Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

THE SOUND OF A PISTOL SHOT Sheriff Willamina Keller was no stranger to Man Splaining. She was also no stranger to stress, nor to working with eager young men who'd just been through something that was not only unexpected, but somewhat more than startling. Sheriff Willamina Keller was a mother, she was a wife, she was a Marine: when she took a troubled-looking young man by the arm and steered him across the street, those who witnessed the moment had no way of knowing whether this meant well for the young man, or whether it boded some more serious outcome. As she intercepted him in front of Digger's funeral parlor -- it wasn't called that nowadays, of course, it had been run by a man profanely nicknamed Digger back when the town was very young, thus the colloquial term of the day -- but as she'd sized him up, as she'd apparently taken custody of him, and she was steering his course, it was evident that the Sheriff was in charge, the Sheriff had something definite in mind. One of the morning regulars saw them coming up the steps to the Silver Jewel: he gripped the polished brass door handle, hauled the heavy, ornate-frosted-glass-paneled door open for them. Willamina looked very directly at him and murmured a polite, "Thank you," and she smiled, the way a woman will when she is treated in a gentlemanly fashion. The Sheriff, and a young man in a shirt and tie, sat down at a table in the far corner of the room: Willamina smoothed her skirt under her, sat with all the feminine grace of the Queen upon her throne, smiled as the hash slinger came back to inquire after their order. "Coffee, please," Willamina smiled, "and a plate of garbage, I'm hungry!" The waitress looked at the young man, who was staring a hole in the salt shaker, his expression that of a man who'd seen things he wished he never had. "Bacon and eggs, over easy," he mumbled, "and rye toast." Willamina waited until they had coffee. "Francis, you look like you just survived your first firefight." Francis looked up at the Sheriff with the eyes of a genuinely troubled young man. Willamina sipped her coffee, nodded her approval. "Now that's a good brew," she said quietly, then tilted her head like an interested mother. "Out with it, now. What happened?" "I quit," Francis said, his voice flat. Willamina nodded. "I've walked off the job myself. What happened?" Frances stared at the Sheriff with troubled eyes. He wasn't seeing a good looking woman in a tailored blue suit dress. He was looking at a nightmare. He'd been sent to a nursing home to pick up a deceased for the local funeral parlor. The call came in at oh too early in the morning, and it was a good distance away: he took the company credit card, he took the out-of-town coach, and as usual, he wore a shirt and tie, pressed slacks and shined shoes. "I got there," he said quietly, "and we got the deceased over on my cot. I sheeted him and belted him down, I covered him with the funeral home blanket and got him loaded and secured." Willamina forked up another tumbling payload of garbage -- it was a heaping plate full of everthing edible: hashed and well browned taters, fried onions, peppers, sausage, cubed and fried chicken, it was different every day, it was always good, and it looked like garbage. "The deceased," Francis said quietly as bacon and eggs lowered into place in front of him, "slept sitting up for the past twenty years." "Chronic lunger," Willamina murmured, and the young man nodded. "Eat your eggs before they get cold." Francis blinked, realized he had a plate in front of him: he picked up his fork, cut some egg free, stabbed it, chewed. "It was out in the flat country, about two in the morning. Thunder storm. When I'm driving at night I make a circle with my eyes -- instruments, speedometer, rearview and back to the windshield -- I'd just looked up in the rearview when lightning hit the median a quarter mile ahead of me." His fork lowered to the table, forgotten, as he looked at the mirror in the memory. "There was the sound of a pistol shot, Sheriff. The body sat up and broke the chest strap and it groaned, and I'm glad there was nobody next to me in the passing lane!" Willamina nodded. "If he slept sitting up for twenty years, his abdominals would have shortened. Lactic acid builds up when the blood stops flowing, the belly tightens --" She looked very frankly at her breakfast companion, she reached across the table, laid her hand over his: "Francis, did you have any trouble staying awake for the rest of the trip?" Her words were gently spoken, and they were not at all what he expected to hear: he blinked, he laughed a little, he reached for the pepper shaker and sprinkled some black flakes over his eggs. "No, ma'am," he chuckled. "I did not have any trouble whatsoever staying awake!"

Outstanding! Proud of you both!

RESCUE SWIMMER The ocean was dark, blood-warm, the waters were almost calm: starlight reflected from the oily wavelets, shimmering with the swimmer's emergence. Victoria looked around, startled -- She shouldn't be here -- Something could get her -- Something almost did -- She pulled deep inside herself, shelling herself with a carapace of crystallized fear, fragile, delicate, like a wall of sugar -- Your dreams are your own, she heard -- a whisper, a voice, calm, confident. Her Daddy's voice. Victoria remembered what it was to turn, to see the rock snake lower its coffin-shaped head, broad as two of her Daddy's hands at full spread -- she remembered its nose-down posture, she knew it was about to open its mouth and expose its fangs, it was about to slap down on her leg, bite -- You have the choice, she remembered. Your dreams are your own. In the Kingdom of Dreams, you -- only you -- command. Victoria blinked, remembering how she'd directed her dreams in the past. A child does not think in words, but rather in an incredibly series of impulses: the realization that her Daddy was right, that she'd directed her dreams in the past, filled her with an instant delight, a feeling of anticipation. She waved her hand and the glittering, crystal sugar-wall dissolved. Victoria giggled as she breathed the darkness, as something with a coffin shaped head swam toward her. A pretty little pale-eyed girl-child with French braids and tight-laced boots, bent forward, opened her jaw, directed a conical stream of shattering destruction at the attacking rock-snake: her belly was tight, her hands fisted, she tasted what it was to hate, and the taste lit a fire in her soul. The rock-snake shattered, fell like a long string of black gravel into the limitless depths. Victoria had never felt the Rage. She'd never known what it was to be filled with a dark strength, with the realization that she could absolutely, utterly, DESTROY! The realization scared her. Her Daddy swam up beside her, all big strong and protective, weapon in hand. "Daddy, what's that?" Victoria asked uncertainly. Linn looked at the three-foot dowel he held -- shining black, gleaming, with a spray of bright-red feathers on the end. "This?" he laughed. "This is in case those rascally rock snakes come back!" "But Daddy," Angela protested, then she took a quick breath as something black and sinuous twisted toward them. Linn reached out with the feathery-stick, tickled the rock snake. It stopped. It laughed. It giggled, it shrieked with laughter, it twisted itself up into a black, tangled knot and disappeared in a little cloudy *poof* and it was gone. "Daddy," Victoria asked uncertainly, "am I dreaming?" Linn turned -- he was swimming, fully dressed, but completely dry -- "Yes, Princess, you are." "Butbutbut," she protested, "what are you doing in my dream?" Linn took his little girl's hand, placed it on his breastbone. "Feel the Rage," he whispered, and she did: she felt a scaly monster, great and powerful, ready to lash out and destroy, to shatter, to level mountains with a slash of his scaly tail, to lay waste to cities with a breath of liquid fire -- Victoria blinked, surprised. "It doesn't ... you keep it ... butbutbutDaddy --" "How do I control it?" Linn laughed. "It's my Rage. Mine, no one else's, just as yours is your own. "If I let it run free, it will rule me, and I will become that monster." Linn curled a gentle Daddy-finger under his little girl's under-jaw, looked at her with almost a sad expression. "If I did that, Victoria, I would cause great harm, and I would disappoint many people." He brushed a wisp of silk-fine hair from her forehead and whispered, "I do not ever want to see that disappointment in your eyes, Princess!" "Butbutbut --" Victoria bit her bottom lip uncertainly. "The Rage felt good, didn't it?" She nodded. "You felt strong." She nodded again. "We are each responsible, Victoria. We are responsible for our choices and for our actions. When that rock snake came at you, you chose to stop it. If it bit you, it would kill you, so you were justified in killing it." "You didn't kill it, Daddy," Victoria protested. "You tickled it." Linn nodded, then laughed, winked, gestured her closer: Victoria floated closer to her Daddy, suspended in limitless warm dark waters. "If I make them so silly they realize how ridiculous they really are, they poof! -- disappear, and they're gone!" Behind him, Victoria saw shadows of monsters, terrible creatures of fear and terror, slobbering as they lurched toward him: suddenly they wore silly hats, red clown noses, pink ballerina tutu skirts -- faintly, in the distance, their menacing howls became oogah-horns or silly barnyard sounds. The Monsters of Terror turned, shoulders slumped, defeated: they dragged themselves off into the distance, the very image of dejection, their menace made harmless, turned into silliness. Linn's hand floated up under his little girl's: they barely touched, and they were at the range, standing in front of a block of ballistic gel. Victoria heard the timer -- BEEEP -- her hand went to her waist, gripped a bigger pistol than she was used to -- she raised it, caught the flash-sight-picture, her finger came straight back the way she'd practiced -- The block of clear gel blew apart, flew off the table, wobbling, half its mass gone. Victoria's eyes were big as she saw the result of her shot. A hum of an electric motor, the clatter of sprocket-driven chain, a ballistic dummy rotated into position. BEEEP -- Victoria watched, fascinated, as the bullet she just fired devastated its way through the semi-transparent, anatomically-correct, simulacrum. Victoria heard her Daddy's thoughts as the bullet traveled, as the shock wave expanded, as she truly realized the extent of destruction she'd just brought to a lifeless exemplar. "Darlin', we can cause great harm if we let our emotions rule us. This is why we must rule them." Victoria's eyes snapped open in the quiet and the darkness of her bedroom. She blinked, looked around, not moving her head at first: small fingers gripped her bedcovers, and she realized she was under her own roof, in her own bed. Victoria giggled, rolled up on her side, curled up a little, and just that fast, was asleep again. Across the hall, Shelly felt her husband laugh in his sleep: his hand found hers, gripped gently, the way he always did. "Something funny?" she murmured, and Linn rolled over on his side. She felt his silent laughter, heard the smile in his voice. "I dreamed I was a rescue swimmer."

