Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

THE REVEREND DOCTOR GILEAD KELLER The Reverend Linn Keller was cousin to that pale eyed Sheriff up in Firelands. The Reverend Linn Keller had a church and an orphanage and just shy of a dozen children. The Reverend Linn Keller was married to a Godly and motherly woman who took on her husband's mission as her own. The Reverend Linn Keller was just as happy as if he had good sense. Somehow -- and he admitted he never really understood how -- he managed to instill in the orphaned young, good values and honesty; their orphanage became a de facto schoolhouse, the schoolmarm was an orphan herself, and well knew what it was to have nobody else in the entire world. Miss Deborah, as she was known, stood in silent, wide eyed delight as Linn brought her into the next room and showed her the stack of McGuffey's Eclectic Readers. "The latest edition," he said quietly, and Miss Deborah gave a little squeak and laid her hands on two of the stacks. "How --" she whispered, then she turned -- "I thought --" "I thought so too," the Parson said quietly. "It seems we have a guest." A dignified older man came in, a man with a professorish air and a set of pince-nez forgotten on his sunburnt nose. "Miss Deborah, I presume," he said in a gentle voice, extending his hand. Miss Deborah took it awkwardly. "Our schoolteacher, Miss Deborah," the Reverend said formally, then: "This is the Reverend Doctor Gilead Keller. He is my famous cousin's son." "I've been serving back East for years," Reverend Gilead said quietly. "I was foolish enough not to come back out until my father was on his deathbed." "I am so sorry," Miss Deborah said, and the Reverend Doctor saw a genuine regret in the young woman's eyes. "The Reverend Doctor brought us these treasures," Reverend Linn said, and she heard the smile in his voice: "he also brought slates and chalks, he brought lesson-books and paper, and when he heard that you play piano, he arranged to have one brought in. It should arrive in a few days, it'll have to be freighted in from the railhead." "A piano!" Miss Deborah said uncertainly. "It's been so long --" "My dear." The Reverend Doctor gave her a wise look over his nose-hugging spectacles. "Whatever skill you have, is leagues and miles beyond mine!" His words were so doleful, his expression so sorrowful, that Miss Deborah could but laugh, and she turned the most remarkable shade of high pink the Reverend Doctor had ever seen. Jacob Keller stood and stared at his father's tombstone. It honestly hurt to look at the polished quartz monument. It hurt to think his father, a man he loved and respected, was dead, and sleeping beside him, the only true mother he really remembered, and as he usually did, he hid his feelings behind a carefully cultivated poker face. He stood beside his brother, silence growing long between the two. "You nearly died," Jacob said. Gilead nodded. "Yes." "Angela and the White Sisters went East to be with you." "Yes." "She wouldn't say much ... other than you changed your studies." "Yes." "I know Pa wanted you to have a good education." "I did." "I know." Silence, again: distant sound of industry, a blacksmith's hammer, the barking four-count chant of a steam locomotive's labor. "Thank you for having that faith in me." "You're my brother," Jacob shrugged, as if that explained everything. "When I had surplus," the Reverend Doctor said, "I considered ... I could help others temporarily, or I could invest and help more, later, so I invested." Jacob looked at his brother. "I've been able to supply the Stone Creek orphanage with some necessities." Jacob nodded. "Thank you." "What can you tell me about their schoolmarm?" Jacob frowned, considered, looked with puzzlement at his brother. "They have a schoolmarm?" A child's frightened shout: "No! I don't wanna!" Young legs struggled to run to safety, run to the Reverend, just as a stranger drove up to the orphanage in a rented buggy. A man seized the struggling boy by the back of his coat, cuffed him across the face: "Damn you, boy, I'm buying you, now shut up!" Something fast moving, pale eyed and wearing a black suit, seized the man's nose in a hard pinch grip, pulled: enraged, surprised, he let go of the screaming child and swung a fist at this interfering interloper. The Reverend Doctor Gilead Keller smacked the roundhouse up and out of the way and drove a punch into the man's wind, doubling him over: he brought up a knee, hitting him again in the same place, bringing the bully's boots off the ground: he seized collar and crotch and spun him, throwing him into what appeared to be a hired man, coming in to defend his employer. The metallic sound of a Winchester rifle coming into battery did nothing to halt the hostilities. The Reverend Doctor Gilead Keller's kick doubled the hired man up, knocked him back on his backside, apparently out of the fight: the party of the first part, who wished to continue hostilities, shook his head to clear his vision, but too late: cupped hands SLAMMED against his ears and detonated an absolute SUNBALL of utter AGONY, destroying his sense of balance: his hands went to his ears, his eyes were screwed shut against the pain, and he had no defense at all to the hard swung punch into his wind yet again. He went down hard. Gilead looked back at his uncle Linn, standing in the orphanage doorway with a rifle at port arms. Gilead reached down, one-handed, seized the hired man's shirt front, twisted: he hauled the man off the ground -- scuffed and dusty boots were a hand's-breadth from the packed dirt -- and Gilead said quietly, "Do you really want to work for a boss who just got beat to hell by an Eastern preacher?" He set the hired man down, looked at the groaning man, still holding his ears. "Get him home. He's not welcome here." Gilead waited until they were both ahorse, until one man, bent over and gripping the saddlehorn with both hands, was led away by his hired man on another horse -- then he squatted, took a scared orphan boy by the shoulders. "Are you hurt, son?" he asked gently. The boy shook his head. Gilead pulled him in, hugged him, tight, then released him: he rose, took the lad by the hand, walked up to where Reverend Linn stood in the doorway with his Winchester across his arm. Linn grinned. "You are your father's son," he laughed, and Gilead laughed with him. "I'm glad you were backin' me." "We've had their kind before. They think we sell orphaned children. They want slaves, is what they want." Gilead's hands closed into fists. "I saw that back East." "That's why you came out here." "Yeah," Gilead said shortly. "That's why I came out." "You're welcome to stay with us." The Reverend Doctor Gilead Keller considered this. "I would like that," he admitted, then cocked an eye to his pale eyed Uncle. "I heard something about Stone Creek, some years back. I think it had to do with a particular preacher carrying a brace of Smith & Wessons and making good use of 'em." An attractive younger woman -- the resident schoolmarm, matter of fact -- cleared her throat. "If you two would care to wash up," she said, "the table is being set, and we'll have to have a qualified individual say grace." She turned and walked away, the way a woman will when she knows a man is watching. She was right.

THE MARE Hand forged steel whispered intimate secrets to a whet stone. Strong, callused hands caressed the honed edge across the bellied out, fine grained stone. Thin, pale scars traced their histories across tanned skin, like half-understood script on an ancient palimpsest. Pale eyes considered the edge, a hard palm wiped grey dust from the blade. That's done. What now? A pale eyed lawman's eyes wandered across the inside of the solid built barn. He'd attacked cleaning the stalls like a personal enemy. He'd scraped, stacked, he'd dollied out second hand horse feed in the Irish buggy, dumped it on the manure pile: he'd scraped the stone flags again -- 'twas a time like this when he laid stone in his stalls -- he threw down fresh straw, spread it out even, he'd stopped to shove his face down into the horse trough, he'd thrown his head back as he came out of the water, blowing and snorting, he'd dashed the water from his eyes and looked at the long and solemn nose of one of his mares, at her dark eyes and dark eyelashes. Pale eyes and dark eyes regarded one another for a long moment, until the Sheriff caressed her under her jaw, whispered to her, until she laid her head against his front, until he laughed quietly and pulled out a plug of molasses twist tobacker and shaved off a couple thick curls of good honest bribery. He slid his knife back into its sheath as she rubber lipped the treat from his callused palm. "You should run for office, y'know," he said quietly. "You bribe as well as any politician." Linn leaned his forehead against his mare's neck, his arm over her mane: it was evident the horse enjoyed the company of the human, and a green-eyed wife, watching silently from the doorway, clasped her hands tightly together as she saw her husband, the strongest man she knew, thought himself alone and allowed himself to draw comfort from a horse. Esther bit her bottom lip: she knew how much her husband hated his temper, how much his own rage tortured him: she turned, intending to withdraw silently, but the mare's ears swung, the mare's head came up, her husband turned, quickly, as alert a creature as the mountain-bred mare. His knees straightened, his arm extended: "My dear," he said, his voice gentle. Esther glided across the hand-laid, stone-flagged floor, littered with straw, but otherwise clean -- she laid her gloved hand on her husband's upraised palm. Linn turned her, she pirouetted on the balls of her feet: Linn's arm went around her waist, his other hand holding hers, extended: husband and wife waltzed, there in the big, solid built barn: Esther's head was back, and to the side, her eyes closed, and a pale eyed Sheriff's heart swelled to see a memory gentle his wife's face. A long-nosed mare with dark eyes and dark eyelashes watched solemnly as a herd stallion nibbled at his willing mare's neck.

A LACK OF GENERAL GOOD HEALTH Dana Keller hung up the phone, looked at her sister. Both young women were in uniform. Dana was in her Sheriff's deputy's uniform: her blouse had military creases, her trousers were sharply pressed, her Wellington boots immaculately shined: she wore the short necktie -- "I'm not wearing the men's necktie," she'd told her father, "just like I won't wear a Sam Browne with the suicide strap for someone to grab!" -- she looked at the immaculate, feminine nurse seated across from her and said quietly, "That's the third one of these we've gotten today." "The third one of what?" "Other jurisdictions. All telling us the same thing." "What are they saying?" "They're hearing word on the street that Firelands County is a very healthy place to stay away from." "Oh?" "Don't you 'Oh' me, missy," Dana hissed, narrowing her eyes and shaking the eraser end of a pencil at her sister: "I can still take you in five seconds or less!" Angela rolled her eyes, laced her fingers together, twiddled her thumbs and whistled a little, then both pale eyed young women laughed. "So you've gotten three of those today." "Ever since it hit the news that Daddy killed two men barehand, and that after having been shot and sliced across the face." "You can't tell he was ever cut." "Yes you can. It's a fine little scar but it's there, and it bothers him." Dana paused, frowned. "I think it itches." "I know women are looking at him differently." Dana lowered her head a little, as if looking at her white-uniformed sister overtop a pair of schoolmarm spectacles. "I noticed it today. Daddy took me to lunch over at the Jewel. There were ... other women ... there, I think they were waiting, pretending they were having lunch." Angela smiled a little as she added, "I was on his arm." "Good." "They looked at him like they wanted him." "What does your gut tell you?" Angela uncrossed her legs, clasped her hands, dropped them on her knees, leaned forward and looked very directly at her sister. "Ever since he killed the man that put a knife into Mother, he's ..." "He's so high on the collective pedestal it's a wonder he doesn't have nosebleed." Angela snapped her fingers, pointed at her sister. "Bingo." "Have you looked at the autopsy results?" "Not officially, no." "Angelaaaaa ...." Dana said quietly, a warning note in her voice. Angela looked toward the dispatcher, who was elaborately pretending to pay no attention at all. "Multiple broken bones, the most severe in the arms. Joints twisted out of socket, multiple. One throat crushed. Major blunt trauma injuries. I watched the video. I have never in my life seen Daddy like that!" "When he's mad enough to haul a grown man off the ground, bring him up overhead to full arm extension and try to slam him through six inches of pavement --" Two pale eyed sisters shook their heads. "You've got a good reputation yourself," Angela said quietly. "You learned well your Daddy's teaching." "Yeah, well, I'm just a girl. These mopes come in from the city and think I'm just some token featherhead they can run over." "So you have to show them differently." "Like the preacher and the mule, you have to get their attention." "Do you still sing in choir?" Dana nodded. "I watch Daddy's back. We use sign language." "Do you have a carbine in the choir?" Dana snorted. "I wish," she admitted. "At one time there were shotgun hooks on the back of the altar like they used to have in Catholic churches back when. I'd feel better with a low-mag scoped carbine." "I take it you sewed your own choir robe." Dana's smile was sardonic. "Are we related to Sarah McKenna?" "Roger that," Angela sighed, then she looked at her sister and said, "Is there anything else you're hearing about the general health?" "Just that sane and rational people realize this is a fine place to stay away from if you're a criminal. The ding dongs on drugs and the terminally stupid won't pay any attention, they never do." "Don't I know it," Angela grunted. "What Daddy did yesterday ..." "Which what that Daddy did?" "When he slapped his hand down on Mom's knife wound." Angela shifted in her seat. "I know that move, out with it, sister. You know something!" "Yes I do," Angela said quietly, lowering her head and looking suspiciously at the dispatcher, who was busy answering the radio. "Dana, I scanned her hypoclavicular fossa. The knife penetrated the artery and the lung both, it went in deep and it was a kill shot. It is not medically possible for her to have survived it." Dana's eyes never left her sister's. "Then how did she?" Angela took a deep breath. frowned, her eyes dropping to Dana's burnished boots. "Was it your Confederate nanobot things?" Angela shook her head. "No. Mom has no trace of those and never has. Neither does Daddy." "Then what in two hells happened?" Dana hissed. "Dana, do you remember ... our family legends ... when Old Pale Eyes was shot in the side? How Esther came in and laid hands on him and he lived?" "I remember." "Then later, when the Reavers came in with full intent to steal the women and rape the cattle, kill every living thing, burn everything to the ground and salt the earth?" "I remember Daddy reading about that, yes." "Do you remember when his son Jacob was shot? When he and the preacher -- Parson Belden -- were in the church's bell tower?" Dana's mouth dropped open. "How Old Pale Eyes put a knife into his niece's hand and slapped it hard across a bullet wound in the same location." Dana swallowed, memory filling her eyes. "Do you remember the description Duzy gave afterward? How his hand felt so HOT! -- Grampa said the same thing, when he grabbed Daddy's hand to pull it off, he jerked his hand away because he thought he'd been burned. People -- not people, someone -- had their camera in infrared and it looked like Daddy was burning!" "I ... heard about that." "It's one of two things." "I'm listening." "Either it's a God's honest case of Viking Berserkergang, and Daddy is a Berserker, or he can stop blood with the Word and blow fire." "I know he can blow fire." "That's not possible." "Why not?" "It's a gift only women can carry. Men can't ... men can not remember the formula you chant ..." Dana laughed quietly. "Daddy was never one to pay attention to things like that. I don't think Old Pale Eyes was either. He could blow fire too." "Old Pale Eyes didn't heal like Daddy did." "He wasn't in Berserker mode." "So far, Dana, only women of our blood can pilot the Confederate mind-controlled ships. Nobody else, and they've tried to find anyone else who can," Angela said slowly, speculatively. "What if we carry ... some ..." "What if we're more evolved?" Dana suggested. Angela nodded. "Evolved more than Viking berserkers of a few centuries ago? Nah. Something doesn't fit." The dispatcher hung up her phone, turned, held up a slip. "Have a welfare check requested out in the county," she called. Dana stood. "On it." She looked at Angela, who rose as well. "Care to ride along?" Angela laughed quietly. "Why not. I'm still a commissioned deputy!"

