forehead. "I know that here" -- tap, tap -- "but it's harder to realize it here" -- his fingers lowered to his breastbone, tapped twice more. The Abbott rose, and Linn rose with him. "Forgive me," Abbott William said, "I have services." Two old veterans of more hell than living men should know, clasped hands again: one rode away on an Appaloosa stallion, returning to where he was needed, and another man, tall, bald, helped the White Sisters tend the sufferers in their small infirmary: he would lead the faithful in prayer and in song, he would direct the operation of the Rabbitville monastery, but he never forgot that every soul that came through the gates was a guest, and he never failed to greet each one with a gentle courtesy. Two men were needed, and two men served, according to their gifts.

HE DID NOT EVEN MOVE The interdimensional iris was a genuine marvel of Confederate technology. Among its many attributes was the fact that it was absolutely silent. When Ambassador Marnie Keller stepped through the iris into her Daddy's study, she made all the noise of a falling leaf, at least until she took a long and serious look at her father. His face was drawn, lined: his eyes were closed, he was leaned back in his easy chair, but he looked ... ... he looked tired, worn out, he looked the way she herself had felt when she was utterly crushed with the grief of her children's deaths. Marnie stood silent, then turned toward the kitchen. Her step was silent -- even in her hard-heeled boots, her tread was utterly soundless -- she leaned a little, peeked into the kitchen. Shelly looked up, startled, as Marnie raised a gloved hand, waved. The two skipped across the floor, embraced: Shelly whispered, quickly, her eyes shining with delight. "I'm so glad to see you!" -- and Marnie whispered back, "Is Daddy all right?" Shelly blinked, looked away, and Marnie knew her Daddy was not all right. "Mama," she whispered, "what happened?" Shelly hesitated, turned, went over to the stove, turned the fire on under the ancient, lightly dented teakettle: it was the same one Marnie saw ever since she was a little girl, very likely it had been Aunt Mary's, back when she and Uncle Pete lived here. Shelly opened a cupboard door with an exaggerated care, brought out two mugs: another minute and tea was steeping, and two Keller women sat at the kitchen table, leaned over their fragrant, steaming mugs, and talked in whispers. "We had a bad one today," Shelly explained. "I'm soaking the blood out of my uniform. Linn picked up another two pounds of salt on his way home." "His too?" Shelly nodded. "Was Daddy hurt?" "Not physically." Marnie felt her sense of safety drop down a mineshaft and disappear into the darkness below: her Daddy was the strongest man she knew, and if he'd had a bad day, if it was a bloody one, and he and her Mama both were in the middle of it, together ... Marnie looked at her Mama, looked away. "Are you okay?" Marnie whispered. "I have to be," Shelly shrugged. "We'll have a critical incident debrief after supper." Marnie closed her eyes, rested her forehead in the V of thumb-and-fingers. Shelly looked at the clock, looked at Marnie. "I think we'll just get something at the Silver Jewel and walk down to the firehouse for the debrief." "I'd better go, then." Marnie rose, and her mother rose with her. Marnie turned as if to go back through her Daddy's study, then turned quickly, seized her mother, hugged her fiercely: Shelly felt her daughter shivering a little, and somehow she knew Marnie was remembering some of her own hell. She's probably remembering losing both her children. Marnie released her Mama, nodded, blinking: she turned, walked quickly into her Daddy's study. Linn hadn't moved. Marnie smelled the man's soap-and-water smell, his deodorant, she remembered how she so loved sitting in her Daddy's lap, safe and protected as she leaned into his chest, smelling that same soap-and-water man-smell. She blinked the sting from her eyes, bent, kissed her Daddy's forehead, up near his hairline, then she turned and rushed through the iris, which collapsed and disappeared as soundlessly as a great, elliptical, very black cat's eye, closing. A lean waisted lawman with a mustache gone to iron grey lay in his easy chair, stress and grief graven on his face, even when he rested. Perhaps somewhere, deep inside, he recognized the touch of a daughter's love, pressed against his forehead, but so exhausted, so spent was the man, that even with this gentle, most welcome touch, he did not even move.

When that pale eyed Sheriff Willamina grips the octagonal, cast iron dumbbells and uses them as handles when she's doing push-ups -- when she's driving herself, utterly without mercy, sweat dripping from her face, a thousand ghosts riding her shoulder blades and tearing at her soul -- This is the music she has beating at her from truly massive speakers on either side of her living room.

I LIKE THINGS THAT WORK It used to be a winning poker hand. In less than one-half of one heartbeat, it was a fluttering spray of pasteboards -- that is, it was one of several such sprays. Colorful, light-catching, just like the glitter of coin launched into the air when an anonymous boot kicked the underside of the table and those nearest the sledgehammer concussion took pains to lose altitude in a hurry. A pale eyed deputy Sheriff, less than a week in town, tracked down a man who swore no man could track him; he'd braced him in the town he'd bragged no lawman would ever dare enter, and he'd just outdrawn the man who'd let it be known that no man alive could out-draw or out-shoot him. Later, after the inquest, the circuit riding judge asked the quiet, lean-faced lawman with the thousand-mile stare, "Deputy, why are you still carrying that old Colt? Surely you can afford one of those new cartridge revolvers!" Deputy Sheriff Linn Keller, the day before he became Sheriff of Firelands, looked the circuit riding Judge in the eye and said quietly, "Your Honor, that revolver was given me by a man who knew I would need a faithful friend who could argue loudly and persuasively on my behalf. It's never let me down, not even once." The Judge saw just a hint of humor in those pale eyes as the lawman continued, "I like things that work!" A pale eyed Marine was laagered in with her troops in mountains uncomfortably close to the Soviet Union: matter of fact, she'd found Soviet troops occupied this same bunker, years before. Her M4 carbine was detail stripped on the solid little table before her: she reassembled it, her fingers sure, swift, exact: she knew where dirt hid, where carbon built up, she knew which parts to look at closely, she knew what to change out and when. Nobody ever remembered her rifle failing to function, no one ever remembered her M4 out of action from a misfeed, from a jam, from a failure to eject. Nobody offered comment when they saw her tear her rifle down, but no one missed how precise she was when she did, and no one failed to notice that when this pale eyed Marine brought fire upon the enemy, the enemy came out in second place. The closest anyone ever came to comment was when her CO came in to find her carefully, precisely, exactly, lubricating and reassembling her rifle: he watched in silence, waited until her rifle was reassembled before lifting his eyes from her hands and looking at her eyes. Willamina's eyes were pale as she said in a quiet voice, "I like things that work." Three men moved at the same time, and so did a pretty young Ambassador in a long-skirted dress and a fashionably matching little hat. The men moved against the guard that surrounded the Ambassador, confident that surprise, strength, weighted leather saps -- and the energy-dissipation suits they wore -- would be sufficient to disable the guard and abduct this pretty slip of a high-value hostage. They moved, reaching for a guard's arm with one hand, raising their slungshot with the other. Ambassador Marnie Keller skipstepped to the side, fired a percussion, blackpowder, .36 caliber, Navy Colt: its twin, in her other hand, coughed: two men fell, the third, stunned by two quick concussions, looked at her just in time to see a pale eye, steady over the muzzle of her octagon barrel revolver. It was the last thing he ever saw. During the debrief that followed, Ambassador Marnie Keller helped strip the carcasses, showed the inquest the wire-mesh suits, the capacitors, the energy scavengers that would have soaked up all the energies of hand-held stunners her planet-assigned bodyguards carried. "They were ready for the defensive tools your troops were issued," Marnie said quietly. "They intended to cosh my guard, seize me and hold me for ransom and" -- she looked around, her pale eyes hardening as she did -- "and do terrible things to me to entice you to accede to their demands." She casually reloaded one revolver, then the other -- she slipped nitrated paper cartridges into the fired cylinders, turned the ram to seat the flat-nosed, conical bullets down on the powder: she capped the fired nipples, rested the nose of the color case hardened hammer on the little peg between the nipples: a quick move, a magician's gesture, the pistols were hidden again, and none there were sure quite how she'd done it, or where they'd gone. The Ambassador asked Marnie later why she hadn't worn her usual .357, if she'd known there would be an attack. Marnie smiled at him, demure, utterly charming, absolutely feminine as she said in a quiet voice, "I like the effect of fire squirting from the barrel. They'll never forget seeing that. "I like that blackpowder concussion, I like the smell of sulfur afterwards." Her smile was less feminine now as she added, "It lets 'em know their destination if they cross me." She folded her hands very properly in her lap and continued, "Besides, I like things that work!"

