[SHORT STORIES!]

708. GRANDMA ECKSENKEMPER

 

Rich folks had maids, he reckoned, everyone else had a girl.

She was never "The Hired Girl," she was just "The Girl," and most times nobody bothered with her name, not unless they weren't happy with her, kind of like your Mama callin' you by your full given Christian name and maybe a few more throwed in if she was really irritated.

He knowed everyone else just called her "The Girl" but he considered that poor manners.

His wife was taken ill and he'd done his best to care for her, he'd run their little spread and he'd knuckled his hands raw on attair warsh board, he'd fixed the meals an' tended fences and fell into bed exhausted and he'd got up when she had a need and he'd got his ailin' wife cleaned up when 'twas needful, and if it warn't for that long tall pale eyed lawman, why, he'd likely have wore hisself out tryin' to tend his wife an' every'thing else.

The girl's name was Elsie Ecksenkemper and she was from back East: she'd had some fallin' out with her own family, or so he'd heard, she'd come West with equal parts distress and determination and somehow she'd fell in with that pale eyed Sheriff and his good lookin' wife, and somehow or 'nother why, she'd figured attair Elsie girl might be a help to him.

Attair good lookin' wife of attair long tall Sheriff was right.

 

Esther Keller looked approvingly at a serious-faced rancher and a much younger woman.

She'd arranged their meeting; she knew the rancher's wife was not well, and Esther Keller was a woman with a knowing way about her.

Her pale eyed husband considered, but kept his own counsel, when Esther came into the Sheriff's office, took the newly arrived Eastern girl by her gloved hands, and just plainly took over.

This was a relief to the Sheriff.

When a strange woman, an attractive younger woman, presents herself to the Sheriff, lays out her situation and asks his advice, it can be just a little uncomfortable: when this laying-out of facts, and the advice sought is shared between two women, things tend to go a bit easier.

Sheriff Linn Keller was content to allow his organized, businesslike wife take over: he did not know for two days that she'd introduced the girl to Polite Society, that she'd arranged for the girl's employment, that she'd taken the girl out to the ranch she recommended, and he didn't know until a day after that, that the rancher's wife approved of the young woman's presence.

Esther Keller was a Wales of the family Wales, from the Carolinas: they were prosperous plantation owners, they'd come from Ireland, they'd made their way by dint of hard work and honesty, at least until That Damned War destroyed so very much, and the plantation was no more.

Esther maintained her position of gentility, she'd followed her niece West, where she met the man she knew would be her husband: the moment she lay eyes on the scarred man with the iron grey mustache, she knew he was her husband, even if he didn't know it yet.

Esther Keller could look at a woman and know the moment she carried new life, she would know if it was a boy-child or a girl-child, she could see death in a man's face, and she knew, with this preternatural knowing that was at once her gift, and her curse, that this rancher had need of this hired girl.

Linn knew Esther visited the ranch a number of times, that she and the rancher's wife sat and talked long through the day.

He did not know what they talked about, and perhaps that is for the best.

 

Esther and Bonnie sat together in Esther's office, above the Silver Jewel, and spoke of matters of interest and of importance, and Esther asked if she'd met the Ecksenkemper girl out at Huntington's ranch.

Bonnie gave her old and dear friend an interested look: Esther tended to steer a conversation in the direction it needed to go.

"I have not," she said carefully, "are introductions in order?"

Esther smiled quietly.  "I believe you may be approached for proper attire."

Bonnie raised an eyebrow.  She knew what it was to lose a husband, she'd known dirty deals from her own family, and she'd seen gold-digging wenches try to wreck a marriage so they could pick up tasty crumbs afterward.

"Carla is dying."

Bonnie blinked again, this time in surprise: she lowered her teacup to its saucer, placed them on the little table at her elbow.

"I've seen how her husband takes care of her, Bonnie.  The man is a gem, and a prize. The new girl will make a fine wife for such a man."

"Won't that be a bit ... sudden?" Bonnie asked cautiously.

"No."  Esther sipped her tea, smiled gently.  "He knows on some level that she is dying. He's not the kind that should remain alone."

"I see."

"Elsie Ecksenkemper has already seen how much the man cares for his wife, how hard he's working to care for her. She's already considered that he'll make a fine husband."

"Will he care for this stranger?" 

Bonnie's every instinct caused her to tread cautiously in this matter:  Esther seemed so certain of what she was saying, and Bonnie knew this was all rather sudden.

"She's become part of the household already, and he's gotten the first night's rest he's had in far too long.  He's seen how she cares for his wife, he's realized that -- should he take sick -- she will tend him in the same manner, and she's seen that he can tend her as he's tended his own wife."

Esther lifted her head, as if hearing a distant hail:  she closed her eyes, took a long breath, bowed her head, her shoulders rounding a little, as if from a terrible weight.

"Esther?" Bonnie asked:  she leaned forward, laid a concerned hand on her dear friend's shoulder.

"Carla," Esther whispered, looked up at Bonnie.  "She's gone."

Somehow Bonnie was not at all surprised that Esther knew this.

 

The wedding was a month after the funeral, and none there thought this untoward.

The Parson spoke of a woman as an help meet, he spoke of the husband as the strong right hand of the wedded union: he said the usual things a sky pilot says in such moments, and neither bride nor groom heard anything except only the "Dearly Beloved," and the "... man and wife, you may kiss the bride."

In later conversation, they would both admit -- with prompting -- that yes, they did recall the Parson admonishing gently to "look at one another, you're marrying one another, you're not marrying me" -- which got a chuckle from the assembled -- and they smiled as they remembered his adding, "Besides, you two are both better looking than I am!"

And so it was that Elsie Ecksenkemper, a girl from back East who left home after a disagreement with her own family, came West, found work the same day she stepped off the train, held a hard working rancher as he wept over his wife's box, and married him just under a month later.

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller smiled a little as she read Elsie's story.

One of the Dillon girls did her research and wrote of her several times removed grandmother, and published it in the school newspaper.

Willamina filed the story away in the archives in the Firelands museum, and she later met Parson Belden at the Silver Jewel for lunch:  I understand they spoke of weddings, and the things that happen at weddings, and they shared a quiet laugh as he told her about couples that could not remember anything about the service itself, unless he made a joke about their looking at one another instead of him, and Willamina nodded and laughed and said something about nothing new under the sun.

 

[SHORT STORIES!]

707. THE MAN'S HARD AS NAILS

"I hear tell he's a snake with a sixgun."

Horses' hooves muffled on the grass alongside the dirt roadway.

"Yep."

"Hell with a knife, so I been told."

The other looked into the distance, shivered: he knew what it was to face honed steel, he'd seen the ill effects of a hard swung blade, more times than he wanted to remember.

"He is that."

Saddle leather creaked; bits jingled; the horses were content to walk, the riders were content to let them: neither had any particular place to go, and neither was in any particular hurry to get there.

"You reckon that Silver Jewel t' have beer?"

"If they don't," his saddle partner drawled, "I will be disappointed."

They looked at one another and laughed.

 

A little girl laughed, following a butterfly: the insect bounced on the breeze and the child bounced in pursuit, waving her pink little fingers in a vain attempt to catch the creature.

She followed for more of a distance than she realized, and when the butterfly disappeared, she stopped, put an uncertain finger to the corner of her mouth: she looked around, realized that absolutely nothing looked familiar.

A pretty little girl turned clear around, feeling even more confused, and more lost, and she did probably the best thing she could in that moment.

She sat down and started to cry.

 

Sheriff Linn Keller did not move.

He may as well have been a living statue on the back of his stallion; there was no reach for the reins, no lean-back in the saddle, no quiet "Ho, now, ho, boy," there was nothing, and yet the stallion halted, knowing that's what his rider wanted.

Linn frowned, turned his head slightly, looked down at his stallion's ears.

Linn looked down, on either side of the shining gold horse, turned and looked behind: he frowned, a little, considering he'd give a good percentage of a week's pay to have The Bear Killer alongside him right about now, for he'd heard something he didn't quite recognize.

Rey del Sol did.

The stallion started walking, and Linn let him.

 

"The man's long and tall and he's lean around the middle."

"Hell, ain't neither of us fat!"

"Yeah, but what he ain't got in gut he's got in muscle, an' he don't look it!"

"What, he ain't muscled up?"

"He ain't no circus weight lifter, if that's what you're askin'!"

"I seen one them fellers once."

"Do tell!"

"Oh ya, he was wearin' a leopard fur acrost him an' a pair of black slippers an' he was pickin' up big black cast iron weights that had ONE TON painted on 'em!"

"Was they big enough to weigh a ton?"

A look, a snort:  "Nowhere near," he replied quietly, and the two laughed again.

"You reckon attair Sheriff could lift a ton?"

"I reckon attair town marshal could! Why, that Jackson Cooper can take a wagon tongue and twist it in two barehand! I heard tell he picks up attair blacksmith's anvil at the livery and packs it off just t' listen to th' hostler holler!"

The two saddle tramps laughed again, drew up as they topped a small rise in the dirt road.

"You reckon attair is Firelands?"

"I'd say it has to be."
"How's that?"

"Why, look at it!  It's too clean to be anyplace else! Why, I c'n smell wet paint from here!"

 

Sheriff Linn Keller tilted his head a little.

Rey del Sol stopped, ears forward, listening to something very distinctly out of place.

Pale eyes narrowed a little and a lean waisted man with an iron grey mustache swung down out of the saddle, walked up on the source of the noise.

 

"You figger attair pale eyed lawman has a kind bone in his body?"

"I don't reckon."

"I heard tell he picked a man up by the throat and held 'im off the ground til he strangled an' then he dunked 'im in the horse trough an' drowned 'im!"

"I'd not doubt it a bit."

 

Linn pulled a kerchief from his sleeve, wiped the wet from a red-cheeked little girl's face: he pinched cloth over a cute little nose and said "Blow," and the little girl closed her eyes and blew.

"That's m'girl," Linn murmured, carefully and gently wiping a distressed little child's snot box.  "Now how come a pretty lady like you is cryin' on a lovely day like this?"

The little girl in the flour sack dress sniffed, looked hopefully at the lawman with the light blue eyes and said in a small voice, "I miss my Mama."

"Well, darlin'," Linn said, picking the child up, hunkering down on his heels and setting her on his thigh, "I reckon we'd ought to find her."

The child nodded solemnly and said, "My Mama's lost."

Linn nodded slowly.  "We know where you are," he agreed, "and we don't know where your Mama is."

She nodded, then she frowned and shook her head, then she looked at the Sheriff and shrugged.

"Tell you what, darlin'," Linn said in a quiet, gentle Daddy-voice, "if you can tell me your Mama's name, I reckon we can find her."

 

Two men, dusty and dry from a long ride in the high country, thanked the barkeep and raised their mugs, took an appreciative sip, letting the welcome coolness slide down their throats:  most of that first swallow got soaked into dry tissues before it hit their bellies.

They looked around, half expecting that hard-handed lawman to come scowling through the Saloon, kicking men out of the way and crushing tables and chairs rather than walk around them.

Two men left the Saloon, saddled up, continued out of town, a little disappointed that they didn't lay eyes on this short tempered giant of a man.

That short tempered giant of a man handed a delighted little girl to a distressed mother, his expression little changed at the delighted "Mama!" and the mother's expression of relief.

He touched his hat brim and turned, mounted, hands on his thighs, bitless reins knotted and dropped over the saddlehorn: the stallion started to pace, long-legged and swift, into the gathering dark, as a little girl waved a chubby hand and called, "'Bye, horsie!"

[SHORT STORIES!]

706. I DIDN'T GO

Retired Sheriff Willamina Keller looked up as her front door opened.

Sheriff Linn Keller stepped inside, wiped his feet, hung his dress Stetson on his usual peg.

Willamina took in her son's appearance, reading several things with one motherly glance: he looked deflated, tired, irritated and satisfied, not necessarily in that order, and of course he looked really handsome in his hand tailored Western cut suit.

Perhaps "Western cut suit" would be a misnomer.

It was the current modern age, or near enough to it; Linn's suit was indeed Western cut -- it would be a properly tailored suit in Firelands County, Colorado, in the year of our Lord 1885.

In that respect we can more correctly recognize his style as that of a Western man, with his soul well rooted in the past.

Willamina could recognize her son had need of a sit-down, and the loan of a friendly ear; mothers know these things, and she did, for her son was much like her husband had been, rest his soul.

Willamina dove a sharp-edged spatula between fresh-baked cinnamon rolls, neatly guillotining them apart; she slid two on a plate, two on another plate, poured coffee for them both.

Linn came on in the kitchen, gripped the high back of a wooden kitchen chair with what she knew were honest calluses, took a long breath, shoulders rising with the effort.

"How was the funeral?" Willamina asked.

Linn looked at his Mama, then straightened, threw his shoulders back, lifted his chin.

"I didn't go."

Willamina raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

Linn's face almost smiled: Willamina knew she'd just reached in under his wishbone and tickled him, deep inside: her question asked more, commented more, than the simple word would indicate.

Willamina knew that Big Marc was a good and trusted friend for many years, and when Big Marc's father finally died of lung cancer -- five days after Marc's grandfather died of old age and lead poisoning from a career as a painter, back in the bad old days, when lead based paint was the rule and not the exception -- Linn went over, fully expecting to bear the dead man's huckle, as he'd done for the grandfather.

"Marc asked me not to come to the funeral," Linn admitted.

"Sit," Willamina said, equal parts command and motherly invitation.

Linn sat.

"Now."  Willamina planted her elbows on either side of her plate, the fragrances of fresh brewed coffee and fresh baked cinnamon rolls rising to mingle most pleasantly under her tented fingertips.

"Why did he not want you at the funeral?"

Linn hunched over a little, frowning at his coffee: he reached over, picked up the genuine antique milk pitcher, popped off the plastic cap and dispensed a careful trickle from the plastic jug -- he turned the handle to face his pale eyed Mama, set the milk jug where she could reach it easily.

"He said that the dead man's house is a favorite target for those scoundrels who read the obits. They'll break into the dead house knowing everyone's at the funeral."
"He's right.  They do."

"I know. I figured he'd have house sitting covered."

"He didn't?"

"He did, but half the coverage didn't show up."

"I see."

"One uncle from out of the area was there. City man, the call-the-police kind. Chicken."

"Chicken?" Willamina echoed, hiding a smile behind her coffee mug.

Linn planted one elbow, then the other, firmly enough his coffee rippled a little with each impact: he steepled his fingers as well, tilted his head back, glared at the junction of ceiling and wall with an intensity that should have blasted a hole through wallboard, logs, chinking and whatever else managed to accumulate in the thick walls over the century and more the house had stood.

"Chicken," Linn repeated, interlacing his fingers, leaning his mustache in against his overlapped fingers, looking very directly at his Mama.

"He kind of hurt my feelin's," Linn admitted, "until he said he wanted me to house sit, and why."

"And then?"

"You couldn't have pried me out of that house with two draft horses and a keg of blasting powder."

"I see."

"His uncle and I set in the parlor, looking at his father's collection of 78s -- I never knew the man was such an audiophile -- and sure enough, someone came driving up real slow, then stopped in front of the house."

"Stopped in front of the house."

"Casing the joint."  Linn's voice was quiet, but Willamina picked up the hostile undertone, and she knew something happened, something that made her son unhappy.

It was not wise to make her son unhappy, she reflected: he was a patient and longsuffering man, moreso than other men, which is a very good trait for a lawman, and especially a Sheriff ... but every man has his limits, and when it came to family and to friends, to those in whom he invested his trust, those limits could be reached rather quickly.

Something told her his limits were reached in very short order.

"I looked out the window and I picked up his Pa's long barrel double gun."