BERSERKER I felt the bullet hit. It felt like I'd just been puched, hard, deep. I did not care. This was my war and I was going to kill. My wife lay behind me with a knife hilt deep under her collar bone. The fleeing felon, the escaped prisoner who'd decked my deputy and taken his gun, the prisoner who'd twisted out of one handcuff and left a good lawman fighting for his life, turned and extended his arm at me and sprayed a desperate burst from the same sidearm I'd personally issued a good man. He hit me once and then I hit him. I grabbed hand and gun and all and I heard someone screaming and the voice was distant and it sounded like a Texas longhorn on an attack run and part of me realized it was me and I felt bone splinter as I twisted that arm and tore it out of joint and I grabbed his crotch and squeezed hard as I hauled him overhead and I SLAMMED him down against cold pavement and I recht down and grabbed belt and collar and hauled him up and SLAMMED him down again and I stomped my boot hard down between his shoulder blades and I grabbed that gun and I dropped the magazine and locked back the slide and spun it towards the first uniform I saw and I took off running. I saw the one that stabbed my wife, my Shelly, the MURDERING SON OF SATAN HIMSELF THAT JUST KILLED MY WIFE AND I'M GOING TO KILL HIM and he turned as I got to him and slashed with that same knife he'd just drove in under Shelly's collarbone and I felt steel scrape against my cheek bone and I had him and I heard that screaming again and some part of me realized that was me screaming and I hauled him off the ground and I had him by the throat and I felt it crush under my grip as I hauled him overhead and SLAMMED him down and he hit the ground and I dropped my knees onto his shoulders and I grabbed his eyelids and held his eyes wide open and I SCREAMED in his face NOBODY KILLS MY WIFE and I felt him shiver and fight to breathe and I screamed at him again and I saw the light go out in his eyes and he was gone and the last thing that murdering son of Perdition saw was the face of the man that sent him to HELL! I reared back, I turned, I launched back toward Shelly. Her father was bent over her. I pulled out my lockback, snapped it open, shoved him aside, SLAMMED my hand and my knife crosswise on that bloody wound. Shelly looked up at me and she was pale and she was trying to breathe and I swallowed hard and recited, "And I saw Shelly Keller lying in Shelly Keller's blood in the ditch, and I said to Shelly Keller, Live: yea, I said to Shelly Keller, LIVE!" Her father laid his hand on mine, I heard him telling me to back up, to let him work and Shelly blinked and I got up and pulled back and I felt hands on my shoulders and I turned and my Chief Deputy looked at me with dark and concerned eyes and I looked over at two men I'd just killed barehand and Paul frowned, tilted his head, looked closely at my face. I remembered feeling steel against bone. My cheek bone. I raised my fingers. Sticky ... but not bleeding. A voice: "Hold still now, let's clean this up," something wet was wiped carefully against my cheekbone. I turned, looked: they were securing the IV in my wife's arm, they had her stripped down to her underwire, they were listening to her chest, down its side. "I could have sworn he cut your face, Boss," I heard. "I saw blood ..." I raised my fingers again. Intact. No cut, they wiped off the sticky. I looked at Paul, looked at them getting Shelly on the cot. I pushed them aside, took a step toward my wife, stopped. Right now she needs a surgeon more than she needs a husband. It was policy that I be seen in ER after a line of duty shooting, even when my armor stopped the shot. Doc listened to Paul's quiet report that he could have sworn my face was laid open. Doc took a closer look, frowned. I saw his jaw bone slide out. He laid a hand on my shoulder and looked very closely at me, then he had me put my uniform shirt back on -- "just slip it on, don't button it." He took a felt tip and marked through the bullet hole, had me take off the shirt. "Stiff? Sore?" I shook my head. "Nope." Doc looked at Paul Barrents, raised an eyebrow. "Doc, never mind about me, Shelly's --" Doc raised a hand. "Sheriff, we need to talk, but right now you need a drink." I lowered my head a little, I gripped the edge of that exam table with both hands and did my best to crush that stainless steel tubing edge. "Doc," I said quietly, "I do not need a drink. "I need to know how my wife is." Doc nodded. "Let me find out." When it was just Paul and I, alone in the exam room, he looked at me, considered, then spoke. "Boss," he said bluntly, "I've never lied to you." I nodded. "Neither have I." Normally he'd have come back with a good smart remark. He didn't, and that worried me. "Boss, I saw that knife go in under Shelly's collar bone." I looked at him. I did not move, I did not nod, I listened and I listened closely. "Boss, I've trained in such matters." He waited for my response -- any response. I did not even blink. "Boss, that should have cut her subclavian artery." "I know." "She should have bled out." "Go on." "When the Captain laid his hand on hers ... do you remember he jerked his hand back?" This time I blinked, then shook my head. "He said your hand was HOT." "Hot." "One of the bystanders was trying to take a cell phone video." I nodded, once, just a little. "New phone, didn't know how to operate it too well." "So?" "So she got video, Boss. Infrared." "Infrared." "You showed up like you were on fire." I raised an eyebrow. "When you tore into those two, you showed up hotter than ... if that scale's accurate, hotter than candle flame. Way hotter." I remembered something I'd read, something Old Pale Eyes wrote about. "You might" -- Barrents nodded toward the mirror over the treatment room's sink -- "you might want to look in the mirror." I got up and crossed the room. I was still bare to the waist. "Look at your face." I did. There was a pale, hair-fine scar where there hadn't been one this morning when I shaved. "Now press around where Doc marked your bullet hole." I spread my fingers out, explored the area. "Tender at all?" I turned to face Paul. "No," I said. "Not at all." "You ought to have a bruise there, Boss. Those vests are good but they don't stop the impact. You'd ought to look like you got rib punched in a barfight." He took a step closer to me. "You were cut, Boss. I saw him slice your face and I heard it hit bone. I've heard that before and you ought to be cut deep and bleedin' like a stuck pig." Doc came back in, and he looked troubled. I turned cold and my stomach dropped about fifty feet. "She's alive," he said. My bottom jaw shoved out. "She's just got a little thin scar." I waited. "Like the one on your face." "Go on." "We x-rayed, of course, we ... ran an ultrasound. "There was blood in the tissue, it was an extravasated pocket, we did a needle aspiration to remove it, but she was reported as having ..." He stopped. "Linn, what did you do?" I swallowed hard. "Is my wife okay now?" Doc considered for a long moment. "I want to prescribe a course of antibiotics, but yes, she's ..." Doc looked at me, leaned in closer. "Sheriff, what the hell are you?" "What do you mean?" "I mean they showed me that cell phone video. Everyone else is normal and you're on fire, you killed two men with your bare hands, you did something to your wife's collarbone that stopped an arterial bleed, you've been shot and you didn't bruise and half your face should be hanging off your skull, that's what I mean!" "Boss," Barrents asked from the surgeon, "do you have Viking blood?" I stopped, surprised, considered, looked at Paul. "Yes," I finally said, "why?" "Boss, have you ever heard of the Berserkers?" The doctor turned three shades of white and sat down on one of those little rolling stools. The curtain behind him hissed aside and a pale eyed young woman in a white nursing uniform dress looked at me, shook her head. "Daddy," Angela said quietly, "what did you do this time?"

FOOL'S GOLD CREEK Mr. Baxter had a real nice set of gold scales he didn't use very often. 'Twas rare that anyone brought in dust or nuggets, but when they did, why, Mr. Baxter would ceremonially lay a thick-folded towel on the polished mahogany bar, he'd set up a heavy steel plate big as my hand, he'd set the proffered nugget on it and tap it gently with a hammer. If 'twas pyrite and not gold, it shattered; gold dented and deformed. Dust, now, that was a different story: he had a little bitty glass thimble he'd pour the dust into, and he'd weigh this against a cast gold slug the same size as what was in that thimble, he had slugs for half a thimble and a full thimble and if 'twas pyrite dust or bronze filings, why, it'd be way lighter than gold. A couple fellas got hostile with him and accused him of calling them a liar. One made the mistake of reaching for his pistol. Tom Landers drove a .44-40 carbine round through the man's near shoulder, through his boiler room and out the far shoulder and into the wall, and I picked up the slug off the board walk outside. It don't do to leave bloodied bullets layin' about outside a man's business, tends to scare off customers. Anyway there was a creek nearby that still held color and it's God's grace alone we were able to spread enough second hand bull feed to keep it hid, the family Kolacinski worked that creek for 'twas their property and their claim and they had me help them sell the gold -- but sell it a distance from here, where gold was bein' found anyways -- what we did was to come up with a goodly amount of pyrites and then show 'em off as comin' from their creek. Fool's Gold Creek, I wrote on the map, and mine was the first map drawn of the place, and I saw to it that my maps of the area were available to the Government and to speculators. I stressed to the family that they'd better scour every last flake of gold out of that creek for it would take only one claim jumper to trigger a gold rush. I know there was blood spilled over folks pannin' that creek without any proper let-be. Hell, I killed two of 'em that allowed as I was a claim jumper and they were the rightful claim-holders and one fetched up a rifle and the other'n a pistol and I know men make mistakes so I reckon I done them both a kindness. I made sure they'd never make another mistake, ever. There was another fellow was a week later and he was tired and discouraged and he'd not found one single flake and he was ready to give up and quit so we set down and talked things over and he allowed as he'd not even checked to see whose claim this was, and when I told him 'twas already claimed, he kind of hung his head and allowed as he'd had nothin' but grief since he left home. I asked him where he'd come from and he'd come out from back East, all fired up about makin' his fortune, and I'd met many a miner with that star in his eyes. All this poor fellow got was wet feet, a pinched belly and disappointment. He said his Uncle run a general store back home and he'd left the place thinkin' he'd come back with a fortune and a fine team of high steppin' horses and a good lookin' high society gal on his arm, and I allowed as he might be able to make that fortune, was he to get hold of his Uncle and tell him about startin' a general store in the gold fields, how them miners would pay a dollar apiece for eggs and they'd give a month's pay for a shovel. He left and never came back. I honestly don't know if he tried settin' up a mercantile or not -- don't know if he ever found any gold a'tall -- but I kept him from findin' gold in Kolacinski's creek, and that's all I wanted to get done.

TRIGGER My thigh was against Dana's backside, both my hands gripped her duty belt, she was bent over, heaving up her guts. My left foot was well back, my right turned sideways and set against the heel of her right Wellington boot. Dana stayed bent over. She held the tin cup under the ancient pump's hook nose, reached up, pulled down on the green-painted handle, caught another cupful, drank, then she bent over and heaved that up too. Twice more she downed good cold well water. The last one she kept down. She fumbled the battered, out-of-round tin cup back on its wire hook, she braced her palms on her knees, she was breathing ragged but deep, and she finally stood up. I released my grip on her belt, stepped back from her. She turned enough to lay a hand on my forearm. "Thanks," she wheezed, then she turned her head and coughed, spat. I waited. There was a live piano player in the Silver Jewel; we stood behind the Saloon and restaurant, listening to a saloon piano, father and daughter, Sheriff and Sheriff's Deputy. I have no idea how many times this scene played out over the years. I know Old Pale Eyes would come into the Silver Jewel with a Winchester rifle in his grip, he'd lay it down on the bar and down a tall glass of Old Crud Cutter, he'd pick up his rifle and he'd leave down the hall and past the kitchen and out the back door, and when he did this, it was because he'd killed someone who deserved killin'. He downed enough distilled sledge hammer to floor a normal man and left upright with a confident step, but once he got out back, he'd taken a tin cup and pumped from this selfsame pump and he'd drank til his stomach rebelled, he'd heave up everything he'd downed for the past two weeks, and there were those who said he was punishing himself for sending another soul to Hell. That's as may be. In all his Journals, in all his correspondence, he never once said why he did it, only that he did. I know Mama did. She'd come into the Spring Inn, but she'd come in all in black, she'd be in britches and vest and boots and Stetson hat, she'd come in with a Winchester rifle and she'd pace slow and dangerous the length of that concrete block beer joint and she'd set at the furthest table, with her back to the concrete wall, that rifle laid across the table, with her facing the front door and everyone there. She'd set with her hat brim low and the only thing to move was her eyes. Jelly would pour her a water glass of Old Knockemstiff and take back to her, and she'd drink it -- she'd stand up and she'd drink it down, she'd SLAM that heavy bottom glass back down on the table and yell "I SENT ANOTHER ONE TO HELL TODAY!" -- she'd slap a bill on the table and stride pruposefully for the door, boot heels loud on the oiled wood floor, and from the moment she crossed the threshold coming in, and the moment she dragged her shadow back out over the threshold going out, nobody said word one, nobody dared move, because they knew when their pale eyed Sheriff came in and downed enough high grade gear solvent to floor a plow horse, it meant she had indeed sent some deserving soul to his eternal reward and she was not at all happy about it. Nobody followed her outside -- frankly, no one dared -- and like her pale eyed predecessor, she'd pump good cold wellwater and drink until she heaved, and she'd do that enough times to clear the drink from her insides, along with whatever else she contained. I'd done as much myself. Now my little girl stood in the chilly dark and drank good cold wellwater, desperately trying to get the taste out of her mouth. Dana braced her palms on her knees and just stood there, bent over, with me a-bracin' her. It took her a while to get both her breathing and her stomach under control, but she did, and she straightened up: I let go of her belt, pulled back, let her get her pins under her. She turned, her hand reaching for my forearm. "Thank you," she wheezed. I waited. "I don't know how you do it," she said, coughing again. I shrugged. Dana is truly a remarkable young woman. She'd handled really bad situations, she'd handled scenes of bloody slaughter, she'd handled grief and loss and tragedy and misfortune and she'd handled scenes where everyone was either running around all a-panic, or screaming at one another, Dana kept her head when everyone else was losing theirs, Dana was calm in the face of chaos, but everyone has their triggers. God knows I have mine. We'd responded to a wreck -- a tractor-trailer was stopped on the shoulder and a convertible submarined right under it. The passenger woke up right before the collision and dove for the floorboards. She survived. The driver must've fallen asleep at the wheel, near as anyone could tell. There was no sign of brakes until the very last moment. I reckon when the passenger screamed, the driver's head came upright, and that's when the car went under the trailer. I saw Dana lose every bit of color in her face when I came walkin' right down the center line just as bold as if I owned the place. I know why she sagged back against the cruiser, and I know why that wrecker driver nearly passed out when he looked at me. I waited until the car was pulled out from under the trailer. If I'd known the passenger was doubled up and trapped in the passenger footwell I'd have waited to put that head back on its former owner's lap, for when that poor girl come out from bein' doubled up and trapped, the first thing she saw was the driver with her head in her lap instead of on her shoulders. A woman's screams are a thing that will genuinely run cold water down a strong man's spine. If I'm ever faced with that again, I'll be sure to have someone throw a sheet over the body as the convertible is dragged out from under the trailer, but God help me, I had no idea anyone survived the wreck. To her credit, Dana held it together until we were alone. I have no idea why she wanted to go out behind the Silver Jewel. I reckon after the pressure was off, after we'd finished writing and filing our reports, after we'd clocked out for the night, she said "Walk with me" and I've a notion she didn't really realize where she was walking, nor how far. Didn't matter to me, the Silver Jewel was right across the street. Everyone has their trigger. I reckon watchin' me carry a human head by its hair as I strode boldly down that painted center line, was hers.

== A FAST SNACK == Peenie Bubber an' Jelly has long been a standby. Bacon is a perennial favorite. Here's what I just made (and devoured): Bread, slices, 2 each Peanut butter, your choice of the brand and texture. I prefer crunchy. Jelly, your choice. My wife prefers Concord grape exclusively (probably because of her strawberry allergy) (this is a true anaphylaxis, it'll-kill-you reaction) Bacon, precooked, four slices, torn in half Prepare the sandwich as you prefer: half the slice with peanut butter, half with jelly, fold over; or one slice with peanut butter, the other slice with jelly, lay together. Microwave precooked bacon for 30 seconds. Add bacon to sandwich and close. The ubiquitous PB&J is wonderfully versatile and can employ honey in lieu of jelly, or honey and cinnamon. Powdered chocolate milk mix can be added as well, or chocolate syrup. Sliced bananas, I understand, were a favorite addition to Elvis Presley's PB&Js. Its many combinations and permutations are too numerous to discuss here. I found PB&J with bacon to be very much to my taste!