DID YE TALK T’ GOD ABOUT IT? Sheriff Linn Keller removed his Stetson as he addressed their hired girl. He apologized in a most gentlemanly manner for causing her more work, and asked if she could possibly tend his suit, for he’d managed to get it rather dirty: from anyone else, it would have been a demand, an order, but from the pale eyed Sheriff, it was couched as a request, and she’d discovered that when he parsed it as a request, it was just that. This was relieving to their hired girl, for tending the household was no light task, and so far as she was able, she liked to plan her work ahead. Linn retreated with a careful tread up the stairs – in his sock feet, his boots were scuffed and dirty, very unlike their gleaming appearance he usually affected: only his hat escaped whatever misadventure that made him look … used. Linn came down the stairs, as silent as when he’d ascended: he’d come into the house still damp from washing up, and consultation with a mirror assured him that yes, he’d managed to get rid of the accumulated dirt: he looked around, remembering his young sons, alive and healthy (and clean!), and he gripped the back of a kitchen chair, then sat, slowly, bent over, elbows on his knees, and sank his face into his palms, shivering a little. The maid came bustling into the room, picked up his folded coat, shirt, vest and trousers, then froze, looking at the man: she placed the folded garments on another chair, slipped out of the room, came back with a cut-glass tumbler with three fingers’ worth of distilled California sunshine. “Ye look done in,” she whispered, a gentle hand on his back: Linn lifted his face from his hands, took the glass, drank. He handed the maid back the empty glass, nodded: another moment, and he was on his feet. “I’ve got t’ polish m’ boots,” he muttered, and the maid shrank back a little. Michael Moulton was the town’s attorney, and their land office agent: he’d lifted a chin to the Sheriff, crossed the street at a long-legged stride, spoken to the pale eyed lawman from whom silence cascaded like a cold downdraft from a snowy mountain. Linn looked at his old friend, concerned. “The Parsons boys?” Moulton nodded, a single, measured lowering of his head, a lift, eyes veiled as he did. “Those boys don’t have two shekels to rub together.” “So I gathered.” “And they were askin’ about filin’ a claim?” Again the single, measured nod. “Did they say what they were minin’?” “Not after I started talking how much filing a claim would run, then I spoke of the expense of hauling ore, the cost of freight …” “Hm.” Linn squinted into the distance. “Might ought I’d ride up there and take a look.” “Chances are it was just wishful thinking, Sheriff.” “Might be,” Linn agreed, “but if they hit even a trace of color, we could have a gold rush or silver or hell anything nowadays, mines are playin’ out left and right and men are desperate for one last vein.” The two men withdrew into the Sheriff’s office, and the Sheriff opened one of several wide, shallow drawers on a purpose built cabinet he’d had made some years back. He considered the contents of one drawer, riffled through the big sheets of paper, brought one out, laid it on his desk. Mr. Moulton turned to get his bearings, studying the hand drawn map – twin to the one he’d used that day, to locate the position of the Parsons boys’ inquiry – the Sheriff frowned a little, thumped the spot with a fingertip. “There’s nothing there,” he said finally, “no silver, no zinc, no lead, sure as hell no gold … why d’ they want to stake that?” “Salt it, maybe, sell it and make money?” “They don’t own the ground, they can’t sell it.” “Sell the claim, then.” “That,” Linn grunted. “Most likely that.” He shook his head. “Hell, if they’re goin’ to do that, they’ll bring a gold rush down on us and we’ll never recover!” Mr. Moulton had seen gold rushes and what they did to a town, and he agreed silently with the Sheriff’s sentiments. “I’ll head up there and see what they’ve got.” Half an hour later, the Sheriff’s stallion stamped restlessly as the pale eyed old lawman surveyed the scene. He frowned, leaned forward, squinted, willing himself to see more clearly – What’s that sticking out of that hole? Legs? One of the Parsons boys ran up to the hole, grabbed a leg, pulled: it was excavated into a sidehill, it looked like a collapse – The stallion surged powerfully forward, heading for the small scale but potentially deadly tunnel collapse at a mane-streaming, tail-floating, ears-laid-back, gallop. The maid looked at Linn, her expression serious. “Ye drank that like watter,” she observed. Linn looked at the tumbler, looked into its vacant depth, handed it to her. “Yep. Hole in it.” “Sheriff,” the maid said carefully, “be ye well?” Linn looked at her with a troubled expression, something she’d never seen before. “I was thinking of my sons,” he said, his voice most uncharacteristically faint. Linn seized the broke-handled shovel, attacked the cave-in like a personal enemy. He knew it would be bootless to seize the protruding leg and pull: too much of the boy’s body was trapped under the roof fall: he moved dirt fast, not in a panic but without any lethargy whatsoever, carefully avoiding trying to shovel such things as arms or other body parts. He seized the boy’s waist, hoisted, pulled: a shift, and he reset his feet, hauled up, pulled again: the dirt reluctantly released its grip, and the Sheriff brought the limp, unmoving figure from death’s grip, rolled him over. He’s not breathing. Linn looked around, frantic. How to get him to breathe! What did they use on the waterfront? Bent him over a barrel and rolled him back and forth … Linn remembered the near-drowning, how the dockworker was laid over a barrel, gripped by the ankles, rolled back and forth, how he’d heaved up a hogshead of saltwater and started coughing. I’ve got no barrel. He stood a-straddle of the boy, bent over, ran an arm under the lad’s belly, hoisted, then let him down: hoisted again, let him down again. The other boy’s pleas were distant, barely heard: the Sheriff felt helpless in the face of his tragedy, he felt uncertain. Lift again, hold, hold, hold, and lower. He felt movement: he lowered the lad again, rolled him up on his side, looked at the frightened brother, white-faced and kneeling, watching, shocked, wide-eyed, helpless. Linn reached down, rubbed the lad’s belly. He gasped, weakly. Linn rubbed again, harder. A longer gasp. Once more, he thought, and this time the boy coughed. Linn’s voice was quiet in the kitchen. “When he started breathin’ again,” he said, “so did I.” He took a long breath, stood. “Reckon I’ll get my boots taken care of,” he said quietly. “Got ‘em kind of dirty.” The maid rose with him, her hands clasped and anxious in her apron. “Did they find anythin’ where they dug?” she asked. Linn shook his head. “They found dirt, that was about all. Nothing they could claim.” “So we’ve no worry about a Glory Hole bringin’ scoundrels an’ loafers fra’ all o’er t’ plague our puir town.” “No.” Linn grinned. “I’ve seen a gold rush, Mary. No wish to see one here.” Mary withdrew a step to allow the man to pass, then: “Sheriff?” Linn stopped, turned. “Did ye talk t’ God about it?” Linn nodded, his expression haunted. “Yes, Mary,” he said quietly. “Yes, I did.”