"I remember that gun," Willamina said softly.  "He was quite the wingshot.  Choked full and full, as I recall."

"It was," Linn agreed, "and as it stood by the door, I had it stoked with #4 buck."

"Nice dense shot swarm," Willamina murmured.  "Good choice."

"For a full and full, I thought so."

"You picked up the double gun."

Linn chuckled a little, took another long breath, looked up.

"His chicken uncle looked at me and turned white to his lips.  I though he was going to grow feathers and cluck."

Willamina smiled, nodded.

"He stammered something about calling the police."

"And?"

"I stepped out on the front porch with that double gun across my arm."

"You stepped out on the porch."

"Yes ma'am."

"And then what?"

"And then I did nothing."

"Nothing?"

"No, ma'am," he said quietly.  "I just stepped out and stood there."

Willamina could see her son -- long, tall, black suit and Stetson low over pale eyes, glaring.

She'd seen him do such before.

She'd seen him face down a mob, one time, in that exact pose, with a double twelve bore in the bend of his elbow, held across his body: one man, in the middle of the street, polished Wellington boots on either side of the painted center line:  tall, lean, still, unmoving.

Death, in Wellington boots.

"I stepped out on that porch," Linn said, "and I looked at those fellows in that car."

"Did you recognize the car?"

"I did not, ma'am, but I have a BOLO out on their plate."

"What did they do?"

"They burned off several miles' worth of rubber and they left in one hell of a hurry."

"What happened then?"

"I went back inside."

"What did Uncle Chicken say?"

"He stood up and scolded me."

Willamina's eyes widened.

"HE scolded YOU?"

Linn's eyes were veiled: he slid his chair back, carefully, silently, stood.

"Yes, ma'am," he said.  "He said I should have called the police instead of taking the law into my own hands."

Willamina's face was darkening: she was trying hard not to laugh -- credit where credit is due, she was honestly trying not to laugh -- and she managed to gasp out, "Linn, what did you do?"

"I walked up to the man, Mama.  I walked quickly and I shoved my belly into his and I turned my lapel over" -- he reached up, turned over the lapel Willamina herself had hand stitched -- "and I said "The police have no jurisdiction here.  We're out of town, this is the Sheriff's bailiwick."

"What did he say?"

"I instructed him to read the badge, Mama."

"Did he?"

"He looked at it and he looked at me."

"And?"

"I said 'Read it out loud, mister.  Read it, out loud, right now, so we'll both know you've actually read it."

"Did he?"

"He did, Mama."

"And?"

"He started to back up so I kept him backing up until he come to a chair and collapsed in it."
"I see."

"I told him not to ever tell me how to run my county and never tell another man how to manage his business."

"And then?"

"We both set down, Mama.  Neither of us said one word more, not until the funeral dinner finished up and everyone came home."

Willamina rose, came around the table:  Linn ran his arm around his Mama, and his Mama ran her arm around her son.

Willamina patted her son on the chest, gave him an approving look.

"Proud of you," she said, and Linn gathered her carefully into his arms ... carefully, as if she were fine china, and he was fearful of breaking her.

Linn hugged his Mama, rested his cheek on top of her head and murmured, "Thank you, Mama.  That means a great deal to me."

 

 

[SHORT STORIES!]

705. I HAVE AN EXTRA

Dr. John Greenlees, Jr, physician and surgeon, was as quiet and reserved a man as his father, Dr. John Greenlees: both men were lean, tall, slender fingered, not given to excessive conversation, nor to egregious displays of public emotion.

It was therefore notable when Dr. John Greenlees, Jr., came sprinting into the common area at the top of his lungs, delight on his face and triumph in his voice: men's hands were firm on his shoulders, there were hearty backslaps, delighted handshakes, broad grins and laughter, and certain distilled spirits that were never intended for the Second Martian Colony were dispensed, consumed, raised in toast and sluiced down delighted throats.

Two years after their colony was attacked, after his children were killed from enemy decompression, Dr. John Greenlees raised his hands for silence: the common area was cafeteria, stage, gymnasium, meeting room and town square: a planning committee, two engineering groups, one class and a variety of loafers halted their agendas, raised curious heads to hear their triumphant medicine man do something they'd never known before.

Dr. John Greenlees threw his head back and screamed "EEYAAAHOOO!"

The moment was captured and reproduced for their local newspaper -- so called because "newsplastic" didn't sound that good -- and the image of Dr. John Greenlees, physician and surgeon, hands fisted and arms upflung, head back and eyes squeezed shut, in mid-shout, in his moment of triumph and delight, was snipped from recycled plastic sheets and attached to a variety of bulletin boards, walls and scrapbooks.

He lowered his hands, accepted a short, recycled-plastic cup of Liquid Sledgehammer, distilled from potatoes and what grains could be sprouted and ground, he declared with an uncharacteristic and very broad grin, "TWINS! BY THE LORD HARRY, TWINS!"

There was a roar of approval, men and women alike pounded table tops with delighted palms, voices male and female rose in approving shouts, until Doc downed his libation, slammed the flimsy little cup back down on the recycled plastic bar, raised his hands again, stilling the din for further announcement.

"Is it yours or did you deliver a pair?" a woman's voice called from a rear rank.

"It's Marnie," Doc shouted with a grin.  "She's just given birth, a boy and a girl again!"

Miners are a rough bunch, in any era:  they rushed Doc, they seized the man, they hoist him to shoulder height, held him up with rough-handed and coarse-voiced approval: that day, in the common area, a most happy confusion reigned, a celebration that among them was a man of such potency of loins, that he sired his young in litters!

 

Sheriff Linn Keller bent and kissed his wife's damp lips, caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers.

Shelly smiled at him, squeezed his hand.

"Dearest?" she whispered.

"Yes?" he whispered back.

Marnie regarded her Mommy and Daddy from across the bed from her Daddy, watching how the two interacted, learning how she was supposed to behave when she gave birth.

Marnie reached up, caressed  her husband's cheek with gentle fingertips, ran her hand around the back of his neck, pulled her face into his.

"If you ever touch me again, you lustful beast, I will twist your head off and kick it down the highway!"

 

Sheriff Linn Keller twisted his iron grey mustache, grinned at his old friend.

"Doc," he said quietly, laying a hand on Dr. John Greenlees' shoulder, "you've a fine pair there."

Dr. John Greenlees nodded, looked at his friend and colleague, Dr. George Flint, who regarded the pair with impassive eyes:  Dr. Flint turned, handed Dr. Greenlees a pair of silver dollars.

"Belly binders," he said quietly.

Dr. Greenlees nodded.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Linn opened his hand, chuckled as he looked at the pair of silver dollars in his own grip.

"Beat me to it," he sighed, then reached over and slid them into the physician's waistcoat pocket.  "Here, Doc.  Give 'em to whoever you deliver next."

The nurse came out, a bundled baby in each arm.

"Your wife," she said briskly, "sends her greetings, and her sincere wish that you should never touch her again, othewise she says she will skin you alive with a dull spoon and then she intends to become rather more unpleasant."

The nurse managed to look innocent as she delivered the message, dipped her knees, handed the newborn twins to their father, and returned to her patient's room.

"That sounds like my Susan," Doc sighed, looking from one little baby to another:  he frowned, looked at the Sheriff.  "Want one?  I've got an extra!"

Linn laughed, shook his head.  "Doc, if I had my druthers, I'd sire a whole regiment of young, but no, those are yours and I'll not deprive ye!"

Linn looked at the closed door.

"I reckon these two might want their Mama. What say we take 'em in and they we make our escape. I heard tell the Silver Jewel has some antiseptic ain't been drunk yet!"  He gave Doc his very best Innocent Expression.  "For medicinal purposes only!"

 

Linn Keller stood in the Silver Jewel, stared at the mystery to be found in the bottom of a glass of amber sledgehammer.

Old Pale Eyes stood in the Silver Jewel, stared at the same mystery.

It's quite possible both men stood in the same boot prints, separated by time alone.

Both lawmen hoist and drank: in their turn, to their own progeny, and in other time, to the young sired by friends and neighbors. 

Both men saluted, and were saluted, and again the salute was to those men of such prepotency of loins, that they sired their young in litters!

[The Aussie Humour Thread]

On 8/3/2022 at 8:21 PM, Buckshot Bear said:

Devils on Horseback were high culture at an Aussie get together

 

We use little bitty weenies, wrapped in bacon, spear them with a toothpick and drive the toothpick into a slice of water chestnut for a flat base.

Bake at 350 for a half hour.

Remove from oven, baste with a ketchup-and-brown-sugar mixture, give it another ten minutes in the oven.

Great favorite for get togethers!

These, though, will bear a try!

[SHORT STORIES!]

704. DANCE WITH ME

It smelled of perfume, of cologne, of nervous bodies, of beef and gravy and beer: it was the annual Firelands High School class reunion, and for Willamina, it was a milestone, for it was her 40th. 

She wore a delighted smile and a flowing, knee-length dress, she wore a name tag with hername, her high school graduation photo and a rosebud corsage: there was much good talk, there was much laughter, there was a DJ, hired for the occasion, who did his best imitation of a big city radio jock, and didn't quite succeed; a cake with purple and white lettering (quite nicely done, actually!) and the usual squeals of "Oh my Gawd!" and "You haven't changed!" and "Well, I wasn't always this fat!"

Friends, acquaintances and memories mingled under the rental hall's rough hewn beams.

The more adventurous, danced fast, the more romantic (or arthritic) danced slow, when music permitted.

Everyone filed through the buffet, their plates were duly loaded with their choice of beef or chicken, of taters and gravy, of corn or green beans; the rolls were commercially made (and too small) and some dedicated idiot had little tear open packages of what passed for ... well, it said something about being a spread, and that's about all it did well: if it tried to imitate butter, it failed miserably; it only marginally resembled margarine, and indeed had the consistency and all the taste of a poor grade of gear grease.

The alumni ate, with a good appetite, and of course there were those who chose to dine well and wine wisely, and those who dined wisely but wined themselves very well indeed.

To Linn's relief, there were no alcohol fueled hostilities.

There was a disagreement: a married couple, one of whom was loaded to the gills, the other, a little moreso: a purse went missing, eyewitness accounts had the missing appliance on the back deck, in one party's hand, the hands of which were empty upon returning for more whiskey: this was a mistaken account, for the purse had actually been taken by the wife, who decided she'd had enough of celebration, of people and of husband: she went to their car to sulk, and in this, the wife (and her purse) succeeded remarkably well.

Linn was once more relieved: the aforementioned couple's daughter came and drove them home.

Willamina did not go as Sheriff, nor as the designated security; she went as an alumnus, and she went to meet with her fellow graduates, and to let her guard down, to catch up on news and events and life's stories, and in this she, too, had a remarkable degree of success.

Laughter, shared memories: a clutch of women, their heads bent conspiratorially together, and in their midst, conjured by their shared words, a ghostly marching band strutted down the street, with the shortest, least physically suited member draped with a great, polished, brass Sousaphone: in another rank, a giant of a high school band member, with hands so huge the piccolo was ludicrously lost beneath surprisingly dextrous fingers: this had been a joke, of course, to the distess of their band instructor, who later had to admit that the short soul swinging the Sous did a passing fine job of playing the wind-demanding instrument, and their resident giant's skill on the piccolo was impressive indeed, but for ghe love of God you two, TRADE BACK! -- and Willamina laughed with them, for the switch had been her idea, and she had aided, abetted and personally trained them both in their respective instruments-of-surprise.

The evening ran on, announcements made, speeches spoken, as they always are: then the DJ started playing music they'd been waiting for.

Linn stood a little apart, dressed as well but not conspicuously different as the rest of the men, his pale eyes busy.

He'd  never been comfortable with such gatherings; he watched small bottles being tipped and sipped, discreetly at first, then as the night went on, tilted openly: he watched people who were fine and upstanding folk when sober, become less of both as their intoxications increased:  he smiled and declined every offer of a tilt or a nip, for he was a popular figure there, and he too was engaged in laughing, animated conversations (a favorite was the shared memory of a skunk, introduced to the rival football team's school bus), and it wasn't until the shindig was winding down, not until after Homecoming fireworks emptied and refilled the hall, not until people spontaneously decided it was time to leave, that an attractive woman in a flowing, knee-length dress heard the words she'd been looking forward to hearing all night long.

Willamina's husband Richard slipped his strong, blunt-fingered hand in hers and looked almost shyly at his beautiful bride and asked, "May I have this dance?"

Husband and wife, alone on the dance floor, melted into one another's arms.

 

[SHORT STORIES!]

703. AND THE IRISHMAN SPOKE

SLAM and the firehouse door swung open and banged against the wall.

Most of the Irish Brigade flinched to hear it: first, it was loud, sharp and it echoed in the brick confines of their tall, narrow horse house, and partly because they knew there was only one person in the entire world who would SLAM their door open in such a wise.

Once they settled back down into their boots, every man pretended to be busy, every man carefully kept the smile from his face that he knew was swimming to the surface in happy anticipation of what would inevitably, invariably follow.

Sean happened to be grooming his ladies, his beloved white mares: his hands were gentle, as were his words, his voice: his were the caresses of a lover, at least until a woman's shrill voice shattered the tranquil, shadowed interior of the Irish Brigade's tenement.

"FINN MAC COOL, WHA' ARE YE GON' T' DO ABOUT  -- MMMPH!"

Daisy's feet kicked as she was hoist off the smooth, hand laid brick floor, her arms pinned to her sides, her mouth silenced by virtue of her husband's mouth being planted on it, and rather busy, at that.

Daisy struggled, snarled, twisted, kicked -- all in vain -- Sean Finnegan's arms were muscled, manly, strong, and it was no great task to keep his wife pinned, hoist from the floor, and held tightly to the red wool breast of his bib front uniform shirt.

Not a man there looked at the spectacle; all gave their apparent attention to the tasks at which their hands were busy, leaving the taming of this red headed Irish fireball to their red headed Chieftain.

In less than half a minute Daisy was no longer struggling; another half minute, and she was molded to her husband, returning his attentions:  Sean shifted his arms, held his wife around her waist, and Daisy's hands were around him, caressing the back of his head, the back of his neck, as she snarled quietly in Gaelic, whispering things that brought a scarlet hue to the Fire Chief's face.

He whispered back in the same Celtic tongue, leaning down to put his lips near to her ear: Daisy threw her head back and snarled as Sean's lips nibbled at her earlobe, at the soft flesh just under her ear.

Daisy's feet were slowly returned to the earth beneath her soles; Sean's voice was still a-whisper, and as he drew back, Daisy caressed the man's smooth shaven cheek with her palm, her expression that of a woman who knew what she wanted.

"Later, then," she whispered, and turned, and skipped to the door, tossing her skirts as she did.

Onlly the Welsh Irishman dare approach the Chief.

Daffyd Llewellyn was his second-in-command; Daffyd Llewellyn laid an understanding hand on Sean's shoulder.

"It's the rare man who can satisfy his own wife," he observed; "it's more than a damned fool who will try to satisfy more than one woman, and yon" -- "is quite a woman!"

"Aye, that she is," Sean said softly, and Daffyd heard a very deep and very genuine affection for his Irish fireball.  "That she certainly is."

[SHORT STORIES!]

702. FORENSIC EXCAVATION

Sheriff Willamina Keller unfolded her readers, slipped them on.

"These came from where?"

Chief Fitzgerald cleared his throat, looked off to the side.

"I'm digging out under the back room."

"Firehouse or your house?"

"My house."

"You're digging."

"Yep. Drains, y'understand."

"I don't care if you're planting bodies," Willamina said thoughtfully, "as long as I don't know a thing about it."  