"MARNIE DID!" "You could run in sneakers," Michael suggested. Victoria shook her head stubbornly. "You could!" she countered. "Nope," he grinned, puffing out his chest: "Jacob didn't!" "Marnie didn't either!" Michael blinked, considered. "You're right." Pale eyed twins pulled on thick socks, carefully smoothed out the wrinkles, dusted the inside of their boots with genuine GI foot powder. Their boots were new, well polished, carefully fitted, never worn. Michael and Victoria intended most sincerely that the same could not be said upon their return. "Whatcha takin'?" Jacob asked. "Bond," Victoria said, pitching her young voice comically low: "Jane Bond." Michael nodded his approval. He and Victoria dry-fired in their stone-walled basement every evening. Victoria showed an affinity for one of her Daddy's James Bond guns, a Walther PPK/S. Her Daddy had two of them, and Victoria had been putting mileage on them both. She dry-fired with the .32, and she live-fired with the .22 rimfire: Michael stuck with a brace of single action rimfires, and dry-fired with plastic snap caps. By his own admission, he beat the plastic snap cap rims to death, but replacements were affordable. Tonight he and his ten year old twin sister unlocked the gun cabinet, removed their engraved Winchesters, shrugged into vests and hung earplugs around their necks. Two shadows jumped happily off the front porch, set out on a two-track jeep trail they'd traveled many times. The evening wind was cool on the Sheriff's face. He'd had a long day, he'd had a day he'd as soon forget: as soon as the Judge ruled on two particular cases, he could dismiss those matters from his mind, file them with the other reports in steel cabinets and in computer hard drives. Until then, he was content to assume what he called "Undignified Positions" -- with a 20 pound kettlebell in each hand. The Sheriff drove himself mercilessly. He always did, after a day like today. He waited for a pair of runners, moving at a steady cadence, approaching on the long upgrade: he disciplined his breathing, set down a little less than half a hundred pounds of cast iron. The steel plates were hung, freshly coated with the cheapest white spray paint he could find: they almost glowed in the evening's dusk, four white plates arranged in a square, a red-edged plate -- the stop plate -- in the center. Linn's youngest two children ran up to him, un-slung their Winchesters, stacked them in the holders placed for that use: Linn pressed the timer's button, held it near his little girl's left-hand French braid, just under her Stetson's brim. BEEEP -- Victoria drew, fired five times -- the stainless Walther spat five times -- she pulled back into administrative position, just like her Daddy taught her, and as she dropped the mag and slid in a fresh, as she thumbed the half empty hopper in a vest pocket and holstered, Michael drew his left hand revolver and fired, five rounds, five hits, at the same speed his twin sis ran her shiny self shucker. This time Linn held the timer near his youngest son's hat brim -- BEEEP -- Michael drew his right-hand revolver, five shots, five hits -- his fifth shot was Victoria's start signal -- Michael punched out empties, reloaded, holstered, did the same for his other revolver, as Victoria thumbed fresh rounds into both her magazines. She looked up at the Sheriff with big and innocent eyes. "Did I do good, Daddy?" she asked in a sweet little girl's voice, and Linn laughed, nodded. "You did good, Princess," he affirmed, his approving hand on Michael's shoulder: "So did you." "Thank you, sir." Michael looked at Victoria as they both picked up their Winchesters, slung them over a shoulder: they turned, resumed their run. Linn could have run with them -- he commonly did -- but he knew tonight they were testing themselves, pushing themselves, trying their steel against the standard set by their older sis, their older brother. Linn worked his shoulders, squatted, picked up the kettlebells. He'd run enough for one day. It was time for some Soviet style exercise.

RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES "But Mama, he did!" A mother smiled indulgently, pressed the gravy ladle down into her little boy's pile of mashed potatoes, deposited the fragrant, steaming gravy with her usual precision. "Of course, dear. Eat your vegetables." "But Mama --" "Eat." A dejected little boy planted an elbow on the tablecloth, leaned his head against his knuckles, his bottom lip pooched out in disappointment. He'd tried to tell her. He'd tried to let his Mama know that he, Johnny Hettix, he alone of all his chums, had gained the favor of a man of legend, that he'd stood shivering in the high, treeless tundra with the Great Man's coat wrapped around him, staring through a heavy glass filter at what was a common wonder, made uncommon by his companion. He'd tried to tell her, and she didn't believe him. Disappointed, he stuck his fork obediently into his bacon-and-beans. "I understand you caused trouble today," Marnie said quietly. Sheriff Jacob Keller laughed. "I'm good at that, Sis," he grinned -- supper was always better with good company, and Ruth delighted in Marnie's mealtime company -- "which trouble are you referring to?" "The one that made the Inter-System." Jacob chuckled. "Which one, Sis?" Marnie lowered her head, glared at him over a set of nonexistent spectacles, then shook her head. "Sis," Jacob declared, spreading his hands the way his pale eyed Pa used to when stretching a tale, "when I got that hand written note from a little boy on Tortuga, hey! I couldn't disappoint him, now, could I?" Marnie smiled. The note was sent by that planet's post to the Embassy, it was scanned, analyzed, forwarded: Marnie herself had handled it, as it was written in a child's scrawl, it was vetted as having come from a little boy, and once it hit Marnie's hands, it was passed along to Sheriff Jacob Keller, Firelands, Mars -- a feat that was little short of impossible, owing to the sheer volume of mail addressed to that now-famous horseman. The Inter-System was seen by the Central Confederate as a grand way of keeping the Confederacy unified. Each of the Confederate states was its own entity, and free to tell the rest of the Confederacy to go pound sand: there were those worlds which had been Confederate, and were now independent; some maintained a relationship with the Confederacy, and a very few, did not: the Central Confederate wished to maintain its union, and one way to do this, was a unified communication system, of which the nightly news was a part. It was not difficult at all for news of a living legend, a horseman, a mounted lawman, to be broadcast through the Inter-System, and so when an adoring little boy hand wrote a request to this famous individual, this request was passed along, unopened, intact. Jacob's eyes were the first to read words carefully written, in pencil, on a young schoolboy's lined page. Jacob smiled a little as he read it, for he knew what it was to be a little boy, and he knew what it was to be infatuated with a hero, and Jacob felt a laugh bubbling up inside him as he read, as he thought, as he consulted. Much had been made of a solar eclipse, back on Earth. Jacob knew such phenomena were regular on Tortuga, that they occurred four times a year, and that one was coming up in three days. Jacob Keller read the note his sister handed him; twenty-four hours later, with the Diplomat's help, he rode a shining-gold stallion through an Iris, onto a planet, and asked a little boy in knee pants and sandals if he'd like to watch an Eclipse with him. It wouldn't have mattered if Jacob had asked if the boy would like to watch paint dry. The mother tilted her head, regarded her son's disappointment. "Dear," she sighed, "I appreciate that you wrote the Sheriff a note, but he is a very busy man." "But Mama," he whined, "he really did come and take me to see the Eclipse!" There was a knock at the door. The mother looked up, startled, then rose: she went to the door, opened it. She stood in the doorway, frozen, as a legend on a shining Palomino, someone she'd seen on the Inter-System, swung down, swept off his Stetson. "Ma'am," a legend said in a gentle voice, his grin broad and boyish under a curled handlebar mustache, "I thought young John might like to have this." He handed her a yellow envelope -- it was big, but slim -- she stared, looked him down and looked him up. It was him. Boots and gunbelt and watch-chain across his black vest, a six point star on the lapel of his coat: he turned, thrust a polished boot into a doghouse stirrup, swung easily aboard his tall stallion, touched his hat-brim: "Mrs. Hettix," he said in a deep and gentle voice, and turned, rode down their hand laid brick walkway to the street: she watched as he turned, disappeared behind the privacy bushes, and was gone. Mrs. Hettix went back inside, closed her front door, stared at the envelope she held. "Johnny," she called, her voice quavering a little. "I think you should see this." The Inter-System did not cover a genuine Western Sheriff arriving at a widow's little house in a small town on one of the Confederacy's most distant planets. It did not show a widow and her son placing an envelope flat on the table, nor did it show the round red wax seal at the end of a string, dangling from under the envelope's sealed flap, a round seal with a rose impressed into it: the string was pulled, cleanly tearing the flap free, and the mother reached in, extracted a single, large sheet of paper, then turned the envelope over and caught a dark, smooth-edged rectangle of heavy glass as it slid out into her waiting palm. "That's what I used, Mama," Johnny declared, delighted, jumping up and down the way an excited little boy will. Mother and son examined the single page: it was heavy paper with an eggshell finish, and hand-drawn, her little boy, in perfect detail. Johnny stood, the heavy glass held up, a delighted look on his face. Behind him, down on one knee, a man in a black suit, a man with a curled mustache and a big grin, his coat wrapped around the little boy -- shorts and sandals are chilly attire, that far north in the Tundra -- the man's Stetson was on the little boy's head, tilted back as the child looked through dark glass at the celestial wonder, and behind them both, a Palomino, saddled, snuffing curiously at this little fellow's shoulder blades. The picture was matted and framed and hung in a place of honor in the household, proof that a little boy's imagination was not imagination after all, and back on Mars, when an Ambassador asked a Sheriff about it, he showed her a photo he'd taken of the drawing he'd made and allowed as yes, he'd been causing trouble again. Ambassador Marnie Keller delivered her Ambassadorial speech in her usual succinct manner. She said "Show-off!" and smacked him with a precisely-tossed sweet roll. Right between the eyes.