AMBASSADORIAL PRIVILEGE Women are marvelous, fascinating creatures of mystery, given to actions, statements, decisions that puzzle their male counterparts, that confuse their male counterparts, that utterly confound their male counterparts: just when a man thinks he might be close to figuring out women as a whole, or a woman in particular, these creatures of grace and beauty do something to turn that conclusion, that hubric supposition, on its absolute head. One thing the Ambassador knew, however, was that when his Martian counterpart, Sheriff Emeritus Marnie Keller, began to growl, it meant things were going to be quite unpleasant for someone, and generally in very short order. The Ambassador came into the Earth-and-a-quarter, as it was called, and immediately felt heavier: the gravity here was 1.25 Earth-normal, and it was where Marnie practiced. The Ambassador was no weak soul, by any means: he, too, maintained his physical strength, his stamina; he, too practiced various of the Arts Martial, but he could only stare in admiration as Marnie jumped, seized a bar, chinned herself ten times with apparent ease: she dropped, crouched, reached left, reached right, gripped what he knew were cast iron dumbbells that – in Earth-normal gravity – weighed twenty pounds each: the weights at the end of the stippled, cast-iron bars were hexagonal, and Marnie used them as push-up handles, driving herself mercilessly against the increased gravity. He knew she’d been running – she ran as her grandmother ran, with a full ruck, with a rifle over her shoulder, boots laced and fatigue trousers bloused – but unlike her grandmother, her labors were without the driving rhythms from towering speakers with a good bass response. The speakers were there; at times, Marnie did time her exertions to the beat of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” as played on a madman’s cello, she practiced with a three-foot riot baton to the screaming urgency of Celtic war-pipes: at least, she had done these things in the past. Today she drove herself in silence. The Ambassador watched as she mercilessly pushed herself through half-a-hundred pushups: her legs came up under her, she released the dumbbells, she ran for a fighting-golem. The golem came to life at her approach. It didn’t move fast enough. Marnie’s attack was at running speed: she swung up, drove both bootheels into its middle, knocked it down, hard: she continued her attack, staying just out of reach of the quick-grabbing hands, kicking the golem, dropping back, jumping, twisting. The Ambassador took another step forward. The golem stopped, stood, went inert: Marnie crouched, her eyes pale, splayed fingertips on the floor. For the very first time since he’d met her, the Ambassador felt a trickle of fear as the Marnie he seldom saw, looked very directly at him. Her eyes were fighting-white, her face was the color of parchment, and the skin was stretched tight over her cheekbones: her bloodless lips were peeled back, he saw the muscle definition in her bare, sweat-sheened arms, and he realized that perhaps he should have used the annunciator rather than just walking in unannounced. Marnie dropped her head, rose; she lifted her head and smiled: her face was pleasant, her expression gentle, the color was back in her cheeks and her eyes held that faint shade of cornflower blue that meant she was pleased to see someone: she toweled her sweaty face briskly, then her damp, wet-shining arms. “You should have called ahead,” she announced cheerfully, “I’d have had a nice cold beer waiting on you!” The Ambassador looked at Jacob’s wife, then at Jacob. “You’ve chosen well,” he said softly, and Jacob looked from his wife back to the Ambassador. His smile was quiet, reserved: he nodded, then he stopped, looked at the Ambassador again, and laughed. He leaned forward a little and said quietly, “Just between you and me and the fence post yonder, I’m not sure but what she’s the one that made that choice!” The Ambassador sighed, nodded: “I know my wife did,” he admitted. “I didn’t have the sense God gave a rock.” The Ambassador’s expression softened a little. “I’m glad she did.” “Me too,” Jacob admitted: both men rose as Ruth approached their table, bearing a great tray of comestibles: she placed the tray, gave it a final, approving look. Jacob and the Ambassador, and Jacob’s wife, dined well that afternoon: an original cut of backstrap from a particularly healthy specimen had been scanned into the replicator, along with choice examples of the various other dishes they favored: Ruth adapted quickly to new technology, probably because she’d been raised a daughter of privilege, with servants and cooks to tend such mundane tasks: she was able to select dishes from the computerized menu and have them appear, hot, fragrant, spiced to their preference: the kitchen’s demands on her were minimal. Conversation was pleasant, they discussed horses and hydroponics, power generation and musical performances: the Ambassador expressed his admiration for Jacob’s skill with an artist’s pencil and his sister’s as well, and Jacob laughed and told the Ambassador about the time Marnie wore a business suit and stood behind their bank’s counter when a wanted man came in and tried to swindle his way into a safety deposit box: how, when Marnie was sworn in, after the criminal was apprehended and it came to court, she wore the same suit, she identified the defendant, and she identified the portrait grade sketch she’d made immediately after the foiled felon’s frustrated flight, and how the defendant exclaimed “Howinell’d I know she was a damned sketch artist!” – to the absolute distress of his defense attorney. “You know, your sister is quite a remarkable woman,” the Ambassador chuckled. “She thinks rather highly of you as well.” The Ambassador looked thoughtful, looked at Jacob, turning a sweet roll between his fingers. “I am ever so grateful she separates her professional from her personal,” he said softly. “Was I not happily married … I might … ask her father’s permission to pursue her hand.” Jacob nodded thoughtfully; he and his wife exchanged a look. The Sheriff’s line chimed: Jacob said “Excuse me,” slid his chair back, strode for his desk across the room: he bent, pressed a button, looked at the monitor. “Sheriff Keller.” “Sir, there’s a fight, second level, hangar deck –” The anxious individual turned, looked to his left: Jacob saw the man’s mouth fall open: the caller winched his jaw back into engagement as he turned and looked into the camera again. “Fight’s over,” he said, and Jacob heard a familiar voice a little further away call, “Prisoner inbound, have Doc on standby!” “You heard the lady,” Jacob said. “Give her whatever help she needs.” Jacob lifted his head. “Sorry to interrupt, folks, but I’ve got to take care of this.” He slung his gunbelt around his middle, cinched it snug, clapped his uniform Stetson on his head, looked at his guest and announced happily, “Dressed!” Ever since he was a wee child, as long as he had his hat and his boots, he was dressed, and his Mama had a blackmail picture somewhere of little Jacob wearing only those two items, standing in profile at the bathroom sink, grinning through a mouthful of toothpaste foam, eyes shining and toothbrush in hand. Jacob strode for the door, intercepted his sister and one of the maintenance men, half-dragging, half-carrying a groaning prisoner with two black eyes a good start on a bloody nose. “Assault on a law enforcement officer,” Marnie said crisply, “simple assault, on a civilian, assault with a deadly weapon, public intox, aggravated stupidity and mopery with intent to creep.” Marnie’s smile was grim. “You know, the usual.” Jacob nodded, went through the prisoner’s pockets, patted him down quickly, expertly, with the ease of long practice. “All right, fella,” he said, “let’s get you to see the Doc. Looks like you run your face into someone’s fist.” Jacob looked at his sister. “You okay?” She shook her head and he saw she was holding her hand carefully, the way she did if she was injured and didn’t want to show it. “Someone else assaulted?” “Got their statement already. That’s the simple. He pulled a club on me for the weapon specification.” “You didn’t just kill him? Armed assault on a law enforcement officer is a death penalty offense.” Marnie shrugged. “Ambassadorial privilege.”

LOCAL GHOST Mothers are observant creatures. The mother of a sick child is perhaps hyper-aware, hyper-observant. One such mother saw the other nurses look at one another as a nurse in the classic dress and winged cap came into the ward. She'd heard whispers about this one, this nurse, this darling of the new medical director: she thought she was better than everyone, wearing something from years before, when nurses nowadays wore the more efficient scrubs and clogs -- why, this one even wore a blue cape, something not seen since, oh God, when? -- World War II? The old-fashioned nurse stopped at the first sink, washed her hands quickly, efficiently: she turned, eyes swinging over the ward, as if searching for something. The mother had just finished helping bathe her child, she'd drawn the covers carefully up around a young chin, she'd caressed a young face, looked into unresponsive eyes. Terminal, they'd said. Inoperable, they'd said. She knew the spine was involved, she knew the cancer was spread, in spite of chemo wafers packed into the void where the glioma was removed from the living brain, in spite of blasting the invading tendrils with radiation ... in spite of cutting, burning and poisoning, the cancer was taking her child, and nothing she could do to stop it. The nurse flowed across the floor, her cape lifting a little as she did: she tilted her head, looked with unblinking pale eyes at the child's face, the bald head. She lowered the near siderail, bent, ran a hand under the child's pelvis, one under the neck, closed her eyes. "What are you doing?" the mother asked. The nurse lifted just a little, then pulled, as if stretching the diseased, brittle, crumbling spine. "What are you doing?" the mother asked again, louder, then grabbed the nurse's arms. She let go, suddenly -- hot! she thought, looked at her hands, expecting them to be red, blistered. She looked at the nurse, shocked, uncertain whether to shout for help, unsure just what to do -- The nurse straightened, bent over the child's bald head, caressed the shining, hairless scalp with both hands, and the mother was struck by how pale, how unblinking her eyes were -- how ... ... how unnatural. The nurse held the small head in both hands, laid her thumbs over the closed eyes, moved them up to the hairless brow ridge, then she released the child's head, straightened. She turned, walked back to the sink, washed her hands, left the ward. The other nurses hung back, silent, not moving. The mother looked at them, looked at the closing door. "What," she asked, "just happened?" The unit supervisor came over, bent, looked closely at the unmoving child's face. She looked at the mother. "When did his eyebrows start growing back?" The mother looked at her child, froze. She reached down, hesitantly caressed ... Eyebrows? And eyelashes -- She pushed away from the bed, ran across the ward, yanked open the door, looked wildly down the hall, looked the other way -- Gone -- She ran, stopped, looked one way, then the other, down the night-empty corridors -- She ran back -- The unit supervisor was taking her child's vitals: she looked up, smiled as the mother approached the bed. "Who was that nurse that was just in here?" The supervisor looked at her, puzzled. "What nurse?" "The one ... you know, in the old-fashioned uniform --" The supervisor shook her head slowly. "But ... she came in and came over ... I saw her, she ... I grabbed her arms, she was hot --" The supervisor and the other nurses looked at one another, shook their heads. Angela dropped heavily into the Mars-issue, spun-plastic chair, leaned back, sighed contentedly. Dr. Greenlees smiled a little. "I take it you were successful." "Oh, yes," she said. "The field kept me invisible. All anyone but the mother saw was the door open and shut. I even managed to conceal my handwashing." Dr. Greenlees nodded. "And the child?" "I implanted the nanobots at the distal and proxmial spine both," she said, "and I couldn't resist a little ... theater." Dr. Greenlees raised an eyebrow. "I knew there were a few nanos on my invisogloves, so I ran my thumbs across the patient's brow ridge." "Did it work?" "I didn't stay long enough to find out," Angela admitted. "The iris opened as I approached and disappeared just as fast. Nobody saw me in the hallway and no cameras in that section." "Was it the ghost of Nurse Susan?" "Who?" "Puffy mob cap, long dress, watch on her bodice --" "No, no, it looked like nurses in my grandmother's era. Winged cap, stockings, dress, a blue cape." "Mmm. No, I've heard of the ghost of the original Dr. Greenlees' wife being seen ... no, I don't know of any ghosts like that." The unit supervisor frowned, considered, looked at the door. "You might ask the Sheriff. He knows about our local haunts."