Fitz didn't know whether she was kidding or not -- she probably was ... he thought.

Willamiana looked up, looked over her narrow spectacles, smiled a little.

"Tell me about finding these."

Fitz frowned, looked behind him, sat down, rubbed his hands together and frowned.

"Well, y'see ..."

 

Daisy Finnegan jumped like she'd been stung.

She looked toward the back room, the unheated room that wasn't used for much, the room with the door ajar and juvenile giggles arousing her motherly suspicions.

She took one step toward the suspect doorway and BLAP and she flinched again.

Daisy thrust the door open, blinked:  her young Irishmen drew back, looking at once half panicked and entirely guilty: a hammer was quickly hidden behind a red headed lad, at least until Daisy put ou ther hand, and gave him THAT LOOK!

She looked at a row of round metallic objects, neatly spaced in the crack of one of the floor boards, she looked at her boys through the smoky, sulfur-smelling haze, she turned as she heard her husband come through their front door.

"FINN MAC COOL! GET YER GREAT IRISH BACKSIDE BACK HERE AN' BRING THE REST 'A' YERSEL' WI' IT!" 

 

Willamina opened the zip lock baggie, frowned at brass fragments and dirt: she considered for a moment, closed the baggie.

"Tell me how you came across this."

"With a shovel," Fitz admitted.  "I was digging under the back room -- it didn't take much to tear up the old floor and I started digging for a new drain."

Willamina looked over her half-glasses again.

"How deep was this?"

"Not deep at all."

"How much did you dig?"

"Only until I found this."  He rose, turned the baggie over, shook it a little, pressed a finger against its surface.  "When I found three of these."

"And you were thinking ...?"

"I saw no sign of burnt wood, cinders, ash ... I thought maybe they'd been in a fire ..."

"I see."  Willamina opened the baggie, reached in, drew out a loaded, dirty, .22 short.

"I think I might know how these got there."

 

"Daisymedear," Sean said in a patient voice, and his bristling bride shoved her finger into his flat belly:  "Don't you Daisymedear me, y'great Irish oaf! D'ye see wha' they're doin'? Do ye? Wha' are ye gon' t' do about it?"

Sean took his wife by the elbows, lowered his head a little, his rich blue eyes looking deep into his wife's bright, snapping, indiginant, Irish-green eyes:  "Daisy, let me take care o' this," he nearly whispered:  he turned his wife, his hands firm but gentle, drew the door shut behind her.

Sean Finnegan, the chieftain of their very own Irish Brigade, looked at his boys:  little Irish faces reddened, guilty looks slung themselves left and right:  Sean took one step forward, brogans nearly soundless on the bare plank floor.

He gestured the lads closer, squatted, laid big Irish hands on young Irish shoulders, looked into his sons' blue eyes.

"Now then, lads," he said softly, "show yer ol' Da wha' ye're doin'!"

 

Willamina poured out the baggie on a paper plate: she and Fitz were in the conference room, for a few compelling reasons: she called in her son and his partner, they had room to stand around a central, smaller table, and on the table behind them, mugs of steaming coffee cooled and repented of their several sins.

"Fitz was digging under his back room," Willamina said.  "Tell me what you see here."

Linn frowned, leaned down, studied the detritus: he picked up a plastic butter knife, stirred the dirt apart, worked a clear space and rolled something into the cleared area.

"This looks like a bullet," he said softly:  he picked it up, rubbed it, then walked over to the trash can, spit on the suspect artifact, rubbed off the dirt, brought it back.

"Take a look. No rifling marks, but the base is blackened."

"Brass fragments," Paul murmured: he picked up a loaded round, turned it, rubbed it clean.

"Not fired."
He frowned, looked at the Sheriff.

"Doesn't look like brass. This looks like copper."

Linn sorted through the fragments.  "It's a wonder they're not all oxided out green."

"Loaded rounds -- here's ... two more.  Take a look at this.  Detonated and laid open."

"Yeah, but how? I don't see a firing pin strike."

 

"Show me, lads."

One boy looked at another; a hammer was produced, a young Irishman squatted, smacked a copper .22 short stuck between two flooring boards.

Daisy jumped at the BLAP of the little blackpowder round's detonation.

Sean gently relieved his son of the hammer.

The boys looked at one another, almost daring to hope that they would not be on the wrong end of a hard swung strop.

Sean raised the hammer, brought it down sharply.

Daisy Finnegan shook her head and muttered, frowning as she stirred the kettle of thick, fragrant stew, steeling herself against the smack, the blap and the laughter from the back room.

 

"I remember the Sheriff writing about this," Willamina said slowly, leaning back and frowning at the stamped-tin ceiling:  "his boys were putting copper cased, blackpowder .22 shorts between the floor boards and smacking them with a hammer. Some went between the cracks and fell to the ground below, and others went off. No chamber to contain them, so it would just split open."

Linn picked up a split open hull, leaned over toward Paul, turned the fragment between thumb and forefinger.

"No firing pin strike," he murmured.  "I can't see ... wait a minute."

"There. Three o'clock."

"You're right."  Linn grinned, looked up.  "Fitz, do you have the planks you took up?"

Fitz nodded.  "I threw 'em on the pile. Havent' burnt them yet."

"Don't.  I want to take a look."  He looked at Willamina.  "I'm willin' to bet there will be scorch marks."

"Forensics," Paul said innocently, picking up a mug and taking a noisy slurp.  "Coffee?"

 

 

 

 

[SHORT STORIES!]

701. A FATHER'S ANGER

Sheriff Linn Keller sat on his golden stallion, watching the unseemly display unfold on the elegant home's front stoop.

A young woman, well dressed, her hands fisted in anger, face dark with passion -- and that passion was anger, felt with the depth and intensity as only the young can know -- and facing her, what must have been her father: the Sheriff had no idea what their disagreement was, but both were shouting, both were well beyond caring who heard, or how much of a spectacle they were making of themselves.

The father backhanded his daughter:  she fell in a great spray of petticoats and skirt, she rolled, she came up on her feet, half crouched, one hand to her face, utter hatred in her expression.

"You," she snarled.

"YOU CHEAP --"

The Sheriff curled his lip, whisled, a single, sharp note:  both combatants froze, then the father turned, gestured viciously at the stranger with the iron grey mustache and his shining gold stallion.

"YOU! GET OUT OF HERE! NO PEDDLERS, NO SOLICITORS, NO BEGGARS!"

The Sheriff never moved.

Rey del Sol slashed his tail, blinked.

The father, incensed at being ignored, came down the cut-stone steps, waving the Sheriff away:  "GET OUT OF HERE, DAMN YOU! WE DON'T WANT YOUR KIND HERE!"

The pale eyed lawman with the iron grey mustache neither moved, nor did he reply.

The father was not a man accustomed to being ignored: from the way he treated his own daughter, it could be correctly assumed that he ordered his life with the same strict requirement that the entire world obey him, immediately and without question, and when part of that world did not, his temper ruled his soul.

The Sheriff waited as the man nearly ran across the manicured yard, SLAMMED open the ornate, waist-high gate, RAN toward the palomino, shaking his fist: "I SAID LEAVE, YOU COMMON --"

Linn said "Git 'im."

Rey del Sol was a stallion, with all the fires of his native Mexican sun running in his blood: Rey del Sol was ridden and trained by a man who'd been Cavalry, a man who knew what it was to depend on his horse for speed and for maneuverability and the man who rode this particular horse knew how to train a horse to war, and he had.

His quiet "Git 'im" had an immediate result.

Rey del Sol spun, impossibly fast, his right hind hoof catching the shouting, gesturing man square in the gut.

The impact of a horse's hoof is no light thing.

A man can be killed by striking him hard in the solar plexus, especially if the weapon involved is a staff, or a heavy club: a horse's hoof, driven with the power of a native to the granite mountains, can kill.

This one did not.

Linn's knee pressure was enough to bring his stallion around.

He walked the big horse around the supine, gasping, gagging man, ignoring him as he curled up on his side, his eyes watering as he desperately tried to breathe.

Linn walked Rey into the rich man's yard, and up to the distressed young woman.

To her credit, she clasped her hands in her apron, raised her chin and viewed the pale eyed stranger with defiance.

Sheriff Linn Keller touched his hat brim.

"Have I the pleasure of addressing one Kathleen Hettix?"

Surprise, momentarily in her eyes, replaced with wariness:  "Yes," she answered, simply and quietly.

"Miss Hettix, know you a young man, one Clarence Bourne?"

Kathy Hettix blinked, surprised.

"Why, yes," she admitted, "but I haven't see him for ... for three years."  She leaned a little to the side, looked coldly at her father, still curled up on the ground, making little sounds of gasping agony.

"As a matter of fact, sir, my father and I were just discussing my not having seen him for that time."

"What can you tell me about Mr. Bourne?"

"He was a gentleman," she said, almost sadly: "he left for the West, with promises of riches and a fine gold ring, and a fortune upon his return."  Her eyes dropped and he saw past the walls she'd tried to build around the subject, saw a sadness, as if for someone she missed.

"My name," the horseman said, "is Sheriff Linn Keller, of Firelands County, Colorado, and Mr. Bourne asked me to give you something."

The Sheriff dismounted, pulled a second set of saddlebags from where he'd laid them over his own set:  he turned, unfast a buckle, lifted the flap and reached in.

He tossed her a buckskin poke.

She caught it, surprised: it was heavy -- much heavier than she'd anticpated -- it had the sound of hard coin.

"Miss Hettix, there are several more of those in this saddlebag.  This one" -- he tapped it with his finger tips -- "contains deeds, certificates of mineral rights and ownership documents.  They are signed over to you."

The Sheriff hung the saddlebags over her shoulder, a move which evidently surprised her -- a proper young lady simply doesn't experience a handsome horseman riding into her yard and investing her with a smelly set of saddlebags containing a young fortune! -- but she laid a hand over one of the carved-leather carriers and nodded.

"I regret to inform that Mr. Bourne died of his injuries, but before his death, he was able to give an acccount of his last days on this earth, he described where and how you might be found, and he extracted my promise that I would fulfill his promise to you."
Kathleen Hettix closed her eyes, nodded, biting her bottom lip.

She opened her eyes, her expression one of deep and abiding anger.

"Sheriff, I thank you, and now I must ask of you a favor."

"Name it."

"Take me downtown, to the bank.  I wish to pay off my father's holdings, I wish to file a claim of ownership for them, and I intend to toss him out of his own home!"

Sheriff Linn Keller sidled his stallion up against the front steps.

"Ma'am, if you'll step up here -- now hoist your skirt, put your left foot in this stirrup -- grab the back of the saddle, swing your leg over -- all set?"

A determined young woman arranged her skirts as best she could, gripped the horse around the barrel and the Sheriff around the middle.

"You'll have to tell me where your bank is, Miss Hettix.  I'm a stranger hereabouts."

Rey del Sol turned easily, not at all inconvenienced by his slight built passenger's additional load: they walked briskly out the open gate, her father struggling up onto all fours, trying to call out something.

Sheriff Linn Keller eased his stallion into an easy trot, and people in the Missouri river town turned and stared at the sight of a young woman, her skirts flowing over and around a horse's backside, clinging to the erect figure of a natural horseman, setting down the middle of the street at a brisk trot:  the horseman impassive and dignified, the young woman excited, the horse's head up, mane and tail flowing in the wind.

[SHORT STORIES!]

700. A SLOW MOVING MULE

A lean woman with high cheekbones and a cloth sack slung across her back rode her mule up the middle of the street.

She was in no particular hurry.

Chores were waiting at home, as they always were, and always would be; she'd been sent by her Pa to deliver four jugs of Uncle Will's Finest to the Silver Jewel, and two more of low grade  pop skull to the Mercantile so the proprietor -- or more likely, his patient and longsuffering wife -- could use it to mix up shellac. 

Her Pa didn't consider pop skull fit to drink, as it led to head aches and the bad belly afterward, and her Pa was a particular man when it came to his distilled sledgehammer.

He'd found a ready market for his product, both at the Silver Jewel, and also in Carbon Hill, though he admitted he could sell a half and half of turpentine and kerosine to Carbon Hill's saloon and they'd drink it, and pronounce it good if you stewed in some chawin' tobacker first.

Gracie saw the Sheriff come out of the Silver Jewel with a beer mug in his hand, the other hand on a man's shoulder: she could tell the Sheriff was interested in this fellow, but not keepin' him ... from the troubled look on the man's face, like as not Old Pale Eyes was either giving a very little wise counsel, or was doing a whole lot of listening, and Gracie would have bet money on the second of the two.

"Ho now," she said gently, and the mule ho'd, blinking and swinging her ears patiently, looking like she was about to collapse and start snoring:  Gracie threw up a leg and swung down -- not entirely ladylike, but Gracie didn't have much to do with ladylike fancies, 'cept only when she got all gussied up with Sarah and they went to Denver.

The fiddle shifted in its sack and she smiled a little, remembering how she could hear the entire orchestra again as she played, eyes closed, on that high point just north of Razorback.

It was a good memory.

She hauled two jugs off the mule, slung them over her left shoulder -- one stone jug in front, one behind -- and cussed herself for not rememberin' a pad for her shoulder, for that much weight cut the braided strings into her shoulder:  she fetched off the second two of the good jugs and started for the steps.

The Sheriff and that fellow he was with, stopped at the top of the three steps, parted:  one man left, one man right:  each one touched his hat brim and said "Can I give you a hand with that?" and stepped up to relieve her of her burden.

That braided string was cuttin' enough into her shoulder that she offered no protest.

The Sheriff lifted his chin as Mr. Baxter looked at them coming through the door:  he gestured them in behind the bar, set the jugs down on folded towels.

"You fellows might like a taste of this," he said.  "Why'nt you try a shot, see what you think, on the house."

Gracie turned and left, as she always did, without a word: Mr. Baxter knew she'd be delivering the popskull to the Mercantile, and she'd be back: he worked a corn cob loose, poured two shots of something pale pink, set one in front of the Texan, one in front of his partner.

The two sniffed the libation, frowned a little, took a tentative sip: both men closed their eyes in pleasure and drank the rest, set their shot glasses down, nodded.

"Now that," the Texan said, "is good stuff!"

Mr. Baxter smiled, teeth white beneath his tightly curled handlebar: "Glad you like it!"

Not long after, Gracie came back into the Jewel, the heavily padded paisley sack still slung across her back, and Mr. Baxter handed her a small cloth poke, which Gracie dropped into her skirt pocket.

She didn't bother to count it.

There was no need.

Mr. Baxter was honest as the day is long, and she'd take the poke home and give to her Pa, who would give it to her Ma, who would squirrel it away somewheres the way she always did, for she was of a thrify nature and not given to spending unless 'twas no other choice.

Gracie nodded her thanks.

It's not that she was standoffish, she just didn't have much to say, especially here, in the fine and well appointed saloon: her bringin's-up had been considerable less fancy and unless she was with Sarah, why, she'd not get fancied up a'tall nor go anywhere high toned.

The Sheriff was still out in front of the Silver Jewel, his beer yet untouched.

Gracie stopped and looked at the pale eyed lawman.

"That fellow looked troubled," she observed quietly.

The Sheriff nodded.

"A Texas man," he said thoughtfully.  "I've known several of his kind. Steady as a clock, bet your life on him, not given to fancy or wild imagination."

Gracie waited, knowing the Sheriff was sorting through his thoughts like a man sorts through a hand of cards, arranging them to his greatest advantage.

"I have never in my young life," the Sheriff said slowly, "known a Texas man to get all spooky, but by the Lord Harry, that fellow was spooked!"

Gracie waited: her silent comment was to raise an eyebrow, which of course the Sheriff could not hear.