YOU WANT A WAR? FIGHT IT YOURSELF! Three riders burst from the enemy's ranks. The middle rider, on a shining-gold stallion, carried a white flag, snapping in the wind of his passing, its turned hardwood staff socketed in his right stirrup. On his left, a great, shining-black mare with fuzzy feet, ridden by a woman in a fashionable gown with a split skirt: on her right, a woman all in white, her winged cap pinned to her shining, braided hair, reminiscent of the wings on a Valkyrie's burnished war-helm. Three horses, running with a desperate speed, toward the opposite side of the field, where another enemy waited, drawn up in war-ranks: steel glittered in precise rows, uniforms were immaculate, men stood, regarding the impressive array a quarter mile distant with a mixture of admiration, hatred, eagerness and dread. Wars are fought for the very best of reasons, or the very worst, or for no reason at all; when political maneuvering, when speeches of persuasion became bombast and accusation, when insults were traded, when hotter heads prevailed, men marched forth to do death to the other men who also marched forth. Three riders made for the center of the lines, where flags stood side-by-side in close order, marking the commanders' position: somewhere not far from the center, a rifle fired, then another. Commands were shouted: no more shots followed. The riders slowed, stopped. "WHO COMMANDS HERE!" a pale eyed man demanded. Nobody moved; no reply was made. "I COME UNDER A FLAG OF TRUCE, AND SOMEONE TRIED TO MURDER MY SISTER!" Jacob shouted, the cords standing out in his neck: his stallion reared a little. There was movement. An older man with a neatly-trimmed beard and an immaculate uniform marched up between the ranks. "I command," he said. Jacob reached over, snatched the conical projectile from the force field that saved his sister's life. "Here," Jacob said, tossing the slug underhand: "I return you the bullet fired at an approaching flag of truce. Stand you responsible for this act?" The commander did not like it, not one bit, but neither did he hesitate. "Yes," he said. "I stand responsible for my men." "Then you, sir, are worthy to lead your men, for only a man who stands good for his peoples' actions is worthy of that leadership." "I was not aware that Madam Ambassador was involved in negotiations." "She's not," Jacob said shortly. "We're here because your government -- and theirs -- failed utterly in their duty. We're here to keep good men from slaughter." "We have our orders." "So do they, but they're holding action at our request." "I cannot violate my orders." Jacob nodded, lifted a hand, spoke quietly to his bent wrist. "Gentlemen, if I might call your attention yonder." Jacob turned in his saddle, thrust out his left arm. A black ellipse appeared in the distance, then the sudden drone of six-bladed propellors turned by engines commanding nearly five thousand horsepower apiece. This world had yet to achieve powered flight. The very first aircraft on this entire planet blasted out of the horizontal Iris, four Allison engines singing in high powered harmony. Men stared as a C130 came screaming across the plain at an altitude of less than twelve feet. Parachutes bloomed behind the aircraft, something dragged out of the lowered ramp, the Herky Bird lifted its green-painted nose, climbed, sunlight bright on the tops of its wings, just before it sliced into another horizontal iris, disappeared. Something dark green and blocky, something with a rearing, winged horse painted on the side, something riding a landing skid, slid to a stop: there was the sound of explosions, straps flew away, a stocky, angular tank revved its engine, clattered off the landing skid and across the sod. The tank came abreast of the horsemen, at a point directly between the command left, the command right. "If spilling blood is your goal," Jacob said quietly, "then let us help." The tank's turret swung about, a brief, bright lance seared through the air, and three flagstaff tops fell and hit the ground, then the turret swung hard about and sliced the tops off three of the opposing force's flagstaffs. "If it's casualties you want, we can pile up men's carcasses like cordwood." Something long and silver appeared from nowhere, with the concussion of suddenly displaced air: the needle nosed ship rotated, pointed its nose at the ground. Bright hell erupted from its smallest energy cannon as the ship coasted easily for a hundred yards, steam and dirt erupting in a blazing fountain from its progress: men squinted, turned their heads away, raising a hand against the heat they felt even at this distance: the Hellbore switched off, the Interceptor rotated back to horizontal, disappeared in another clap of sound as air slammed in to fill the ship-shaped void. "You might want to send a delegation to take a look," Jacob suggested. "That ditch is four feet wide and about two hundred yards deep. This machine" -- he thrust an arm toward the idling tank -- "commands the same energies. As you can tell from the way we clipped the tops from your flagpoles, we can operate these like a surgeon's scalpel, from a very great distance." "What do you hope to achieve here?" Ambassador Marnie Keller crossed her wrists on her saddlehorn, tilted her head a little, the way a woman will. "Time, sir," she said. "We're buying time. All that just transpired has been transmitted to your respective governments. If blood is the price you demand, we're prepared to slice the head off every man here, and we can do that in ten seconds or less." Marnie lifted a gloved hand, palm-up, her fingers delicately curled: "If I may call your attention to the hover-cameras. Your respective governments are watching these proceedings. If you would be kind enough to wait" -- Marnie smiled -- "we are arranging to bring your government's representatives here." "You're what?" There was a double-clap this time: the blocky, olive-drab tank was gone, replaced by a boxy, chisel-nosed Ambassadorial shuttle, and beside it, another Iris. Grey-uniformed men poured out, carried long crates, opened them: poles were raised, stakes driven, a conical cap raised, secured: there were tables, chairs, then the lean young men marched back through the Iris and were gone. A small group of men emerged from the diplomatic shuttle. "Gentlemen, you will excuse me. I beg you not to take any hostile action until we've finished." Three riders turned their mounts, cantered across the flat, grassy plain: lean-waisted men in grey uniforms, unnoticed until now, brought up large viewscreens for the commanders, on both sides. Men watched as leaders they recognized, argued with one another: angry gestures, raised words, and finally an Ambassador in a tailored gown rose, gestured. The tables were seized, removed: the Ambassador lunged for one man, seized his necktie; a pale eyed man grabbed the other, and they were dragged to the center of the field, protesting, stumbling. Jacob released his high ranking prisoner's necktie: Marnie's grip replaced his, and she jerked two Presidents closer -- hard. "Gentlemen," she said quietly, her voice carrying ice and granite, "I give you this last chance for accord. Is there no other choice but war?" "No," one shouted, "none!" -- Marnie turned to look at the other, whose florid face was as angry as his opponent's: "None whatsoever!" "Then, gentlemen," Marnie said quietly, "you'll fight the war right here, right now, between the two of you" "What?" "Outrageous!" "I don't recognize --" Marnie backhanded the man hard: "Damn you, sir," she snapped, "you stand before me a COWARD!" "SEE HERE!" Marnie slapped him again, her hand so swift he never saw it coming. "BLADES!" she snapped. A young man in a grey uniform stepped forward with a long wooden case, opened its lid. Marnie reached in, removed two Damascus blades. "These," she said, "are my personal Schlagers." She spun them easily, wove a web of shining steel before her: she stopped, thrust them at two Presidents, hilt-first. "Here. You're at war. There's the enemy. You want blood? SHED YOUR OWN!" Ambassador Marnie Keller dropped back, slashed down with a gloved hand: "LAY ON!" Two men stared, shocked, at these honed implements of death in their uncertain grip. "WELL WHATTAYA WAITIN' FOR! YOU WANT A WAR, YOU'VE GOT ONE! THE ENEMY FACES YOU, HAVE AT IT!" Neither man moved. Two politicians, used to bottom polishing, used to speechmaking, used to deals and compromise, suddenly faced the sickening realization that his life could end on the other's steel. Marnie waited. "You're not going to kill one another?" she asked quietly. Neither man spoke. "It's not so easy when it's your life, is it?" Her voice did not accuse: her words were spoken gently, almost compassionately. "Gentlemen, how would your wife feel if she were told you'd been killed on the field of combat, that you lay dead, your life's blood soaked into the ground?" Two Presidents looked at the blade in their hand. "Gentlemen, you're here because of politics, not necessity. Neither of your nations committed a warlike act against the other. You don't want to kill good men over politics. What say we sit down and talk about this?" Dr. John Greenlees rose as the door to the Infirmary whisked open. "You look like hell." "Yeah, God loves you too." "Supper's ready." "Oh, bless you," Marnie squeaked as she fell into her husband: she buried her face in his shoulder, hugged him, groaned the way she did when she was bone-deep tired. She raised her head, fatigue in her expression and exhaustion in her voice. "John, do you remember I told my Daddy he needed a vacation?" Dr. John Greenlees nodded, his arms still firm around his wife. "Now it's my turn." "Whatever you need, dearest, we will make it happen." "Mama!" a happy little voice declared, and a little boy in knee pants pattered happily toward her. Ambassador Marnie Keller bent, shedding title and responsibility, and became what she most loved being: she snatched young John from the floor, laughing as young arms embraced her, as masculine arms embraced them both. Marnie was a wife and a mother now, and she was happy.