HARD KNUCKLES AND HOT LEAD Marnie's arm swung outward as her Daddy's black gelding turned a little sideways, the way he always did when she cast a lariat. Sheriff Linn Keller's eyes were hard and unforgiving, his pace determined, one hand on his holstered sidearm, the other hand up, as if to grab, or to support his gun hand, or to swat aside a pesky fly if need be. The object of their attention was buzzed up on something -- just what, they didn't know, and didn't particularly care -- they'd gotten the call and they'd converged, and they'd distracted a druggie from whatever it was he intended to do to a snatched child in the parking lot. Linn started to lean forward, the way he did just before launching himself into someone. Jacob ran up, shotgun in a two-hand grip, brought the pump gun back, his body twisted, ready to uncoil like a living spring. Marnie's loop hesitated, then dropped, snapped shut: braided leather snapped taut, two turns around the saddlehorn guaranteeing her mount's quick-stepping retreat would bring the wide-eyed, knife-swinging druggie off his feet. It appeared to the onlookers as if they'd practiced this move many times -- they had to, didn't they? -- it looked so rehearsed, so perfect: the Sheriff kept the druggie's attention, one pale eyed deputy whipped a lasso around him and yanked him off his feet, the other unwound a shotgun butt into the screaming, thrashing felon's belly, knocking all the wind and most of the fight out of him. It was common knowledge that when that long tall Sheriff grabbed someone, they weren't getting away: a set of irons snarled around the felon's wrists, the felon was freed of la reata and stuffed in the waiting cruiser, and a pale eyed deputy slung his shotgun casually over his off shoulder, muzzle down as was his habit, as his pale eyed sister casually coiled her lariat and hung it off her saddlehorn. Several there had their phones out, capturing the takedown: lucky enough, those same folk also caught video of this individual stabbing car doors, throwing shopping carts and seizing a child and threatening to cut her throat if he wasn't given a million dollars and a helicopter: the arrival of a hard, uncompromising Sheriff, the Sheriff opening the back door of his cruiser, then turning, pointing to the criminal and advancing at a determined pace, was enough to penetrate the drug's influence, enough to hold the criminal's attention. Someone later asked the mounted deputy why they didn't just shoot the guy with the knife: she had a rifle in her scabbard, and was known to be an expert shot; the Sheriff carried a carbine in his cruiser, and could have used it to good effect -- a deer slug fed into Jacob's shotgun could have had the same surgically precise effect, as close as he was. Marnie dismounted, opened her saddlebag, pulled out the weekly newspaper. It showed her brother at an accident scene, doing CPR on a bloodied victim. "He didn't make it," she said, "and Jacob knew he probably would not make it, but he tried anyway. Do you know why?" The bystander shook his head, puzzled. "Jacob knows what it is to have an empty chair at Thanksgiving," she said. "He knew if he did nothing, that guy was dead. If he did his best, he'd be giving him the only chance he'd have. That's what we did here." She gestured to where the takedown had just occurred. "That is someone's son, someone's brother, someone's uncle or maybe a lost husband. We just gave him the only chance he'll have to straighten out." The questioner looked away, frowned a little, looked back, nodded. "We gave him a chance. Sometimes we don't have that choice, but today we did." In years past, when men who rode the Owlhoot Trail changed their names like they changed coats, a pale eyed old lawman with an iron grey mustache brought someone in rather than kill him out of hand. Questions were asked, among those riders of the Owlhoot, whether Old Pale Eyes was gettin' soft. The general consensus that he wasn't softenin' up any a'tall, he was still the same hard man he'd always been, but maybe there was more to the man than just hard knuckles and hot lead. Somehow that quote made it into the local newspaper. Better than a century later, the editor of the local paper remembered that ancient quote, and actually found it, and it featured into the weekly's front page article on the dramatic takedown, when a local child was seized by a drug-crazed, knife-wielding stranger, when a lariat and a shotgun were used, when the local law was a-horseback: the question might be asked, Bruce Jones wrote, as to whether their pale eyed enforcers of the Law were gone soft: surely there was justification enough for deadly force, none would have objected at the use of hot lead to prevent the criminal use, the threatened use, of cold steel. Editor, reporter, photographer and chief broom pusher Bruce Jones ended his article with the answer to his own question, an answer spoken by an outlaw, long and long ago: "Maybe there's more to them than hard knuckles and hot lead."