"Poor fellow was sure he'd been witched."

Gracie's hand rose, gripped the lawman's arm, her face serious.

She'd known witch-women and if there was a new one come into the mountains, she'd have to set out wards and charms and silver to keep her and her family safe.

"This witch just spelled the hell out of him and spun a lasso out of fiddle music up on the north end of that razorback ridge, yonder."

Gracie blinked, surprised, then she felt her ears turn red and she shifted her weight to her other foot, suddenly uncomfortable.

"Gracie, I've known mountain witches before, but I never knew one mean nor evil. Most were yarb women" -- Gracie's ear twitched as the Sheriff used the same word she and her family used when describing the medicinal herbs they grew and harvested -- "but I never knew a one that was bad."

He turned, smiled at the slender waisted mountain fiddler, and laughed a little.

"Gracie, forgive my bein' forward, but you remind me some of Sarah, the way you stand. I'd not be surprised we were blood, somewhere back."

Gracie Daine, daughter of Kentucky mountain folk and resident of the granite peaks overlooking Firelands, patted the Sheriff's arm in almost a motherly gesture.

"Sheriff," she said quietly, "was I to find I was blood kin to you, I'd bust from bein' so proud!"

The Sheriff raised his mug and took a sip, took another, and a mountain fiddler rode a slow moving mule back down the street and back toward home.

 

[SHORT STORIES!]

699. THE WITCH'S HELL-FIDDLE

 

Sheriff Linn Keller regarded the pair with an experienced eye.

"You run across something," he said slowly, and they turned to look at him, fear in their eyes and tremors in their hands: neither dared pick up their short glass of something stout, for fear of spilling most of it on the gleaming, flawless bar top.

"I fear neither man nor devil," the Texas man said in a husky voice, "but this was neither."

Old Pale Eyes nodded slowly, not surprised to find educated language from a rough looking horseman: men of every stripe came West, and this one had apparently the advantage of education.

"What was it?"

"It was she," he said, swallowing hard: he turned, looked at the amber payload as if he'd never seen one before.

"She?" Linn frowned a little, turning his head slightly, as if to bring a good ear to bear.

The Texan took a long, deep breath, picked up the shot, downed it: he placed the empty carefully, soundlessly on the burnished mahogany, turned, looked very directly into the Sheriff's pale eyes.

"It was the witch," he said slowly.  "It was that mountain witch!"

"Which one?"

The Texan turned wide and frightened eyes to the lawman.

"What do you mean," he said carefully, "which one?"

"These mountains are haunted," Linn said, his voice serious, his face unsmiling. "I know of two mountain witches right here local and there are more, or so I'm told."

The Texan's partner raised his glass, drank, drank again: he lifted a finger, slid a coin across the bar.

Mr. Baxter refilled both empty glasses.

"What happened?"

"I heard her first," he said, his voice dropping nearly to a whisper.  "I heard her for a long ways off."

"You heard her."

The Texan nodded, reaching for the refilled shot glass, hesitating.

"I heard her," he repeated.  "I heard her a ... she was ... she had one of those hell-fiddles."

"Never heard of a hell fiddle."

"It was no natural fiddle, mister. No natural fiddle will carry that far."

"Was the wind carryin' toward you?"

He shook his head.

"No.  No, I thought ... thought it might have, but there was not a breath of wind."

"What happened when you heard it?"

"It witched me," he whispered, his throat tight, his voice husky, strained. "I couldn't but go towards her, that witch-fiddle had me like I was lassoed!"  

He looked helplessly at the Sheriff.

"Is that one of your mountain witches, mister?"

Linn turned his lapel over.  "Sheriff. I don't recall any hell-fiddles witchin' men away. That tells me this is a new witch and I'd best take care of it."

"You can't take care of it, Sheriff. Once she spins that music lasso you're helpless!"

"What did you do when she spun you?"

"What could we do?  The both of us, we rode far as we could and climbed the rest of the way."

"Where was she?"

The two looked at one another, considered, turned with their backs to the bar, as if to look to their back trail.

"Back a ways, a couple hours' ride, I'd say. There's a razorback ridge and it has a needle peak at its end."

"I know the one."

"She was north of that."

"There's only one high point north of that."

"She was there, Sheriff.  That mountain witch and her hell-fiddle, she spun us up there an' we ... we just... we set ourselves down on bare rock and listened."

"What did she look like?"

The Texan blinked, confused: he looked at his partner, who looked just as bewildered.

"I don't remember," he whispered, then looked at the Sheriff with probably the most helpless expression the Sheriff had ever seen on a grown man's face.  "I honestly don't remember!"

 

Sarah Lynne McKenna nodded with satisfaction.

She turned Gracie around to face the mirror, giggled like a happy little girl at the delight in her friend's face.

"Is that me?" Gracie squeaked, her eyes huge and round: she turned, seized Sarah's hands, and the two of them jumped up and down like two excited schoolgirls.

"I've never had such a dress," she said in a wondering voice.

"We're not done," Sarah smiled, taking Gracie by the elbow, turning her. "Come on. We're going to Denver!"

Not long after Sarah steered Gracie out the side door of the House of McKenna dress works, they boarded the private car: Sarah brewed tea for them and they laughed and chattered all the way to the City: Gracie was savvy enough to keep quiet and follow Sarah's lead, and not gape and stare like she really wanted to: she'd ridden buckboards, wagons and the household carriage, but she'd never ridden in a hired carriage -- especially not one with upholstered seats, gleaming black,driven by a fine looking man in a fine coat with a fine, shining, tall hat!

Gracie settled herself into the theater seat, carefully arranging her skirts, fretting a little, not wanting to wrinkle the material: Sarah settled in beside her, gave her a reassuring look: their arrival was a little closer to stage time than had been intended, but this worked out fine -- no sooner had Gracie and Sarah relaxed into their seats than the big, heavy, velvet-looking curtains drew apart, revealing the full orchestra.

Gracie's eyes widened, her gloved hand tightening ever so slightly in Sarah's.

"This is something new from Europe," Sarah whispered, leaning closer: "it's called Ride of the Valkyries and it's my favorite!"

Gracie had no idea what a Valkyrie might be, other than European, and probably equestrian, but her speculation ended as an older, dignified looking man strode across the stage, bowed to the audience and addressed them in an orator's trained voice.

Sarah carried many portraits in her heart, but among them was the profile of her dear friend, Gracie Daine, mountain fiddler and herb woman, leaning forward a little, eyes wide and unblinking, entranced as she listened to a full orchestra for the very first time in her entire life: her lips were parted a little, her expression shone with absolute delight, with complete, focused attention.

 

On the dead summit of a long extinct volcano, a solitary figure in a shining black helmet and a black flight suit: she tucked something under her chin that bore some distant resemblance to a musical instrument.

The figure in shining black raised a rosined bow, brought it down across taut strings.

Gracie, her white-plastic fiddle coupled to her helmet, struck a single, shining note, shivering a little as it filled her very soul: the flight helmet coupled with her living brain, with her brainship, with her fiddle, and with what was now twice a hundred pilots scattered over an adjacent star system.

Twenty pilots spread their ships in attack formation, smiling a little as the Ride of the Valkyries fired their souls: they knew the battle they were about to engage would be desperate, they knew that not everyone would be coming home, yet they flew into the enemy formation with that reckless joy felt by their Confederate ancestors: each ship bore the ancient emblem of battle, the Stars and Bars, the flag unfurled only for war and for combat.

Warriors' hearts sang for joy and Gracie's heart sang with them, for she felt each ship as it came to bear, she felt each pilot's heart contract hard as their ships fired, as energies stolen from the heart of dying stars seared through empty space and vaporized enemy hull-plating: Gracie saw ships explode, felt the slam of detonated reactors blowing an energy-sphere into space, scattering wreckage and destroying defensive formations: far from her granite mountains, she stood on a black mountain peak and played with her eyes closed, seeing through more eyes than she could count, knowing her fiddle played for every pilot, those roaring in triumph and those who would never hear another sound, ever.

 

Gracie Daine drew her mule to a halt, looked at the peak behind the razorback ridge.

There.

That is where I want to play.

Gracie labored to the height, stood on a flat the size of a bushel basket: she closed her eyes, tucked her curly back mountain fiddle under her chin, raised her rosined bow: she heard again the orchestra, the amazing harmonies, the incredible number of voices in instrumental song, and she played from memory, played that European song Sarah loved so very well.

Gracie played with her eyes closed, a woman alone on a mountain peak, spinning magic into the thin air.

She did not know if anyone else heard, and honestly she did not care.

 

"Sheriff, if you are going against that witch, you might want to raise an army."

The Texan shook his head.

"I'm for the Border where it's safe! I'd rather face Chiracauha and banditos day in and day out, rather than run across that damned mountain witch!"

 

 

 

 

[SHORT STORIES!]

698. YOUR LITTLE OLD LADY

Sheriff Willamina Keller rubbed her eyes, placed her pen very precisely along the right edge of the pad she used for taking notes.

She took a long breath, blew it out, rose: she'd been summoned, something to do with a delegation, which generally meant a group had some imagined complaint and wished to make a spectacle of presenting their grievances.

She was Sheriff, and it was hers to handle.

Sheriff Willamina Keller gave herself a quick look in the mirror, nodded: she was a lean, pale eyed woman, she was dressed office professional, as reflected her philosophy that she was an administrator, and a professional, unless it was necessary to not be an administrator.

She shifted just a little, feeling the weight of a shoulder holstered pistol, one on her strong side belt; she felt the backup, hidden and available, and the sleeve knives had been part of her for so very long that she knew-without-knowing that they were there, and available.

She opened the door, lifted her chin, stepped into the lobby.

The end of a hardwood staff drove into the polished quartz floor with a sharp, woody note, a lean young man raised his chin and called, "Tayin-HUU!"

Ranks of lean young men in football helmets and pads, in the purple and white uniform of the Firelands Football Team, came to rigid attention.

The staff was held in a white knuckled grip; at its apex, a yellow pennon, with a black, jawless skull, the standard that rode the wind above Willamina's Warriors as they ran, as they chanted their delightfully obscene running songs, as a pale eyed warrior woman ran with them: the standard bearer declared in a firm voice, audible to the rearmost rank, "Sheriff, we hear you are retiring, does that mean you're not running with us anymore?"

Sheriff Willamina Keller stopped, and blinked, and laughed:  she laid a motherly hand on the standard-bearer's shoulder, she looked at firm jawed young men, all of whom showed some degree of distress:  she walked slowly across the front row, touching each one's shoulder, gripping mountain raised muscle beneath the overhanging shoulder pad, her heels loud with her slow pace: she came back to the standard bearer, backed up as far as she could -- which was a pace and a half -- raised her chin and raised her voice.

"WARRIORS!"

"HU!" The masculine affirmation filled the stone walled lobby.

"ARE YOU LEAN?"

"LEAN!"

ARE YOU MEAN?"

"MEAN!"

ARE YOU FIGHTING MACHINES?"

"FIGHTING MACHINES!"

"WHO MADE YOU MEAN?"

"YOU MADE US MEAN!"

"WHO MADE YOU FIGHTING MACHINES?"

"YOU MADE US FIGHTING MACHINES!"

Willamina paced slowly across the front rank, looking at each young face, remembering their names, their struggles, the sweat that ran down their faces; she remembered running with them, showing them tricks and slights to taking down an opponent, showing them how to hit, how to roll out of a fall; she remembered keeping pace with them, she recalled each individual football player, for she'd made it a point to run beside every last one, making them feel as if she were running with him, and she nodded, for the memories were powerful, the memories were good.

Sheriff Willamina Keller paced to the rearmost rank, then back, slipping between lean, hard muscled young men: she smelled sweat and she smelled cologne, and she gripped every arm she passed.

It was not until she'd looked into every single set of eyes there, not until she'd gripped every one of them by the arm, not until she returned to the standard bearer and turned to face them all again, that she spoke.

"WARRIORS!"

"HU!"

"ARE YOU LEAN?"

"LEAN!"

"ARE YOU MEAN?"

"MEAN!"

"MITCHELL!"

"HU!" One voice responded.

"MITCHELL, WHAT HAPPENED WHEN DAVIS CRAMPED AND WENT DOWN?"

"WE PICKED HIM UP AND KEPT RUNNING!"

"DID YOU LEAVE HIM BEHIND?"

Every voice replied, and replied at a shout:

"NO WE DID NOT!"

Willamina nodded, resumed her pacing, hard heels punctuating her slow pace.

"And I," she declared, "will not leave you behind."

It always amused her when her young Warriors tried to look stern and impassive, because at such moments, their relief was visible; she pretended not to notice.

"I," she said again, "will NOT leave you behind!"

Willamina raised up on her toes and kissed the standard bearer on the cheek, caressed his opposite cheek with gentle fingers.

"Any further questions?"

Silence stretched for several long moments, then a single voice from halfway back:

"Will there still be cookies?"

Sometimes a solemn moment shatters with a single silliness, and this was one such moment:  Willamina and every one of the Warriors laughed, and Willamina laid a hand on the standard bearer's shoulder pad as she bent a little at the waist with her relieving laughter.

"Yes, Mitchell," she chuckled, "your Cool Little Old Lady will still make chocolate chip cookies!"

[SHORT STORIES!]

697. AT THE FIREHOUSE, DOUGHNUTS

Sheriff Willamina Keller wasn't sure about the whole story, but when she packed a box of still-warm-from-the-oven, fresh-baked-bread-and-doughnuts from Grubbs' Bakery through the firehouse door, she saw the Captain with his arms chicken-winged and flapping, high-stepping and making a strangled sound, to the general laughter of their Irish Brigade.

Breakfast dishes were being cleared off the table; Willamina carefully timed her arrival, knowing she'd be offered breakfast -- she'd eaten already, and politely declined -- but her offering to the general health, welfare and palate of medics and firemen alike was most welcome indeed.

Two loaves of fresh-baked sourdough were snatched free; one was quickly sliced, laid out on the crumb-dusted cutting board in the middle of the table, the station's butter dish landing beside it with a spreader, the other loaf was wrapped in a clean towel and casually tossed in the bread safe for future reference.

The cardboard lid was unceremoniously thrown back from the doughnuts; coffee gurgled into heavy ceramic mugs, hands dipped into the cardboard corral and came out with delectables, and the Captain eyed Willamina speculatively and asked, "Sheriff ... so you were a medic, back East?"

Willamina sipped her coffee, nodded, wiped a stray trickle that ran down her chin:  "Mmm," she hummed, swallowed:  "Yes I was, back when dirt was young and so was I!"

"Aw, c'mon now, you're not that old!"

Willamina laughed, looked at their shining Braun modular and looked from father to daughter:  "I was a medic when ambulances were still made by Cadillac, and half of them were driven by men in black suits wearing a plastic smile and carrying a Johnson & Johnson first aid kit!"

Laughter again:  Willamina slid her phone from an inside suit jacket pocket, pressed, swiped, smiled:  she handed the phone to the squad captain and said, "Here's me and the iron horse I rode!"

"You rode a Harley?" one of the firemen demanded, and Willamina laughed.

"I was never that lucky," she declared candidly.  "That's a Miller-Meteor high-top on a Cadillac chassis!  Better than 500 rompin' stompin' cubic inches of four barrel General Motors ultra high compression go power!  Handled like a pickup truck and pass anything but a gas station!"

Her good natured voice and smiling face brought broad and understanding grins to nearly everyone there; most were old enough to remember the days before a squad looked like a truck and rode like a truck.

"Now what's that chicken thing you were doin'?" Willamina asked, dipping her hand in the box and coming up with a cream filled stick doughnut.