DON'T RECKON THERE'S ANYTHING LEFT When Daisy come a-stormin' down attair hallway out of the kitchen, I reckoned someone was going to get a good Irish dressing-down and most likely 'twould be Sean's bristled-up Banty hen of a wife a-doin' it. I had to take me a second look. If Daisy had her storm cloud on and she was comin' down attair hall holdin' her wooden spoon up like a scepter, you could figure someone was about to inherit her ire, but here she come with a plate full of sticks of somethin' and a sly look on her face. I turned to greet her and she picked up one of them-there sticks and shoved it in between my teeth so I grabbed it before I bit it in two and dropped it, for somethin' told me 'twas worth my attention and by golly now I was right. She told me later she'd stewed up some fresh berries and spread 'em on a thin rolled out pie crust and then rolled it up, she'd sprinkled coarse sugar on the rolled up stick of whatever you want to call it, she baked it and damned if it warn't just right good! She come down the bar pressin' her goods on every man there and then she swung to the poker tables, and damned if she didn't get some fellas askin' if she had more of 'em, and Daisy's Kitchen added another item to its menu. Sean was standin' at the bar with me. I'd rode in and I was tired, and I was dry, and I'd had enough sun bakin' the water out of my hide, and while Shorty was tendin' my Palomino, why, I was tendin' a beer, and a good beer it was. Now y' have to understand, when Sean and me get together, it gets kind of deep sometimes. Other times we'll not pass two words back nor forth. I count that a good friend: when you are comfortable enough with someone you don't have to say a word and neither of you are discomfited by the silence, that is a good thing. Finally Sean drained the last of his first beer and set his heavy faceted glass mug down for a refill. He turned towards me and I turned towards him and he frowned and considered and I ate the last of that pie crust whatever Daisy gifted me with and Sean was turnin' somethin' over in that Irish mind of his. Finally he looked at me and said, "Sheriff, I wrote to Ahrens and asked if there was any improvement to our steam engine." I nodded. I knew their Ahrens, steam powered, fire fighting engine, was the best made -- that's why I'd bought the first one, that's why we had nothing but Ahrens ever since -- Sean took a long breath and considered the refilled mug that bumped the back of his elbow and then he looked at me, all serious-like. "They said wha' we ha'e is th' best there is." I nodded solemnly. "Good," I replied. "Damned right good," Sean agreed, happily pulling down the volume on his brimming beer mug. "I'll nae skimp on quality!" "In that," I said, raising my mug in salute, "thou art a wise man!" We drank to his wisdom. Sean smiled as that cute little hash slinger glided past, set another plate of Daisy's rolled up berry whatevers between us. "Sheriff, ha'e ye ta'en a close look a' th' engine when she's runnin'?" "I have." "She's a lovely thing," Sean sighed. "Perfection in motion." I nodded. "She's like yer Th' Lady Esther," he continued. "She's a beauty an' a mystery an' all woman, an' th' more y' study how she moves, th' more y' realize a man c' ne'er figure her out." I hoist my mug in agreement. We drank. "I ha'e studied long, now, lookin' a' how th' levers an' valves an' rods all turn an' slide in their little dance," Sean said thoughtfully, "an' I'm thinkin' there's perfection, plain f'r a man t' see!" I considered other ladies I'd seen, whose movements were beautiful to the eye, ladies who were at once beautiful and mysterious, and try as I might, I was never able to figure them out. "Sean," I finally said, "I thought I saw perfection." Sean gave me a sidelong look, shoved his Derby hat back on his head, loafed comfortably back against the bar, one brogan set up on the brass foot rail. "I considered the beauty of a woman," I said softly, "and you're right. I saw beauty and I saw mystery and try as I might, I couldn't figure her out, but that ... wasn't the perfection I saw." Sean tilted his head a little, curious. I smiled as Esther came gliding down the stairs, raised my hand to catch her attention as she made the last step: she turned, smiled, a blanket wrapped bundle in her arms. At my silent summons, she slipped between men, floated up to me -- now there's another mystery about women, Esther could float, she could glide, she didn't walk, especially when she was carrying our wee child. "Sean," I said, "take a look at your hand." Sean frowned, looked at me as if my hat was growing little green vines or something, but he brought his hand around, opened it, considered its calluses, its lined palm. "My dear, if I may?" I murmured, and Esther smiled quietly as I unwrapped the little pink-faced, yawning infant all wrapped up and in a maternal arm-cradle. I brought out a little pink hand. "Here," I said. "The first time I beheld this ..." I considered the tiny little fingers, each one perfect, I looked at the flawless little fingernails, I looked at Sean's hand, at my own. "Perfect, in every detail," I said, slid the wee arm back into its blanket, tucked the wrap around again, winked at my wife: Esther smiled indulgently, turned, glided back down the bar, turned, smiled at Tilly as she passed the hotel counter: men touched hat-brims and murmured to her as she passed, the door was opened for her, and Sean looked into the depths of his bubbling mug of beer. "I hear tell," he said softly, "th' Patent Office is set t' close." "Oh?" I took a pull on my beer, raised an eyebrow. "Th' fella runnin' it said everything that can be invented, has been invented, so he might as well close th' place up." "You don't reckon we'll build better locomotives, better fire engines?" "Sheriff." Sean shook his great head slowly, sorrowfully. "We've reached perfection here on earth. There's no improvin' on a Baldwin locomotive or an Ahrens steam engine, Macneil yonder has bred th' best horses in th' world, you an' I are married to th' most beautiful women God e'er put on this earth --" Sean laughed quietly. "No, Sheriff. I've seen perfection an' so ha'e you." We drank.

A BLANKET, A BEAUTY, A STARLIT NIGHT Old Pale Eyes sat on his front porch rocker, looked out at the mountains. He'd been busy all day. There was always work, and he was not one to let a task slide: there were had hired men, yes, just as his household had a hired girl, but he'd grown up tending the necessaries of everyday life, and he was not about to quit now that his son was Sheriff and he was retired. He'd forged out a set of gate hinges earlier, and pleased he was that he could still command metal to his will: the hinges on the kitchen cupboards were of his manufacture, as were the cupboards themselves, and a good job they were. Linn rocked a little, considered the length of the shadows, noted their deepening shade; sunlight was red on the mountain tops, setting snowcaps afire with blazing glory, a portrait painted by the Master, for him and him alone. The door opened; he heard a light step, smiled just a little. Dana, his little blue-eyed daughter Dana, came out, pressed a sweating-cold glass into his hand. He took a sip, took another, smiled. "Join me?" he murmured. He'd had a double rocker made years before, made it for he and his wife to sit in: his Esther, his green-eyed beauty, was dead and buried, and he missed her, and out of respect for her memory, nobody sat in the double rocker. Not without Linn's personal and particular invitation. Dana sat, with the easy grace of an athletic young woman; Linn's arm laid out over her shoulders, and his little girl -- girl no more! he thought -- leaned her head over on her Daddy's still-muscled shoulder and sighed contentedly. "There's a memory behind that sigh," Linn said quietly, then took another sip. Tea it was, brewed and cooled, sweetened and chilled: Dana made it especially for him, and he never took for granted that she thought enough of him to make it. Dana nodded a little, her head barely moving on his shoulder: she smelled of sunlight and fresh air, of soap and lilac, just like her green-eyed Mama, rest her soul. "I remember, Daddy," she said softly, and her hand laid gently over on his scarred, weathered knuckles. "What do you remember, darlin'?" Dana smiled, squeezed her Daddy's hand. Dana was yet a wee child, all curly hair and long coltish legs and big blue eyes. Dana was a sweet child and she was Daddy's girl, and when the special church service was followed with meetings and with a late meal at the Silver Jewel, when unexpected business delayed the Sheriff, it made for an unexpectedly late evening for the family. Dana was like any child: she was full of restless energy, she contained and controlled it as was proper for a young lady under her very proper Mama's tutelage, but as they drove back from town, Dana yawned a terribly wide yawn, and leaned against her big strong Daddy's shoulder, and Linn looked over her head at his wife, who smiled down at their little girl. Linn drew the dapple to a halt, set the brake; he reached behind the seat, lifted the lid and pulled out a quilt they kept for such moments: he stood, picked up Dana's relaxed form, and Esther lay the quilt out on the seat: Linn set Dana back down and quickly, efficiently, covered her -- from the left, then overlapping, from the right -- he picked her up, set her on his lap, cocooned in hand sewn comfort -- and with his little girl on his lap, her head back over his shoulder and his arm around her, he eased off the brake, one-handed the reins and drove the rest of the way home. He always did enjoy the night sky, when he was not obliged to be under it; tonight he was there by choice, he and his wife, for the meeting was for the town's betterment, and voices had been raised in accord on a variety of subjects: husband, wife and daughter were returning home with a sense of accomplishment -- at least, husband and wife -- their daughter felt pleasure at having been included, for such matters were often exclusively for adults. Dana's hand squeezed her Papa's and he felt her smile. "I remember," she almost whispered, and Linn nodded, slowly. He heard the smile in her voice and he felt a quiet satisfaction that his child had a memory at which she could smile. "It was late, it was after a meeting," she murmured. "I was ... small ... and tired, and I remember you wrapped me in a quilt and held me on your lap as we drove home." Linn nodded again, slowly. "I never felt safer, or more loved." Linn's good right hand was laid over his pretty young daughter's shoulder; he squeezed it, gently, drew her a little closer, just a little, the way a father will in such moments. He drained the last of the cold, sweet tea. "You deserve to feel like that," he said quietly. "Mama always did." Father and daughter rocked, slowly, in the deepening evening, as stars began to peek down through wispy clouds over the mountains. "Darlin', when the time comes," Linn said in that deep and comforting voice Dana loved so well, "find yourself a young man that will make you feel just as safe and just as protected." Linn looked over at her, wiggled his mustache like he used to when she was a giggly little girl. "Y'know," he said, "it doesn't get much better than this." "What's that, Daddy?" "A quiet night, all them stars, a beautiful young woman ... all I need now's a quilt and a buggy." Dana laughed, hugged her Papa: "Oh, Daddy," she giggled, and then she rose, and took the empty glass from his hand, and went back into the house, and left an old man alone on the porch with his memories.

I HAVE A PROPOSAL Shelly Keller came dragging into the house, dark under the eyes, shoulders rounded: she dropped her warbag by the door -- books and notebooks, a slim laptop computer and a long-since-emptied thermos with "Shelly's Gas Tank" painted on the side -- she closed their front door, leaned back against it, closed her eyes, took a long breath and sighed it out. It was good to get home. Shelly Keller, wife and mother, working medic with the local fire department, was expanding her horizons: she was becoming a paramedic instructor, and that meant getting a degree, and that meant both remote classes and in-person learning and hospital internship and doing anything but being a wife and a mother and a working medic. Her children, bless them, and her husband, quietly tended the details she normally would have handled at home: laundry was washed, dried, ironed, folded, hanged (they refused to say they hung up the shirts, universally it was "We hanged the shirts") -- floors were swept, mopped, dishes done and put away: when Shelly came home, supper was just coming off the stove and out of the oven, and even with her eyes closed, Shelly watched with her ears as both the twins, and her husband, industriously set supper out, hot and fragrant and ready to eat. Michael pulled out his Mama's chair, but did not try to scoot her in: he had no wish to shove her belly into the table like he'd done once before, unintentionally pinching her hide against the lower curve of her ribs. Linn looked around, bowed his head. "Lord," he said quietly, "we thank you for family at home, food on the table and no mud underfoot. We ask but two things this night. "Lord, be with family who are far from us, and spare us the curse of the long winded blessing, Amen!" "Hello, plate," Michael intoned quietly, then shot a sly look at his father: two Keller men grinned and fist-bumped, and then a truly excellent casserole was addressed, sweet rolls delivered by air mail (a tradition of which Shelly disapproved, but she'd learned to tolerate), and finally Linn looked at his wife. "Fresh sheets on the bed," he said quietly. Shelly was devouring her casserole: until that first taste she hadn't realized how plainly starved she was. "Long day, I take it." Shelly grunted, nodded: she stopped, chewed, swallowed, looked up. "No," she finally said. "No?" "No." "Was it Superglue in a paint sprayer?" Michael asked cheerfully. "Or did your glove get sewn to an artery when your finger was plugging the hole?" Victoria chirped, her eyes bright, anticipating. Shelly lowered her fork, stared at her two youngest -- one at her husband's right, one at his left. "How," she asked, surprise plain on her face, "did you know?" "I'm psychotic," the twins chorused. "I mean psychic!" Shelly laughed, sighed, slid her fork under more casserole. "That was yesterday," she lied, and then they all laughed: Shelly actually had One Of Those Days, just over a week ago, when she was interning in the operating room, when she was drafted to plug a hole in a patient's artery with her finger, and her glove did indeed get two sutures through it -- how it missed her flesh, she never knew -- and a visiting Canadian surgeon demonstrated the use of Super Glue in a paint sprayer to encapsulate a shattered liver, explaining that the US medical community refused even to consider such a thing until Canadian medics in Vietnam demonstrated it to US surgeons. She stopped just before the technical explanations, before verbalizing the reactive physiology of gunshot wounds to the liver -- her entire family was no stranger to slaughtering animals in season, beeves, pigs, chickens and the like, and on a visit to an actual autopsy, Michael held a surprisingly knowledgeable discussion with the coroner on comparative anatomy of the omnivorous human to the herbivorous antelope and bovines he'd help disassemble. "It was just a long day," Shelly sighed. "I was able to get into the testing center and knock off more tests than I was supposed to have." "Does that advance you in your class?" Linn asked quietly, looking over the rim of his rising coffee mug. "No, but I ended up tutoring a third of my class who couldn't make heads or tails of the professor's presentation." "That good," Linn murmured sympathetically. "He's like that OB instructor Angela hated." "Oh, yeah, that one." "The one that couldn't teach her way out of a wet paper sack?" Victoria asked. Shelly nodded at her daughter. "That's the one," then looked at Michael. "Do you remember when I was on computer -- two days ago -- I got a video conference call from a classmate who needed help with Pharmacology Math?" Michael nodded. "It was her daughter that needed the help." "You were able to show her how to solve the problems." Michael shrugged. "Easy peasy." "Her mother told me you explained it more ... understandably ... than their teacher." Michael smiled, just a little, and Shelly saw her youngest son's ear redden a little. "Thank you, ma'am," he said softly. "Shelly." Shelly looked up at her husband, and Linn saw how genuinely tired she was. "Darln', there's fresh cheese cake and blueberries if you want 'em." Shelly looked down at her plate, realized it was empty. She'd been hungrier than she'd realized. "Maybe I'll just go to bed," she mumbled. Linn rose as his wife did; so did the twins. Linn came around the table, picked his wife up, rolled her into his chest: young eyes watched as he carried her upstairs. Linn came down to find the cheesecake on the table, cut and ready, the tub of blueberries open beside it, the twins still standing. "Did you get a chance to ask her?" Michael inquired softly. "No," Linn said, just as softly. "She's too tired. We'll wait'll she has her rest, maybe on a day off." "Maybe Angela should ask her." Linn nodded, then grinned: he slid the pie server under a slice of graham cracker crust, lifted out the wedge of chilled cheesecake, slid it off onto Michael's dessert plate, did the same for Victoria. "Your Mama," Linn said quietly, "was marveling at Angela's becoming a nursing instructor for the Confederacy. I wonder how she'll react at being asked to teach Paramedic off-world." "You haven't told her about Marnie?" Victoria asked. Linn looked at her, shook his head. "Not yet." "So we don't tell her about using the control pad we don't know about and entering the code we were never taught to travel to a world we weren't invited to and kill people we'd never met." Linn nodded. "Yep. I'll be the one to tell her. In the meantime, not a word." "Yes, sir," the twins chorused, watching intently as their father spooned blueberries and blueberry sauce over thick wedges of fresh cheesecake with a thick, homemade, graham cracker crust.