AGAIN Sheriff Willamina Keller began the ancestry research. Her granddaughters continued her work with the same zeal as Willamina herself began it, and they searched in the same manner as she: it was their unfailing custom to do their research in the back offices of the Firelands Museum, which was a minor library as well as a research facility; they searched using every last tool available to them, thanks to the widespread use of computers and the universal availability of newspaper accounts, death records and other useful tools of Swimming Upriver in Time. Another custom they followed, was to do their research, while dressed for the part. Sheriff Willamina came to Firelands, originally, to fill an unexpired term; she was re-elected multiple times, and finally retired, shortly before her death. She came into the office knowing that – in spite of her credentials as a Marine, in spite of her experience as a nurse, in spite of her excellent education – she was a woman, in a man’s world. She didn’t try to change that. Instead of wearing the standard Colorado State Sheriff’s Association uniform, she wore a tailored business suit and heels. She was not tall by any stretch of the imagination – every last deputy she had was taller than she – but she had a Presence, perhaps augmented by the very first night she arrived, when on her way to Firelands from the airport, she instructed her deputy to respond to the barfight called in over the radio, she kicked the door open, she drove a charge of buckshot through the ceiling and shocked the barfight into a sudden standstill, then she waded through staring, bloodied combatants to the root cause of the knuckle-and-skull conflagration – two women in a screaming, hair-pulling catfight – she introduced one’s face to the wall and pulled a .45 automatic from under her tailored blue suit coat, and invited her, quietly, to drop the broken bottle, before I drop you. Sheriff Willamina, as she was universally known, did not try to be one of the guys. She never appeared anywhere officially, unless she wore her trademark suit dress and heels; she treated her people like the professionals she expected them to be, and she expected more of them – she expressed more confidence in them – than they had in themselves. It worked. She did not come in as a controlling martinet. She came in as an efficient administrator who knew how to get more out of someone than they thought they could do. An administrator who also picked up uncooperative criminals and threw them across the room, an administrator who pinned a loudmouthed troublemaker by the throat against a wall at a public meeting and invited him to so much as twitch so she could punch his guts clear up into his tonsils, an administrator who changed into boots and blue jeans and led a horseback posse in search of two little boys who’d wandered off right before a snowstorm hit, and when the winds stilled and the snow stopped, she stepped out of a sheltering cleft in the rocks, raised a Sheriff’s band talkie to her lips with one hand, and fired a flare gun with the other to guide a relief column to where she and the boys and a good saddlehorse holed up overnight, with brush and snow making a snug roof overhead, with lightweight silver blankets to keep them warm, rations from her saddlebags to feed the three of them, with a trickle of clean water running through their little shelter providing the basis for hot tea with honey (let that cool, it’s hot!) and rock walls close on either side to reflect their fire’s heat back onto them. Willamina’s granddaughters were their own souls: one was her twin in appearance and in temperament, the other less so, but the granddaughters happily searched and researched their ancestry with their focused, efficient, pale eyed Gammaw. In the years since Willamina’s passing, the granddaughters continued her research, at least until Marnie was shot off into the cold darkness of interstellar space, and Angela worked alone – but in memory of her dear Gammaw, Angela, too, wore the same style of suit dress as her pale eyed ancestress, and so it was that her Daddy came into the Museum just to say hello, and found his darlin’ little girl with her forehead on the heel of her hand and a frown on her face. Angela looked up, straightened. “Trouble?” Linn asked in his deep, reassuring Daddy-voice. Angela made a face like she’d just bit into a sour pickle. “Reality,” she finally said, “sucks.” Linn nodded, eased his long tall frame into a chair. “Yep,” he agreed. “Fill me in.” “A cousin. Anderson, the name. Third cousin, two removes –” She gave her pale eyed Daddy a distressed look: for all that she was dressed like a professional woman, an administrator, in that moment she looked almost like an unhappy little girl – “Daddy, I wanted all of our ancestors to be noble and upright and honorable and clean, cheerful, thrifty and reverent.” “You found on that’s not.” “I found a cop killer.” Linn raised an eyebrow. “Anderson the name, out of Whitley County." She paused, read, fingertips tracing lightly across handwritten notes. "It was” – she re-read her notes, turned a page back on the legal pad she still favored, lifted another page – “1932. Height of the Depression.” “What happened?” “It was a… Methodist tent revival,” she said. “He was there being rowdy and heckling and the constable grabbed him and threw him out. “The next night the constable deputized … some …” She frowned, frustrated, lifted a page, shook her head. “I can’t find how many he deputized, but when Anderson came back to heckle some more, the Constable grabbed one arm and a newly deputized grabbed the other. Someone -- I think another heckler -- grabbed the deputy, Anderson pulled a gun and killed the constable, someone – maybe two someones, there are conflicting reports – gut shot Anderson twice. He lived a few days.” Angela turned her distressed, bright-blue eyes back to her Daddy, drawing from the confidence she saw in his posture, the warmth she saw in his expression. “Daddy, the constable was a cousin, too!” Linn nodded, looked down, and Angela saw his bottom jaw slide out. “We can’t pick our family, Angela,” he said finally, “and sometimes family isn’t … quite … what we want.” Linn chose his words carefully. “I know, Daddy,” Angela said, and now she even sounded like the little girl she’d been, the delightful, blue-eyed child Linn remembered so fondly, the happy little gigglebox that lit up her Daddy’s soul like a hundred watt bulb, now grown, or nearly so, grown enough to look womanly, but with all the true beauty of the young – Linn blinked, broke the spell: fathers sometimes think that way, and at times, he definitely did. “Angela,” Linn said, his voice still reassuring, gentle, “have you found where the constable is buried?” “I think so, Daddy.” Linn held up a forestalling hand as Angela began to riffle quickly through her papers; his darlin’ daughter froze, looked very directly at her Daddy, fingers buried in the several sheets she was turning. “If you find it,” Linn said gently, “note it down separately for me. I’d like to make that a visitation one of these days.” Father and daughter both stood: Angela swung around the desk, quickly, her skirt swinging as she turned, skipped up to her Daddy: she seized this hard-muscled, lean-waisted icon of strength and security, she pressed the side of her face into his chest, she squeezed him tight, tight, the way a happy little girl will, and Linn’s arms were strong and reassuring and gentle around his little girl, this delightful child he used to swing high in the air so she could scatter happy giggles all over the floor. Angela looked up, chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “Daddy?” “Hm?” “Daddy, if I’m growing up too fast …” She swallowed. “Daddy, if you want, I can wear pigtails and pinafores instead of …” Linn took his daughter under the arms, hoisted her up, rubbed his nose against hers, lightly, carefully, leaned his head forward until their foreheads just touched, until her eyes merged into one Arizona-blue orb. “I see you,” he whispered, and Angela giggled, for this was something he’d done with her since her earliest memories of the man. He lowered her a little, kissed her forehead, then carefully lowered her a very little more, until her heels just touched the polished tile floor. “Darlin’,” he almost whispered, “you dress however you choose. You’ve been a little girl in pigtails and pinafores, and I cherish those memories and we have the pictures, but you’re not a little girl anymore.” “I don’t want to distress you, Daddy.” “By growing up too fast?” Linn chuckled, sat, pulled Angela onto his lap: she wiggled a little, making sure her bony backside wouldn’t dig into the man’s thighs. “Darlin’, every little girl grows up too fast. It’s a fact of life, and Daddies all have to learn it. If Daddies had their way, they’d put their little girl on a high shelf and put a glass bell jar over ‘em like they were a precious doll or something.” Angela took her Daddy’s hand between both of his, looked deep into his pale, just-barely-light-blue eyes. “Daddies might want that, darlin’, but people in hell want ice water, and that doesn’t work out either.” Angela twisted, hugged her Daddy again, and Linn sat with this maturing young woman, his near-to-grown-up little girl, in his arms and on his lap, each one holding the other, and for a long, happy moment, he was happy to be just a Daddy, and Angela was happy to let maturing womanhood fall away so she could be his little girl again.

AN HONEST MISTAKE Dr. John Greenlees pinched up the cuff of his surgical glove, peeled it partway off: one glove inside the other, a quick pull, both gloves were packaged, one inside the other. He stepped on the old-fashioned trash can's pedal, the lid squeaked open, he dropped the gloves into the can: the Recyclo in the bottom sizzled momentarily, and a new pair of sterile surgical gloves, packaged, ready to use, dropped into the dispenser. Surgical cap, shirt, trousers, shoe covers, all went into the Recyclo and were instantly converted into new garments -- brand new, clean, unstained, never worn -- Dr. Greenlees sat tiredly on a padded stool, leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He'd been working, on and off, for two days and three nights, ever since the mine explosion. His wife sent him an urgent appeal: she needed the best surgeon she knew, someone familiar with the Confederate surgical systems: Dr. Greenlees alerted his paramedic teams, informed them he'd be available only for dire emergency indeed. He kept a Little Black Bag packed and ready beside where the Iris would appear: it did, he picked up his black-leather grip and stepped boldly across a shimmering threshold, and crossed several light-decades as easily as a man might step through a doorway, into another room. The local medical community already sat up a surgical tent, very near the mine entrance: Dr. Greenlees stood, got his bearings. The Confederate Ambassador and the Martian Ambassador were working side by side, arranging power, supplies, directing the setup of the modular surgical suites: Dr. Greenlees was introduced, stepped into the newly arrived, molded-plastic-looking cube that was the changing area, stripped off his clothes, scrubbed thoroughly, and assumed his surgical attire. He'd worked steadily, almost silently, barely stopping to eat: now, after this length of time, after running on automatic pilot, after laying in very precise, very tidy rows of sutures on his last patient, he felt ready to collapse. Warm, firm hands gripped his shoulders: he rose in response to their pull: he allowed himself to be steered to a nearby bed. He lay down, curled up: he'd just lay there for a minute, just a minute -- Ambassador Marnie Keller, wife to the exhausted and now-passed-out Dr. John Greenlees, splayed her fingers on the stool he'd recently occupied, rolled them over to his bedside. She'd been busy as well: she was not a nurse, but she could perform well as support staff, as a facilitator: if an implement, a device, if particular supplies or solutions were needed, she could arrange them: there were enough genetic changes on this very distant planet, that offworld blood supplies were not compatible, and so she went on a fast recruiting swing: there were willing donors, mostly family of the injured, and though Marnie could not guarantee that any particular volume of blood went into an injured relative, every donation was used, and used where it was desperately needed. Marnie slept very little, for the duration. The Confederate Ambassador found that -- thanks to Marnie's efficiency, her authority, her gift for organization and recruitment from what she called "The Unorganized Militia" -- that he had very little to do: Marnie exercised her office, her contacts, her charm and personality and what she called her "Wheedle, Blanny and Baloney" to get what she wanted: she'd work out the trade accords, the opening of commerce, the formal agreements, at a later time. Her focus was on getting the medical team whatever supplies they needed. Generators were brought in, scavenger units that ran their own hot exhaust through the ubiquitous Recyclos to form fuel: what little makeup was required, was supplied by either atmosphere, or a few shovels of dirt slung casually into a Recyclo port: common dirt, ripped apart at the subatomic level, was automatically reassembled into elements and compounds they needed. As long as they had a master sample to pattern, they could make anything at all. The local medical community was already appreciating this unexpected bounty. Not only were their less experienced physicians learning from Dr. Greenlees, they were each given full sets of surgical tools, their clinics were being delivered shipments of ventilators, anesthetics, sutures, needles, scalpels, tongue depressors, gauze and the thousand and one other items that are needed to run a hospital level surgery. Even these prefab treatment modules would be distributed: each had its own water, its own waste disposal and power, its own Recyclo system to keep all these running: the local physicians were grateful for the help when they realized the magnitude of their disaster, and were even happier once it was over, to inherit tools they would have give their eye teeth a week before to acquire. Of the entire mine explosion and collapse, all but two were accounted for; three were dead before they could be removed, and of those brought to the emergency clinic, set up very near the mine's entrance, five were too badly injured to save: some lost limbs, an eye, an eardrum: these more involved patients were sent to more advanced treatment, off-planet. Dr. Greenlees lost track of how many he personally treated: his were the most critical patients, the most difficult surgeries, the most precise resections: years later, a little boy would tilt his head curiously at a scar in his father's chest, and his father would explain that was where a Martian doctor removed a sliver of steel from his beating heart ... and he was not the only survivor to recount how he acquired particular scars in particular places. The Ambassador looked in on the pair: he turned, he had a quiet voiced conversation with a local adjutant, who nodded and disappeared: inside of a half hour, a comfortably upholstered recliner was brought in, covered with a blanket: the Ambassador laid a hand on Marnie's shoulder, whispered in her ear: she stood, not entirely awake, the rolling stool was pulled away and the recliner slid into its place. The Ambassador very carefully picked Marnie up, stepped back while stainless steel stool was traded for the easy chair: he laid her down in the comfortable, laid-back chair, thanked the adjutant quietly as the latter handed the Ambassador a warmed blanket: he draped it gently, carefully, over Marnie's already-sound-asleep form, and he smiled as he saw her hand had already found her husband's somnolent grip. The Ambassador looked at the adjutant, nodded to the exit: the two withdrew silently, leaving the pair to their much deserved rest. The Ambassador watched silently as the adjutant removed his miner's hardhat, wiped his balding scalp with a firm swipe of a crumpled handkerchief. The adjutant looked back into the room. "Close the door?" he asked, and the Ambassador nodded. "You're sure?" the miner asked, surprised. "You'll leave your wife sleeping with another man?" The Ambassador felt his face flush: he leaned forward, drew the door shut, closed it quietly: he raised a hand to his mouth, regarded the puzzled adjutant with amused eyes. "Wife?" he asked, trying to hide his grin behind leather-gloved knuckles. The adjutant was clearly uncomfortable, seeming to realize he'd committed a faux pas, but not at all sure quite how he'd done it. "My colleague" -- the Ambassador nodded toward the closed door -- "is wife to the good Doctor." The adjutant's mouth fell open in dismay and he began to stammer an apology, at least until the Ambassador raised an understanding palm. "You've always seen the two of us together," he said gently, "and you thought we were a married couple." He laid a confidential hand on the man's shoulder, nodded. "Thank you for that," he said, "and I will admit I would dearly love to have her as my wife ... she is a rare prize ... but they're happily married, and I will not tread upon another man's territory!" He squeezed the adjutant's shoulder, winked. "Don't feel bad. 'Twas an honest mistake."