"Ah, that, just a run we had," the Captain said, dismissing the subject with a wave of his hand as his ears turned an incredible shade of red, then he lowered his head and waggled his eyebrows in pious imitation of a lewd and lascivious old man:  "What about you, Sheriff?  What were your good runs, back in the dim and distant past?"

Willamina swallowed, laughed, looked down, brushed at powdered sugar dusting her dark blue lapels: she spread her hands dramatically and declared in a horribly nasal voice, "Well, ya see, it's like this," to the general laughter of men who leaned closer, knowing full well the Sheriff was probably going to pull their legs and stuff their boots, not necessarily in that order.

"You already know the one about kickin' beer kags out of the way to get to the house trailer -- that's the one where the fellow dropped his drawers and shot me the full moon --"

"Didn't that happen here some time back?" a voice asked, and Willamina nodded, pointing with her once-bitten doughnut stick:  "History repeats itself," she agreed. "Then there was the woman screaming for help. The gas company called that one in, they were running a sniffer around a household gas meter and heard screaming from inside a customer's house. They called us and the Sheriff's office and we were all set to bust open the door when the homeowner drove up and politely asked what in two hells was going on.

"She went into the house and brought out the biggest red parrot I've ever seen.

"That parrot let out a squawk that sounded like a rusty gate hinge run through a concert amplifier, flapped its wings and then screeched 'Help!' and God help me it sounded for all the world like an old woman in pain!"

There was general, relaxed laughter, several heads nodded.

"Now, Captain," Willamina said, lowering her head and waggling her eyebrows lasciviously, "you're not getting off that easy. What about that chicken wing thing?"

The Captain's face reddened and he looked around like a guilty little boy caught stealing from the candy dish:  he sighed dramatically, threw his hands wide and declared in a horribly nasal voice, "Well, ya see, it's like this!"

 

 

[SHORT STORIES!]

696. GUN PARTS AND CINNAMON ROLLS

Uncle Will's kitchen table was covered with newspaper, scrap cardboard, gun parts and cinnamon rolls, not necessarily in that order.

It also held coffee, solvent and gun oil.

Marnie had a rag over the hot water faucet handle and the cold water faucet handle; periodically one or the other would rise from their labors, wash their hands thoroughly and come back to partake of a cinnamon roll and some coffee:  generally when one did, the other followed, for a kaffesklatsch is better with good company and good company generally involves conversation.

Marnie regarded her pale eyed Uncle rather frankly and asked, "Uncle Will, have you a cardigan?"

Will looked at her, surprised, took a noisy slurp of coffee (vanilla flavored -- Marnie said she'd read about that in the earliest Sheriff's Journal) -- and shook his head thoughtfully.

"I think your Aunt Crystal had one," he said, frowning as he tried to remember, "but bless me if ... I think I gave it away after she died.  Do you need one?"
Marnie laughed, carefully toothbrushing the underside of her Winchester's bolt.  "No, Uncle Will, but you're so shaggy in need of a haircut, if you'd wear a cardigan and wander onto any college campus, you could be a professor!"

Will's hand rose self-consciously to his admittedly unkempt hair.

He was not usually this badly in need of a haircut, he knew; his favorite haircutter had a falling out with her business partner of twenty years, and she was planning to open her own shop -- but was waiting until her attorney scoured her contract for any non-competition clause.

"Yeah, I know," he muttered.  "Reckon I could cut it myself."

"Gammaw told me her Uncle Pete used to cut his own."

"Your Uncle Pete was pretty well bald by the time he was nineteen."  Will picked up another still-warm cinnamon roll, bit, chewed thoughtfully:  he continued, mumbling through the tasty mouthful, "He had what amounted to a monk's tonsure around the back of his head, ear to ear and that was about it.  Used to burr cut it and called it good."

"Sounds practical."

Will nodded, leaning back and appreciating the taste of the still-warm treat.

Retired Chief Will Keller delighted in his pretty young niece's visits:  invariably, she made cinnamon rolls and coffee, and Will had never seen fit to protest her kindness:  his pale eyed sister discussed Marnie's baking for him, and Willamina patted her brother's flat belly and said with a knowing look, "Fastest way to a man's heart," and Will chuckled and agreed, reaching up and scratching Willamina's back:  the retired Sheriff arched her back, rolled her shoulders forward and groaned, "Oh, God, that feels so good!  I'll give you a week to stop that!"

He blinked and returned to the here-and-now:  Marnie was elaborately ignoring him, knowing he'd just visited a pleasant memory:  her fingers had eyes as she reassembled her rifle.

"Did I tell you I got the lead out of my Marlin?"

He lifted an eyebrow, shook his head, took another bite of cinnamon roll.

"I tried running the same lead that I run through my Winchester .30-30.  That Marlin is wonderfully accurate with jacketed but it was minute-of-Volkswagen at half a hundred yards, running even hard cast with a gas check."

Will nodded, considering.

"I'm satisfied if I tinker enough I can come up with an alloy that won't lead, but I'm lazy, I'll just stick with jacketed."

Will grunted, took a short sip of coffee.

"I could suggest a larger diameter," he hazarded, "but with my luck I'd run the wrong one in the wrong rifle anyhow."

"That was my thought," she said softly, opening the action slowly, watching the parts move: a few cycles of the lever, slowly, carefully, and she nodded her satisfaction.

"If it's jacketed, it's for the Marlin," she said, "and if it's lead, it's for the Winchester. Keeps it simple."

"Can't argue with that."

Marnie hesitated, laid her rifle crossways of her denim skirted thighs.

"Uncle Will," she said, and he saw a smile hiding at the corners of her eyes, "do you realize what I've just done?"

"Just now?"

Marnie laughed.  "Most girls my age would be talking boys or clothes or movie stars or gossip."  She tilted her head, looked at her white-mustached Uncle with obvious affection.  "I just tore down, detail cleaned and reassembled a Winchester rifle, I've discussed ammunition types and I still made you cinnamon rolls and coffee."  She planted her elbows on either side of the oil-and-dirt-spattered place mat overlaying the flattened out cardboard box protecting the newspaper-covered tabletop. 

"At this rate, no decent husband will even look at me!"

"I wouldn't be so sure," Will rumbled, remembering a certain young medical student who'd admitted to the outgoing Chief that he was rather smitten by the pale eyed Sheriff's pale eyed granddaughter.

Marnie laughed.

"You're right, Uncle Will, and I shall marry him."

"I never said a word," Will protested.

Marnie gave him a knowing look.  "That's right."

Will shook his head.  "You and my sister," he muttered.  "Two centuries ago you'd both be hanged as witches!"

"Why, Uncle Will," Marnie protested, laying dramatic fingertips on her bodice:  "What-evah do you mean, suh?"

Uncle and niece laughed together in the quiet of a greying old widower's kitchen.

[Ba-Dump Tissssh - Memes]

7 minutes ago, Buckshot Bob said:

 

[SHORT STORIES!]

695. IN THE DARKNESS, A WOMAN

It was not uncommon for members of the theatre to sit in the audience, in the padded, comfortable seats, slipping into a vacant, upholstered seat that hadn't sold, and so few took notice of a woman in a fashionable gown of a previous century, a woman wearing a stylish hat with a broad, sagging brim and a veiling skirt around its rim.

Those who looked, did so only casually: obviously this was a player, a performer, an actress: she was attractive, from what little could be seen in the subdued light, she was obviously female, and feminine; beyond that, none could see much.

None saw the tear that ran, cold and wet, down her cheek.

 

Sheriff Willamina Keller was a blooded warrior.

She'd led men into battle, she'd personally led assaults on enemy positions, she knew what it was to close with an armed and determined enemy and wade through blood she herself spilled: she knew what it was to drop her M4 and seize an enemy Kalashnikov with a bayonet attached, and lay ruin and death with butt and blade, screaming in white-eyed rage that terrified enemy and ally alike: her own troops regarded her with open, honest fear as the last of the enemy were slain, as Willamina head-shot three before they could trigger suicide devices, as she danced madly in a circle, screaming in violently deranged victory, a bloody knife in one hand and the blood-smeared AK in the other, insanity and utter rage in one compact, desert-camo package: it did not diminish her reputation when she stopped, snarling, turning slowly, teeth bared, the flesh stretched tight over high cheekbones, one streak of enemy blood painting a coagulated streak below and beside one eye.

Sheriff Willamina Keller knew what it was to seize a raging man's wrist and haul him off his feet and onto the ground, she knew what it was to fight strong and determined criminals who were determined to not  be arrested: in her time she'd introduced faces to floors, walls, car hoods and other immovable objects; she'd driven batons, flashlights and shotgun butts into bellies, ribs and tenderloins, she'd thrown men big enough to make her look like the Tooth Fairy, and in her time she'd been shot, stabbed, cut, run into, run over, and like her iron grey mustachioed ancestor, a street evangelist tried to save her corroded soul.

Sheriff Willamina Keller ran her Sheriff's office efficiently and absolutely fairly:  she had a complex reputation as Sheriff, but one major facet was her unfailing sense of fairness -- both with her people, and with the public, both law abiding and law breaking, and for this reason, she was respected -- both by the lawful, and by the lawless.

Sheriff Willamina Keller knew what it was to lose a husband, to lose a child, to lose a complete stranger: she'd wept scalding tears as a life dribbled out from between her fingers, and nothing she did could prevent that; she'd shouted in triumph as she delivered a laboring mother of her child, alongside a state route, her own tailored suit jacket under the mother for a delivery table not three feet from pavement's edge: she knew what it was to hold her first grandchild, to see her children grow, to go head to head in a red faced screaming match with a rebellious daughter, to silently shed grief from her leaking eyes, hidden behind a black veil as she buried the same daughter long years after.

Sheriff Willamina Keller knew what it was to laugh, to rejoice in the company of family and of friends, she knew what it was to share a confidence or an off color joke with fellow badge packers, she knew what it was to stand at the very summit of a granite mountain and see all of Creation laid at her feet: she knew summer's rain on her face, winter's snow blown down the back of her neck, the feel of a strong man's arms around her as they danced to a mountain fiddle, or to a classical violin, and for all her strength, for all her achievements, there were times when Sheriff Willamina Keller took time to be alone.

A pale eyed woman hid her face behind an old fashioned veil; she was sitting not far from the stage, she lifted her chin, closed her eyes, took a long breath, and allowed the brisk Hungarian waltz to swirl around her, flow through her, to lift her scarred soul and bear it along on waves of audible joy.

There are times when a truly strong individual needs solitude, when it is necessary to let the griefs and stresses and conflicts flow from her, washed away with successive waves of violin, of oboe, of harmonizing brass, and this was one of those times.

A woman in a long dress and veil sat in an upholstered theater seat, alone: the theater was filled with applauding humanity, but in a sea of living souls, one sat alone, save only for the music, the therapy that was to her soul what water is to a desert.

[We need a sticky cartoon thread]

R. Daneel Olivaw?

Big time Asimov fan here!

[SHORT STORIES!]

694. A MEAN OLD RAINY DAY

 

Angela Keller came into the world without much to recommend her.

There was no dramatic crisis during delivery, she didn't decide to be born in the Jeep nor on the kitchen floor, she had almost no hair upon arrival and she looked ... well, she looked ...

She looked like a baby.

I know the women folk will ooh and aah and allow as the newborn looks like this or looks like that, I knew my own Wise Acre comments were probably going to bite me right here directly, for I'd told our fire chief his newborn bore no resemblance to him a'tall ... no mustache ... and like as not he'd whip that one right back on me when Shelly took our newest of the Keller ladies to work to show her off.

That's all right, I earned it.

Angela was a fine, healthy little baby girl, she ate and grew and did all the things babies usually do, and I laughed when Shelly give her a bath in the kitchen sink, for Uncle Will told me I'd got a bath in that self-same sink, many years before.

The Bear Killer was not a stranger to babies.

He'd circulate around in church if babies were fussy and not in the Infantry -- Parson Burnett had the same rotten sense of humor as the rest of us: instead of "Nursery" or "Children's Church" he hung a plank over the basement doorway that said INFANT-RY and that's what we all called it, and my boys would call it things like the Noise Maker Brigade.

The Bear Killer would work his way in close to a noisy fussy baby, thrust his big black muzzle into the little one's belly and snuff a couple times, then he'd lift his head and very gently, very softly, he'd start to howl.

Nearly every time that surprised the fussy baby and they'd look at him with big and astonished eyes, then their face would screw up again and they'd get all dark in the face like Storm Cloud Number Nine and they'd start to squall again and The Bear Killer would woooo real soft an' gentle, and more times than not he'd charm 'em right out of their foul mood.

Not always.

Was a little one teethin', why, there'd be no salvation, but Mama used to dip the pad of her little finger in the Daine boys' liquid sledge hammer and paint our gums when we were teethin' and hurtin' and by golly now that did the trick.

I think it was Joseph that went up to his Ma and asked if he and Angela could go play and Shelly was foldin' clothes, she looked down at him and asked what he intended to play and he grinned at her and said "Alligator hunter! We're gonna tie a rope around her big toe an' throw her in the pond and use her for bait!"

Now Shelly, bless her, was a veteran mother:  all she had to do was lower her head, raise one eyebrow and give him The Look, and that idea got scrapped, fast.

Just to be sure, though, she brought Angela down where she had eyes on her while she finished foldin' laundry.

The boys generally found their own entertainment and I generally had 'em with me, and we was a-settin' in the barn having a council of war, talking about supremely important Man Stuff, the way a father will with his young and very young boys.

It'd been raining, it was cooled off and kind of chilly, I was settin' on a hay bale and Joseph come pilin' up beside me and leaned into me and directly I had two more boys a-settin' close and I detailed the oldest to fetch over two saddle blankets and there we were, all masculine humanity, strong and robust and washing the decks with testosterone ...

... well, truth be told, we didn't do anything of the sort.

We were settin' on hay bales and leaned back against a short stack of hay bales and the bunch of us was warm under them horse smellin' coarse saddle blankets and we relaxed, all of us, and when Shelly couldn't find us for supper, she wrapped Angela up and had her inside of her blanket lined denim jacket, she come out with The Bear Killer and I opened one eye just as she brought her hand up to her mouth and bit her knuckle the way she did to keep from laughin', for there I was, long tall me, leaned back with my long legs stuck out, and boys on either side of me, cuddled into me with their arms around me and my arms around them, and all of us sound asleep with the rain patterin' quietly on that tin barn roof overhead.

It was a mean old rainy day, I'd put in too many hours and I was short on sleep, it was my day off,  and I didn't feel much like workin' anyhow.

[SHORT STORIES!]

693. BEING NICE

We set out at a spanking trot.

We'd waited in Shorty's livery for the rain to slack off, and sure enough it did, so when it looked like we wouldn't get our tail feathers soaked, why, we pointed the grey's nose toward Sarah's house and set out at a good clip.

We were high enough we could see a good distance, and rain a ways off looked like a grey curtain headed toward us: it was not far to home and it had already rained, the sun was crossing from our right to our left and I eased back on the reins and called "Ho, there, ho, now," and the grey slowed and walked a little and stopped, waiting patiently to be told to resume.

I lifted my chin to the left:  "Look there," I said quietly, and Sarah looked:  she gripped my forearm and there was delight in her grip, I looked at her and her face just plainly shone with delight.

We looked at a rainbow, not just a bow, but a complete rainbow:  it looked like it come out of the ground far on the left, arched over the cloudy firmament, drove down the other side and looked like both ends were planted firmly on the hayfield.

"That's just freshly hayed off," I said softly, "the stubble isn't more'n ankle high ... was there an Irishman's pot, why, we'd see it easy and I'd turn the grey and we'd trot right out there and get it!"