YOU'RE DAMNED RIGHT I WANT TO DO THIS The stainless steel slide slammed back and then forward -- six times, fast. The pistol was pulled in close to the shooter's chest: a quick movement, it was thrust out again. Six more rapid-fire shots. Another magazine change, while the dinner plate sized steel circles finished falling over on their rack. Victoria pulled her Walther in, looked left, looked right: fresh magazine in the pistol, she thumbed the decock lever, flipped it back up, holstered, flipped her lacy little vest over it. The timer was shown to the scorekeeper, who noted it on his form. A little girl in a frilly little frock just outshot every man there. A finger pressed a button; the screen went blank, dimmed. "Gentlemen," a dignified older man in the dress uniform of the Confederate Diplomatic Corps said, "you have just seen the performance of two children." He paused, then said again, "Chil-dren." The screen brightened as he manipulated the control under his hand. A diagram this time. "This," he said, "is the young lady in question. "She advanced from this position to this position. She made no attempt at stealth. In fact, she tugged on a Lieutenant's coat and told him she was lost, and that she wanted her Mommy." He smiled, just a little. "Imagine it, gentlemen: this Lieutenant was commanding the energy-cannon that was assigned to incinerate a door, the contents of a council chamber, and the inhabitant thereof. He is attempting to defeat Level 3 security with a field howitzer, and a little girl shows up from nowhere and says she's lost." Another circle appeared on the diagram. "Here -- this is a picture of the actual structure -- is one of the heavy stone flower planters. It's solid granite, quite heavy, thick: the plant, you can see, is decorative but has enough foliage to provide effective concealment." Another image, a boy in a black suit, with a Winchester rifle. Like the girl who'd just been featured, he was obviously on a formal shooting range. Six shots, six plates down: the serious-faced young man thumbed two more rounds into the loading gate, raised the rifle again -- six more, as fast as he could run the lever, six more plates slammed back against the steel rack. "From a position of cover and concealment, gentlemen. Ambush and surprise are a tactician's best friends, and this remarkable young pair used both, to very good effect." Sheriff Linn Keller sat in his study and watched the debrief on video. His children and his daughters watched with him. They were only just returned from the funeral. Marnie rose and spoke, her voice clear, pitched to carry, but with an unmistakable edge a woman's voice takes when she is moved and too near a deeply-felt sorrow. "We grieve the needless deaths of too many good people," she said: "most were known to me, two I considered good friends. "The pilot was" -- she stopped, bit her bottom lip, swallowed: to those watching remotely, for the funeral service was part of the System broadcast, her hesitation was significant: they had seen their beloved Ambassador in anger, in joy, in dismay, but they'd never seen her sorrow. Suddenly this larger than life figure was one of them, grieving just like anyone else. "We were hit from beneath. "I remember him ... he and the co-pilot did their best to regain control, and even when everything was chaos, when the ship was spinning, when it was falling and it looked like we were surely lost to catastrophe ... I remember his voice was firm, it was calm, he was controlled, and he kept us alive!" Marnie had to take a moment: eyes closed, kerchief pressed to her lips, she forbade herself to weep, and wiped savagely at the wet that squeezed out of her tight-shut eyelids. Angela rose: Marnie stood at the head of the coffin, and Angela approached from its foot, with a long wooden box in her arms. She opened the box. Marnie wiped her eyes again, nodded: she reached into the box, gripped the wire-wound handle of a damascus-blade Schlager. Angela set the box down, behind the coffin, dipped her knees, reached in and gripped the other rapier. A podium was rolled up, and on it, a block of polished quartz. Marnie took her blade, began tapping the side of the blade against the stone. "It is Rabbinic and Kabalistic tradition that Solomon, King of Israel," she said, "was a magic worker and a magic user." Her blade tapped gently against shining, polished stone. "There are those folk who carry a straight razor, not so much as an antipersonnel weapon, but for a guard, a charm, a ward and a weapon against haints, boogers, speerts and things not of this earth. "Spirits are repelled by base metal, spirits can be cut with a sharpened edge, and three interlinked rings of iron -- or a straight razor -- are a powerful charm against demonic attack. "Should any such, seek the soul of this good man" -- her teeth bared, and it was not in a smile -- "BRING IT!" Two women, one all in white, the other all in black, raised their blades in salute. The music to which they danced was fast, harsh, angry: steel-wound strings were played by strong young fingers, and as they played, as the music screamed angrily at the injustice of life cut too short, two women wove steel in a shining web: the hiss and clash of steel as they began at one end of the coffin, their dance the length of the polished wooden box, expressed the anger and the rage the Ambassador felt, but lacked words to express. Steel seared through the air, steel clashed against steel: they ended as suddenly as the music, their steel crossed at the foot of the coffin: two bladesmiths crossed their steel, held for a long moment, then walked with slow, small, ceremonial steps, the length of the coffin, blades still crossed, passing an arch of steel over the mortal remains of a man who'd died trying to keep everyone else alive. Two women, one in white who paced back to the foot of the coffin and stood facing it, the other, all in black, at the head of the coffin and facing it, raised their blades in a final salute. Marnie Keller sat beside her Daddy, holding his hand, her head leaned over against his shoulder. The next day, a pale eyed man in a black suit paced slowly down a row of cells in an off-planet prison. He looked in between the bars at two men: one looked defiant, the other, defeated. "Well?" came the snarled challenge. "What do you want?" The Sheriff looked coldly at the two, turned his lapel over. "Sheriff," he said. "So?" "Name's Keller. You tried to hurt my little girl." "WHAT OF IT!" Linn smiled, just a little, and the smile was not at all pleasant. "I've been given special dispensation," he said quietly. "I get to hang you." Sheriff Linn Keller listened to the man rage, then he turned and walked away, deliberately ignoring the voice, the challenges, the excuses, and finally the pleading. He walked out of the cellblock, rejoined the Ambassador. "You're sure you want to do this, Sheriff?" Linn looked at the Ambassador. "He tried to hurt my little girl," Linn said. "You're damned right I want to do this!"

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE TO DIPLOMAT CHIEF OVERALL CONFEDERACY FROM BLACK AGENT MARS AM ALIVE HAD LANDING CLEARANCE WAS ON SCHEDULE AND WITH LANDING CLEARANCE CAPITOL CITY UNDER GROUND CONTROL WHEN SHOT DOWN PILOT COPILOT ALL ADJUTANTS DEAD Marnie chewed on her pencil's eraser, gripping it lightly between even white teeth. She closed her eyes, remembered how quiet, how precise her pilot's voice was on the comm. Ground control gave them the entrance vector; they de-orbited precisely into the keyhole, they were coming in on glide slope as directed, they were exactly where they were supposed to be, when the first force-lance ripped the shuttle's belly open and took out the port engine. Marnie freely admitted to knowing enough about piloting the various Confederate craft to recognize she knew next to nothing at all. All she knew was, their pilot was screaming something about emergency thrusters and inertial stabilizers were back on-line, the ship quit spinning and came out level just in time to SLAM into the earth, she remembered feeling the shuttle skidding, remembered sod driving up into what used to be the passenger compartment -- Smell of blood, smell of dirt, hot metal, voices -- Marnie fought her way back to consciousness. Men's voices: the translator buzzed quietly as it came back on-line, powered by her personal protection field. Diplomatic personnel normally did not wear the personal shield -- it would be seen as a lack of confidence, an affront to the host world -- Marnie did not give a good damn about such matters; her shield's plate was worn flat on her back, an integral part of her corset, and it was powering her implanted translator buds, and it kept her from being ripped apart in the crash. She winched her eyelids open -- she hurt like homemade hell, they must have hit hard -- she heard voices with the tinny echo-quality of a language she could just almost understand, simultaneously overlaid with the translation -- "Pilot's dead." "All I've got here is meat." "Clear this wreckage. If anyone's still alive, kill him. We can't have any witnesses." The hiss of hand-held cold-cutters, stubby plasma lances that sliced through matter without heat: Marnie knew that if they found her, they could slice through her with as much resistance as a sharp blade through water. "Here's something." Marnie ran a fast inventory, willing herself to stillness: her Rage was building, she felt strength and an overwhelming anger detonate deep in her feminine soul. I'm alive. Limbs intact. Major muscle groups respond tense/relax. Don't let them know. She could feel her uncle's blued-steel, gold-inlaid .357 pressing against her side, and she knew if she moved she would be found. She waited, eyes slitted. Marnie blinked, took a deep breath, blew it out, continued writing. ALL HANDS KILLED ON IMPACT SEARCH TEAM GIVEN ORDERS TO MURDER ANY/ALL SURVIVORS "TO ELIMINATE WITNESSES" THEY THOUGHT ME DEAD PULLED ME OUT AND THE FIGHT WAS ON Marnie knew as soon as she moved, she would be found out. She also knew they would not expect what she was about to deliver. "Here, let's get this ... my God, it's a woman!" Marnie's eyes snapped open. The last thing two men saw was a pair of blazing-white, hard-as-mountain-granite eyes. Marnie Keller responded as she'd trained and trained and trained again. Her hand seized the checkered, curly-maple handle of her Uncle Will's .357, her thumb broke the thumb snap, a blued-steel gunbarrel rose: Marnie Keller's practiced finger tightened on the narrow, grooved trigger, oiled-steel, case-hardened revolver parts moved smoothly, the gold-vine-inlaid cylinder rolled a nickle plated round under the color-case-hardened hammer. The authoritative voice of a blued-steel Smith & Wesson with a gold inlaid Thunder Bird engraved into its frame, spoke for the first time on this world, and it spoke with a most effective authority. Marnie knew they intended to kill her to prevent her from testifying as to their treachery, as to this betrayal of a Diplomatic mission. Assistant Diplomat Marnie Keller's opening argument for her survival, was a full-house .357 through two men's faces. She saw the hand-held cutter swing her way. Marnie rolled, got her legs under her. She remembered feeling her Bowie's handle in her left hand, remembered bringing it out of its horizontal sheath, remembered feeling like she was releasing a tight-wound clock spring. Marnie twisted, her blade describing a swift, horizontal arc. Her hand-forged, Damascus-blade Bowie blade seared through bright sunlight in a shining-sliver arc: a man screamed, his dropped cutter melting into the wreckage where Marnie had lain a moment before: blood sprayed, bright and scarlet, and a woman in a torn McKenna gown spun, laid open a throat, she felt warm sticky wet spray against her face and felt the blade grate on bone as she continued her spin and laid a face open, deep. She fired a third round into a man's guts, lowered her shoulder, drove a fourth out of the way, and ran for the nearest building. LANDED BESIDE CAPITOL BUILDING TOOK SHELTER INSIDE BARRICADED CONFERENCE ROOM DOOR ACTIVATED LEVEL 3 BARRIER CALLED MAYDAY TOOK DEFENSIVE POSITION Marnie dropped her back against the closed conference room doors, slapped the ejector rod, lowered her revolver's muzzle: she reloaded loose rounds, saving her speedloaders for the fight she knew was coming. BACKUP ARRIVED TIMELY HELD UNTIL CAVALRY MORE LATER M Marnie threw her head back, took a fast, gasping breath. She heard something sizzling, snarling on near-inaudible frequencies on the other side of the heavy, ceiling-high double doors' security field. She'd gotten inside, she'd hit the emergency door-close, the security field that sealed the chamber from any unauthorized entry -- a standard feature she'd seen on multiple Confederate worlds. All they have to do is turn off the power, she thought, there may or may not be a battery backup ... The sound of whatever was trying to chew through the security field, ended ... What did I just hear? Gunshots? Marnie felt a familiar mind push against hers. Victoria? More minds -- she'd heard them before, and she smiled -- "VALKYRIE FLIGHT, WE HAVE HER! ORBITAL DEFENSES NEUTRALIZED, TROOP SHIPS MOVE IN!" "Marnie?" A child's voice, shouted, the sound of a small fist beating on the heavy wooden doors. Marnie reached over, released the security field. The doors swung open. Marnie saw dead men, blood, a familiar, stainless-steel PPK/S in a white-knuckled grip -- A little girl in a pastel frock ran scampering into the room, a silver Walther pistol in her hand: she SLAMMED into Marnie's middle, hugging her desperately: behind her, a boy the same age, wearing a black suit, a black Stetson, and a serious expression, facing outward with a cocked Winchester rifle at the ready. Something silver seared into existence a little more than head high, a horizontal, solid sheet of tightly controlled, absolutely destructive energy. Marnie knew this was a weapon, and she knew who was using it, and she knew the entire building above that level just fell into it and was instantly disintegrated. The sheet disappeared. Marnie and two pale eyed children looked up at blue sky and clouds and an absolute rainstorm of silver troop-ships descending -- company ships, she knew, each containing a company of one thousand Confederate soldiers. "MARNIE!" Michael Keller barked: he stepped sideways, knelt behind a heavy granite planter, shouldered his rifle. "CONFEDERATE RANGERS!" Marnie heard. "AMASSADOR! AMBASSADOR KELLER!" Marnie swept Victoria behind her, stepped out, raised a gloved hand. "Here!" she called. Michael stood, brought his rifle across him, lowered the hammer to half cock, waited. A lean young man with gold braid on his sleeves jogged up to her, saluted. "Captain Wilcox, ma'am, are you hurt?" "I am not," Marnie said crisply, "but your arrival is most timely, Captain. My shuttle is shot down and destroyed, its crew and my diplomatic adjutants were killed in the crash. I alone survived and they wished my life as well to prevent any surviving witnesses from testifying as to their vile perfidy!" Marnie Keller folded the good rag paper into thirds. She dripped hot wax, the scarlet shade she preferred, and pressed a shining-brass seal firmly on the soft, cooling-to-brittle sealing wax. She lifted the seal and smiled at her personal impress. A rose with three letters beneath. BAM. Black Agent, Mars. She opened the dispatch-slot, keyed in the Ambassador's personal address, thrust the folded paper within, closed the slot.

YOU, SIR, ARE FULL OF IT! Sheriff Linn Keller looked at a man who wished to make himself appear important. "Sheriff!" the County Commissioner hailed him with a plastic smile. "I haven't seen you around! Where have you been hiding all this time?" Sheriff Linn Keller stopped and regarded the man, as if considering whether to backhand him across the room, or whether to seize him by collar and crotch and drown him in the nearest spittoon, or whether to kick his backside up between his shoulder blades. He did none of these things. The direct approach, he reasoned, was the correct approach, and so he stepped forward, seized the man's shoulder and gripped his hand and declared loudly, "Now it's interesting you would ask me that, Johnny! I have been off-planet!" "Off planet," Johnny Cook replied skeptically. "We toured a number of worlds in the thirteen star system Confederacy," the Sheriff declared, "we rode horses with fangs and a thick unicorn horn, my ten year old son Michael was obliged to resort to his concealed pistol to shoot a rock snake and keep it from murdering his little sister." "Rock snake." The troublemaking politician's expression was skeptical. "Oh, ya. Big as your leg, fangs six inches long, they inject a pint of venom with each fang. Twelve hours after a bite on a child Victoria's size, why, the entire nervous system dissolves. Terrible way to die, terrible." The Sheriff shook his head sadly. "Now after that -- you do know my daughter Marnie was promoted from Sheriff of the Second Martian Colony to Chief Ambassador to the thirteen-star-system Confederacy, and then to Deputy Confederate Ambassador-at-Large." He winked confidentially and added, "With a significant raise in pay, I'll tell you!" "Ambassador." "Why, most recently, we were obliged to open an interdimensional portal and step out on a world two galaxies from here, or maybe it's three, I didn't really ask -- Marnie's diplomatic shuttle was shot down and the Valkyries heard her telepathic call for backup." "Valkyries." "Seven remarkable young women with a genetic aberration that allows them to pilot Starfighter spaceships using their minds alone. They used to use microneedles that went into their living brains, but now it's done by induction, so they don't have to shave their scalps anymore." "Sheriff, I don't know what you're --" Linn cut him off. "Now Michael and Victoria -- the twins, our youngest two -- activated an interdimensional Iris and stepped out of my study and into the hallway of the most secure government building on the planet where Marnie's shuttle was shot down. It seems Marnie was dragged unconscious from the wreckage and she roused from her injuries in time to lay half a dozen men out cold and twice that number dead, and that with a six shot revolver and a Damascus blade Bowie. They tried to catch her and she holed up in a marble walled conference hall in that government building, she set the doors for security level three which is proof against a field howitzer, and they brought in an energy-cannon to tear the door down and kill her." The Sheriff looked past the politician, looked at his son, who stood solemn and silent, listening to his father holding forth with an unaccustomed vigor. "Michael cut loose with a Winchester rifle and dropped four right away. "His twin sister Victoria pulled out a .32 automatic and took out their commanding officer and the chief gunner, then they deactivated the energy cannon and right about then, about a hundred twenty company-strength interstellar troopships landed and the Confederacy just plainly turned their badger loose on the capitol. Rounded up every last one of those crooked politicians, they did!" Johnny Cook, petty politician, a man with an over inflated sense of his own importance, considered what he'd just been told: he blinked a few times, looked at the Sheriff's youngest daughter, standing beside her Daddy and regarding the world with big and innocent eyes; he saw her twin brother come up beside her, his face carefully neutral as he unbuttoned his coat and laid his hand flat on his belly. "Energy cannon," Cook snorted. "Troop ships! Interstellar --" His mouth closed, opened, closed again. "Sheriff," he finally said, "if you went on vacation, why didn't you just say so!" Johnny Cook pushed past the lean waisted lawman, muttering and shaking his head. Michael looked up at his Pa, and so did Victoria. A Sheriff in a black suit, a ten year old boy dressed like his father, and a pretty little girl in an old fashioned frock with frothy petticoats peeking out from under its ornate hem, made their way back to the Lawman's Corner. The Sheriff ordered three cheeseburger platters and three chocolate milkshakes. Michael waited until the hash slinger was well distant before leaning over the table a little and asking, "Sir, why did you tell him what we were doing?" Linn winked, leaned confidentially toward his children, spoke quietly. "Michael, do you remember when you saw me testify in Denver?" "Yes, sir." "Do you recall what I told that attorney when he was getting prickish with me?" Michael grinned. " 'Before you ask that question, be sure you're willing to receive the answer you really don't want to hear!' " Michael quoted. Linn winked. "Exactly!" Victoria looked at her twin brother. "Daddy told the truth," she said quietly. Michael considered this, frowned. "I thought we weren't supposed to say anything about any of that." Linn's amusement was visible in his eyes, in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. "I made the man look like a donkey," he said, "all I did was tell him the truth and he'll never believe it. I didn't lie, he didn't get any kind of an answer he wanted, and nobody will believe him if he utters word one of any of it!" The waitress came gliding back, silent on thick soles, set down three milkshakes, then three platters. "Anything else?" she chirped brightly: she looked around, batted her long, curled eyelashes, then she hesitated, looked at the Sheriff. "Thank you for putting Johnny Cook in his place," she said quietly. "That old letch has been undressing me with his eyes since I was your daughter's age!"