You know this is a good thread when I'm scrolling throuh these and I want to jump up and down, fists in the air, screaming "YES! YES! BY THE SACHEM AND TEN LEFT HANDED SAINTS, YES!!!"

THANK YOU, MAMA Becky Hartley dipped her knees, the way a woman will when wearing a skirt: she laid a yellow rose on a grave, stood. "Thank you," she whispered, then she bit her bottom lip and turned. Two children -- a grade-school girl in a dress, a little boy in a white shirt and bow tie, and pressed slacks -- waited beside the car, watched as their mother came back to the vehicle. The three got in, closed their doors: the car pulled away, and a single yellow rose with a yellow ribbon tied ornately about its stem, lay on the grave of a pale eyed Sheriff. Below the graveyard, in Firelands proper, there was laughter and the smell of good cookin': the firehouse was populated with red-shirted Irishmen and laughter, with guests and visitors, in-laws and outlaws, with the smell of fresh brewed coffee and fresh baked bread: the doors were busy, people coming, many bearing donations to the community feast. Apparatus was pulled out onto the apron, Irishmen were without the building as well. Inside the first-out emergency squad -- they called it a squad, one of their number declared loudly that "AN AMBULANCE IS BLACK, IT LOOKS LIKE A HEARSE AND IT'S DRIVEN BY A MAN IN A BLACK SUIT WITH A PLASTIC SMILE AND A JOHNSON AND JOHNSON FIRST AID KIT!" He looked defiantly about his fellows, took another breath: "WE DRIVE A SQUAD! WE'RE MEDICS! WE SAVE LIVES!" He sat, his jaw aggressively thrust forward, and the Irishmen looked at one another and agreed that the man was right, and from that day forward, their first-out lifesaving vehicle was Squad One. That, of course, was a memory, just like the memories being made of children in the back of the rig, when a stethoscope's eartips were carefully placed in their sensitive young ears, and they were told to hold the heavy Littman bell to their chest: Shelly's delight was to see the wonder, the discovery in a child's eyes as they listened to their own living heart for the very first time. Outside, a little boy, bundled against the cold, was seized by a pair of big, callused hands, hoist swiftly out of his wheelchair: Captain Crane, grinning like a schoolboy, had industriously stuffed towels in the twin, polished, chrome Federal siren speakers: another, coached by his delighted daughter, showed another child which switch to turn, and a hundred watts of electronic Federal siren, muffled by the toweling, brought happy squeals of juvenile delight: little children held their ears and jumped up and down with excitement, but the child in the Irishman's hands, hauled swiftly skyward from his wheelchair, had the most delighted expression of all. A recent nerve infection stole his hearing, keeping him from the audible celebration of his fellows, and so the Irishman hauled him up to a swift altitude, putting him on eye level with the light bar on their ambulance, and a little boy, so recently deprived of hearing, was suddenly squealing with delight, jerking arms and legs like a happy marionette, absolutely delighted to be included in this celebration. The door opened: "AIR HORNS!" came the shouted warning: another child, standing on a towel quickly thrown over the driver's seat of that big red supercharged Kenworth pumper, reached up, gripped the lanyard, pulled, and children jumped up and down and held their ears and laughed and squealed with delight, joyfully expressing their juvenile excitement on the cement apron in front of the rumbling, idling, flashing apparatus. A car pulled over, parked in front of the drugstore -- it was closed for Thanksgiving -- a mother and her two children got out, looked toward the firehouse, smiled: the mother opened the trunk, handed a towel-draped pie to her son, a towel-wrapped wicker basket of still-warm sweet rolls to her daughter. Three Firelands residents in their Sunday best walked quickly down the sidewalk, toward the sound of happy children and idling Diesel fire apparatus. Inside, a great, curly-furred dog lay like a puddle of midnight on the floor, not so much sprawled as almost curled around a child carrier: within the carrier, an infant, not more than a week old: The Bear Killer's chin was draped over the carrier and across the little one, and a very pink, very small, chubby hand and forearm were contentedly relaxed, well insinuated into the fur of a quietly snoring, bear killing, mountain Mastiff. One of the Irish Brigade, wearing both a chef's hat honestly stolen from a Denver restaurant, in an apron that bore the name of the same restaurant embroidered across its upper margin, picked up a shining, copper-bottom saucepan and an unused wooden spoon: he twisted, slipped between the assembled humanity, thrust out the man door: he held the door open with a polished boot, raised the pan and beat happily on its bottom, its ringing alarm announcing to the world without and within: "COME AND GET IT, THE LOT O'YE! THROW ON THE FEED BAG, IT'S TIME T' EAT!" It took him a little while to get back to his station in the elevated kitchen deck: he hung the ceremonial saucepan back on its hook, hung the wooden spoon on its hook adjacent, looked to the Chief and grinned. Fitz waited until the firehouse full of friends, kindred and brethren were at the tables, looking expectantly at him, their thronging murmur dying quickly. "Our Chaplain," he said in a fine, rich, full voice, "will now give the blessing!" The Chef's hat was snatched from the wearer's head by the glaring Irishman adjacent, slapped into its wearer's belly: he caught it with one hand, shook his fist menacingly at the soul that grabbed it from his head, at which point the party of the second part rocked back, fists up in a boxer's stance: the cook picked up a rolling pin, his best friend shook his head, held up open hands as the Chief turned and gave them the Chief's Genuine Fake Death Glare, to the quiet laughter of the assembled. "Y'see what I have to put up with?" he complained. "Brother Chaplain, if you please!" Reverend John Burnett, parson of their little whitewashed church and chaplain to the Firelands Fire Department, the Firelands Police Department, Firelands County Sheriff's Office, the Carbon Hill volunteer services and elsewhere as needed, stood, smoothed his necktie down against his belly: it was a nervous habit, he'd done it ever since he could remember, one flat-palm pass to press the necktie down where it belonged. "O Lord," he said, his voice carrying well in the hush of the fragrant firehouse, "bless this meal to our bodies, our bodies to Your service: bless those hands that prepared this meal and the hands that provided it, and most especially, Lord, spare us the curse of the long-winded blessing, AMEN!" "AMEN!" came the booming response from the red-shirted Irishmen present, a quieter "So mote it be" from a surprising number of others: a mother and her two children sat at a far table, waiting for the signal to rise and pass through the chow line. That didn't happen. Plates appeared before them first: the Irish Brigade already had their system planned, they loaded plates with efficiency, with swiftness, they recruited enough hands to pass down this row with plates and come back this row empty handed, then pick up two more plates and repeat their delivery orbits: it was quick, it was efficient: drink was dispensed with the same swift efficiency, and Firelands' watchful guardians, its laborers in the utilities, its citizens and guests, ate and ate well that day. Fleet young messengers bore provender to the Police and Sheriff's offices: outside, utility trucks from Water and from Wastewater were parked, backed in to allow a quick exit if need be: these faithful laborers, as well, were fed: they lingered over mashed potatoes and gravy, over turkey and beef, over sweet rolls and light rolls and sourdough, over pie and cake and -- like everyone else -- when they finally departed, they were comfortably full, and took enough with them for a late-shift snack of generous proportions. It was a rare day when little was happening: road deputies were there as well, and the sound of knife and fork, for a brief and peaceful moment, was the predominant sound. A mother and her two children ate, silently, savoring their meal. The mother remembered what it was to come into the county in a worn out car, on worn out tires, with her gas gauge nearly dry and twenty dollars to her name. She remembered the first soul she met was a pale eyed Sheriff's deputy, she remembered a man everyone called "Uncle Emmett" who replaced her tires, filled her tank, gave her an oil change, replaced a taillight bulb and told her that pale eyed deputy already paid her bill. She remembered how he'd had her follow him to a newly built apartment, how her daughter scampered across in front of her and seized the big stuffy bunny on the neatly made bed, how she was handed the keys and how women in old-fashioned long dresses brought in folded bundles of clothing, and baskets of groceries, how she'd stared, shocked, as they stocked her cupboards and took her by the hand to show her where the cleaning supplies were, the bathroom supplies, the laundry, how another gave her a business card and said to call her in the morning and they'd see about getting her employment: another woman, another card, call her tomorrow afternoon and they'd arrange to enroll her children in school, and by the way, the phone is over here, it's turned on and the bill is paid for the next three months. She sat in the firehouse and stared at her empty plate, remembering, and a drop of salt water rolled down her cheek, another down her nose, fell onto her plate just before it disappeared and was replaced by a fresh plate and fork, and a slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream. "What's wrong, Mommy?" her little girl asked. "Nothing," the mother whispered, smiling through her tears, her fingers rising to the pin on her collar, the pin she was given by her employer, the pin that came with a cluster of three roses, tied with a ribbon lettered Secretary of the Month. Sheriff Linn Keller dismounted at his mother's grave. He squatted, laid a hand on the stone, looked at his Mama's portrait, laser engraved in glass-smooth quartz. He picked up the yellow rose, turned it thoughtfully between thumb and fingers, then he read the paper tag attached. "Mama," he said aloud, "we had Thanksgiving dinner at the firehouse again." He looked at the rose, smelled it, smiled. "Somebody told me to thank you for raising me right." He laid the rose up against her stone. "The tag on this rose says 'Thank you for being a good mother.' " He smiled, stood. "I reckon it was the same soul who left this."