Sarah laughed.

"Papa, what would you ever do with a pot of gold?"

"Oh, I dunno," I groaned in my best tired-old-man voice.  "Bribe leprechauns?"

"You could bribe politicians," Sarah suggested, her face carefully innocent, and I couldn't help but laugh a little.

"I'd reckon bribin' politicians might get me further ahead," I admitted, then puffed out my chest, leaned back, resumed the peevish and reedy voice, and raised a pontificating finger:  "Bribery, an ancient and honored sport!"

Sarah laughed again, and that's another of them pictures I'll carry in my heart forever:  her head tilted back a little, she was looking open and unguarded and delighted, she was in one of her Mama's creations and she was looking beautiful as her Mama and I wanted nothing more than to hold her like the little girl she was when I first saw her.

Sarah gave me a soft look, reached up, caressed my jawline.

"Dear Papa," she said gently, "how do you do it?"

I give her my very best Innocent Expression -- I had no idea what she was referrin' to -- so I batted my eyes real innocent-like and allowed as I reckon I'm just talented, and she laughed again.

"No," she almost groaned, but groaned with a smile -- one of those things girls do that makes 'em so cute lookin' -- "no, Papa ... you're Sheriff and you deal with some of the worst people in the territory."

I nodded.  "Yes, Sarah, I do that."

"You're still so nice."

I considered that, and I felt my forehead puzzlin' up in some wrinkles, so I taken off my Stetson and leaned my forehead down ag'in hers and tried to think of something wise to say.

My mind was not working a'tall.

I genuinely couldn't think of a thing to say, and I did what I usually do.

Open mouth, something stupid falls out.

"Reckon I just do," I said, and at least I said it quietly.

"Papa."  Sarah put her fingertips under my chin, just ever so gentle, and she gave me almost a pitying look.  "Papa, you have a reputation."

"Oh?"

"Oh, yes," she nodded, her voice and her expression serious.  "You are a hard man, a harsh man, a bad man to tangle with."

"Who, me?"

"Yes, you, dear Papa."  Sarah nodded solemnly, assuring me of the utter veracity of her words.

To my credit, I did not laugh.

It was an effort.

I know she was crowdin' womanhood but when she looked at me like that and nodded like that, she reminded me so much of how she was when she was a little girl.

"Papa, you have waded through blood ankle deep and you've seen things that would curl the hair on a bald man's head, you've wept scalding tears as a life dribbled out from between your fingers and you couldn't stop it, and you've had to deal harshly with people who wanted to do you great harm, and you can still look at a rainbow and grin like a schoolboy."

I considered that, nodded.

"You can still see beauty reflected in a mountain pool, you can still show me how to sneak up on a cow elk and show me the calf inside kick as she grazes. You showed me how to look at the back side of a flower and see that it's just as beautiful as the front, you've stood on a mountain's summit and held my hand and I could hear you appreciate the sight of the world falling away at your feet when all you did was sigh out your breath."

I saw each of those memories as she spoke them, and I nodded again, and I felt myself smile, just a little, and she took my big hand between her gloved hands.

Sarah tilted her head and looked at me with big and pale blue eyes and I'm satisfied she was lookin' well deep into my carcass to take a good long gander at my eternal soul.

"You've had so much sorrow, Papa, you've had so much grief and so much conflict and you can still show a little boy how to whittle and how to whistle, you can still carve a whistle and give it to a little boy and you can wipe the water from my cheeks when my girlish heart is sorrowing over nothing at all."

"Trust me to cause trouble," I murmured, proving yet again that I have indeed mastered the art of shoving my well polished boot right between my pearly whites.

Sarah hugged me, quickly, impulsively, and I hugged her back, and the grey waited patiently in the traces as the rainbow faded and was gone and the rain started to patter down around us, those first big fat and real cold drops that fall from the front edge of a genuine deluge.

We came trotting into Sarah's yard, laughing like a couple damn fools and looking like a couple drowned rats, and I don't ever recall a better carriage ride in my entire young life!

[Ba-Dump Tissssh - Memes]

9 hours ago, Cyrus Cassidy #45437 said:

 

When Scottish people go out in the sun....

Brother Cyrus speaks truly indeed!

I burn fast, hard and nasty!

Less than five minutes and I am BURNT!

[SHORT STORIES!]

692. A HAND OF POKER

Paper was not terribly plentiful on the frontier.

It was not extremely rare, but it was not wasted.

Unless, of course, there was a really good reason.

The Blaze Boys were known for not only getting in trouble on a regular basis, but for getting in trouble in unusual ways.

They were also incurable scroungers.

Somehow they managed to acquire a keg of blasting powder (which the Sheriff found, and returned to the mine from whence it came), various hand tools and a wonderful miscellany of items.

History remembers them for launching a stolen skyrocket into lowering storm clouds, resulting in a lightning bolt driving down its smoke trail and blowing them off their feet: in addition to a temporary deafness in one ear, the pair also acquired a blaze of pure white in their dark hair -- thus their nickname.

They'd come up with a few sheets of heavy paper; one twisted a sheet idly around a broomhandle, which inspired the other: each inspired the other, and with red paint as both disguise and adheisive, they'd rolled three cylinders, folded one end shut; they scratched up enough sandy dirt to fill them, once the paint dried, they stuck in a hand's span of cannon fuse in one and carefully, precisely, folded the end of the tube over, painted it with the scrounged, thickening red paint, and let it dry.

It's not entirely certain where they intended to use this, but we can safely infer their intent was to cause panic, fear, distress, confusion and other forms of entertainment, probably by lighting the fuse and tossing it in amongst ... well, their exact victim, or victims, may never be known.

You see, the Sheriff ran across them about the time they were trying the paint and finding it just tacky but only just.

Two ornery little boys with a white streak in each of their thatch jumped as a shadow filled their doorway, as a hand reached in, as the Sheriff relieved them of their prize.

"Wait here," he said quietly, and with drew.

Two suddenly chastened boys looked at one another with the terrible feeling that the boom was about to be lowered.

The Sheriff walked away, his tread absolutely silent, and this only increased the Blaze boys' discomfiture: when the man's tread was as noisy as a passing summer cloud, this did not bode well at all, and they knew this for an immutable and absolute fact.

Sheriff Linn Keller's tread was indeed silent, and Sheriff Linn Keller was more than unhappy.

He was ready to bite the horn off the nearest anvil and spit it out as railroad spikes.

He was a patient man, he was a longsuffering man, he was a man who'd been tried by the inclemencies and vicissitudes of a hard and difficult life.

Sheriff Linn Keller was a hard man to rile.

It could be done, but you had to work at it, and right now he was riled.

Someone had his little girl and someone was going to pay very dearly for their utter, unadulterated, absolute, stupidity.

 

Angela Keller did not take kindly to being grabbed.

Angela Keller, as a matter of fact, bit most of the way through a man's finger as he tried to silence her protests: she stomped hard on his arch, twisted, got away from him.

Angela Keller, the pretty blue-eyed daughter of the pale-eyed Sheriff, snatched a hatpin from where she kept one at the back of her neck, under her hair, drove it into the out-thrusting, splay-fingered hand that tried to seize her again.

She bought herself a moment, but only a moment, and she made good use of it.

Angela ran, terror seizing her young heart and lending speed to her muscular, stockinged, equestrienne's legs.

 

Retired Sheriff Willamina Keller's eyes went dead pale, and they went pale, fast.

A truly huge, very black canine beside her right leg, laid his ears back, fur rippling the length of his backbone and across his shoulders: feral yellow eyes and glacier's-heart pale eyes looked across the parking lot.

Beside and behind her, two of Willamina's Warriors, Firelands High School football players, were helping bring out her groceries, not because she was in need of the help, but as a mark of respect for their Cool Little Old Lady, this pale eyed warrior-matron who still -- in spite of being retired -- still geared up in full rattle battle, laced her tan desert boots, slung a rifle over her shoulder and ran with the Firelands Football Team, not just keeping up, but setting their pace, and teaching them delightfully obscene running cadences as she did.

Two of Willamina's Warriors, lean and healthy high school football players, knew something was amiss when their Cool Little Old Lady dropped the blue-plastic sack of groceries from her left hand, swatted her coat tail aside, yelled "BEAR KILLER!  GET 'IM!" -- and took out in a flat-out sprint.

Two Firelands High School football players had no idea what was going on, but they did not hesitate.

They set their sacks down and surged forward, in a flat-out sprint, following their Warrior-Matron, their Sheriff, their pale eyed leader of not only Willamina's Warriors, but the Valkyries as well.

Ahead of them, a grade school girl twisted and kicked.

She'd been grabbed from behind, hauled off the ground, was being carried -- very much against her will and pleasure -- her attacker's one hand over her mouth, his other arm around her, struggling to contain and silence the athletic, struggling, scared-to-blue-hell third-grade girl.

 

Jacob Keller waited, silent, watchful, rifle high and ready.

"They're still in there?"

"They are, sir."

A man's shout, the sound of pain, voices in confusion.

"Here she comes!"

Jacob raised his rifle, swore as Angela turned, thrust something into the advancing palm: they saw her attacker jerk back, saw Angela hoist her skirts and lay into an absolute, split-the-wind sprint.

Two attackers emerged from the building, pursued.

Jacob felt his father move: hate burned in his heart, his Winchester came to shoulder, the front sight fell into the rear notch and the .40-60 drove crescent steel into his upper arm.

The first running outlaw's head lost most of its contents.

Angela skidded, twisted, got around the corner.

She was angry now, fear turning to rage: she was a maiden, not yet a woman, older than a child: she was in that confused middle ground where strong feelings rage and surge as her young body accustomed itself to something future generations would call "Raging Hormones" -- all she knew was, here was an ax, and she was done running.

Angela Keller, the pretty adopted daughter of that pale eyed Sheriff, crouched and set her heels hard into the dirt, teeth bared, a snarl twisting into quiet life in her pretty, girlish throat.

 

Two boys hunkered in a shed, their heads coming quickly up, for all the world like two Beagle dogs hearing another baying a hot trail.

Neither dared move.

That pale eyed Sheriff told them to stay put.

They knew better than to do anyting other than what he'd told them to.

 

By the time the kidnapper realized death was upon him, it was too late.

The Bear Killer's charge was silent: he seared across parking lot pavement like the black arrow of Death itself.

Retired Sheriff Willamina Keller covered half the distance when The Bear Killer took the kidnapper down.

Two young men ran in an absolute flat-out sprint with her, hands open and bladed: they'd seen the child struggling in a stranger's grip and their hearts were ignited with a terrible resolve, and they fell back on their training.

Each one fully intended to drive his shoulder into this interloper's gut, just as hard as they could, tackle him and hard, and after that, why, they'd see how much damage they could do.

Twice one hundred pounds of mountain Mastiff, running flat out, feral yellow eyes gone an incendiary red, launched off the pavement, jaws open, slavers trailing from the corners of his open jowls.

Retired Sheriff Willamina Keller's hand was hard around the grip of her stainless steel .45: she felt the thumb break snap open, the pistol raised on a graceful curve, punched out in front of her --

Polished ivory fangs closed on a man's shoulder and two hundred pounds of flying canine twisted the kidnapper around, hard: muscle and bone and mountain-bred momentum brought the criminal off his sneakered feet, whipped him around, spun and slammed him face first into the blacktop, canine jaws locked hard and deep into the shoulder joint.

Bone splintered, muscle tore, a man's scream shivered in the mountain air, and a little girl fell flat on her back, suddenly free, until a set of hands seized her, swung her up, kept running.

She ran her arms around the familiar neck and clung depserately to her older brother as he and his buddy skidded to a stop.

 

Angela Keller timed it almost right.

She knew she was pursued.

She swung the broad ax and she swung it hard.

Angela was not terribly fussy about where she intended to hit the attacker.

Angela was mad enough she wanted to hit this man and she wanted to hit him hard enough to cut him in two.

The ax blade cut into him just above his belt buckle, but he never felt it.

A .44 pistol ball beat the ax blade by a tenth of a second, taking any last thoughts he might have had, out a sizable hole in the back of his head.

 

Two boys could not stand it any longer.

They came out of the shed and ran to the sound of the guns.

They stopped, hunkered, watched:  that pale eyed Sheriff had his hands on his daughter's shoulders, he was bent over, saying something, listening to something.

He raised his head and looked at his hand, surprised.

He was still holding that red painted paper tube full of dirt with the cannon fuse sticking out of it.

The boys watched as the Sheriff scratched a Lucifer match against the side of the building, lit the fuse, ran toward the building across the street.

He opened the door, tossed the sizzling stick inside.

Jacob raised his rifle.

 

Retired Sheriff Willamina Keller stomped the kidnapper hard just below his wishbone, driving every bit of wind any any remaining fight out of him.

She stepped back, her stainless .45 looking very directly at his face.

"Do exactly as I say," she said coldly, "or I will blow your brains all over seven acres."

 

Town Marshal Jackson Cooper sat down with that pale eyed Sheriff and spoke in quiet voice, listening to his old friend, to his old friend's son, to the blue-eyed girl sitting between the two of them.

He looked at the two lads with a streak of white in their hair, looked at the second stick of dirt filled, red painted paper they held up.

Town Marshal Jackson Cooper looked across the table at the Sheriff and nodded slowly, reminding Jacob of an old grizzly bear nodding in quiet agreement.

"The last two give up when you tossed that in?"

Linn's voice was quiet: his little girl was leaned into him, his arm around her, and hers around her big strong Daddy.

"They did."

"Linn," said he, "you play one hell of a hand of poker sometimes!"

 

 

[SHORT STORIES!]

691. FATHER, FORGIVE ME

Sheriff Linn Keller rode slowly through the little community.

Rabbitville was just south of the Colorado-New Mexico line, the first Catholic monastery in the territory.

He'd taken the train due south, he'd saddled his shining gold stallion, he'd ridden from what passed for a depot through the narrow dirt streets.

Chickens gossiped and scolded one another, scratching in the dirt, picking up grit, bugs, whatever they could find: they scuttled noisily away from the stallion's shining hooves.

Stray dogs barked at the Sheriff, at chickens, at children running and laughing as children do.

Linn rode through the open gates and into the Rabbitville monastery, where a tonsured Brother took his stallion -- carefully, for he'd seen the stallion's energy before -- and led the shining-gold, blond-tailed Palomino to the stable, where Linn knew his Rey del Sol would receive the very best of care.

Another of the Brethren stepped from the shade into the bright afternoon sun and bowed, his hands in his broad, belled sleeves:  "Abbot William sends his greetings," he said formally as Linn stopped, removed his Stetson, tucked it correctly under his off arm:  "he begs your patience, but he is attending a matter of some importance."

"If I may," the Sheriff replied gently, "I would attend the Sanctuary."

"Of course."

The Sheriff followed the monk, his booted pace silent behind the monk's whispering shuffle: they entered the cool darkness within, down a hallway, turned.

The Sanctuary was a step down, and cooler: Linn's eyes painted much of the interior with the blazing green of eyes accustomed to the bright sunlight without:  he paused before the Host, knelt, genuflected, to the attending monk's silent approval: though the Sheriff was not Catholic, he believed in rendering due respect.

He rose; the monk withdrew, and the Sheriff looked around, as he always did.

In front, a pair knelt in Adoration, one of the Brethren, and one of the White Sisters, offering continuous prayer before the Altar.

The Sheriff was watchful, as was his habit: he drifted across to the far wall, faded back into a shadowed corner, his progress carefully silent:  he was not invisible, but he knew if he held still, the casual eye would pass over him, unseeing.

He waited, smelling beeswax candles, hearing the quiet voiced prayers: his stillness made him a part of the carefully-smoothed wall.