OBSOLETE Dana swept her skirt under her, sat with her usual feminine grace: she planted one elbow on the table, bent her wrist, rested her chin on it, stared off into the distance and gave a long, quiet sigh. I'd just brewed a fresh pot of coffee, and the silent, morning kitchen smelled really good. Half of it went into two sizable mugs: I set one in front of my little girl and I set one at my place. Milk was already on the table: Dana added some to hers, slid the jug over to me, I added some to mine and set it away, then I came back, pulled out the chair and parked my carcass. Silence filled the kitchen. Now most folks are not comfortable with the quiet. Me, I cherish it. My best friends are the ones I can sit with, and neither of us says a word, and both of us are perfectly comfortable with that arrangement. Dana had that gift. Silence lasts only so long, though, and it was me that spoke first. “The detective bureau called to say thank you.” Dana raised an eyebrow, sipped delicately, closed her eyes, bathing her face in the rising steam from her fragrant mug. She still wore a long, flesh colored bandage stuck over the cut. “How’s the neck?” She didn’t open her eyes as she replied, “I’ll have a puckered scar like Frankenstein’s monster.” She lowered her mug, looked at me, smiled. “I’m kidding, Daddy,” she whispered: her bent wrist came to her mouth, and she turned a little red and giggled the way she did when she was a little girl, pulling a good one on the Grand Old Man. “Stitches,” I echoed. Dana blinked and tried to look really innocent. “A big ugly long puckered scar, and I’ll bet you used to sing opera!” She couldn’t contain her laughter: she set her coffee down, she leaned her head back, then dropped her chin to her chest: she bit her lip, then she bit the back of her bent wrist, then she gave up entirely and laughed aloud, and I laughed with her. “Daddy,” she sighed, “how do you keep such a good poker face?” I folded my arms, set my elbows on the table, lowered my head a little and looked at her, and it almost felt the way it did when she was a little girl and we’d be playing the Tom Fool at the kitchen table. “I work the room,” I said, “I play to my audience. Here, the pressure’s off, it’s just us, and you know me” – I thrust my arm straight in the air – “it’s over the boots, save the watch!” Dana laughed and clapped her hands with all the delight of the little girl she used to be. “You’ve got a pretty good poker face yourself, darlin’,” I murmured. “I’ve seen you at work.” “Thank you,” she whispered, and dropped her eyes, and once again I had one of those How did she grow up so fast? moments. “You said the detective bureau called.” “They have warrants on all four fellows in your traffic stop.” “I wondered why they beat feet over here so fast.” “They have the prior claim. They understand that Chicken Wing is charged with assault on a law enforcement officer, weapon specification, plus the drug and weapons specifications on the others.” “They didn’t waste any time turning on each other.” “Probably figured if they couldn’t take you, they were sunk. By the way, you handled yourself very well indeed.” “Video was that good?” “It was that good.” “Even the body cam?” “That was best of all, darlin’. It caught the sound of that elbow breaking in living color.” I stopped, frowned. “Color. Sound. Whatever.” “I used the same … I reacted …” Dana blinked, remembering. “That’s how I learned to do it, as a Valkyrie.” “That’s why the Valkyries still train.” “That’s why I still train with them,” she said, her voice quiet, her eyes very serious. “How’s Victoria coming along with her training?” Dana planted her right elbow firmly on the tabletop, dropped her face in her palm, fumbled for the coffee mug with her left hand: “Oh Gawd,” she mumbled into her hand, then lifted her face and looked at her Daddy with an expression that bordered on panic. “She’s nothing but muscle, Daddy! X-ray her and you’ll find whalebone and whipcord! She’s fast, she’s ruthless, she’s brutal! – Angela wants to take her off-world to train with Marnie’s golem.” “Golem,” I said slowly. “Not familiar.” I had no idea what a golem was. From the context, I imagined a robotic training aid. If Marnie and Victoria both were training with one, if it was a robot, that meant Victoria was bringing energies to bear that would have caused genuine harm to a human opponent. “Think of a programmable sparring droid.” “I … see.” “Daddy.” Dana laid gentle fingertips on the back of my hand. “You remember how we train to take out an elbow, to grab and leverage our weight against the joint and break it?” “I remember.” “You can overcome lesser strength and lesser body mass with speed, at least to a degree. Victoria has that speed. Marnie has her working with the pistol, too.” I opened my mouth and Dana put her fingertip to my lips. “Daddy,” she said quietly, “remember, you told me women learn better from women. I know you taught us, but we’re teaching now.” I reached up and took my daughter’s hand, carefully, frowning a little as I considered what I’d just been told. “So I’m being replaced,” I said quietly. “Daddy … no.” “I’m old, I’m obsolete, I’m being tossed aside on the trash pile of uselessness, doooooooommmmmm!” I said in a sepulchral voice, rolling my eyes to emphasize my silliness: I leaned back, fingertips dramatically at my breast, I threw my head back and lamented to the ceiling, “Wounded! Wounded, I say! I am no longer useful in this world! Cruel Death, take me now!” – then I looked at Dana and blinked and asked innocently, “Did I make a big enough arse of myself?” Dana surged out of her chair, dropped into my lap, hugged me and laid her head over against my collarbone, giggling the way she did as a little girl, when we were being silly together. She gave a great, gusting sigh, relaxed into me, and I held her, there in the quiet of the kitchen, and for a moment, I was her Daddy, and she was my little girl, and that suited me just fine.

PLEASE PASS THE SALT The knife blade felt like a slender little burn as it sliced across Dana's throat. It didn't cut deep, it barely broke the skin, just enough to bleed, just enough to burn. Just enough to detonate a compact, blond haired keg of dynamite into absolute fury. No traffic stop is routine. Dana approached the vehicle with due caution, she stepped back, asked the driver to step out. The passenger stepped out as well. This was just enough to break her watchfulness, just enough for the driver to come up with a knife, just enough to slice a dumb cop's throat like he'd done before. It almost worked. Dana's move was faster than the eye could follow, and nearly too fast for her cruiser cam to capture: the driver was headed for the ground, his elbow was bent the wrong direction, and Dana's plastic pistol was pointed at the passenger as she skipped backward, stopped. The other two in the vehicle decided -- given this dumb cop's speed and effectiveness -- their best bet for seeing sunrise the next day, was to hold very still and do a whole lot of nothing at all. Victoria Keller bent, gripped the grey-vinyl-coated tumbling pad, dragged it over so its hook and loop edge laid over its fellow: she smoothed it down to make sure the pads would not shift during use, unfolded another from the stack, set it into position. She'd been training with the Valkyries, and today was training day. Angela recommended she wear jogging pants, and she did -- "it helps prevent floor burn from those mats" -- she stopped, straightened, looked at the portable stairs at the edge of the mats, looked at her big sister. Their instructor was a dark-haired woman, compact, solid, motherly, quick to laugh, and one of the most effective hand-to-hand fighters Angela ever got her butt kicked by. Victoria watched as Angela laughed and embraced the smiling woman in the white karate ghi, as they chattered happily, then turned toward the big-eyed little girl watching them with a solemn expression. Each bowed formally to the other. "Victoria," Angela asked, "do you remember we practiced quite a bit of tumbling?" Victoria nodded. "Do you remember how much better you are than I am?" Victoria nodded, then giggled. "We're going to add to what you've learned." Victoria nodded again. Dana had backup in less than three minutes. During that time she invited the exiting passenger to put his hands on the trunk of the car, feet back and spread 'em, and do exactly nothing else. Faced with the prospect of a calm, self-assured, uniformed Sheriff's deputy (who just happened to have a double handful of frontier justice looking at him), the passenger saw the wisdom of following instructions: when backup arrived, they found two sets of hands pressed against the car's back glass, the deputy at low ready, with a clear line of fire to any of the involved occupants. There was also the matter of the deputy's having her boot firmly on the driver's extended wrist. The other wrist was connected to an arm that was still bent the wrong way, and the driver was not moving, probably because moving hurt more than holding very still. Marnie watched, nodding as she did. Her husband watched his pale eyed wife's approval -- he had no idea what she was watching, but it was evident to his practiced eye that she liked what she saw. A wife's perceptions run deeper than the five human senses: she felt her husband's eyes on her, tapped the screen to freeze the image, gave Dr. John Greenlees Jr an innocent look. "I can tell you like it," Dr. John said quietly, and she heard the smile behind his words: like his father, he practiced a solemn expression, but his wife saw through him like window glass. "John," she said, rising, "I have a baby sister who shows promise." "Promise?" Dr. Greenlees echoed, raising an eyebrow: Marnie ran her arms around his neck, drew his head down, kissed him, gave him a smoldering look. "My dear Doctor," she whispered, "I desire you." The good physician did not need to be invited a second time. Marnie's tablet, abandoned on the desk, began playing again. No one was looking at it. Had there been, they would have seen a little girl with her pigtails tucked into the neck of her sweatshirt, a little girl standing on the third of three steps, a little girl who was pushed, hard -- she landed, tumbled, came up, hands open and bladed and ready for a fight, a little girl who was threatened with a rubber practice knife, a little girl who seized the wrist, twisted, using leverage to break the simulated elbow. As much as her big sister might've approved of her little sister's performance, Marnie found herself otherwise occupied. Most agreeably occupied. Dana Keller stripped her bloodied blouse. It wasn't terribly bloodied, but she would have to soak it in saltwater to get the stain out, mostly from the collar. Methodically, systematically, she divested her uniform shirt of badge, name tag, the contents of the pockets: she shoved the shirt into a stainless-steel dishpan half filled with cold water, looked up as the dispatcher came in with a blue-and-white, metal cased first-aid kit. Dana looked up at Sharon, looked at the shelf behind her, at the box of salt they kept in the ladies' locker room for the purpose. "Can I help you clean up your neck?" Sharon asked. "Let me set this to soak," Dana sighed. "Please pass the salt."

Carried one while a lawman. Loved it. Recommend it highly!

Still standing up on my Prayer Bones for the both of you. I threw down a pillow first as bare laminate floor is hard on the knees. I thought to go out in the yard and kneel in the sod until I considered: 1) It's been raining, it's soggy and cold and the wife would (ahem) speak to me (ahem) for tracking in mud; 2) the good Christian neighbor would likely heave frying pans and steam irons at me while screaming about "damned Pharisees", and 3) with this recent warmer weather, yellow jackets are out and I'm allergic to wasp venom. Thus the pillow on the floor. Delighted in your report of being received at that restaurant like long lost family!

HOT POTATO I saw the train approach the trestle. The tracks lay at a down grade toward the trestle, which meant the engine would not be barking her exhaust -- matter of fact, she could run so quiet as to surprise a man, especially if he was paying no attention, and the boy on the trestle, wasn't. Since that time, platforms were installed so anyone on the trestle when a train approached, would have somewhere to stand and not get killed. Before that, there was nothing. When the boy realized there was a train a-comin', he was too far from the end to run from it: he laid down beside the rail, realized that wouldn't save him, I'm headed that way fast as my horse would run, but I'd not be in time -- The boy hugged a crosstie, swung his legs over, dangled while that train sailed on a-past: I got up to the edge of the drop-off, and soon as the caboose passed, I legged it across that trestle. I remember how scared he looked, hangin' there, death gripped around attair tie. I knew the square corners had to be diggin' into his arms. He seen me comin' and he just hung on. I got to him and laid down with my chest over the rail and I recht down and grabbed me a good tight handful of his coat and realized that wouldn't work so I set one boot over the rail, I bent over with my other leg stuck out behint me and I recht over and taken two hands full of wadded up coat right behind his shoulders and I hauled back and he let go of that cross tie and by golly up he popped like a cork and we went over backwards and him on top of me and we just laid there, and I recall hearin' the train chuffin' away from us in the distance. He wasn't terribly old, I don't reckon he was ... hell, he was young as my own child. I looked at him and he looked at me and I grinned. Couldn't help it. When I recht over and grabbed the back of his coat I couldn't help but see just how far down it was, and damned if I was goin' to let him fall, and now we was laid acrost them dirty old creosote ties with him on top of me and I asked, "You hurt?" He swallowed, blinked, shook his head. "No, sir." "I'm kind of surprised," I admitted. "Sir?" I laughed and hugged him and then I let go and said, "My hat didn't even fall off!"