DELIGHTED TO HEAR THIS! (yes it's all caps, I get excited when I read such good news!)

PENALTIES There were times when Linn was a hard eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache and an utter lack of compromise. There were times when he dropped his Stetson on a grinning schoolboy's head, pulled out a poke of marbles and dropped to his Prayer Bones beside a finger drawn circle in the schoolyard dirt, and proceeded to lose two prize shooters and a double handful of genuine factory made cat's-eye marbles. Today he sat on the Deacon's bench in front of the Sheriff's office, beside a young man about the size his grandson Joseph would have been, had he not run off and joined that damned war in Europe. It wasn't so much the Sheriff sat there, looking quietly across at schoolyard and distant mountains, it was more like a grandfather recognized the signs of distress in another man's grandson. Linn pulled out a genuine Barlow knife, picked up a skinny split of kindling, turned the wood thoughtfully in his fingers, studying it closely. Honed steel cut smoothly into prominent woodgrain, brought off a curled shaving. "You look like you just lost your last friend," Linn said gently. The young fellow nodded miserably, hunched himself forward, fingers loosely interlaced and elbows on his knees. "What happened?" "Sheriff," he said softly, "have you figured girls out?" Linn turned the wood in his fingers, made another deep cut into a long corner, turning a curled shaving without cutting it free. "No," he admitted, "not my wife, and not even my own daughter." The young man half-sighed, half-grunted, the sound of a man in protracted pain. "What happened?" Linn asked, his voice deep, reassuring, fatherly. Tempered steel cut another curl under the first one. "I misjudged a girl." Linn nodded, slowly, cutting another curl beneath the first two: he cut carefully, bringing a full circle of whittled wood and more with each attempt. "I've done that," the Sheriff said at length. "What am I gon' t' do, Sheriff?" he asked miserably. "Tell me what happened, son." Silence, again. Barlow steel cut another luxurious curl out of good pine. "I was a gentleman," the young man said. Linn nodded, waited, using silence to draw the young man out. "She didn't want me to be a gentleman." "Ah." Linn nodded. "I've known that to happen." He turned his head a little, regarded the young fellow with knowing eyes. "You're wondering if you should not be more ... forward ... next you're with a lady." The young man nodded, his eyes miserably regarding the dust gathered on the warped boards ahead of their boots. "Gentlemanly behavior," Linn said carefully, "is always to be desired. Even if a woman doesn't seem to want a gentleman, she'll always remember that you were a gentleman." He leaned a little closer and murmured confidentially, "Believe me, a woman will never, ever forget when a man is not a gentleman!" "Yeah." Linn's Barlow tasted the wood again, turning curls for its length: he turned the stick in his hand, began whittling firestarting curls off its back edge as well. "If a girl does not want gentlemanly behavior," Linn continued quietly, "she might not be the quality you deserve, but I don't reckon you want to hear that." Silence, for several long moments. "A girl tossed me aside one time." "Sir?" Linn nodded, turned the stick, regarded its length, set it carefully aside: he picked up another, regarded it solemnly, planned his whittling attack. "I told her I had something to show her," he said, his voice soft with memory: "I told her it was behind the barn." The young man studied the Sheriff's face, listened closely to the lawman's words. "We went out behind the barn. The ground fell away into a holler -- that was back East, I reckon you'd call it an arroyo. Brush, weeds, grass, full dark and it was just plumb full of lightning bugs. It looked like living emeralds floating in a sea of black velvet." Linn paused. "I swung my arm out in a grand gesture and said 'Beth, I give you ... the night!' " Linn took a long breath, blew it out, cut another curl on his fuzz stick. "She thought I was taking her behind the barn to be improper." He looked at the young man beside him. "I felt like the north end of a south bound horse. I think I was more disappointed in myself -- more disappointed for having misjudged her -- than I was unhappy with her." "I reckon that's how I felt too." Linn shifted the fuzz stick into his knife hand, reached over, laid a fatherly hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Doesn't matter how hard he try," he sighed. "Women are a mystery and I doubt if any man will ever have 'em figured out." He gave a very gentle squeeze, the way a grandfather will a sorrowing grandson. "Gentlemanly behavior is never wasted. The right woman will recognize a gentleman when she sees one." Linn took a deep, quick breath, blew it out. "In the meanwhile, we pay the penalty for being gentlemen."

BREAKFAST OMELETTE There are many ways to do something right and this, frankly, was proof-of-concept only. It did, however, provide me a good breakfast. We're at the father in law's, everyone else is asleep, the laptop and I are at the kitchen table. I took a disposable paper bowl (paper plates are rapidly becoming my favorite kitchenware), smeared butter on bottom & sides. Crack in two eggs, add salt, pepper, a splash of milk, spin up with fork. Microwave 1 min 30 sec Erp. Good stuff! Add whatever goodies you like -- cheese, onions, diced peppers, chocolate chips, whatever suits your palate -- long ago I discussed such matters but this is fast and expedient while everyone else is snoozing, it's also proof of concept -- I wanted to make sure I could fix microwave eggs without them welding to the paper bowl.