A figure came into the Sanctuary.

Nothing but the Sheriff's eyes moved.

A young man, apparently troubled:  Linn had made a lifetime, after that damned War, in studying men, in reading what they felt from how they carried themselves, and Linn read trouble, distress, a personal conflict, perhaps.

The young man looked around, frowned, wavered as if undecided, then pushed forward, toward the confessionals.

He fairly dove into a confession booth, pulled the door shut.

Linn looked around.

No priests were around.

He slipped from shadow, silent on the balls of his feet:  he went into the priest's compartment, drew the door carefully shut, threw the latch.

He slid the divider open a little, maybe halfway: he saw the young man on the other side, through the ornate screen:  he read stress, he read an anxious young man who carried a burden.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," the young man blurted.

"You may speak freely, my son. Anything you say is covered by the seal of the Confessional."

"I killed a man, Padre."

"Go on."  The Sheriff's voice was gentle, reassuring, the voice of an older man with a comforting nature, an understanding hand on the troubled soul's shoulder.

"I knifed my uncle to death five years ago."

"Where were you then?"

"Back East."  Linn saw the young man did not look at the screen: it was dark in the priest's compartment, a little lighter in the other half, Linn could see him but he couldn't see the Sheriff.

"Five years ago, back East.  What happened?"

Linn saw the young fellow throw his head back, take a great, gasping breath.

"Take your time. This has been troubling you for a very long time."

"Yes it has, Padre. I'm going to Frisco, I'm going to sea."

"Many men go to sea when they wish to escape what they've been. Are you wearing the same name as when this happened?"

"No, Padre.  No, I ... no."

"You're not using the dead man's name?"

A laugh -- sharp, harsh, almost a bark.

"No, Padre.  I'm not as dumb as I look."

Silence.

"I was young," he said, his voice softening, and the Sheriff knew he was looking back, into his past -- In this, at least, he thought, he's telling the truth -- "and I was a prideful ..."

"Go on, my son.  Take your time."

"A young man is full of pride and he insulted me."

"Many a man's tongue has gotten his own nose broke," the Sheriff quoted.  "That must have been quite an insult."

"I just bought a Colt .44 and he said it would knock me on my backside. I didn't say a word, Padre, I was raised to respect my elders but he must've seen my face change because he laughed me down and said I was wet behind the ears. I didn't say anything, Padre, but I was gettin' mad and he laughed again and shouted Mama's milk was wet on my lips and I pulled my skinnin' knife and drove him in the gut."

Linn waited, knowing the confession was not finished.

"I drove him hard enough to pick his feet off the ground, Padre, then I turned the blade around and drove it down behint his collar bone and give it a jerk and I kicked him away from me.

"He laid there and he realized 'twas hard to breathe of a sudden and he give me such a look, my God, Padre, he knowed I'd killed him and I kicked him in the ribs hard."

His voice was edged with a long cherished hatred, hard and unforgiving as he spoke the memory, as he relived the moment in brutal clarity:

"I wanted him to suffer!"

Linn waited, silent, relaxed, his coat unbuttoned; he came up off his backside, made sure his coat tails were not under him, in case he had to draw.

"I went down on my knees and I told him his own tongue got him killed and I hoped he boiled in hell for insultin' me.  I wiped my blade off on his coat and I left.  Nobody knowed I was in town and nobody but my damned Uncle saw me and I taken my wages and headed West."

"This was five years ago?"

"It was, Padre."

"What since?"

The young man heard the quiet words, closed his eyes, clasped his hands, rested his lips on his knuckles, rocking a little as he did:  he remembered the hard years since, living hand to mouth, going hungry at times, eating well in others.

"Padre, I never did anything wrong in the years since. I've been honest as the day is long but I killed my own blood and I'm still runnin'.  I'm a-gonna run as far as I can and then I'm gettin' on a sailin' ship and see how much farther I can go."

"What then, my son?  You can't run from yourself.  However far you go, you'll be there."

"I know."

"Why the sea, my son?"

"I sailed back East."

"Sailed ... Nantucket, Glocester, whalers perhaps?"

A chuckle floated through the ornate latticework.

"Lake Erie, Padre."

Old Pale Eyes whistled softly.

"The Sweet Sea," he murmured.

"You know Erie?"

"I came from ... near there."  Linn blinked, grief stinging his eyes as he remembered the cabin he and his Connie built, near those ever-changing waters.  "You know what it is to sail when the Seiche stirs its tail."

The young man laughed.  "My God, Padre, it's been a long time since I heard about the Seiche! Yes, sir, I've sailed her in good weather and bad."

"If you know the Witch of November," Linn said thoughtfully, "you'll make a fine blue-water sailor."

"Padre, I'm not Catholic, but I wanted ... I don't know no Hail Marys nor anything like that."

"My son," Linn said, "your soul has horse whipped itself for five years over what was done."

He chose his words carefully, treading a neutral path.

"You have served penance enough. If you seek absolution on the Salt Water, may God ride with you."

"Thank you, Padre."

"I can forgive nothing, but God, Who knows all and sees all, and heard our every word, will forgive if you ask."

A click as a latch was opened; a door opened, the compartment flooded with light, and the penitent was gone.

Linn waited a few moments, then slid his hand under his coat, gripped his Colt's walnut handle.

Only then did he slip the latch, carefully, silently.

He eased open the door, ready for an attack.

Silence; no threat waited without.

Linn opened the door, stood, watching as a young man knelt before the Altar, head bowed with the weight of his guilt: Linn turned, saw the Abbot, lifted his chin in greeting.

Linn walked up to the waiting Abbot, who greeted him with a smile, a curious tilt to the head.

"Father Linn?" he chuckled.

Linn turned and looked at the silent figure before the altar.

The young man had gone to his knees as if he had a few tons weighting his shoulders.

Linn felt the Abbot's hand on his shoulder as the lean, tonsured monk regarded the young man he'd seen emerge from the confessional just before the Sheriff's exit.

"I take it ... there was a confession?"

"There was."

"And ...?"

Linn and the Abbot watched as a young man rose easily, standing as if relieved of a terrible weight.

"Turns out we both know the Witch of November."

 

 

[SHORT STORIES!]

690. THEY WANT WHAT?

It was a whim, an accident, really.

Gracie picked up her curly back fiddle and began to play.

That started much more than anyone expected.

Gracie knew what her grandmother knew, she knew where to sit in a small, natural amphitheater that faced the Z&W's railroad line, she knew what it was to hear a steam locomotive laboring powerfully up the little bit of a grade, she knew what it was to spin magic from bow and strings and steam-bent maple, she knew what it was to sing counterpoint to live steam barking from a cast iron throat.

Gracie missed fiddling in the mountains, and Gracie was homesick, and Gracie climbed out of her experimental Confederate fighter and picked up her fiddle and she remembered the sound of the restored Baldwin 4-4-0 and she closed her eyes and she began to play.

Gracie was still wearing her helmet, her helmet's microwiring was still deep in her scalp, her ship was still coupled with her living soul, and Gracie heard her fiddle as she'd never heard it before: she heard more tones and half-tones, she saw the music as it shimmered in the launch cavern's still air, and her soul wrapped itself around her music and she played for all the love she felt for her mountains, she played the sunlight she felt on her face and the feel of the locomotive's chant coming through the soles of her work boots, she played granite at her back and cool air up her sleeve as she bowed.

Gracie was not the only one wearing such a helmet, and Gracie was not the only one linked with her ship, and Gracie was not the only one who lived the memory: the thirteen-star-system Confederacy was energetically, almost desperately, trying to tune these reverse engineered mind ships to work with their minds as well -- it was only by sheer accident they'd found Gracie held a particular genetic coupling that let her mind play her ship like she played her fiddle -- and when Gracie retreated into her memories, when she felt granite under her backside and she felt one booted foot up on a little shelf, when she saw the bright-green cab of The Lady Esther crossing in front of her, when she felt the locomotive's labors through her bootsoles and her backside, when she smelled cold, clean mountain air and she heard creek water laughing its way downstream to her right ... just under fifty-two living souls lived the moment with her, and lived it with all senses engaged.

This, of course, spun off an entirely new line of endeavor.

Gracie had no way of knowing she'd just given their little colony a very big lever they could use against a thirteen star system Confederacy.

 

Half a year later, the Ambassador asked the Sheriff for a meeting.

Firelands Colony was more than happy to have their Sheriff handle such matters; they were yet small enough they hadn't much of a bureaucracy: nearly everyone there came from a background where bureaucracy often got in the way of effectiveness, and their colony by general and unspoken accord, resisted the creation of an interfering, bureaucratic government.

This meant that, although an Ambassador had been dispatched to their colony, they themselves had no such formally appointed individual:  their pale eyed Sheriff had proven effective in such matters, and the colony as a whole was happy with her assuming the liaison duties associated therewith.

Over excellent beef and creamy whipped potatoes, steaming, fragrant gravy and green beans with diced onion and bacons, over sweet rolls with cold, freshly churned butter, the Ambassador and the Sheriff had a quiet, polite meal:  the Ambassador trod carefully, for there was still a distinct chill in the air, and the Sheriff knew he'd come with his hat in his hand, so to speak, to ask her for a favor of some nature.

The meal finished, they stood, walked a bit: Marnie had no idea which planet they were on, only that they stepped out into a night overarched with ten times ten thousand stars, shining like spilled milk in a thick band overhead:  night birds called drowsily, night-blooming flowers perfumed the air.

The Ambassador, as was his habit, wore the grey dress uniform of Confederate cavalry, somewhat stylized in more than a century since those dark days when his ancestors were abducted by aliens, carried away to fight their war with primitive weapons and primitive methods: Willamina wore a McKenna gown, light blue with dark blue trim:  a well dressed man and a well dressed woman walked together in the gathering dark, footsteps silent on manicured grass.

"Do you know," the Ambassador said, "that the mindships can link with each other?"

Marnie's gloved hand was light on the Ambassador's arm: in spite of living in an advanced and modern age, she cherished the custom of a lady being on a gentleman's arm, for it conveyed an air of gentility so sadly lacking in modern times.

"I was not aware," she admitted, "but I am not surprised."

"It seems that your Gracie showed us this.  We did not know it either."

"I thought you knew everything about your wonderful creations."

"We're still learning, Sheriff.  The civilizations we fought free of had centuries to develop these. We've been reverse engineering and learning incredible depths of their achievements for just over a century.  We knew they" -- Marnie's ear tugged back a little at the word, at the inflection he gave this reference to the conquered aliens -- "had ships they controlled with their minds, just like the fighting-suits they wore."  He stare into the darkened distance.  "We did not know the ships ..."

"What exactly happened, Mr. Ambassador?"

They stopped; Marnie saw the man swallow, then he turned toward her, his face serious.

"Your Gracie came out of her ship but she did not take off her helmet.  She was still mind linked with her ship. She was ... troubled."

"Go on."  Marnie's pale eyes were unblinking, serious.

"She picked up a violin and played some of the most gorgeous music we've ever experienced."

Marnie's eyebrow quirked up a little.  "Experienced?" she echoed.

"Sheriff" -- the Ambassador took a long breath -- "we had just short of a hundred pilots helmeted and ship-linked.  Every last one of them lived her experience."  He raised his eyes, took another deep breath, looked back down at the pale eyed Sheriff.

"She was ... I was given a taste of what they experienced, Sheriff.  She remembered being back in Colorado, among her mountains, her memory was complete. All five senses. She was playing for a steam locomotive. Her music was perfectly, flawlessly counterpoint to the locomotive. We did not hear her play, Sheriff, we lived it!"

"Go on."  Marnie's gloved grip was still on the Ambassador's forearm, her eyes never leaving his: while the Ambassador was recounting something truly remarkable, while he was speaking from his innermost soul, the Sheriff was cold, detached, analytical.

"Sheriff, we need your stories, your experiences."

"Mine?" she smiled, raising an eyebrow again.

"Sheriff, the cinema is popular among our people, but this has the theatre so far outclassed --"

He shivered a little.

"I've never played violin in my life, Sheriff, but I could feel the strings under my fingers, I felt the neck, the bow, my arm moved as she played. I heard the mountain stream to her right and the rock beneath her, I felt the earth shiver with the power of a steam engine, and a hundred other minds lived that moment with her."  His eyes were bright, his expression delighted:  he lowered his arm, then took her elbows, gently, carefully, looking very directly into Marnie's wide, serious, pale blue eyes.

"Sheriff, you know what it is to ride a horse. You know what it is to be a Sheriff's deputy and then Sheriff.  Your people back on Earth know what it is to do so many things our people have never experienced. We never developed steam technology, for instance, transportation and propulsion were advanced far beyond simple traction engines, but there is a romance to the steam railroads that ... we lack."

Marnie tilted her head a little to show she was still listening.

"Mister Ambassador."

"Yes, Sheriff?"

"You want our stories."

"Yes."

"You want our experiences."

"We ... want them, yes," he admitted.

"And how to you propose to harvest these?"

"We've been researching how to miniaturize the helmet effect to capture whole-sensory experience."

"Go on."

"I would propose an experiement."
"An experiment."

The ambassador took a long breath.

"Sheriff, we'd like to ... wire ... someone, back on Earth, and have them stand near the tracks as your locomotive passes by."

"At what risk?"

 

 

A pale-eyed boy stood, boots on carefully selected rocks: he'd floated a Royal Coachman out onto the stream, letting it bob and wobble with the current.

Something silver slammed into it, he set the hook carefully: grinning, he brought in another fish for the evening meal: he washed his hand off in the running stream, his prize safely in the woven creel slung over one shoulder.

He felt as much as heard The Lady Esther coming up-track toward him:  the tracks ran not much higher than the streambed, bedded in stone and set on rock: he turned, rod in hand, grinning as the fireman leaned out the side of the cab and waved, and he waved back.

Steam, invisible, hot, blasted from her stack; it turned pure white almost immediately after clearing the rolled rim of the black stack, and the lad knew it was the engineer's skill that ran his beloved engine with a clean stack: great clouds of black smoke were fine for a photographer's run, but a good engineer will run a clean stack, and it was a point of pride that his beloved Lady came into station with no trace of smoke seen.

The boy heard the clear, coldwater stream beside him, felt cool air moving with it, drawn by the water's steady movement: he felt the engine's labors as she drove hard against steel rails, breathing easy as she towed the short string of cars behind her:  he turned as she passed, all cast iron and polished brightwork, heat radiating onto his grinning face, pinstriped, castpiron drivers thrashing, her sound changing to the rumbling, clattering chant of steel wheels over gaps in the rails, and he watched her and her half dozen cars depart.

He took a careful step, another, ran up the short bank to the roadbed and across the tracks:  he felt the coarse-gravel ballast beneath his bootsoles, smelled mountain air and clean running water, he stopped where a spring came out the rock shelf above him:  he caught the falling water in his cupped hands, drank, drank again.

To his left, a shining palomino mare grazed, her blond tail slashing bright and industrious in the sunlight.

The boy shifted the creel, grinning.

They would have fish for supper, and he loved fresh caught fish.

He almost managed to forget the intruding implant behind and just below his right ear.

 

Sheriff Marnie Keller met with the Ambassador again.

She felt his fingers, warm and dextrous, as he detached the implant from behind and under her right ear: she blinked, shivered in a breath, getting used to the idea that she was sitting in an underground conference room in the Firelands colony, instead of standing beside the stream she'd fished just as her young relative had been fishing.

"Sheriff," the Ambassador said, "you have most of a galaxy clamoring for more of this."

Sheriff Marnie Keller looked at the Ambassador, steepled her fingers together, considering.

"What are you prepared to offer?"