I'LL HAVE NO PART OF IT Sean raised his heavy, flute-sided beer mug, took a long, savoring drink: he came up for air, tilted his head back, let the blessed relief slide down his throat. Sheriff Linn Keller accepted his mug from Mr. Baxter, looked at Sean, slid his bottom jaw out a little, the way he did when he was considering something. "There's somethin' on yer mind," Sean said quietly. "I know tha' look." Linn nodded slowly. " 'Twas before your time," Linn said quietly. "You recall that well we filled in out back?" "Aye," Sean replied. Linn looked down at his beer, stared hard into its amber depths. "Do you know why we filled it in?" "I thought ye'd gone daft," Sean admitted, "fillin' in a perfectly guid well." Linn took a tentative taste of his beer, set it down, picked up the nearby bar towel and wiped the foam off his handlebar. Another man -- tall, lean, tanned, bald save for a ring of hair around the back of his head -- came through the front door. Linn lifted his chin: "Mr. Baxter, another, if you please." Mr. Baxter raised an eyebrow, then looked to the side, smiled: he drew another beer, dashed the foam off with his foam knife, wiped the excess off the outside, set it on the polished mahogany bar top, its handle toward the tonsured Abbot. Three men raised their mugs, three men drank. Sean and Linn shared a knowing look as the Abbot lowered his mug, sighed with pleasure. "St. Bridgid be praised," he murmured, "I needed that!" Three men turned their backs to the bar, three men leaned back against its solid presence, three men rested an elbow on burnished mahogany and regarded the interior of the Silver Jewel. Abbot William looked over: "Sheriff, you're not drinking coffee?" "Of a morning." The Abbot waited: he knew Linn did nothing without reason, and he was right. "Abbot," Linn said, "I was drinking enough of the stuff I was gettin' dried out." "Oh?" Linn looked at the big red-headed Irishman beside him. "Sean, who'd you tell me that patron saint of beer making was?" "Saint Gambrinus," Mr. Baxter prompted. "Or King Gambrinus." "He got promoted," the Abbot said quietly, with a conspiratorial wink: Linn chuckled a little, for it was a rare thing for the Abbot to let slip his humor in public. "Saint Arnold it was," Sean declared, hoisting his mug, "for he stopped the Plague by having the people drink beer instead of watter!" "St. Bridgid," the Abbot added quietly, "dunked her crucifix in a bathtub and turned the contents to good beer, when her people begged her for beer." "That's why I filled in that damned well," Linn said quietly. "We had cholera and that well was the source." "There's a well out back ..." "I had the Daine boys witch me a new well. Water runs underground like a river, only slower. The one comin' off Graveyard Hill carried corruption with it and tainted the old well. This one -- that new one we pump out of -- why, it's pure as angel tears." Sean fixed his old friend with a knowing look. "Ye're changin' th' subject." "Yeah." Linn's eyes narrowed a little, he pressed his lips together, considered. "Sean," he said, "I was drinkin' me too much coffee." "An' ye are a thrifty man, so ye said watter is cheaper." Linn snorted, then chuckled. "No," he admitted, looked down into his mug, tilted it up, drank deeply: he downed the second half of his mug, turned, set it gently on the bar, lifted his chin. Mr. Baxter took the mug, refilled it, wiped it down, set it back, handle toward the Sheriff's shoulder blades. "Y'see, or so 'twas Doc told me, drinkin' all that coffee instead of drinkin' beer like God intended" -- he looked at the Abbot, then at Sean -- "well, hell, ain't he got a patron saint for the stuff?" Sean looked over Linn's head -- no mean feat, Linn was regarded a tall man, but Sean had him by a couple fingers' elevation -- "He's right, y'know," and the Abbot nodded at the Irish fire chief's pronouncement. "Anyhow." Linn turned, picked up his mug, leaned back against the bar again -- "I got tired of havin' them damned kidney stones." Sean grimaced, looked away; the Abbot crossed himself, laid an understanding hand on the Sheriff's shoulder. "How bad?" he asked quietly. Linn looked at him, chuckled: "My hired man come around the barn and there I was a-layin' on the ground wallerin' like a worm on a fish hook." Sean made a strangled sound, his expression somewhere between sympathy and distress: he'd seen men being cut apart from the inside by the damned stones, and though he'd never suffered them himself, he'd watched his father kick the arm off a well made sofa while in the throes of internal agony. "M' hired man looked at me," Linn continued, "and he said, 'Mistuh Kelluh, you gots to quit eatin' dem gre-e-e-azy po'k chops." The Abbot's hand tightened on the Sheriff's shoulder, and Sean added his own grip to the lean lawman's other shoulder: three men were silent, but three men were laughing, inwardly, the way men will when they are in public and they don't want to laugh at a fellow's misfortune -- but they are sharing his self-deprecating amusement. "So," Linn said finally, "the Temperance Movement be damned, once I started workin' on beer instead of all that coffee, why, I've had neither cholera nor those damned stones!"

High cirrus on the soggy south shore of Lake Erie. Two days ago, gas stations were PACKED and traffic was heavy and impatient. I viewed this once in a lifetime event from my driveway. When it was over I went inside, poured coffee and said "My, my, that's very nice."

Tried to shoot the Ring of Fire, but it washed itself out. I was genuinely AMAZED at how little of the sun was coming from behind the Moonshadow, and how light it was here on the ground!

I cut a quarter sized hole in a paper plate. I'll hold it out at arm's length and project its shadow onto the concrete driveway. Did that in '17 during the partial eclipse while working squad in Athens. A nearby tree out-did me ... Under the tree were a thousand eclipse-shadows! Neat!

Just shy of seven decades agone, a man with Clan Maxwell red hair sat at his kitchen table looked up with a sour expression as his wife answered the phone, turned to him with a pleased expression and called him "Grampa," and said it's a boy. He grumped and muttered that she could be grandma if she wanted, but damned if he was going to be Grampa! That lasted until Mama handed me to him. I was wrapped in a baby quilt Grandma sewed up when Mama first announced she was with child. Mama said he got this big idiot grin on his face, he looked up and said softly, "All right, you can call me Grampa now!"

Now that's a phone call I honestly never expected to get. I'm now a Great-Grandfather! Eight pound and change, 20 inches long, hair on his head and an appetite! They had a name picked out and I'm not sure but what they changed their minds on that, so not sure what to call him, but we'll figure it out!

NOT WHAT I HAD IN MIND "Tell me you didn't." "Hell, it was a simple unplug this and plug in that!" "Yeah, right, what if we get a run?" "It's Monday, ya dip, nothing ever happens the first of the week --" BLAAAAAAAA-- "Fireland Emergency Squad, woman in labor, Firelands grade school, second floor office, time out ten-oh-three." The German Irishman looked at the Welsh Irishman, clapped the lid on the siren box, wound in one screw, slid it back into the dash, wound in one screw and dropped back, sliding out of the squad's cab. He pulled back as the Captain and his daughter swarmed into the squad -- shoreline was grabbed, turned, pulled free -- the door hummed and rattled open and bright mountain sunlight roared into the shadowed bay. The Welsh Irishman grabbed the breakaway on the exhaust, twisted pulled: they saw the brake lights come on, just before high powered lights began to flash, just before the squad rolled out, turned, started up the street. Two Irishmen looked at one another, uncertain, then grinning, then laughing like two schoolboys. The door was halfway shut by the time the Captain reached for the siren switch. Sheriff Linn Keller came out of his inner office, frowning a little, pencil crosswise between even white teeth: he held a folder, turned a page over, another, clearly studying the material he carried. Sheriff Linn Keller looked up, his frown going from study to puzzled, one eyebrow raised as the squad accelerated past the Sheriff's office, all lights and swift response and bagpipes. The folder, forgotten, was snapped closed, laid on the sidetable beside the coffee pot. Sharon looked up, looked at the Sheriff: Linn looked back, and two voices said, "What was that?" Captain Crane jerked his hand back from the siren box like it was hot. Then the drums started: deep, commanding, punctuating the warpipes' screaming "Scotland the Brave": he was too busy driving, to worry about what was coming out of the siren speakers, only that something was, and it was loud, and it was working! Crane swung the wheel left, came down on the throttle, around two suddenly-stopped cars, up the street and over the rise, braked, turned right, accelerated uphill, toward the schoolhouse. Shelly looked over at her father, as surprised at her father's reaction as she was at what was coming out of two, 100 watt, waxed, polished, chromed Federal siren speakers: "PLAY IT, DAMN YOU!" the Captain yelled cheerfully: he killed the siren and they pulled up right in front of the grade school's front door. Sheriff Linn Keller braked hard, skidding a little: he ran up the front steps of his own house, tapped quickly at the panel on the door frame, shoved his key into the lock, twisted: burnished Wellington boot heels were loud on spotless wood as he strode for the stairs, as he sprinted up to the bedroom: a slam, another, as he got into one dresser drawer, then another, muttering "Dammit Mama, you had it in here!" -- he ran downstairs, heedless of the racket he was making in the silent house. The Bear Killer was dancing at the foot of the stairs, then galloped out the front door ahead of the Sheriff, hit the ground, took one bounding leap and sailed across the driver's seat and into the passenger side. Linn held a bundle clamped tight under his left arm: he slammed and locked the front door, re-armed the system, turned and jumped off the front steps, grinning like he did when he jumped the steps as a boy: he got in, slammed the Jeep's door, set the precious bundle between himself and The Bear Killer. Linn grinned, pulled ahead, turned around quickly: he stopped, closed his eyes, took a long breath, laughed at himself. "Old habit," she said aloud. "You're not delivering this baby. Relax, Linn!" He laughed again, reached over, rubbed the grinning Bear Killer, then came off the brake and proceeded down the driveway in considerably less of a hurry. "Firelands ER, Firelands Squad One." "Firelands ER, go." "Firelands ER, we are on scene with a woman in labor, para three gravida four, active labor, mother states child is a month early. Mother is three fingers and fully effaced, preparing to transport." Linn frowned when he heard this: his jaw slid out as he considered, then he reached over, wiped his finger across three rocker switches, horizontally mounted so they could be turned on by running a finger from far to near. Blue indicators glowed on the switches as Linn's Jeep lit up with blue-white-and-red LEDs. "Showtime," Linn said seriously. "Cap better have his ball glove. They'll never make the hospital." A woman's scream echoed down the hallway, down the stairs. Two medics stopped, lowered the cot, swung it to the side. "Aren't you going to do something?" a teacher demanded. The Captain stifled the desire to backhand her. "Keep this hall empty," he said firmly, tearing the plastic wrap off the box they hoped they'd really, really not have to use: Shelly murmured to the laboring woman, brought the laboring mother's knees up, lowered the head of the cot: she raised her talkie. "Dispatch, Firelands Squad One. Active delivery, water just broke. We are not yet loaded. Send lifting assistance." "Dispatch, Firelands Actual on scene." "Firelands Squad One, sending lifting assistance. Firelands Actual, I roger your on-scene. Break, break. Firelands Fire Department second squad, lifting assistance, Firelands Grade School, the stork is landing." The Captain thrust one hand, then the other, into the sterile gloves, bent, reached in, looked at his daughter, nodded. Shelly gripped the laboring teacher's hands: "Squeeze if it hurts," she said quietly, looked at her father. "Para three, gravida four," Shelly said in a worried voice. "Whatta we got?" "IN THE BUILDING!" a man's voice boomed from below. Linn turned: "UP HERE! FOUR MAN LIFT!" Irishmen assaulted the stairs at a dead run, their commanding shout preceding their charge: "WHATTAYA NEED, CAP!" Boots pounded up the stairs, a mountain Mastiff gave a happy whuff! as he crested the stairs with the running Irishmen. "Mother, deep breath," the Captain said, his voice deep, reassuring. "Blow out, deep breath again, OKAY, MOTHER, PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH!" Linn stopped, looked at his wife. "Whattaya need?" "CROWNING!" the Captain grinned, glanced over. "Linn, keep this hallway clear!" Linn looked up: the principal was coming toward him, looking big-eyed from the cot to the Sheriff and back. Linn powered forward, gripped the principal by her shoulder. "Get on the PA," he said quietly. "Until I say otherwise, nobody leaves their room, tell them the stork is landing and we have to keep the runway clear. This is not a lockdown, this is --" "IT'S A BOY!" the Captain yelled. Irishmen swarmed the cot, pounded one another on the back, looked approvingly at the Captain: "WILLY MAYS DOES IT AGAIN!" came the delighted shout. The principal turned pale, swallowed hard: the Sheriff took her by the elbows to steady her. Linn looked at the principal. "Do you need to sit down?" She nodded: Linn eased her down, patted her hand: "Just sit here for a minute," he said quietly. The Captain looked up: "Mother," he said in a gentle voice, "do you plan to breastfeed?" The teacher nodded, biting her bottom lip, tears streaking down her cheeks. "Give me a minute," he said softly. "I need to cut the cord. Afterbirth should come right after, then we'll change the sheet under you." The Captain wrapped the infant in the fluffy receiving blanket, then the Sheriff sidled in close. "Here," he said. "Wrap him in this." When the newest member of the community arrived at their hospital, when he was examined and pronounced healthy and perfect, he was again wrapped in the Sheriff's gift, and formally presented to his father and his family. Sheriff Linn Keller stood back and watched, grinning, as this youngest Maxwell of the Clan Maxwell, was presented to Clan and Kin, wrapped in the correct Clan Maxwell plaid. For some odd reason, the next time the siren was used, it sounded like a siren, and no official mention was made of what two of the Irish Brigade swore privately was just a joke, it was sheer and fantastic coincidence that bagpipes heralded the birth of another Maxwell, but someone with a steady hand and a rotten sense of humor, painted a blue stork beside the yellow storks on the squad's fender ... this newest stork did not carry a blue sling for a boy, or pink sling for a girl. The stork itself was blue, and its sling was Clan Maxwell plaid.