WAS HE? Jacob Keller traced reverent fingertips over the tarnished brass. It belonged to his Pa. His Pa never talked much about it. Jacob knew this was his Pa's war bag during that damned War, and that his Pa took off the US from the flap and replaced it with the Masonic square-and-compasses. He considered that he wished he'd asked his Pa, while the man yet drew breath, but he never did, and now he would wonder forever. Jacob knew several men who'd been in That Damned War. He'd also known pretenders, braggarts, fakers. That's the trouble with being a lawman. You rub elbows with plenty of folks you'd never bring to your Mama's supper table. Once, and once only, did he ask his Mama about it, and that, when they were alone, well distant from home, hearth and humanity. "Mother," Jacob asked, his voice serious. Esther smiled a little, that gentle, motherly smile of hers and tilted her head a little as she replied to her tall, handsome son. "Yes, Jacob?" "Mother, there is a story told." His words were careful, precisely enunciated. "There are many stories told, Jacob. Which one are you thinking of?" "During that damned War, " he said quietly, "after a battle, a man loaded up with canteens and bandages and went out into the darkness." Esther waited, listened to birds, listened to the carriage, listened to quiet, regular hoof-falls: Jacob was not in a hurry and neither was she, and their horse was at an easy walk, and with sun in their face and no pressing needs, the walking pace suited them fine. "A sergeant told the man not to go out into the darkness, between the lines," Jacob continued after a moment. "He told the Sergeant to go to blistering hell and went anyway. "There wasn't much light, but there was enough: he used what bandages he had, he gave water to the wounded, and he kept at it until he was out of water. "He came back and gathered up some more and went back out. "I was told he paid no attention to the color of the uniform, that he tended blue and grey alike, he was near to the enemy lines and someone said 'Hold fire, damn ye,' and he said later it felt like someone walked on his grave to hear it." Silence, for a time: the sun was warm through his black coat-sleeves, springtime was starting to smell good. Finally Esther said, softly, "I heard about that man, too." She looked at Jacob. "I heard tell he'd taken the US from the flap of his cartridge box and replaced it with the Square and Compasses." "Yes, ma'am." The dapple mare's tail slashed industriously, perhaps getting ready for summer's crop of flies. "Ma'am, does that man ... the one who went with water and with bandages ... do we know his name?" Esther's hand slipped around her son's arm and he felt her gloved hand squeeze him, gently, the way a mother will. "I have heard the story, Jacob," Esther said softly, "and I bless the man who did a kindness in the midst of that terrible insanity!" Jacob Keller traced his old man's fingers over the brass insignia. He'd been a Mason for many years, as was his father before him, as were his own sons. Annette, her hair white, her face lined, smiled at her husband as she held their youngest grandchild, as she and her daughter in law exchanged whispered confidences, the way mothers will in such a moment. Jacob Keller set the ancient, cracked-leather warbag back on its shelf, under his father's sheathed Cavalry saber. His own grandson asked him about that same story, not a week before. Grandfather and grandson had looked at the tarnished brass device on the pouch's flap, and Jacob smiled at the youthful hopefulness in the lad's voice. "Sir," he heard, the words reverently spoken: "Sir, was he?"

SEE THE STUDENT, SEE THE TEACHER Her hands shook badly enough she spilled coffee onto the tabletop. I scooted my chair close, tore two sheets of paper towel free, wiped up the spill: I took the cup, I took her hand, I looked at her as her face crumpled and the tears started. I am no less strong than any man, but when a woman turns on the water works, I get protective and I get fatherly, and I raised up a little and took her elbows and she came over at my pull and sat in my lap and turned from a slightly uncomfortable young woman to a scared little girl, terrified at a nightmare she could not wake from. I held her, I rocked her, I waited: this was too long coming, she'd held it in too long and I knew it would take some time for the flood to wash her dam away and cascade down the mountain and spend itself. I knew this young woman. I'd known her since she still had the warranty sticker pasted across her cute little shiny backside, when her parents packed her through the door of their house for the first time. I'd shown her father the trick of using two clothespins for her to hold onto when she was learning to walk, and sure enough -- just like I'd done when I was learning to walk, or so Mama told me -- his little girl held onto those clothespins over her head and he did too, and halfway across the floor he let go and she went just a-struttin' across the floor, laughing, holding onto those clothes pins, until she realized ... ... he wasn't holding them anymore ... ... she made kind of a staggery turn-around and set down on her little diapered bottom and started to cry, and we all laughed, and directly she was walking just fine, to her Mama's dismay (and fatigue!) I'd known this young woman as a Girl Scout, selling me a scandalous amount of Thin Mints (I think I still have some in the deep freeze) and I recall the time I rode to school with my own young and she came over all big eyed and enamored with my spotty Appaloosa stallion, and how she'd drawn me a childish crayon portrait of a stick figure Sheriff on a spotty horse, and I particularly remember she'd paid very close attention to drawing the hooves. She rest of the horse was mostly spots and a big grin, but the hooves were striped and surprisingly accurate. I remembered all this as I held her, as I rocked her, as she shivered and choked and finally let go of everything that she'd kept hid and dammed and bottled and contained. It took a little while. I held her, I had my arms around her, I had one hand behind her head, I soothed her and murmured to her the way I would a little child terrified of a nightmare, I let her spill everything out and be done with it, for my own lifetime and my own young both taught me that if you don't get it all out -- professionally, if you don't debrief, and personally, if you don't dump it -- it'll fester and it'll bust out when you don't want it to. Now once her flood was cascaded on down the mountain, once she'd hit my soft spot as she snifffed and rubbed her face into my shoulder and mumbled miserably, "I miss my Daddy!" -- I'd been pallbearer at that fine man's funeral, and that miserable confession into my shirtfront just plainly run the sorrows through me -- I pulled out a bedsheet hankie and when she leaned her head back, I whispered "Close your eyes," and I blotted the wet off her face, and I dabbed under her nose and then just like my own little girls, I very gently pinched her nose with the hankie and said "Blow," and she did, and she reached up and took control of the snot rag and grimaced and managed a very unladylike (but very productive) honk. I held her as long as she was comfortable being held; when she started to shift her weight, I eased my leg down a little and grimaced and muttered something about my leg goin' to sleep, and she apologized and we both stood and I held her very gently by the elbows and I said, "Don't ever apologize, darlin', for making an older man feel useful for a change!" -- and she laughed, and sniffed, and blotted her eyes again. I gave her another minute and waited until she'd taken a few deep breaths, and then she sat down and so did I. I hunched over and took her hands, gently, the way I did my own young, and I said softly, "You came here to tell me something." She nodded, swallowed. "I don't have my gun back." "I know," I said softly. "Like as not it'll be a while yet." "I may never get it back." I nodded, slowly. "Angela was right." I smiled, just a little. Angela was a Valkyrie: she'd been a cheerleader, she'd run with Willamina's Warriors -- matter of fact, just like Marnie, she took Mama's place as the chief hell-raiser, the singer of obscene running songs, the greatest butt-kicking, cadence-shouting, propper-up-of-exhausted-young-men, unofficial leader of the Firelands Football Team since Mama's days of organizing young men of the mountains. Angela was a sweet girl, she was a pretty girl, she was a girly girl, and she was also fast and deadly with a variety of disciplines intended to Less-than-Gently Pacify Thy Neighbor: like her sister Marnie, she practiced with blades, with bludgeons, she practiced with shovels, rocks, tire tools, with any improvised device: I watched her in a schoolroom simulation, drive a #2 lead pencil through an anatomical dummy's temporal bone, into its kidneys, into its carotid artery and its trachea and through its eye socket -- launching each time from the relaxed, crossed-leg posture of a high-school student at a school desk, while she was teaching school-invader countermeasures. Angela was one of my favorite firearm instructors. She taught in a dress and heels, just like her pale-eyed Gammaw, she presented as a very feminine figure, and she taught the ladies, because "Women learn better from women." When Darlene came into my office and asked if she might talk to me, I didn't hesitate: I had Sharon hold my calls, I drew coffee for both of us, I closed the conference door behind us and I sat down with her with my chair facing hers, and I did my level best to put her at ease. I knew she'd been involved in a defensive shooting. I knew she'd sent a deserving soul to Hell with a burst of .22 rimfires. I'd heard a few rumors about the incident, but when Darlene came in -- after the trial, after she was no-billed, after a civil suit against her hit a brick wall and slid to the floor and died -- after all this, she needed to talk. "I was going shopping," she said quietly, "we needed some things. I had a shopping list and traffic wasn't bad -- nobody was doing anything stupid, I didn't have any close calls -- and some fellow beside me rolled down his window and started screaming at me. "I looked over and he pointed a gun at me. "I was seat belted and sitting at a light with traffic all around me. "I couldn't go anywhere. "I was wearing ... I intended to go practice like Angela talked about." I turned my head a little, my eyes never leaving hers: she'd reached for my hands, and I held hers gently and did my best to look more like a father than the chief lawman of the county. "Angela said she would practice with a Walther PPK/S in .22 because if she could discipline herself well enough to score well with that short sight radius and those little bitty sights, she could do very well indeed with a good set of target sights and the longer radius of her target pistol." I nodded, doing my best to keep a poker face: I nodded because, not only was Angela right, she was teaching what I'd been practicing for years. "Angela said when we are threatened" -- she stopped, swallowed -- "our mind locks onto the threat like targeting radar, and our eyes follow our mind and our hands follow our eyes, and mine did. "I remember seeing the front sight. "I'd painted it with the brightest red model paint I could find. "Angela said we focus on the threat and I saw that bright red front sight and I set it right where I wanted that bullet to hit and I shot. "I knew it was only a .22 so I shot several times. I had to break my passenger window and that's one bullet, and then I had to stop the threat." I nodded, slowly, my hands were open, her fingers resting on mine: enough to give her fatherly comfort, not enough to make her feel trapped. "I shot and nothing happened and I shot again and he flinched and I shot again and he drew back and I shot again and his head fell sideways and I stopped shooting and I just sat there and he was dead and I'd done it and I knew he was dead and I stopped shooting and I just sat there and it took forever for the police to get there --" She took several quick breaths, she threw her head back as she did, then she looked at me and swallowed. "They treated me like a monster in court." "They usually do." "They accused me of road rage and bullying and screaming threats at him and ... and a detective ... they tried to keep him off the stand and they had a separate hearing to allow him to testify and he was with a gang unit and he said another vehicle similar to mine was involved in a drive-by and he'd found whoever was in the car with the man who tried to shoot me." She looked at me with big, scared eyes and whispered, "He was going to kill me, Sheriff. He thought I was somebody else." I nodded, but said nothing: I've known that to happen, and it troubled me that it damn near happened to someone I knew. "I was no-billed," she whispered. I nodded. "Good," I said gently. Her hands were shaking again. "They wanted to put me in jail," she whispered. I nodded. "I don't know what would have happened if that detective hadn't insisted on testifying." "Darlin'," I said gently, "you did all kind of things right!" She blinked and looked at me with big and vulnerable eyes, and I knew I had to tread carefully. Her walls were down and anything I said, for good or for ill, would drive straight into that tender young heart. "Darlin', I read the forensics. Your first shot took out your window. Your second shot went through his trigger finger and up his wrist. That's the money shot. That told us he was pointing the gun at you -- that, and one of your bullets was found splattered against the bullet in his chamber." She looked at me, confused, blinked a few times. "Darlin', one of your first shots went right down the barrel of his gun!" Her mouth dropped open, she looked to the side, blew out a breath, swallowed. "Do you still have that car?" She nodded. "Is it paid for?" She shook her head. "Financed through our bank here in town?" She nodded again. "Darlin', listen to me. You're twice marked. You killed a gangsta and your car looks like another gangsta's car. I want you to get something different -- make, model, style, shape, color, change it up and get something else." "I can't afford to --" she blurted. I winked. "I know a guy," I said. "Now let's get everything of yours out of that car. It's a rolling target and I don't want you killed." She turned a little pale when I said that. Two hours later -- it helps to be on really, really good terms with the banker -- we'd swung a wheelin' deal down at Honest John's Used Car Lot and Exhaust Repair. We got Darlene's little white import cleaned out, John already had a buyer for it at an out-of-state dealership, and we got her into a midnight-metallic-blue Mercury with new tires, new brakes and a five year bumper to bumper warranty. I had a quiet word with my buddy the banker; a day or two later, Darlene called me up, all excited, thanking me up one side and down the other: she didn't realize until she opened the envelope and read the contents twice, that her new-to-her car, considering her old car's trade-in value, Honest John's new-customer discount, the local-business bonus, phase of the moon, the Coriolus effect and two or three arcane formulae chanted over a bubbling cauldron of split-pea soup with ham hocks, that her vehicle was Paid in Full, fully insured, and a pleasure doing business. Darlene did tell me her little stainless .22 Walther felt just mighty puny, and she'd like to replace it with something bigger. I looked at Angela's portrait on my desk and smiled. "Darlene," I said, "I just happen to know a guy ..."