 

[SHORT STORIES!]

689. TAUGHT BY THE BEST

"Sheriff."

"Mister Ambassador."

The atmosphere was several degrees cooler for Marnie's having spoken.

Marnie received the Ambassador in her office, rather than elsewhere in the colony: she stood behind her desk, keeping it between them: this told the Ambassador that the Sheriff was treating this as a formal visit, a state visit, an official visit.

She'd not worn her more casual red boots and skirt, with the Confederate belt-box that contained her fieldsuit, the invisible force field that was as effective as her Olympic skinsuit: no, she was once again in her white skinsuit, with the six point star embossed over her left breast, though she did retain her Uncle Will's .357 in its Jordan holster.

"Sheriff, I fear I have eroded the trust we've built," the Ambassador said slowly.

His mouth tasted like ashes as he did.

He'd come to like the Sheriff, he'd come to admire and respect these Earthers who'd left their own planet to risk more than their very lives in colonizing a dead world, far from home, far from the living warmth of their sun.

Marnie looked at the Ambassador, her eyes pale, but not quite gone to ice-hard.

Not yet, at least.

"Eroded," Marnie echoed, her voice carefully neutral.  "You could say that."

"I ... genuinely regret ... that I talked you into persuading your kinswoman into allowing us to ... use her."

Marnie considered this, her jaw muscles hardening, and she nodded, slowly.

"Mister Ambassador," she said, "I found it hard to swallow that, of all your thirteen star systems, no one else had a mind that would be compatible with your mind-controlled ship."

The Ambassador sat, unbidden, his pearl-grey hat in his hand:  he tossed it a little, between his fingers, spinning it:  Marnie had seen her pale eyed Daddy do that same thing when he was uncomfortable, when he was a little uncertain.

"The technology was adapted," he said slowly, "and was not compatible with a human brain. We had to extensively overhaul its sensory and its interface both and we almost had it when Long Range found we weren't as alone as we'd thought."

Marnie's arms lowered; she stood relaxed, deceptively so: the inside of her right forearm was against the checkered grip of her Model 19, and she appeared not to shrink, as much as tighten... something only another warrior would be able to see.

The Ambassador had never been in law enforcement, but he'd been a soldier, and he recognized the natural reaction to the intel that there were more enemies and they might be a target.

"Your Gracie was a far more efficient fighter pilot than we ever anticipated," the Ambassador admitted. "We'd intended her to engage the enemy and we projected a very high probability that she would be killed in the first exchange, and we'd built in a fail-safe to both send us all telemetery up to that point, and to drive our ship into the enemy's Hellcannon and then detonate."

Willamina's eyes became glacier's-heart white, and just as hard.

"You do realize she is a wife and a mother."

"I realize that they expected to face a war-fleet, I realize their best warship was defeated by a single, one-man ship that was much less than even a cruiser. Your Gracie was so effective that they will not dare attack now."

"The cost, Mr. Ambassador. Even though she still draws breath, what cost the encounter?"

The Ambassador threw his head back, suddenly, taking a fast, deep gasp of air as if coming up from a deep dive:  he looked at the Sheriff and said harshly, "She was expendable because she was just an Earther, and I was expendable because diplomats are expendable. It was projected that I might even be killed out of retaliation for our using your Gracie, and that was deemed an acceptable risk."

Marnie blew out a long breath, folded her arms, looked at the Ambassador.

"That," she said, "sounds like something an ancestor of mine said."

 

The Smith knife spun through the air, drove between the fibers of the barked long, stuck firm and deep and did not even quiver.

"Politics," Linn spat.

It was not often Jacob saw his father angered without a physical confrontation, but this was one of those times.

"They are called acceptable losses, Jacob," Linn snarled.  "The military buys horses, guns, sabers, wagons, boots, smallclothes, hats, wholesale.  The military knows its assets will be used, lost, stolen,destroyed, broken, and they plan for that. They plan on losing a percentage of their men."

Linn glared at the thick-bladed knife, then reached for it, gripped the lightly-checkered handle, pulled.

"Men are expendable. Men are hats. Men are poker chips, to be spent."  

The knife came back, over his shoulder, spun across the room, drove into the log wall again.

"Every man had a mother, a family, every man had a home and a life and the military just THREW THEM AWAY!"

He did not raise his voice.

He did not have to.

His anger was more than clearly expressed in the strength of his quiet words, in the fisting of his hands, in the pallor of his face, in the tightening of the pale skin over his cheekbones.

"Politics," Linn spat.  "Politics is nothing but using people like they were tin cans, to be thrown away when done."

 

"The politics were decided well above me," the Ambassador said quietly.

"I vass only followink orders," Marnie said in a truly terrible Germanic accent.

The Ambassador shook his head.  "That doesn't excuse my exploiting the trust we've built."

"I wondered why a thirteen star system Confederacy would be so willing to help a poor primitive colony hanging onto a dead planet by its fingernails."

"Her death would not have been in vain. We needed to ... they needed the data from her experience controlling the ship with her mind alone, they needed the data from the simulator, and she was the first one we've found with a a compatible mind."

"Have you found any others?"

"No," he admitted.  "In thirteen star systems, in all the souls we have on all our worlds, no.  But we have figured out how to interface with our admittedly lesser minds."

"So I suppose we'll be discarded as no longer useful," Marnie said dryly.

"Actually, Sheriff," the Ambassador said, his gaze frank and open, "you have personally guaranteed there will be a continued discourse and exchange."

"Really."  Marnie's voice was as cold as her eyes.

"It seems you have quite the following, Sheriff. Our ladies admire a woman of such diverse talents, our men are fascinated by someone who is as fast and as deadly as you are, and there was a system wide delight in the way you threw that table over and spoke as you did at a formal State dinner."

 

Linn worked the thick spine blade out of the timber.

He slid it back in its hidden sheath, turned, sat his bony backside on the corner of the stout built desk.

"Everyting captain and above is politics," he snarled. "Schoolboys, the lot of 'em, running to talletale if anyone gets out of line, currying favor and toadying and --"

Linn shook his head.

"Damn that War," he whispered, "and damn every military in the world and damn every politician that ever ordered the military into war!"

 

"You see, Sheriff, you're using a particular isotope as a fuel source, not only for your ships, but for your power reactors. The Confederacy is willing to pay you very well indeed if you'll sell to us. We need it for fueling our own brainships."

"So you can take us over and have all that lovely isotope for yourself."

"That was suggested," he admitted frankly, "and I talked them out of it."

Marnie's eyebrow raised.  "Greed," she said, "political expediency and wartime efficiency are powerful persuaders, Mr. Ambassador. I have to consider that your people might just walk in and take what they want."

"Not when you can detonate every gram of the stuff."

Marnie's eyes were hard, unreadable.

"I told them you'd found how to blow it in place, how a reaction started anywhere would almost instantaneously detonate every last gram of the stuff, that you'd already set charges at more locations than could possibly be disabled and that you were more than willing to turn your entire colonized planet into a dust cloud rather than let us or anyone else take you over."

"And they bought it."

"I am a most convincing liar when I have to be."

"You didn't have to."

"The best lie contains an element of truth, Sheriff. Your isotope can indeed detonate and your engineers already found out how. Your people are just as quick to adapt our new technology as we were quick and able to adapt the alien technology we encountered. I have it on good authority that your entire planet-wide isotope supply is mined, charges are set, a chain of command established in case a first strike takes out your primary command personnel."

"You weren't supposed to find that out."

"You arranged it so I would."

Marnie made no reply, her face unreadable.

"Sheriff," the Ambassador said tiredly, "I detest politics, but they are a fact of life, and something tells me you are just as ruthless in politics as you are in combat."

Marnie's eyes went to a framed portrait on her office wall, a portrait of a pale eyed woman in a tailored blue sit dress and heels.

"You might say," Marnie replied, "I was taught by the best."

[SHORT STORIES!]

688. PICTURE IN THE PAPER

The Ladies' Tea Society were ranked shoulder to shoulder, all in their period gowns: those left of center were turned a little, to face slightly inward, as were those on the right of center.

Behind them, shoulder to shoulder, solemn and unsmiling in their red-wool, bib-front shirts, curled black mustaches and old-fashioned, pressed-leather helmets, the Firelands Fire Department: in front of the Ladies, the librarian, who was also in charge of the Museum: she stood behind a woman who was handing an old-fashioned, pressed-leather fire helmet to the pale-eyed Willamina Keller, who also wore a period gown.

It was a posed phtograph, carefully staged, stiff, formal: names were listed beneath:  to the left of the presenter, a boy, skinny and awkward in knee pants and sandals, holding what a few recognized as an old-fashioned speaking-trumpet, the insignia of a firefighter of command rank; behind the Sheriff, a great, black Mastiff, looking at the camera with an expression of contented boredom, and kneeling behind The Bear Killer, the only other person in modern attire, a young woman in medic's blue, stethoscope around her neck and one hand laid over the great Mountain Mastifff's shoulder.

The front page picture appeared in the Firelands Gazette; its accompanying article was not terribly brief, nor was it excruciatingly long: it discussed the presentation of the artifacts, their origin, their original owner, and their placements in the Museum, near the exhibits of the first World War oval portrait, uniform, and copper plated, engraved Colts worn by a young man who'd grown up in the great stone house that later became this same Firelands Museum.

The helmet's shield had the crossed speaking-trumpets, designating Chief's rank; the helmet was white, indicating the rank of Chief, and as the Sheriff looked at the newspaper picture and smiled a little, the front door opened and the librarian came into the Sheriff's Office, looking decidedly less than well.

Willamina laid the paper on her dispatcher's desk and took a few quick steps, grabbed the librarian's elbow, steered her into a chair.

"Joyce," she said, her voice quiet, serious, "what's wrong?"

Joyce Swart swallowed, looked at the Sheriff and whispered, "It's haunted."

 

Daffyd Llewellyn regarded His Honor the Mayor with pale eyes and accepted the pressed-leather helmet.

It was a formal presentation, with the Cincinnati firefighters in their class A's drawn up in ranks.

He was the second Daffyd Llewellyn to wear this particular insignia of rank; he was the third Daffyd Llewellyn to wear the name.

His father was Franklin, and why in God's good earth anyone chose to name a man Franklin was beyond him, but this did not matter:  he raised the artifact to his head, settled it in place, and the men he led, those veteran firefighters of the Cincinnati Fire Department, pattered their white-gloved hands politely together:  there were salutes, speeches, the obligatory photos with the Mayor.

Hard slaps to his back, obscene suggestions and raucous oaths and drinking would follow, he knew; they always did, and he led his men in celebration as he led them in fighting a fire: he was in the middle of it, making himself seen, and making himself heard.

Daffyd Llewellyn grew up along the Ohio River, soaking in its ancient history, its superstitions; as a lad, he was friends with every fireman and with every beat cop, and he well remembered an old man named Muldoon who had the beat by the old cemetery where his seminal ancestor and namesake was buried.

He well knew the tomb stone and the legend attached, how Muldoon heard a woman sorrowing in the fog, how he followed the sound and finally came upon a grieving woman in widow's black -- something he'd never seen before, for she wore a long and old fashioned gown and veil, and even black gloves, and had a kerosene lantern on the ground, casting a pale skirt of illumination in the concealing mists:  she turned as he approached, and departed, she and her lantern, though he called after her to wait:  the fog was too thick for a pursuit, and so he turned to the stone, and shone his light upon it.

It was the original Daffyd Llewellyn, who'd come to Ohio from out West, and it was not the first time Muldooon, or the other beat cops, would have an encounter at this grave.

Willamina knelt beside the librarian, held the woman's hands in her own.

"Joyce," she said gently, "tell me what happened."

Joyce Swart looked at the Sheriff, uncertainty in her expression and apprehension in her voice.

"I came down the stairs," she half-whispered, then cleared her throat:  "I came down the stairs and looked over toward the Llewellyn exhibit as I always do."

Willamina nodded.  "Go on."

"That's where we put the speaking trumpet and that new Chief's helmet we just ... that we were presented ..."

Willamina nodded, smiled encouragingly.  "I was there, remember?  Go on."

"She was there."

Willamina's eyebrow raised and Joyce felt the Sheriff's fingers tighten, ever so slightly.

"She was all in black and she had a black kerchief to her -- like she -- her nose -- she looked at me --"

The librarian's voice was louder, hoarse, her eyes big with the memory --

"Sheriff, she had pale eyes just like her portrait!"

"Then what happened?"  Willamina prompted in a gentle voice.

"She spoke to me and disappeared."

Willamina's eyebrow rose again.

"She said 'Thank you' and then she ... faded ... and I smelled lilac and roses."

Willamina lifted her chin, took the librarian's elbow.

"We need some coffee."

 

Something amber and authoritative gurgled into the coffee cup.

Willamina handed it to the librarian.

"Drink."

Joyce took the heavy ceramic, raised it, drank: she downed it in a breath, handed it back, blinked, coughed, Willamina handed her a tissue and the librarian wiped her eyes, pressed the damp hankie to her tingling lips.

"Now just sit there a moment."

The librarian's eyes went to the framed prints on Willamina's wall.

"Her.  It was her, Sheriff, I saw her clearly."  Joyce fanned herself with her hand, swallowing, tasting the fumes of peach-flavored high-test in the back of her throat.  

"Sarah Llewellyn."

The librarian nodded.

"Daffyd was her pale eyed son, her husband's name was Daffyd. Her husband died saving an infant in a house fire. Her son had words and ran off to Cincinnati. He became a firefighter there and rose to Chief.  His son became Chief, and his son, and the last Chief to wear the helmet in your Museum was a man with pale eyes named Daffyd Llewellyn."

Willamina took the coffee cup, set it on her desk, turned back, laid a gentle hand on the librarian's cheek.

"Joyce, if that helmet was not haunted, I'd be really surprised."

"Was it ... is the helmet haunted, or was it ... her?"

Willamina smiled.

"I think perhaps it was her.  The helmet might not be haunted.  I think she just wanted to touch something of his."  

Willamina smiled a little.

"Mothers are like that, you know."

Willamina froze as she heard a familiar scratching sound behind her.

She did not turn; she did not react; she rose, and the librarian with her:  Joyce Swart, modest of hemline and sensible of shoe, the daughter of a Presbyterian preacher, thanked the Sheriff for her kindness, and for the ... coffee ... and Willamina opened her office door, waited until she was halfway across the lobby, turned.

She closed the door, glared with pale eyes at her desk, at a single sheet of note paper that was not there when the librarian came in, at the fresh-cut rose on her desk blotter that was not there when the librarian came in.

Willamina stepped behind her desk, sat, examined these unexplained artifacts, picked up her steel nib dip quill.

The nib was gleaming wet with fresh ink.

Willamina last used it the previous evening, and wiped it clean before placing it in her desk drawer.

She opened the drawer, wiped the pen, placed it in her tray, looked a little to the right.

Willamina's ink-bottle was still in her drawer, its label facing her, as she'd left it.

On her blotter, very precisely at its center, a sheet of note paper, a type of paper Willamina did not have -- she recognized it as good rag paper, the kind used in an earlier century; beside it, a rose, dew-wet and fragrant.

On the note paper, wet ink shining and fresh, a woman's elegant script:

We mothers are like that.

It was signed with an elaborate, swirling, script S, the same signature Sarah Lynne McKenna signed her notes to His Honor the Judge, before she married and became Sarah Llewellyn.

Willamina turned, looked at Sarah's portrait on the wall, the one where she is glaring at the camera as if she'd like to stomp it into kindling and sling it over the nearest roofline.

"Try not to scare the poor woman," Willamina murmured, smiling as she picked up the rose and held it to her nose, closed her eyes and slowly savored its scent.