AND THE SHERIFF LAUGHED The local sewer plant was not a common recipient of casual visitors. When the Sheriff's cruiser rolled slowly through the open gates, the operator raised his head from the glass-fronted analytical balance, turned the knurled knob to raise the support under the shining, stainless-steel pan. Grant raised his hand, flagged the Sheriff in: Willamina looked around as she stepped into the pole building with the tall, peaked, snow-shedding roof, walked with her usual confident step toward the closed lab door. Grant wrote down the last numbers the balance displayed: he straightened, worked his back a little. "Don't let me interrupt," Willamina murmured. "You're just in time," Grant said, grimacing as he stood, gripping the backrest of his padded stool. "Time for a break. I can offer coffee ... it's instant?" he added hesitantly. "Instant's fine," Willamina smiled, then tilted her head. "How's your back?" Grant sneered up the right side of his upper lip. "That good." "Yeah." "Come on," Willamina said softly, running a companionable arm around his shoulders: "I think you need that break." "After this morning, yeah." They went into the other room, built into the pole building, the combination office and meeting room: as two mugs of water heated in the microwave, Grant tossed a gaudy, gold-trimmed, red-velvet pillow on a folding metal chair and gestured for the Sheriff to sit. Willamina watched as Grant dropped a pillow recycled from a bed he used to have, onto another folding tin chair: she assessed his posture with a professional's eye as he stirred shining brown crystals into one mug, then the other. "Creamer?" he offered. "Black's fine, thank you." Grant handed her a steaming mug, handle-first: only then did he sit, and when he lowered himself onto the fluffed pillow, he did so slowly, carefully. Willamina blew across her scalding payload, remembering how she liked to do that as a child when the air was cold -- blow steam a surprising distance in the still air of a chilly room -- she sipped her coffee, decided to wait a bit for her next taste. "One of those mornings, you say?" Willamina prompted. "Yeah," Grant sighed, stirring powdered whatever into his brew: he set the plastic container back on the shelf, laid his spoon on a stained, folded paper towel, held the mug by its handle, hunched forward the way a man will when he'd like to take some strain off an injured lower back. He found the least uncomfortable angle, looked up and almost smiled. "Y'see," he grunted, "I can get in trouble just settin' in my easy chair." Willamina laughed, nodded: "Grant, you're not supposed to imitate my bad examples!" "Top this one," he challenged. "Salesman came in today, one of our regulars, I bought some stuff we needed, and I forget what went wrong -- his phone wouldn't connect or something and he had trouble filing the order, so what do I do, open mouth, insert foot." "Ahhh," Willamina nodded understandingly. "Oh, it gets worse. Me, I make wit' da smaht remahk that ever since that scoundrel Murphy passed all those Murphy's Laws, it's good folk like him and me that's had nothing but grief!" Willamina raised a hand, wiggled her fingers: "I can identify!" "Yeah, but then he gets a funny look on his face and he said "My name's Murphy!" Willamina laughed, her eyes widening: "No!" "Oh, ya. Now me, I didn't miss a beat, I said 'And now for my next act, I'll put my other foot in my mouth!' " Willamina laughed again, slurped noisily at her coffee, wiped a dribble from her chin: Grant leaned forward, handed her a paper towel: Willamina wiped her chin, her hand, wadded the towel up and made a flawless hook shot into the rusty-seamed, enamel-grey trash can. "That," she declared, "has me beat!" Willamina tilted her mug up, drained it: she handed it back, coughed, harrumphed, nodded. "Thank you, Grant," she said quietly. "I needed that." Grant nodded, finished his own. "You know they've mounted a dedicated bench in front of the municipal building." "I heard." "It'll be dedicated to Wally. They were going to install a brass plaque but they decided to router the dedication into the top slat." "I'll never sit in it," Grant said quietly, hostility in his voice: it was a year since his boss's death, and the resentment of the man was as strong, under his words, as it had been since before the man's demise. Willamina rose, looked very directly at Grant. "Grant, that back has me worried. Are you going to be all right?" "Oh, I'll be fine," he said dismissively. "I've got to be." Willamina stepped closer, took his freckled cheeks between her hands, gave him a motherly stare. "Grant," she almost whispered, "you're the only one of you we've got. Please take care of yourself." She tilted her head again, smiled: "Who else can take a perfectly good sour mood and absolutely ruin it?" Grant laughed a little at this, nodded. "I will," he promised. Willamina was halfway down the driveway before she released the laughter she'd been containing. " 'My name's Murphy,' " she quoted to the empty air: she made a mental note to remember that save-it-with-a-laugh line about "For my Next Act." And the Sheriff laughed.