IN THE DIRT Shelly took pride in what she did. Shelly was a working fire paramedic, a wife, a mother: she was also very human, and at the moment, she sought to discharge the stresses of everyday life by cultivating the rosebed beside their church. Shelly wore knee pads, she knelt on a thick foam pad, she wore gardening gloves, and she stabbed at good rich black dirt like she was driving a knife into an enemy. She was also muttering as she did. "What happened, sweets?" she heard beside her, and she smelled lilacs, and she brushed savagely at her cheek with the sleeve of her flannel shirt. Shelly did not look over: she leaned the heels of her hands into her thighs, closed her eyes took a long breath. "I'm not being fair," Shelly said hoarsely. "Oh?" Shelly glared at the dirt she'd just twisted loose: she started working it with her gardening trowel again, carefully loosening the soil without harming the roots of the roses that grew perennially along the church. "I made a mistake." "Oh, dearie, we all make mistakes," the older woman's voice said reassuringly. Shelly swallowed hard. "At least you didn't ask your son to try on a dress." Shelly felt the other woman's silence, almost waves of disapproval beating at her: she heard a little choking noise, then a sniff, a giggle: she did not dare look at her uninvited visitor, but from the side of her eye she did see the woman raise her wrist to her mouth to try and stop a giggle from escaping. "Oh, dearie," Shelly heard, "if that's all you've done wrong --" Shelly shook her head, took a long breath. "I provoked my daughter," she whispered, her eyes stinging. "She provoked me right back and I slapped her." Silence again. "I wish she'd slapped me in return." "She didn't?" "No." Shelly took another long breath, wished she could curl up and sink into the earth and hide. "I provoked her and she provoked me right back." "What did she say?" "My mother ... was a nurse, and she wanted me to become a nurse, and I didn't. "We had words and I stormed out of the house, and we were estranged for ... a time ... and then she died." Shelly felt the other woman's hand, warm and reassuring, on her back. "I just wanted a normal daughter," Shelly whispered, her throat tight. "That's all I wanted, but I wasn't a normal daughter and when Marnie threw it in my face that I wanted her to be a normal girl and my mother wanted me to be a nurse --" The warm, motherly hand, flat on her shoulder blades, rubbed gently, then drew Shelly over into her. The older woman spoke quietly, kindly, her voice and her presence reassuring and maternal. "Children ... can be difficult," she whispered. "It's hard to let them make their own mistakes, but we have to." Shelly nodded. "Marnie ... made some good choices." She smiled. "I didn't want her to be a deputy." "Is she doing well?" "She's Sheriff in --" Shelly caught herself -- "she's Sheriff in her own jurisdiction." "I seem to recall a remarkable young woman with pale eyes," Shelly heard. "She was quite effective, as I recall." Shelly swallowed. "I understand there's ... she's involved with the Diplomatic Corps." "You must be very proud!" the woman whispered, her head bent intimately close, the way a woman will in such a moment. "She'd never have done ... everything she has ... if she'd been the normal girl I wanted." Shelly blinked, surprised. She honestly never expected to utter what she'd felt for quite some time. "My husband," the older woman said quietly -- her words were gently spoken, but the pride behind them showed through like a light behind a fog -- "my husband said something about opening his mouth and something fell out that surprised him." Shelly nodded, then giggled. "Now what's this about asking your son to try on a dress?" "His sister ... I'd taken them to the City, shopping, and Victoria tried on just a darling little dress, and we were looking at another, and I wanted to compare them side by side -- Michael is her twin, and they are very nearly the same size --" "I see." "Michael folded his arms and he said 'No thank you, ma'am,' and when I insisted, he turned his back and walked away from me." "Oh, dear," came the worried murmur in reply. "I reached for him and he twisted away, and he was gone." Shelly turned her gardening trowel and studied the dirt clinging to its paint-worn, green blade. "Have you ever tried to catch a ten-year-old?" She felt the older woman's mirth, felt her contagious laugh as it bubbled up from the lake of memories: "I remember what it is to chase a naked little boy, running through the house, trailing laughter and soapsuds!" Two women shared an understanding laugh. "And what happened when you finally caught him?" "He stayed in sight of me while we shopped," Shelly said quietly, "and he rejoined us as we left the Mall. I didn't say a word and neither did he." "He hasn't ... said anything since?" "No," Shelly said, her voice tight. "I though he might have complained to his father." "A man's pride and a boy's pride are both easily offended." "I shouldn't have told him to try it on." Silence grew between the two. "All right, I didn't ask him to try it on, I told him to try it on, and that's why --" She sat back on her heels, took a long breath, blew it out, looked over at the older woman. She was alone. Shelly blinked, looked around, rose: she turned, backed up a step, backed up another. "Hello?" she called. "Is anyone there?" Sheriff Linn Keller looked up, smiled as his wife came through his office door. He rose, came around his desk, hugged his bride: "Darlin', you timed it just right, my eyes are about crossed lookin' at paperwork!" "Linn," Shelly said seriously, "I think I was talking to a ghost." Linn stopped, looked very directly at his wife. "Fill me in." "Linn ... who planted the roses along the Church?" Linn smiled, for local history was Old Home Week to him. "Mama researched that pretty well. Old Pale Eyes had a beautiful wife -- Esther Wales, her maiden name -- she was red headed and green eyed, and she loved roses. She found some Canadian varieties that did well here, with the long winters and high altitude. I think she might've done some breeding to get the hardiest varieties, and they've been there ever since." He looked at his wife, stroked her cheek gently with the back of a bent forefinger. "What did you see, darlin'?" "I didn't see her," Shelly said. "She ... I was on my knee pads loosening the soil, she knelt down beside me and I never looked at her." "O-kaaay." "We talked and she ... Linn, she was such a comforting presence, and she smelled of lilacs and sunshine." Linn tightened his arms around his wife, laid his cheek over on top of her head, and she felt him laughing silently as he held her. "Esther it was," he whispered. "You were visited by Grandma Esther!" He kissed his wife's forehead, caressed her hair. "Did she say ... anything ... significant?" Shelly giggled, cupped her hand over her mouth, looked at her husband with big and innocent eyes. "We talked about little boys, and how they like to run through the house naked, dribbling soapsuds and giggles all over the floor!"

YENTA, THE MATCHMAKER Angela Keller sat with her white-stockinged knees carefully together, her hands very properly folded in the skirt of her white uniform skirt, her head tilted a little the way a woman will, when something interests her. She was listening to the regular cadence of tones from the black-plastic-grilled speaker. She knew it was Morse code -- beyond that, she had to wait for the twins' yellow-painted Number Two Lead pencils to quit their busy lines and curlicues, and their results ripped free of pads maintained for that purpose, and handed to her. Angela smiled as she read this modern day transcript of a Morse code message, and part of her mind quietly appreciated that this scene had been played out more than a century before, when a man who'd worn Confederate grey, inclined a professional ear to a polished-brass sounder and interpreted a rapid series of clicks and clatters, letting the metallic racket run in his ears and out the Barlow-whittled tip of his stub of a pencil. Angela read the regular print, looking from one page to another -- even their handwriting is almost identical! she thought -- she looked up at the twins and smiled that gentle smile of hers, then she rose, knelt, opened her arms. Michael and Victoria happily embraced their big sis, delighted to have so obviously gained her approval. Angela knocked at the door, then looked down and smiled: she stepped back a little, bent slightly, looked at the round lens of a doorbell pushbutton. "Mitch?" she called. "It's Angela. Permission to come aboard!" There was a heavy, mechanical sound as the door was remotely unlocked, and Mitch's voice grinned from the rectangular doorbell, "Permission granted!" Angela straightened, pushed open the door, stepped inside: she carefully closed it behind her, smiled a little at the sound of heavy bolts driving home, securing the portal. If I rode a wheelchair for a living, she thought, I'd have a fortress too! She turned at the sound of hydraulics whining; a moment later, a panel opened and Mitch rolled toward her, grinning. He extended a hand and Angela ignored it: she bent, hugged him, giggled, and he hugged her back, laughing. "You've lost weight!" she exclaimed, and he slapped his stumps and declared firmly, "The Alfred Hitchcock method! Lose weight fast, use a knife!" -- they both laughed, for it was an old joke between them: it started out as Angela's psychic slap-in-the-face to him when she was first taking care of him, right after he'd lost both legs from being hit by that drunk driver, and Mitch seized on the phrase as a survival tool. Rotten humor, he'd told her later, was his salvation, and Angela agreed, for she'd seen that same particular tool used by the Combined Emergency Services more times than she could count. They strolled and rolled into the kitchen: "The Navy runs on coffee, and so do I!" Mitch said firmly, reaching up and turning a little carousel: "Individual packages, take-a you pick!" Angela bent, studied the selection, chose what she thought was the strongest brew: the coffee maker already had water in the reservoir, and her big mug of steaming-hot wide-awake was quickly and fragrantly produced, Mitch's right behind it, and the two of them took their places at Mitch's kitchen table. "Deborah's gone for the day," Mitch said as he slopped milk from the plastic jug into his big insulated travel mug with MITCH'S GAS TANK hand painted on the side. "How's she getting along?" Mitch set the jug down, looked very frankly at Angela. "She is the best thing that ever happened to me," he said softly, then chuckled. "I remember when we first met" -- he looked sharply at Angela, who regarded him with an innocent batting of her long, curled eyelashes over the glazed rim of her heavy white-ceramic mug -- "I'd not gotten ... the idea of not having legs anymore was just sinkin' in and it felt like an anchor pulling me to the bottom of the ocean." "I remember," Angela murmured. "You were profoundly depressed." "Yeah," Mitch said quietly, nodding, then took a sip of his steaming-fresh brew. "Then this really good looking gal in a skirt comes into the room. "Here I am, feeling all sorry for myself, I can't hardly look at her -- what woman wants half a man? -- she sat down and looked at me." His voice softened a little. "Angela, I honestly can't tell you just how surprised I was when she hiked that skirt up." Angela hid her quiet smile behind her cup, gave him those big lovely eyes to show him she was listening and listening closely. "She unbuckled her left leg, she pulled it off her stump, she took it overhead in both hands and heaved it across the room into my belly -- I caught it and I'm starin' at her like she just sprouted a third eye -- she pulls off her right leg and hauls off and heaves it across the room at me, she points that finger of hers at me and said, 'Now that I have your attention, you listen to me!' " He took a long breath, sighed it out, smiled. "That," he said softly, "was the beginning of my recovery. I have no idea why, but she stayed with me every step of the way. "We've set the date. We're getting married. She's got your invitation made out and ready to send." Angela set her mug down carefully, clapped her hands with delight, laughed. "So she got your attention!" -- her voice was sunshine and merriment, and Mitch laughed with her and nodded. "I understand you arranged for her visit," Mitch said quietly. "Thank you." "A nurse is many things," Angela said quietly. "Some are more satisfying than others" -- she leaned forward, lowered her head a bit, smiled, spoke as one old friend to another -- "but the best part is becoming Yenta, the Matchmaker!" "I was surprised when the twins asked if you could come by today." Mitch shifted a little, pushed up on the arms of his chair, resettled himself on the gel doughnut under his backside. "I was watching your traffic stop a couple days ago." Angela nodded. "That one," she admitted, "did not go quite the way I expected!" "I thought you were hurt." "No. Just the windshield and some sheet metal." Mitch set his big plastic travel mug down, leaned forward, looked intently, directly, into Angela's pale eyes. "I don't have many friends anymore," Mitch said, his voice quiet, intense: "no man can afford to throw a friend away and I don't want to lose any more." Angela watched him frown, look away, swallow, look back, and she knew what he was saying was both spontaneous, and whole cloth. "Angela, you be careful. You're the only one of you we've got." "Angela, I mean it. I had a crush on you in school and" -- his teeth clicked together as he looked away again, as if he'd let something slip he didn't mean to. "I shouldn't have said that," he muttered. Angela reached across the table, gripped his hand. "Mitch?" she almost whispered. "Thank you." Mitch looked back, nodded, then grinned. "The world has a shortage of good matchmakers," he grinned. "I don't want anything to happen to my favorite Yenta!"

FORTRESS FORD AND BATTLESHIP BUICK Mitch didn't get out much, at least not like his peers. He did quite a bit of traveling, most of it through an old-fashioned telegraph key. Jacob Keller got him started in ham radio, right after the drunk driver took Mitch's legs: Mitch threw himself into learning Morse code and radio theory, antenna theory and propagation, he studied with a single minded focus: when he sat for his exams, he paid his money to take the Technician exam, then for no extra cost, he immediately took (and passed) the Extra and the Advanced as well. When his set began an urgent set of tones, he drove his powered wheelchair over to his shack bench, frowned, reached for the key and sent a quick burst, then went to his window and picked up a set of binoculars. He had a bay window that afforded him 270 degrees of view; as he was well up on the mountainside, he had a grand vista ahead of him, none of which he saw. He turned the focus wheel, leaned forward, watched for several long moments, then backed his chair, turned it, gripped the key again and sent one word: ALIVE Angela's Gammaw still taught, in spite of her being dead for a lot of years now. Angela's Gammaw videotaped a variety of presentations for the Academy, and Angela watched every last one of them, from early childhood to the present day. Willamina could convey an idea fast, clearly, concisely, and did: she taught her troops that there is no such thing as routine patrol, and there is sure as hell no such thing as a routine traffic stop, and she set up a variety of realistic scenarios based on actual stops gone bad. Angela called in a plate, pulled over a vehicle: she'd not come to a full stop behind the subject vehicle when the driver's door flew open, the driver came out, running toward her, shooting. Angela dumped the shifter in Go Backwards gear and quite honestly mashed the throttle: her cruiser screamed backwards, the driver ran back into his car, he started to jackrabbit out of there, until Angela rammed his rear quarter panel, PIT-ing him, hard, when he was barely moving. She backed up, yanked the shifter savagely into gear: the driver started moving again and Angela rammed him again, hard, just behind the driver's door, shoving him sideways and into the ditch. She just honestly bulldozed him off the roadway and over on his side. Angela backed again, made a quick sweep of her mirrors: she reached up, hit the release, shouldered her own door open and stepped out, using her engine block and front wheel for cover. She jacked a round of genuine US Military 00 Buck into her Ithaca, dropped the barrel level, glared through the ghost ring peep, and waited. Her tan cruiser's big block engine whispered mechanical secrets to itself, patiently waiting for the next demand upon its services; her red-and-blue LED bar, and the other pretty little lights Weenkeeng and Bleenkeeng fore, aft and on running boards and mirrors, were silent; Angela waited, knowing the other driver's only exit was through his driver's-side door, unless he kicked his windshield out -- which would give her well more than enough advance warning, to line up a killing shot if need be. Michael and Victoria sat side by side at what used to be Jacob's ham radio desk. It now belonged to the twins. Victoria had the enlarged map on display; she'd placed rectangular markers to show the positions of Angela's cruiser, and as best they could estimate, location of the subject vehicle. It was too far away for them to intervene, and they knew better than to interfere with a law enforcement matter, but both knew the moment Angela's windshield starburst with the first hostile gunshot, and both sprinted upstairs, to where the scanner patiently ran the bands, and their natural affinity for things electronic enabled them to play back radio traffic, and they heard Angela's professional voice -- she sounded different when she spoke professionally -- call in the plate number and location, then they heard the sound of bullet strikes, the squall of tires, the sound of the well-muffled engine's protest and Angela's clipped, "Shots fired, taking evasive, backup, NOW!" Michael consulted another map, turned an antenna's directional control: a Yagi-Uda swung obediently in response to his safecracker's touch on the directional knob, then he gripped the straight key and tapped out a message to a set of ears he knew would be listening. Mitch watched, shocked, as the tan Sheriff's cruiser rammed the vehicle, turning it: his mouth opened in surprise as he saw the cruiser, like a bull, lower its head and ram the stopped car in the side, pushing it off the roadway and into the ditch, where it rocked once and stayed. He made a mental note to rig a relay so he could run a key from his chair, while here in his overwatch, and kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner. He pulled back and sent Michael a one word reply, then rolled back into his bay window, glass glued to his eyes, watching. Angela waited for backup, then took a ballistic shield, jumped the ditch, walked around the car and tapped on its underside. "Anybody home?" she called. The reply from within was less than kindly in nature. "Tell you what," Angela called, and she smiled as she did: "Roll down your window, throw out your gun and we'll get you out of there!" The reply was to fire a half-dozen rounds through the bottom of the car. "I thought you might say that," Angela muttered: she went to the back of the car, smacked the back glass with a glass breaker, dropped the pointy nosed hammerhead. She pulled the pin on a tear dust grenade, drove its end into the roof of the car, then tossed the can inside. A muted detonation, a cloud: blinded, unable to breathe, the driver fought his way out the back and through what used to be his rear window, where he was cheerfully dogpiled and cuffed. Mitch waited until the rescue truck unspooled a compressed air line and blew the excess tear dust off the prisoner and out of his hair, then rolled back to his key and sent a brief reply to Michael. Victoria's eyes met her twin's and they smiled a quiet smile of satisfaction as they heard the all-well, as they listened to Angela requesting a shots-fired team to help process the scene. Michael and Victoria were as accustomed to watching their Gammaw's training videos as was their older sister. They watched as their Gammaw's voice narrated the scene as a driver stepped out of a simulated stopped vehicle and charged the camera, firing paintballs as he came: splats of red blasted against the windshield and Willamina's voice said "Congratulations, you're dead. Now let's see how else we might handle this." Pale eyed twins watched and listened as the stopped vehicle's driver's door flew open, as the driver emerged weapon in hand, as the camera's vehicle accelerated hard in reverse. "Distance is your friend, and your vehicle provides some cover," Willamina's voice said. "Your vehicle gives you speed, mobility and protection. It runs faster than you can, it hits harder than you can. The vehicle itself is a weapon and can be used to counter deadly force." The scene changed, melted, coalesced into an attractive woman with Marine-short hair and a tailored suit dress, behind a podium, in front of the now-blank projector screen behind her. "Remember, boys and girls," she smiled, "when you are behind the wheel, on duty or off, you are driving Fortress Ford, and Battleship Buick!"