... and what else is new?

I'll spend longer on my Prayer Bones for you both!. Delighted your beautiful bride is on the mend, but if you've got to dodge folks with summer tires who plumb forgot how to drive in winter snow, I'll be imploring the Almighty for your safe and uneventful travels, as well as Miz Ellie's continued healing!

YOUR GAMMAW'S MYSTERY "Michael." "Yes, sir?" "You ready?" "Yes, sir." "Fetch down your Gammaw's double gun." Michael's grin was wide and bright: "Yes, sir!" he declared happily, and it is to his youthful credit that he did not absolutely sprint, scamper and otherwise gallop into his Pa's study to retrieve the implement under discussion. Michael automatically opened the gun, took a very deliberate look into the breech, held it up to show his pale eyed Pa: Linn nodded. "Fetch that box of shells in the middle." Michael reached up, picked up the Winchester-Western birdshot loads, rejoined his father. The front door opened, closed, leaving the ladies in the kitchen to their talk, to their preparations. Father and son rode for a time to a particular place they'd scouted out some time before. Michael had proven a natural wing shot: Linn freely admitted he could hit with a shotgun if he used it like a carbine, but put the target in motion and he was sunk: Michael, on the other hand, had the wingshooter's gift, and proved his skill many times over, and of course it delights a sixth-grade boy to realize he consistently outshoots the Grand Old Man -- if only in this one venue. Birds flew up, songbirds mostly, and either father or son would raise a hand, track its flight and say quietly, "Bang," then they'd grin at one another: Shelly one time shook her head and called them silly for doing that, but both Keller men knew this helped train the brain to pick up a target, and track a target, swing on a target and letoff on the target: they'd done this since Michael was old enough to launch a slingshot-pebble at a hand-tossed can, since he was old enough to puncture a hand-tossed beer can with a BB gun, since he started hitting hand-tossed cans with a rifle and .22 shorts, since he started punching holes in hand tossed tin cans with a .22 revolver -- and all of this much younger than the popular opinion would consider appropriate. Linn, of course, knew better. He knew if he took the mystery out of guns -- if he trained his young from their earliest age in safe gunhandling, if he ingrained it into their young souls, if he modeled that same teaching for them to observe and to imitate -- he would go a very long way toward keeping his young safe from inadvertent or unintentional discharge. Every last one of the Keller young, boys and girls alike, were given their pale eyed Daddy's attention, and every last one of them delighted when their big strong Daddy gave them that very personal attention, and every last one of the Keller young developed these good habits and kept them for a lifetime, which is what their pale eyed old Pa intended. Linn and Michael rode up a narrow trail, Michael in the lead: both he and his mount were perfectly comfortable riding beside this sheer dropoff: Linn told him of the time he'd come up this trail and a creature of the mountains was headed in the opposite direction, and Linn didn't want to fire right over his horse's ears, so -- as he told the tale -- "I talked to that-there billy goat, and I give him the best campaign speech that's ever been spoke, and darned if he didn't get tired of my politickin' and turn around and leave." Michael wasn't quite sure whether to believe his father or not: the man was known to pull a listener's leg on occasion, but he did not discount the possibility, for he'd seen his Pa talk down large and angry people whose umbrage inspired them to violence, and rather than bend a singletree over their gourd, Michael's Pa managed to bury them in verbal baloney deeply enough they decided not to commit further violence. They followed the narrow trail until it came out in a hanging meadow, high up. Father and son dismounted, shucked their shotguns -- both carried a double gun -- Michael knew it was a significant sign of trust that his Pa had him carrying his Gammaw's double gun. They opened their guns, dunked in two rounds: each gripped the fore end firmly and raised the rearstock to close it, and Michael saw the approval in his Pa's eyes when he did. "Remember when we hunted behind Herr Becker's bird dog?" Linn asked, and Michael could see the smile in his Pa's eyes as Linn looked out over the meadow. "Yes, sir," Michael grinned. "I always wanted a good bird dog," Linn admitted softly as the two advanced, slowly, eyes busy. "If we put up a bird, take the first shot." "Yes, sir." Michael took one more step and a ptarmigan took out from less than a foot ahead of his advancing boot. Walnut came up to meet his cheekbone, his eye was open and steady, his finger slapped the front trigger -- The ptarmigan twisted a tenth of a second before the gun fired; the shot swarm missed, but not by much, and the bird was quickly out of range. "Close," Linn murmured. "Had he not twisted --" Michael broke open his Gammaw's gun, caught the empty, dropped in a fresh, closed the breech. Another two steps, a third: Linn stopped, and so did his son. Linn squatted, slowly, silent, his eyes ahead: Michael waited, debating whether to shoulder the gun ahead of a rise, like he would shoulder a gun when trapshooting, just before he called "Pull!" -- Linn rose, slowly, drew back a hand, threw. A rock rattled into a clump of brush and two birds whistled out, one angling right, one left: two guns barked, two feathered acrobats managed to evade the pursuing clouds of shot. Linn laughed quietly, reloaded: Michael reloaded as well, smiled a little to hear his Pa laugh. They each took a brace of grouse: Linn led the way to a stream, where they drew the birds and washed them out with cold snowmelt, to cool the meat. "Michael," Linn said, "I do admire that sharp knife of yours." "Thank you, sir. You gave it to me." "I see you keep it good and sharp." "Yes, sir." "Well done. A dull knife will cut you faster than a sharp one." "Yes, sir." Silence for a few moments. Linn cast about, found a handy rock outcrop, sat: Michael sat beside him: they both had their shotgun butts between their boots, muzzles to the vertical. "Michael," Linn said finally, "every family has its secrets." "Yes, sir." "You're old enough I can entrust you with one." Michael looked curiously at his father. "Sir?" "That shotgun fits you well." "It does, sir." "You're ... twelve now?" "Yes, sir." "I didn't hit my full growth until I was about 25. Likely you won't either. We can have the gunsmith lengthen that stock as needed." "Sir?" "That gun's yours, Michael, and so is are the stories that go with it." "The stories, sir?" Linn smiled, just a little. "Your pale eyed Gammaw took care of her people. She carried that very gun a time or to going into a situation as Sheriff. Didn't intend to, but when the chips were down, that very gun you hold right now kept her safe and kept people alive." Michael looked at the double gun, looked at his father. "Even after her death, she used that selfsame gun to keep her people safe." Michael frowned, blinked, looked at his Pa, not quite sure how to take this. "I'm going to give you something on the square, Michael. Do you know what that means?" "I've ... heard you say that before, sir." Linn nodded. "Your Gammaw kept Marnie alive on Mars." "Sir?" Linn nodded, his eyes scanning the horizon. "Marnie got waylaid. Best way to kill a lawman is from ambush and it damn neart worked. Marnie ... wasn't able to return effective fire." Michael heard his father's voice harden. "That mistake never happened again, by the way." Michael waited. "Marnie was about to be hit with a shaped explosive on a miner's lance when your Gammaw drove two rounds of double ought buck from that very gun, right into his side." Michael tried to digest this. It made no sense. Gammaw was dead. Marnie was on Mars. Gammaw was planted in the family section of the cemetery and had been -- "You're wondering how a dead woman could have done that," Linn said quietly. "Yes, sir." "It gets worse." "Sir?" "Marnie was on the surface. There's almost no air. Hold up a sheet of newspaper in the fiercest windstorm and you'll barely see the paper wave. Way thinner air than here in the mountains, not enough to carry sound, yet Marnie heard both barrels fire, one, two, and she heard your Gammaw break the action, reload, she looked at Marnie and yelled, 'Nobody hurts my little girl!' " "And then ..." Michael's eyes were fixed on his father's profile. "She disappeared. "Marnie took photographs of her Gammaw's boot prints in the Martian surface dust. She sealed the fired shotgun shells in an evidence bag. Her husband -- you remember young Doc Greenlees." Michael nodded. "Doc performed the miner's autopsy and recovered double-ought buck shot from a dead man's chest, when there was not yet a single shotgun on the entire planet. "When Marnie told me what happened, I checked your Gammaw's gun. "It had been fired, the chambers were empty. Marnie sent me pictures of the fired rounds and they're what your Gammaw used for social encounters." "Yes, sir." "So there's one of the stories that old gun wears." Michael looked at the shotgun with a new respect. "That gun is yours now." Michael's voice was quiet, his voice was solemn as he replied, "Thank you, sir."