PINWHEEL Ambassador Marnie Keller lay back in a clawfoot slipper tub and hummed with pleasure as she leaned her head back against a padded headrest, and finally -- finally! -- allowed herself to relax. She'd been negotiating for the past week, combining skills that would have been at home in a defense attorney's toolbox, a politician's podium, a used car salesman's presentation: she listened, she discussed, she arbitrated, she suggested, encouraged, discouraged, agreed, refused, laughed, glared, wheedled, and at one point she planted her knuckles on her slender waist, patted her foot like a disapproving schoolteacher, then shook a gloved finger at an individual and threatened to turn him over her knee and spank his backside if he didn't behave. The Ambassador smiled at that last memory, sighed out a long breath, blowing a minor cloud of soap-bubbles as she did: after a long and difficult negotiation, Marnie liked little better than a long soak in a hot bubble bath, and her Ladies-in-Waiting made very certain Marnie's bathwater was precisely at her specified temperature, the soapsuds were at least a foot deep, and Mendelssohn's Vassermusik played almost inaudibly, from invisible, very high quality speakers. Sheriff Jacob Keller's week had been similarly difficult. Their government, like any government, had challenges and challengers; there'd been a trial, and those involved in the conspiracy to assassinate him, were discovered, tried, convicted. There were other serious matters that demanded Jacob's time: the Mars colony was increasingly popular as a tourist attraction, with guests from Earthlike worlds in the Confederacy delighting in the one-third gravity: there was a steady manufacture of plastic sleds, a steady clientele for their mountain sliding slopes -- smaller, shallower grades for beginners, higher and steeper for more experienced sledders, and finally the highest, a mile up, which was only done with special sleds that just happened to incorporate certain safety features ... like inertial dampeners, force fields and other measures to make sure participants didn't kill themselves as they achieved truly terrifying velocities. Jacob had to coordinate the simple but effective measures to stop a virus brought in by a visitor, something against which the new generation of Martians had no defense: it was at this point that offworld exposure was recommended for all colonists, to build their immune systems and prevent recurrence of this debilitating condition that left its victims sweating, weak, very unwell. Jacob suffered it himself, at least briefly: Doc Greenlees called it "The Common Cold," and Jacob muttered it had been so long since he'd had one, it wasn't common: local distillation of fermented grains was increased, and the off-duty salute of "Your Health!" came back into use as glasses of Liquid Sledgehammer were companionably raised. Jacob's relaxation did not take the form of a fragrant, warm soak in a handmade copper slipper tub. No, Jacob's relaxation involved an extremely accurate, marvelously precise rifle. An air rifle. Jacob closed the bolt on a just-swaged, hollow-skirted lead pellet. He'd used an empty percussion cap tin to establish the size; the targets were heavy paper; crossed lines intersected in a one-quarter-inch black dot. Jacob sat down, grateful for the foam cushion under his bony backside. He settled in behind the rifle. The pressure-chamber hissed as it filled with the exact volume of air, at the exact pressure Jacob preferred for this work. Jacob Keller, Sheriff of Firelands, Mars, felt his waxed handlebar mustache bend up a little as he cheeked down on the comb of the rifle. He closed his eyes, took a long breath, blew it out; he opened his eyes, looked through the rear peep. He breathed once more, started his squeeze ... *Blap* Jacob opened the rifle's bolt, carefully rolled in another miniscule projectile: he closed the bolt, charged the chamber, cheeked down and took a sighting look at the newly-changed paper wafer. *Blap* Sheriff Jacob Keller disciplined his entire body, willing himself to stillness, feeling his heartbeat: he did not time his trigger squeeze to break the shot between heartbeats -- he'd been told there were those who did, and he'd never been able to, without rushing the squeeze and reducing his accuracy -- five times he charged the air rifle's chamber, five times he fired: finally he rose, waited for the wafers to be delivered on a round plastic platter that looked like it was riding on a roller skate down a steel plank toward him. Jacob slipped each of the wafers, in turn, down over a mandrel, turned the round table beneath it slowly, the arm of a dial indicator riding with a diamondite whisker against the edge of the circular target. Of the five he shot, four showed a deflection of one full one-thousandth of an inch, the others deflected in increments of ten-thousandths of an inch. All but one. The second one was without deflection. Jacob stared at the round, heavy paper wafer with the hole at the precise midpoint. His pale eyes tightened a little at the corners, then he grinned with absolute delight. "Pinwheel."

ANGELUS MORT "I know that look, Mr. Keller." Shelly hung her head over her husband's shoulder, crossed her arms over his chest. Linn was sitting at his desk, in his study at home, staring at a dark, blank screen. Linn murmured, "I reckon you do." "You're thinking about her." "Yes." His word was little more than a whisper. "What's the memory?" Sheriff Willamina Keller willed her mount to greater speed. She held a child across the saddle in front of her, one hand clamped tight over the bloodied cloth wrapped around a small arm, the other holding the shivering, pallid body against her. She rode with her lips peeled back, but silent -- she did not even snarl -- she wished she could scream, she wished she could RAGE!!! -- she thought of that IDIOT MOTHER who pulled the broad, impaling glass out of the wound, who pulled the cork out of the bottle, slicing the artery: Willamina ripped her reproduction flour sack dress free, turned it with practiced speed into a tight-wrapped pressure dressing, then more cloth, a twist, an improvised torniquet: now she rode the wind itself, trying desperately to outrun pursuing Death. Horses' hooves, rhythmic, swift; a woman who fought a device from a pocket, spoke into it, calling ahead to her dispatcher: speed was her ally, swiftness, her friend: Willamina rode with the knowledge that, fast as she rode, the Reaper might yet win this race. She made the back of the hospital, the ambulance entrance: she hit the ground flat-footed, bearing her pallid burden at a flat-out sprint: there were cruisers, men in uniform, shotguns held muzzle-up: all they knew was, the Sheriff was inbound, fast, there was a casualty, they knew nothing more, but whatever it was, they intended to be ready. Willamina seized the sodden cloth as it was cut free of the child's arm. Her son ran with her as she twisted around people, ran for the door she'd come in through. Linn stood back, watched, somewhere between concern and alarm, as his mother slapped the bloody bundle against both sides of the door, then leaped, smacked the lintel above: she ran to one side, to the next door -- then to the next -- Linn ran with her, silent, not interfering, not at all sure what to do. Every door -- every door the same, blood on the uprights, left, right, then overhead: Willamina came back to the ambulance doors, to her ground-reined mount, recovering from its run; Willamina staggered inside, her face lined: she seized the lid of the nearest biohazard can, slammed the sodden cloth into the red bag, dropped the lid. She staggered for the nearest sink and washed her hands -- thoroughly, viciously, scrubbing at her hide with a surgical-prep sponge. Linn came up behind his Mama, gripped her shoulders. He felt her breathing -- fast, irregular -- she did not shake him off -- he squeezed, once, gently, then released and came around beside her. "I know him," Willamina muttered as she turned her hand up, as she ran soapy bristles under her close-trimmed fingernails: "I've changed his diaper, I bought 4H fundraisers from him, I showed him how to play the harmonica in a lonely place where it echoed between the rocks." Willamina stopped, turned suddenly, faced her son, her face crumpling with grief. "It's hardest when it's someone you know," she whispered, then she dropped the soapy scrubber in the trash can, rinsed her hands, toweled them dry. Sheriff Willamina Keller was a hard woman, but sometimes things got to her, and this ... this was one of the times. "Mama," Linn murmured as he held his silent, shivering mother, "are you all right?" "No," she hiccupped, shaking her head a little. Her voice was hoarse, little more than a whisper -- a vicious, snarled whisper. "No, but the Angel of Death will not cross the threshold!" Angela Keller grabbed the bleeder barehand. She ran beside the wheeled cart, she had a death grip around a white-faced child's arm: the cart was lowered, picked up, thrust into the rear of a traction vehicle. Angela surged inside with the patient. Angela Keller was a nurse, and she was here to teach a class: she was dressed, her whites were impeccable, her hair carefully styled and her winged cap pinned in place. This world had vehicles, and where there are vehicles, there are collisions; where there are collisions, there are injuries, and she'd screamed for her driver to stop: she helped extricate the patient, she assessed the blood loss and wished for an IV setup, but she had to make do with what she had, and that was two hands and the knowledge that transport was enroute. Angela rode in the back of what passed for an ambulance; they discharged at the hospital -- at least I know their medical system, she thought; they'll have competent surgeons working today -- she rolled into ER with the patient, she looked across at the bearded, bespectacled surgeon, one she knew, one who was surprised to see such a famous personage here, in one of the only dedicated emergency departments on the planet. Angela gave him a concise report: the doctor nodded, began giving orders: Angela warned him that she was holding an arterial bleed, moved her free hand to the proximal pressure point: bandages were packed under to collect the flow when she removed her hand, and flow there was. A man forced his way into the treatment room -- "I'm his father," he cried, and Angela fixed him with a cold glare and said "Back up against that wall!" -- he did, in time for another team to run in. "We have it from here," the bespectacled young surgeon murmured. "Yes, Doctor." Angela grabbed the bloody bandages from under the arm, turned to the father. "I need your help," she snapped. "Come with me." She powered out of the room, the father following. "They're going to explore the wound, there will be x-rays and other tests," Angela said, her voice crisp, precise: "he's lost a lot of blood but he's got a good surgeon." She pushed through the doors they'd come in. Angela turned, pressed the bloody bandage against the side of the doorway, turned, pressed against the other doorway. She looked up, looked at the father. "Take me around the waist and boost me up," she said, squatting: "Up!" Angela Keller shoved hard against the pavement, the father's grip around her waist bringing her another yard off the ground. She pressed the bloodied bandage against the lintel, came down. "On to the next!" Linn turned the screen back on so Shelly could see the Inter-System broadcast. It showed a woman in a bloodied dress and a grim expression, a woman who was scrubbing her hands, hard, fast, a woman who turned to another familiar figure who opened a wooden sword-case. Angela looked directly at the hover-camera and said, "You choose your battleground," she said quietly, "and I choose here!" Nurse Angela Keller, an angel of healing, raised two swords in salute: she strode to the doors through which they'd brought the injured patient, and she began to dance. Sharpened, shining Damascus steel wove a screen of steel just inside the doorway. It was a dance of grace and of skill, it was danced by a beautiful young woman, it was danced by a healer in a bloodied dress: behind her, a rhythm, beaten against the shining tiles with what sounded like a heavy staff. The father described in a quiet voice, to the woman in a McKenna gown keeping time with a heavy staff, how Angela had marked the only three doors of the hospital, and he had no idea why, save only that she might have taken leave of her senses -- his eyes turned toward the nurse, dancing with beauty and steel in the doorway, weaving destruction from one wall to the other and back. "Do you remember," the pale eyed woman in the McKenna gown said quietly, "the promise that was made at Passover?" "Passover?" The worried father blinked, shook his head. "In ancient Egypt, the last of the Plagues. Those houses marked with the blood of a lamb were passed over by the Angel of Death." "Ah," the man breathed, then looked at Angela again. "But ... the blades?" Marnie gave him a sympathetic look. "She has seen things that would curl the hair on a bald man's head," Marnie explained. "Each sorrow, each death, each loss, each injury she treats, adds its weight to her soul. If she doesn't discharge all that stress, she'll explode. Besides" -- Marnie smiled -- "if you were the Angel of Death, would you want to come up against all that steel?" Angela stopped, turned; Marnie stopped her staff, lowered it silently. A snap of the fingers; a horizontal Iris appeared, the staff thrust into it, disappeared: Angela replaced the Schlager blades, pushed the floating sword-case into the Iris, thanked her sister in a quiet voice, then turned to the father. "Come with me." Two women and a man marched down the hallway, turned to the right, stopped. The doors -- green-painted, with SURGERY NO ADMITTANCE painted across them, opened. The surgeon came out, stripped off his mask, his hood, looked at the ladies, at the man between them. "He'll live." Shelly's hands gripped her husband's shoulders. "Wow," she breathed. "Yeah, wow," Linn agreed, reaching up and laying a warm hand over his wife's cool fingers.