Me dear Pappy would get a cardboard can of "Flowers of Sulfur" (powdered sulfur) at the drug store. We'd dust our pants cuffs with sulfur to keep off ticks. Looking at your reversed tape dodge ... can't argue with results ... I'll give that a try, and thank you for it!

MEANWHILE, IN THE BACK STAIRWAY Sarah Lynne McKenna gripped Jacob Keller's hand, turned her head, looked at him. "He doesn't realize we're both his woods colts, you know." "I know." "Mama suspects. I think your Mama does too." "Reckon so." "Mama implied he found a family Bible, but she stopped talking when she saw I was looking at her and listening closely." "That's where you get it." "Get what?" Jacob grinned. "Little Sis," he said quietly, for the back stairway was hushed, and the softest voice was plainly heard, "your Mama can listen to someone talking and she can just fade into the wall and not be seen!" Sarah swatted at his shoulder: "Who you calling little sis, little brother?" Jacob let it pass: they knew early that they were the get of that pale eyed lawman, even if he didn't seem to realize it; there was doubt as to Jacob's actual age, and of Sarah's, though Bonnie implied that Sarah's birthday would be found out. "Sarah, when you're with people, you have the gift of disappearing," Jacob said, his voice suddenly serious. "That's a gift and that's how to find things out, just listen and don't be noticed." "I know." Her hand tightened on his. "I'm glad you're here, Jacob." "So am I." She felt him take a deep breath, saw him turn his head and grin. "It feels good to have family." Sarah's hand tightened in his. "Yes," she agreed. "Yes, it does." Sarah's eyes drifted down to the landing, rested on a varnished wood panel. "I used to hide in there," she said softly. Jacob looked at her, looked at the several wood panels, all varnished, all identical. "The Silver Jewel wasn't ... respectable then." Jacob nodded. "Mama was ... upstairs ... and when my Daddy came in he'd get drunk and beat the working girls. If he wasn't hurting me he was ignoring me, and they ... the girls ... they would bath me and patch my dress and fix my hair and put a ribbon in it ... they said I was the only sunshine in their lives." Sarah's voice was haunted, her eyes distant and filled with ghosts. Jacob ran his arm around his half-sister's shoulders, pulled her close: she laid her head over on his shoulder, shivered. "I'm glad you're here, Jacob." "I am too." Sarah sighed. "Jacob?" "Hm?" "Angela was asking me why bad men wanted to do bad things to her Daddy." Jacob turned his head toward her a little, listening closely. "She didn't want to talk about it with her Mama so she talked with me." "Pa said it is" -- he hesitated, lifted his chin, pale eyes searching the opposite wall for the right words -- "a mark of significant trust," he quoted with a smile, looked back at Sarah -- "for a little child to confide in us." Sarah smiled -- it was a soul-deep smile, the kind that shines from within -- "Jacob," she whispered, "you sound just like him!" Jacob shrugged. "Can't imagine why." "What did you tell her?" "When she asked me why bad men wanted to do bad things to her Daddy?" Sarah took a long breath, sighed it out: she looked sadly at Jacob. "I told her that ... when you put someone in prison, they don't forget you, and their families do not forget you, and their partners do not forget you." Jacob raised an eyebrow, nodded. "What did she say?" "She looked surprised -- like the thought honestly never occurred to her -- she said 'Oh,' and that seemed to satisfy her." Jacob nodded, chewed on his bottom lip. "Jacob, what is she like? At home, as a sister?" Jacob smiled, just a little. "It's like living with a glowing sunflower," he almost whispered. "She's never still, she's always smiling, she'll run up and give me a big hug, or she'll be talking nonstop to The Bear Killer while they're walking ..." Sarah saw the memories shine inside him, and she smiled to see them. "I'm glad you have her." "Me too." Silence, then: "Jacob, what's this I hear about a man killed with an ax?" Jacob was quiet for a long moment, his jaw slid out as he considered -- just like his father! Sarah thought. "You said something about not bein' forgot when you send someone to prison." Sarah nodded, her eyes big. "I heard a fellow talkin' quiet, how he figured to backshoot Pa. "I followed him, watched him ... he tried two or three places and he settled on one, and a good place for bush whack it was." "And you killed him." "Damn right." Jacob's eyes were a shade more pale now. "He was layin' for my Pa. "I didn't want to up and shoot him -- I could have, I could've blowed the eyeballs out of his skull from behind -- Pa said he kilt men durin' the War with an ax an' one was handy. "I saw Pa comin' along and I faded back and eased attair broad ax out of its chunk and I waited. "He fetched up his rifle and didn't have it fair to shoulder when I stepped up behint where he was down on one knee, and I clove him from crown to teeth. "He never twitched. "I taken his rifle and his proud-ofs, I unsaddled his horse and took his saddle bags." "Won't they blame whoever owned the ax?" "Place is abandoned. Nobody's been there for a year. I'm surprised that ax was still stuck in the chunk." "Did you know the man?" "Only that Pa sent him off to prison an' he'd made his brags he was gonna kill that pale eyed son of a sheepherder for sendin' him away." " 'Son of a sheepherder?' " she quoted, shaking her head. "Jacob, if he's going to say that about our Papa, I'm glad you killed him!"

GET OUTTA HERE NOW The Sheriff was not a trusting man. He’d been lied to often enough and badly enough that he trusted very few individuals: those of his inner circle were trusted implicitly and without hesitation, but those who were not part of that inner circle … weren’t. When word came to him that three men with lready stained reputations wished him harm, he considered the information was probably correct … though it could be just hot air, bluster, bragging, the way men will in careless moments. When two of those men came riding toward him, the Sheriff looked at the lay of the land, gigged his stallion in the ribs, ran on ahead to where he’d have the advantage of terrain. The pair saw him and reacted, and the three ended up a mile or so distant, playing cat-and-mouse with each other, until one disappeared and the Sheriff had no idea where he was. His stallion stood, sleepy-looking as was his habit: the Sheriff knew his golden Palomino was anything but drowsy, and when an ear swung to the right, horse and rider both spun and surged forward. “DON’T!” the Sheriff yelled as his left hand Colt came to full cock. One of the men he was after had his rifle in hand, and halfway raised: the stallion’s head started to move. Linn never remembered drawing his right hand revolver, only that his left hand Colt fired, his stallion spun under him and he fired a second round from the engraved, gold-inlaid, left-hand Colt. Part of his mind, sitting well behind his eyes, stood on the quarterdeck of a sailing-ship, wearing a Captain’s hat and watching the enemy’s ship: he heard his own voice, distant and faint, “Fire as they come to bear!” – and his left-hand Colt did just that as his stallion completed his surging turn. Linn gigged his stallion into a gallop, he dropped into a gully, stopped, turned. They’ll expect me to ride downhill, under cover, he thought. Yonder’s where they’ll expect me to come up. He turned the Palomino’s head upstream, walked him quickly, then gigged him into a jump and he was back up on the flat, a revolver in each hand, ready – One horse stood looking at him, ears swinging, the other was a quarter mile distant and still moving. Two men lay on the ground, face down. Linn holstered his unfired, right-hand revolver, kicked out the fired hulls and reloaded the other: he holstered, walked his stallion over to the watching horse, looked down. As there was a bloody hole out the back of the man’s head, he concluded there was little threat to be had from this one, and walked Rey del Sol over to the other unmoving form. The saddled gelding followed him, apparently anxious for the company. Linn swung down. Don’t see any holes out his back. “You alive?” he asked uncharitably. The other outlaw made no reply. The Sheriff squatted, picked up the dropped pistol. “Be damned,” he muttered as he checked the loads, then sniffed the muzzle: “You got a shot off!” Part of his mind reminded him his earlobe was stinging just a little. He reached up, brushed it with the back of his finger, and it came away wet and red. Well, hell, he thought, I’m gettin’ my coat bloody! He grabbed the outlaw, rolled him over, ready for an arm to punch up, ready for a close-held pistol to come to bear – The Sheriff grunted. The man’s life was soaked out into the sandy ground. One hole in, no holes out. He looked up, looked around, squinting a little against the sun’s glaring brightness. He put two fingers to his lips, whistled, a high, shimmering note, the kind that carried well in the thin, high air. He reached into a pocket and drew out a plug of molasses twist tobacker and shaved off several generous curls, bribed the dead outlaw’s horse into coming closer: once he had hands on its reins, the horse followed docilely. His whistle brought the departing equine’s head up: the Sheriff saw it coming back toward him, as he’d hoped it would. “Daddy,” Angela said, her big blue eyes wide and innocent, “did you get hurt?” Linn smiled at his little girl, squatted. “No, Princess, why would you ask that?” “Your ear’s bloody.” “Yeah, I kinda scraped it on something.” “Ow,” Angela grimaced sympathetically, then turned and looked at two carcasses bent over their saddles. She looked at her pale eyed Daddy and said skeptically, “Daddy, are you sure you’re not hurt?” Linn’s voice was gentle as he nodded. “I’m sure, Princess.” Five year old Angela Keller drew herself up to her full frilly frocked height and shook her little pink Mommy-finger at her Daddy and scolded, “Daddy, if you gets hurted real bad an’ killed, I’ll never speak to you again!” Hard men remain hard men when they are faced with danger, with enemies, with confrontation. Hard men will not infrequently melt like butter on a hot skillet when a pretty little girl shakes her little pink Mommy-finger and admonishes her Daddy in a high, sincere, little-girl voice: Sheriff Linn Keller laughed quietly, went to one knee, wrapped his little girl in a big comforting Daddy-hug and murmured gently in her little pink ear, “I’ll keep that in mind, Princess,” then she felt him change and he released her, leaned back. The Sheriff rose, his eyes hard and his voice matched his eyes. “Get out of here, now,” he said, his voice low, urgent. Angela was Daddy’s Little Girl. Angela was a blue-eyed child of the Kentucky mountains, orphaned in a train wreck. Angela had been Linn and Esther’s daughter for just over one year, and in that one year, as children often do, she was a highly observant, extremely attentive, sponge. Angela knew her Daddy’s voice and her Daddy’s hands and she knew when her Daddy said to scoot, it was time to scoot! – and she did. Her Daddy stood and her Daddy’s coat was open and Angela twisted between her Daddy and the front of the Sheriff’s office, she ran a-scamper to the end of the boardwalk and jumped, landed flat footed and ducked to the right. She was halfway down the alley before she realized she’d just heard two gunshots, sudden, shocking, slapping at her as they echoed down the alley between Digger’s funeral parlor and the Sheriff’s log fortress. Angela kept running, turned right again, skidded a little as she came to her Daddy’s little bitty stable behind the Sheriff’s office. Angela stopped, looked down the alley. A man was just falling off his horse – limp, boneless, he fell and hit the ground like a sack of sawdust and just laid there, his foot falling from the stirrup as his horse danced sideways, eyes walling. Angela ran to the mouth of the alley, looked around, then she strutted out in the middle of the street, her little pink hand extended: “Come here, horsie,” she cooed in her little-girl’s voice: “ ’Mere, horsie.” The horse’s nostrils were flared, its ears laid back, but at the approach of this little frilly creature with a gentle voice, the horse stretched its neck, snuffing loudly at the little pink hand. Angela giggled and gathered the reins in her hands, reached up and stroked the horsie’s damp pink nose, chattering quietly to it the way a fearless little girl will do. Angela was enamored with the snuffy horsie, so much so that she honestly did not see running men, curious onlookers: it wasn’t until she heard the clatter of Digger’s dead wagon that she looked up and realized the fellow who fell from the horsie was picked up from behind her, and loaded into the dead wagon. Angela looked up, all bright eyes and white teeth, smiled as Esther dipped her knees, gripped her daughter’s shoulders with motherly hands, regarded her with wide, frightened eyes. “Hi, Mommy,” Angela laughed. “I founded me a horsie!” An empty brass hull fell to the boardwalk. The Sheriff did not hear it hit through the red ringing in his ears, but he felt the impact of the brass rim hitting the weathered, warped, dusty board through his bootsole. He replaced the fired round and holstered his engraved Colt. He looked at his wife and at his little girl, and he was flat forevermore grateful that when he told her to get out of here ... she did.

A MOUNTAIN, A BLANKET, A SKY Two hands found one another: one larger and callused, the other smaller, softer. Two souls merged with this simple joining of the hands. "Mr. Keller?" Esther whispered. "Yes, Mrs. Keller?" Linn whispered back. "Mr. Keller, you are an old romantic, you know that." Sheriff Linn Keller smiled a little, just a little, the softening of his expression hidden beneath his waxed handlebar mustache and the nighttime darkness. "Specially for you," he whispered back, and felt her quick squeeze in reply. Overhead, instead of a night-dark bedroom ceiling, they beheld the blazing glory of the Universe itself. The moon was only just set; the stars, relieved of its silvery glare, blazed defiance, each competing with its neighbor for prominence. Pale eyes automatically picked out the Dipper, the North Star; he looked for that red star he'd seen now and again, and couldn't find it ... but with this many stars in view, it would be pretty hard to find anyhow. "Mr. Keller?" "Dearest?" Esther smiled, tightened her hand again: her husband was a man of short temper and mighty strength, he'd picked men up by the neck and pinned them against the side of a building just to get their attention, and he was known to donate miscreants to the nearest horse trough on occasion, and the thought of such a hard man's lips positively caressing her with the word "Dearest" send a wickedly delicious shiver through her. "Mr. Keller, what does it all mean?" Linn lay on the blanket he'd spread for himself: he'd brought up a rolled tick for his wife's recumbence, that, and another heavy blanket: he'd planned this night's outing because he remembered a night, back East, when he and his new bride lay together and stared up at the starry-decked firmament, and honestly marveled at this glorious, almost wasteful beauty, spread out for their joy and delight. "Mrs. Keller, what does all what mean?" "This," Esther whispered, staring childlike at the shining glory overhead. Linn considered the night sky, turned his head slightly, regarded its expanse, contemplated its depth. "I reckon," he said quietly, "God Almighty wants us to be happy." He rolled up on his side, laid his arm carefully across his wife's belly. "That's why He lays such beauty before us, so we can see the joy of Creation, and take that joy in each other." "Mr. Keller," Esther whispered, laying her hand on his, "are you suggesting that you have improper thoughts now that we are alone?" Esther shivered, stifled a giggle as her husband nuzzled under her jaw with his mustache, kissed the fragrant softness of her neck, just under her earlobe. "Mrs. Keller," he whispered, lifting his head and placing his lips gently on hers, "whatever gave you such an idea?" Conversation was suspended for a significant length of time afterward; a huge, black guardian and a shining-gold stallion were the only witnesses: disinterested in such human activities, they returned to their observation of the surrounding night. Marnie Keller lay on her back on a field-blanket, its insulated layers separated by a two-fingers-thick force field that served as an efficient cushion against the cold Martian sands beneath. She lay flat on her back, looking up at the incredible, star-blazing sky, made all the more brilliant by the absolutely BLACK of their background. She'd consulted the Valkyries' observations, compared relative velocities and projected trajectories, and she and her husband slipped away from their cozy quarters to come out here, onto the nighttime surface, to spread their blankets and lay side by side, holding hands, their personal protective fields merging: when they held hands, no energy barrier separated them as it otherwise would have. "What are we looking for?" John asked quietly: his voice did not go through the usual transmission protocol, but was rather air conducted. Marnie smiled just a little. "I have a surprise for you," she whispered. Dr. John Greenlees Jr rolled up on his side, laid his hand carefully splay-fingered, on his wife's belly. "Marnie," he whispered, "is there something you want to tell me?" Marnie giggled, laid her hand on his, pressed affectionately. "No, Doctor," she sighed, "in spite of your best efforts here of late, I am not with child again." She turned and smiled lasciviously at her husband. "At least not yet, you naughty boy!" John gave his wife a long look, smiled just a little, then rolled back over on his back, his hand finding hers. "I never get tired of this," Marnie sighed. "Almost nobody comes out to see the stars anymore." "Damn shame -- look!" A silver streak blazed through the thin Martian atmosphere. "Be damned," John swore softly. "I didn't know they'd --" Two more blazing silver slashes lacerated the sky above them. "Just watch," Marnie breathed, and suddenly a half-dozen, in close proximity to one another, as if a young squadron of silvery knives were trying to slice open the thin envelope of Martian atmosphere. "Marnie," John asked, his voice quietly serious, "are we in danger?" Marnie lifted her free arm, consulted a small panel on the back of her wrist, tapped the screen, sat up. "Yes we are," she said briskly. "Inside!" Husband and wife seized their insulating field-blankets, rolled over onto their knees, pushed up to their feet, sprinted awkwardly for the airlock: they usually lived and worked in one-and-a-quarter Earth gravities to keep their bodies in shape, to keep their bones from decalcifying, to prevent the agonies of kidney stones that was the consequence of calcium leaching out of the bones and into the blood (not to mention the concomitant cardiac conduction problems it caused!) -- and their adrenalized sprint, Mars-normal gravity, was awkward, stumbling and almost comical. They flattened themselves against the airlock door as Marnie slapped her palm against the Open Sesame button, they nearly fell at the door's immediate response: outside, they saw three small geysers of sandy dust as meteors hit the ground, not far from where they'd lain, watching the show overhead. Marnie Keller hugged her husband, let her field blanket hit the floor: it rolled up automatically, waited patiently for someone to step on it or trip over it, as it usually did: John tossed his atop his wife's, and the two tight-rolled survival tools lay side by side as husband and wife hugged each other and laughed. John kissed his wife, picked her up, hoist her to eye level: like his father, John Jr was tall and lean, and Marnie giggled, for her big strong Daddy used to pick her up when she was a little girl, and he'd draw her in close and twiddle his handlebar mustache against her nose, and she'd giggle. "John," Marnie smiled, her pale eyes level with his hazel orbs, "have you ever thought of growing a mustache?"

BOOKMARK "William." "Yes, sir?" "William, would you read tonight, please." "Yes, sir." "The place is marked." "Yes, sir." William took his father's Bible, turned a little and sat, so as to get the best light across the page. William looked up at his father. "Second Kings, sir?" Jacob closed his eyes, rocking a little, the youngest curled up on his lap, cuddled into his shirt front: he nodded, just a little, his arms protectively around a blanket wrapped infant, and William wished he had one of those camera things he'd heard about, for this moment -- where his Pa had that quiet smile -- was something he wished to remember forever. William opened the Book, looked at the bookmark. It was grey wool, and quite old: rectangular, neatly hemmed at the edges, and in the center, what looked like a bullet hole. He'd seen it a thousand time and more -- at least, his eyes beheld it -- but he never really saw it. He looked up at his Pa and saw Jacob's eyes were on him, those knowing eyes of a father who remembered what it was to be young. "There is a question in your eyes," Jacob said quietly. "Yes, sir." Annette smiled a little, rocking as she sewed: there were always repairs to be made, and though the hired girl did an outstanding job, Annette worked hard to keep a proper household for her husband, for her family: she had a sock on a darning egg and was busy weaving a repair across the hole. Her fingers knew the work; she looked up at her son, at her husband, with the knowing eyes of a wife, of a mother, who knew that Second Kings was going to be somewhat delayed. "That used to be part of a blanket that belonged to your Granddad," Jacob explained, his voice gentle, reassuring, for the infant he held was asleep, or near to it. "Sir?" Jacob smiled, just a little, as he rocked, slowly, thoughtfully. "Pa was headed West. He'd been in that damned War, he'd been a lawman back East, he'd got the Fiddle Foot" -- Jacob looked at his wife, who smiled indulgently: her brother had the Fiddle Foot, and never stayed in one place more than a couple of months -- "when he finally told a dirty little Kansas town he'd not be cheated out of his pay, he knocked the Dog Stuffing out of Mayor and Council, he took his wages from the Mayor's wallet -- I think there was the small matter of having smacked the man across the back of the head with a chair or something of the kind --" Jacob managed to look innocent as he described the event -- "your Granddad always did have a way of getting his ideas, understood." William smiled, then grinned. "Yes, sir," he agreed, "he still does!" "You mean the horse trough thing?" Jacob chuckled. "I reckon he give that young fellow a bath so he'd not get so hot under the collar as to set his hair afire!" "Yes, sir." "Now about that blanket." "Yes, sir?" "That good old blanket ..." Jacob's voice trailed off and he got a distant look about him, as if he was looking at a memory, and William waited, knowing his Pa was likely looking at something through his own father's eyes. "Pa had damn little when he come West. I don't recall if he'd found gold in that streambed yet or not. I do know he was asleep under that same blanket when some fellow snuck up and tried to steal his Sam-horse." William frowned a little. Horse theft was a serious matter, and he'd seen men hung for the crime. "Your Grampa fetched up his Navy colt and fired one shot." "Yes, sir?" "Trouble was, 'twas under the blanket yet when he fired." "Yes, sir?" "He did not miss, William, but he was distressed that he'd set his blanket afire." "Sir?" "Oh, it didn't catch fire, wool doesn't burn easy at all, but that much smoke under a wool blanket would likely look like 'twas a-smolder somethin' fierce!" "Don't get any ideas," Annette cautioned her son as she saw an idea dance across his young eyes. "No ma'am," William replied, his ears reddening, which told the perceptive Annette that their son did indeed have thoughts of replicating the event as an experiment, to see just how smokey such a blanket would look. "That blanket got kind of thin and worn with time," Jacob continued, rocking slowly, gently, the weight of their sleeping infant warm and reassuring on his front, in his arms. "It got cut apart and re-used, re-sewn -- you recall how your Mama split that worn bedsheet and sewed the sides together to form the new center." "Yes, sir." "Your Granddad is a thrifty man, William. He wastes nothing. He's known privation and he's known a slim pocketbook. He's still that way. I reckon if he was rich as them steel barons back East, he'd be just as thrifty." "Yes, sir." "That bookmark" -- Jacob nodded toward the open Book -- "is about all that's left of that blanket. That, and an oiled gunrag I keep in my office." William grinned, slowly, broadly, for he remembered using that selfsame oily rag for that very purpose. William considered the bookmark, frowned a little, looked up at his Pa. "Sir, is there a significance to tonight's reading?" "There is, William." Jacob looked at his wife, who gave him a warning look. "You see, not long after your Mama and I took up house keepin' -- you probably don't remember, but you were ringbearer at our weddin', and your little sister was flower girl --" "JACOB!" Annette hissed, shocked. "Well, maybe that ain't quite what happened," Jacob said innocently. "No, y'see, shortly after we taken up housekeepin' an bein' man and wife, I asked her why I ought to be doin' dishes, y'see." Jacob gave his wife an innocent look as she hefted the darning egg, clearly debating whether she could bounce it off his skull without hitting their sleeping child. "Your Mama is an educated woman, and she knows her Scripture. She quoted me from Second Kings when I asked why I'd ought to be doin' them supper dishes, and she quoted from the Book. You'll find it right there directly, that part where God says He will wipe Jerusalem like a man washes a bowl, wipes it out with a rag and turns it over." Annette resumed her darning, rocking as she did: something went *pop!* in their cast iron stove, and William paged forward a little, scanning, stopped, smiled. "William, if that old book mark passes itself on to your hands, remember where it came from." "Yes, sir." "And remember that God said men-folk can warsh dishes too." William grinned, chuckled quietly. "Yes, sir." He looked at the open page, began to read.

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED Mr. Baxter waited until the Hard Hand of Doom descended on two boys’ shoulders. “You boys,” the Sheriff said quietly, “oughtn’t try that.” The two were caught, and fairly so: they’d tried cutting up barbershop trimmin’s short and with paste and subterfuge, tried fabricating some facial hair in an effort to patronize the bar. “Now was I to run you boys in,” the Sheriff continued quietly, “I’d have to turn you over to your Pa’s custody. How do you reckon he’d like hearin’ you were expected in court for a case you’d not win?” Two boys felt all hope drain out of their very marrow. “Tell you what.” Two boys dared not breathe, let alone move. “I might let you both go if you’d do somethin’ for me.” Two pale, sweating boys with hair stuck to their faces, assented. “I might need a favor sometime. ‘Ginst I do, I’ll let ye know. Deal?” Two boys nodded; their dual “Yes, sir’s” hovered in the air behind them as they fled down the hallway, past Daisy’s kitchen and out the back door. Sheriff William Keller looked up at Mr. Baxter, grinned that contagious grin this young Mr. Baxter remembered seeing on William’s pa’s face, back when William’s father Jacob was still Sheriff. “Boys,” Mr. Baxter sighed, shaking his head and polishing the bar. “Don’t they realize drink’s been outlawed?” “God help us,” William muttered. “Prohibition will be the ruin of us all!” “Tell your wife I do admire her piano playin’,” Mr. Baxter called as the Sheriff strolled to the front of the saloon, and out the front doors: he nodded to a pair of well dressed strangers: “Gentlemen.” Mr. Baxter looked up as the pair came in, looked around, looked pointedly at the nearly empty shelves behind the bar. “What do you have for two thirsty travelers?” one asked. Mr. Baxter considered these two strangers in suits and Fedoras, two men who were obviously more at home in the big city than clear out here. Mr. Baxter looked left, looked right, leaned closer and said quietly, “I rigged up a little pump to run good cold wellwater in a tub.” “Oh?” He winked. “Been cooling a couple bottles, if you’re interested.” The two strangers looked at one another, looked at the pomaded barkeep. “Sounds like just what we want.” Mr. Baxter reached under the bar, picked up a bottle – it was an old-fashioned, heavy-glass bottle, with a wire bail and cork arrangement – he brought down a tall glass, another: they heard a *pop* and the hissing gurgle of something carbonated being decanted. Mr. Baxter straightened, placed two brimming glasses on the gleaming mahogany bar. Two men looked at one another, picked up their glass, took a drink. They both recoiled, surprised. “Sarsaparilla!” one exclaimed, as the other swallowed, coughed, grimaced. “Good and cold, too,” Mr. Baxter nodded. “Nothing but the best for men of your quality!” “I was hoping for a beer,” came the disappointed response. “Wouldn’t we all,” Mr. Baxter sighed. The Silver Jewel was barely making expenses with the restaurant trade, thanks to the railroad and the nearby mines; Mr. Baxter waited until the pair were gone, until after he dropped their coin in the till and muttered, “Damned dry dicks!” “Revenue agents?” William asked, and Mr. Baxter jumped: “Jehosophat, Sheriff, don’t sneak up on a man like that!” William grinned again: “Yeah, but I’m good at it!” “Yeah, they were Revenuers, all right. Thought they’d found me out until they took a good cold slug of genuine high powered Sarsaparilla!” “Did they say where they were headed next?” “Nope. Didn’t see which way they went, either.” “They headed on toward Carbon Hill.” Sheriff William Keller paused, leaned across the bar a little and said quietly, “I let Carbon know, too!” Michael Keller stood in his Pa’s study and took a long, thoughtful look at a pair of framed portraits. Both were of truly beautiful women. He knew one was his Gammaw: she wore her usual tailored suit dress and heels, she was standing in her office, under the framed revolver Michael remembered hanging there, when he’d visit his Pa in that selfsame office. He looked at the portrait beside, that of another genuinely beautiful woman. This one wore a floor length gown, her hair was elaborately atop her head instead of Marine-short like his Gammaw. Michael knew this was the legendary Sarah Lynne McKenna, the justly famous Black Agent. Like most children that grow up looking at something every day and every day, he took the two portraits for granted: he looked at them, but didn’t really see them, and as sometimes happens, he stood and studied one, then the other, and genuinely saw them, probably for the first time. He’d honestly never appreciated just how identical the two of them were. He compared them to his mental image of Marnie. He felt the edge of his Pa’s desk. Michael carefully orbited, backwards, around the rim of his Pa’s solid old desk, found the high, padded back of his Pa’s chair, drew it out, sat. His pale eyes never left the two portraits. Michael frowned, considered, applied all the young knowledge he had on the subject, and came up dry. A quiet voice behind his right shoulder said “If you think too hard, your hair will catch fire.” “Hi, Marnie.” Michael smelled sunshine and lilac water and felt a familiar hand grip his young shoulder. “Your father is working on a puzzle.” “He’ll figure it out,” Michael said proudly. “I know he will. He always does.” “You’re puzzling over something too.” “Marnie, are you a ghost?” Feminine laughter, light, delicate, hands gripped his shoulders, massaged him through his heavy denim vest: “Does this feel like a ghost?” “Marnie, how come you and Gammaw and Sarah all look alike enough to be clones?” The hands stopped massaging, gripped him gently instead. “I don’t know, Michael. God’s honest truth, I don’t know.” “The Parson said reincarnation’s not real.” “He might be right.” “Then how come there’s so many examples of it?” “That,” came the soft-voice reply, close up behind his ear, “is for wiser heads than my own.” “Pa and Jacob and Old Pale Eyes, and there’s a couple more –” “I know. Remarkable, isn’t it?” “Pa said someone with a big black horse got that trucker out of there just before the thing blew up on ‘em. He doesn’t know who it was and that’s eatin’ at him.” “Your father doesn’t like puzzles.” “No.” Michael frowned. “Sometimes a puzzle can’t be solved.” “Don’t tell Pa. He’ll hammer at it until he does.” He heard the familiar, feminine sigh behind him. “Your father sounds so very much like Papa.” Michael frowned, surprised, turned. He was alone. “Marnie!” he exclaimed, annoyed, then movement at the corner of his vision: he turned, looked out the window, saw a pale eyed woman in a McKenna gown astride a truly huge horse, smiling at him as she walked her horse past the pane. Michael was out of his father’s high back office chair like a shot: he scrambled for the front door, yanked it open – Nothing – He drew back, shut the door, went to the window, looked again, then returned to his father’s padded, high back office chair, sat. He looked at the portraits again, looked out the window, looked back. “Pa,” he said aloud, “isn’t the only one that doesn’t like puzzles!”

I've also developed a fondness for Anna Lapwood -- she's a British artist, in the finest sense of the word, and she makes the biggest pipe organ in the WORLD sit up and talk! I thought I was genuinely Hot Stuff, playing first chair French horn, UNTIL I SAW ANNA LAPWOOD RUNNING AN ORGAN ... ... suddenly my skill level seemed more like drunken honking on a harmonica, compared with hers!