YOU GOT ME ON THAT ONE! Jacob Keller stood and regarded the gunrack against the wall beside the pot belly stove. He turned the Sharps rifle sideways, then he took one of the '73 rifles and turned it likewise. Jacob Keller stepped back, pale eyes considering their relative length, depth, contours, construction. Jacob Keller stepped back up to the gunrack and returned each to its precise resting position, then he slid open the drawer and brought out two loaded rounds. He brought out a .45-70, and he brought out a .44-40. It took some doing but he managed to work the bullet out of each. Jacob knew his Pa would not be back for some time. He went over to his Pa's desk and drew out two note sized sheets of paper. Carefully, slowly, he poured the powder from the .45-70 into a pile; below it, on the other sheet, the powder from the bottleneck .44-40. He set the bullets base-to-base, considered the pairing with his eyes and his fingers, then he set each on the desk blotter, regarded their relative lengths. His serious expression had not changed since he'd come into his Pa's office: he picked up each bullet, hefted its weight. Jacob tried to reassemble the rounds, realized that without a nutcracker tool -- which he didn't have -- he'd play hell trying to re-bullet the cases. He lifted the lid on the stove, scaled in the powder -- one, then the other -- a boy would normally smile at the sizzling *foof*, the bright sparkle of loose powder committing to the coals -- but his young face remained expressionless. Jacob rolled each bullet in one of the sheets he'd used; rolled, folded over, inserted into a pocket with the empty hull: he opened the heavy timber door, opened it, stepped outside, a tall, lean young man in a black suit. His pale eyes were busy from the moment he hesitated at the opening of the door; they were just as busy as he stepped outside, until he looked up the street and to the left. There. There's where the murderer stood. Jacob recalled what it was to seize his coughing, bleeding Pa by the collar with his off hand, his good right hand filled by the Army Colt he'd taken from the monster that murdered his Ma: Jacob fired at his father's would-be assassin, fired twice more, until Macneil stepped out the door with that buffalo rifle and settled the fight with one shot: he and Macneil dragged his Pa off the dirt and over the boardwalk and safely inside -- Jacob closed his eyes, took a long breath, opened them, looked again. He'd killed men easily, at that distance, with a .44-40 lever gun. The Sharps, he knew, spoke with authority, and if a man knew his rifle, it carried that authority for a respectably greater distance. Years later, another Jacob Keller, a young man in a handmade black suit, would make that same considering comparison between the same two cartridges, only he would follow this with a study of ballistics tables, and then live fire on steel plates at varying yardages, and after this particular Jacob Keller became a husband and father, and had occasion to employ a Sharps rifle on a dirt street a very long way from home, he expanded his study of relative ballistics to include a scholarly assessment of a longer case than that used by his Pa's Sharps -- a .45-70, factory converted to fixed metallic from the tobacco cutter, and with the fragile dogleg firing pin to prove it. Jacob knew that he might need a rifle with greater stopping power than his Pa's Buffalo Rifle, and so he had one custom made -- a genuine Sharps it was, a .50-100, and his careful research showed him a 500 grain, paper patched Linotype cast over 90 grains of 2F gave him the best accuracy. It also had a healthy kick to it. His Pa loaded the 350 grain Gould's Express in his .45-70, and Jacob one time laughed that he had to respect a rifle with an "Express" load that still carried 350 grains' weight. Jacob Keller had occasion to use that .50-100, and not all its uses were terrestrial: most, but not all, like the time he stood on a highway overpass, then folded his legs and sat, in that order: he had two heavy dowels in hand, held them like cross sticks, laid his rifle's octagon barrel over his gloved fist and drove a single round through the radiator and an impressive percentage of a truck's engine block, stopping the hijacked tractor-trailer with one shot: he was presented with a broken timing gear mounted on a plaque, afterward, with the brass tag beneath that read "One Shot, One Kill" (the truck was killed, the driver was taken alive, persuaded to surrender by the sight of that big blossom of a blue cloud from the overpass ahead, and the even more persuasive sounds of a sledgehammer hitting, and the horrible noises of a shattered engine beneath him) When Sheriff Jacob Keller was intercepted and interviewed by an eager young reporter for the Inter-System, Jacob stopped and patiently endured the reporter's congratulations, the intrusion of the hover-camera: the reporter, of course, inquired if Jacob felt any fear as the curlhorn came down the street toward him, knowing full well a victim's blood was still wet on the beast's cloven hooves. "Mister," Jacob asked quietly, "are you familiar with buffalo?" "Buffalo," the reporter echoed. "No, I ... I'm afraid I'm not." Jacob lifted his chin a little, considered, then laid a gentle hand on the younger man's shoulder. "The American Bison is a big and impressive beast," he said quietly, looking over the man's shoulder at his pale eyed sister, who was busy with her tablet. "Big Shaggy is native to the North American continent, this native bovine is fast, agile, strong and would be a match for that curl horn outside." There was a grunt from behind the reporter and Jacob stepped a little to the side. The reporter turned, surprised: something huge, shaggy and solid stood beside him. "This is a hologram," Jacob said, "the real thing is back on Earth. What I used was a buffalo rifle. I had occasion to stop a buffalo, back home, and that same rifle worked here too." Jacob and Marnie gracefully ended the interview, leaving the eager young man to talk to his hovering observer: Marnie gave her brother an affectionate look and murmured, "You used that on a buffalo back home?" Jacob grinned -- that quick, boyish grin he only shared when nobody else was watching -- "You remember when I shot that hijacked truck from the overpass?" "The one where the State Trooper wanted your scalp, until the Governor said he wanted to give you a medal?" "Yep." Jacob pulled out his phone, tapped and swiped, brought up a picture. "Right here, Little Sis. See, I'm standing beside the fender ... let me slide this picture over ... see what it says on the door?" Marnie laughed, swatted Jacob on the shoulder. "Buffalo Trucking," she sighed. "You got me on that one!"

Soggy south shore of Lake Erie reporting. I was out in the yard earlier, assessing the Squish Factor underfoot, lengthy and semi profane commentary on basement sump pumps omitted (nutshell: caught problem in time, no flood!) Looking around at the state of the yard, considering I'll have to run attair extension cord into the yard barn and put the trickle charger on the riding mower's battery. My neighbor cut grass last month. I won't even consider giving my yard a haircut in March! Looked toward my Jeep. Against the purple paint job I could see a rain-snow mix coming down so gave up further assessment of the sod. Daffodils in the snow. Pardon me while I shake my head and mutter something about Mother Nature's level of intoxication!

Learned to drive on an Allis-Chalmers WC model with tricycle front end, suicide clutch and hand brakes. Taught me clutch control at a very tender age: stomp the clutch, pick which gear you wanted, let the clutch out about three feet and STOP. Let the clutch out another half inch and hesitate, then another quarter inch and she's full engaged. That good old Allis was our oilfield prime mover, until dear old Dad got a pair of A model John Deere tractors, then a G model. The first A model John Deere he got, sheared off a bolt on the cam flange: he liked that tractor because he could get into the gear case up to both elbows with a 3/8" drill and drill out that broken off bolt. My mechanical expertise is still in the points-plugs-and-condenser era. I can set points with a matchbook cover, I can set time with a light, I can change a U-joint on a Dodge pickup ... but these more modern vehicles are (I freely admit!) well beyond my poor and pitiful efforts. I would be well beyond lost on that new modern John Deere computer mobile.

SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE "I realize this is an advanced placement student." "But ...?" "These drawings. Anatomically, they are very precise." "I understand they were done from slaughterhouse exemplars." "And these?" "These were the result of research. I believe the London Museum of Natural Sciences was the cited reference." "He has citations?" "Right here." Pages turned; frowning eyes scanned the pages, nodded. "His main premise is that ... had the so-called Texas Longhorn evolved with more curled horns, like the mountain goat ..." "Had natural selection favored that, yes." "That the skull would have responded with a greater bone density at the stress points, to endure head-butting collisions." "The longhorn skull -- this sketch ... figure 7-4, Professor ... these are ..." "Yes?" A page turned, another. "These were done by a mere schoolboy?" "I watched him," came the solemn reply. "He did them from memory, and when I questioned his sources, he called up what he called an 'Anatomic Disassembly' on his school computer." "Anatomic," the professorial skeptic repeated slowly, "disassembly." "A slaughterhouse, sir." "Slaughterhouse." A slow, disapproving shake of a professorial head. "Why isn't a schoolboy out chasing cats up a tree or playing video games?" "He is advanced placement, sir." "Hm." "The London Museum citations. These are actual ... Anatomic Disassemblies" -- the Professor's adjutant heard the slight smile in the skeptical educator's voice -- "of an African cape buffalo?" "They are, sir. Bone density measurements, testimonies from a variety of wild game professionals, African big game hunters, natives. There are cited discussions of bullet-strikes to the bony boss between the horns, attempts to brain-shoot mbogo, even with the most powerful of African big-game rifles, without success." The Professor gave his assistant a long, assessing look, remembering how the man ordered his breakfast eggs in one of the African vernaculars, even to the point of using the proper Q-click, something difficult for a non-native and impossible without extensive, immersive exposure to the culture. "I've seen what Mbogo can do, sir," his assistant said quietly. "If this young man's curlhorn -- I believe he even coined the name -- had indeed evolved on this continent, it would have been a most formidable impediment to settlement of the New World." "Hmp." The professor grunted: he looked around, backed up, sat on the corner of the teacher's desk, frowned at the pages in his hand. "These drawings are extremely precise," he said softly, "his premise is clearly stated, he supports his arguments with facts and citations. His use of medico-veterinary terminology is flawless. I find his premise sound." The professor nodded thoughtfully, looked at his assistant. "Never in my career," he said softly, "have I ever done this at a grade school science fair." His assistant pulled out a tablet, started recording. "I am awarding this young man a superior rating. Blue ribbon prize. I wish to sponsor him in his higher education. You've confirmed this is all original work." "I have, sir." "Brilliance like this should be encouraged. Avail him of whatever he needs -- with that skill in his anatomic renderings, he could teach art classes, I doubt if he could benefit from them." The professor's voice trailed off, he looked down at the thick bundle he held. "Superior rating. See to it." "Yes, sir."