Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
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Posts posted by Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103
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582. STAGE PERFORMANCE
Jacob's reserve was rather sorely tested.
The theater was not the best in town, but far from the worst: even in Denver's finest theater, there were occasionally bawdy acts, generally at an hour that accommodated the less prosperous clientele.
Not unprofitable, you understand, just not as profitable as the swells and the dandies, the society folk and people of business and society.
Jacob sat among men well dressed and men less well dressed; some smoked, some talked, laughed, shared jests and comments, at least until the curtains parted and the dancers skipped out onto the stage, all pastels and flowing skirts and long, stockinged legs.
The dancers were actually quite good, Jacob thought; he had an eye for such things -- most men there had an eye more for for low-cut bodices and short hemlines, than for the dancers' skills -- even an absolutely unskilled dancer could get work, and did, simply by displaying enough flesh.
Jacob's reserve took its first shocking hit when he saw the best dancer of the bunch wore a mask -- a glittery, feathered mask, one that hid enough of her face to conceal her identity, while showing carmined lips and a smile: the dancer was of a familiar height, and Jacob's stomach tightened as he realized he was quite probably looking at his sister.
He knew Sarah disguised herself as necessary to gull information from unsuspecting men; he'd known her to costume as a saloon girl, he'd gathered she'd performed on stage with such shameless souls as these, but here -- now -- was the first time he'd ever seen his pale eyed sister dancing.
On stage.
Throwing her hemlines to the left and to the right, spinning round about, throwing her skirts high over her back and showing -- horrors! -- her unmentionables!
Jacob was like his father, in that he had a pretty good poker face.
He managed to maintain an impassive expression as the dancers spun and whirled, as they high-kicked and smiled, and finally, as the music came to a happy crescendo, the ladies struck dramatic poses, with their arms uplifted: the curtains swung closed, Jacob turned and his reserve, tested to its very limits, failed him entirely.
Sarah stood beside him, as dignified and as queenly as any society matron.
She laughed as his eyes widened, as he looked from Sarah to the stage and back, as he raised an uncertain hand, thrust bladed fingers at her middle, then to the still-swinging, heavy burgundy curtains: he lowered his hand, stared openly at his sister, allowing her to take his arm in a firm grip and steer him out of the row and into the aisle.
Sarah smiled coolly, as possessive of his arm as any jealous wife; they looked like any well dressed, married couple, enjoying an afternoon at the theatre: somehow Jacob was not surprised that Sarah had a hack waiting for them, with his Appaloosa tethered behind.
Sarah rapped the ceiling of the hack with gloved knuckles, stuck her head out the window: "Oh James," she called, "to the hotel, please?" and Jacob heard the obsequious "Yes ma'am," and they started clattering into the city traffic.
Sarah smiled and nodded, acknowledging the greetings she received: Jacob wondered silently if she knew everyone here, then he remembered how he'd wondered this same thing about their pale eyed Pa, and that perhaps she'd inherited that skill from him as well as her short temper and her pale eyes.
They were shown to a table; Sarah murmured her thanks, and as they were seated, she looked at Jacob and said, "Your stallion will be at the usual livery," and Jacob once again felt a sense of I-should-not-be-surprised, even though he was.
"Little Sis," he said quietly after his coffee was poured, and her tea was placed, "I think I owe you an apology."
"Oh?" Sarah asked archly, stirring a sugar cube into her steaming-hot oolong.
"I thought you were on stage back there."
Her eyes smiled at him over the rim of her fine china teacup.
"Wasn't I?"
"I thought you were," Jacob admitted. "I looked at the girl in the mask and thought for sure that was you."
Sarah laughed, quietly, the amused sound a woman makes when she knows more than she's said.
"I was one of the dancers," she smiled. "I was three dancers to the right. I knew anyone looking for me would naturally look at the girl in the glittery mask. All I wore was face paint."
Jacob lowered his untasted coffee, stared with open and honest astonishment at this surprising creature his father somehow managed to sire.
"I never even saw you," he admitted.
"I know." She laughed quietly. "If my own brother couldn't see me, no one else will have noticed me!"
Jacob shook his head, looked at Sarah with new respect.
"You," he said, "ought ..." -- Jacob shook his head, tried again -- "I ought to turn you over my knee and fan your little biscuits!"
Sarah laughed again, her eyes bright with merriment.
"Catch me first!"
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581. BE NICE TO THE WAITRESS
Something long, slender and metallic described a shining, bronze-colored arc in the Silver Jewel's shocked silence.
Its intended recipient barely had time to register that something was happening when the aluminum cane SLAMMED across the table in front of him, splitting his plate and spattering him with green bean juice and diced onion fragments.
He opened his mouth in anger and found something shooting towards his throat -- it was pale, it was spider shaped and it was moving fast -- and a grown man of better than six feet was yanked out of his seat and hauled off the floor by a diminutive woman with burning-pale eyes and a set jaw.
Retired Sheriff Willamina Keller yanked him out, left handed: she hoisted him off the ground, slowly, steadily, until she held him at arm's length overhead: her arm trembled but her gaze did not, and when she finally spoke, her voice was as quiet, and as deadlly, as the whisper of a diamondback's belly scales on bare rock.
"Let me know," she said, "when you get tired."
Whether it was the shock that a mere woman had done this -- whether it was the fact that the Silver Jewel's restaurant and its attached bar was deathly silent -- whether it was the fact that every last eyeball was burning into the man from all sides -- or perhaps it's because he was strangling -- he managed to gasp something, and Willamina lowered him.
Slowly.
The moment his toes touched the floor, she released his shirt collar, where she'd seized and twisted and gotten a death grip on him: she snatched up her cane, leaned on it and glared coldly at him as he gasped and choked some wind back into himself.
He started to gasp something, tried to utter some threat, which was not a wise thing to do.
Willamina had practiced a variety of methods of un-gently pacifying thy neighbor, and at this moment, her chosen method was neither Marine Corps combatives, Shotokan karate, nor any of the several varieties with which she was more than conversant.
No, she chose a simple haymaker to the gut.
A set of hard hands slammed down on his shoulders, pulled: a knee in the small of his back brought him off balance and he was twisted facefirst into the floor, both arms twisted painfully up behind him.
Willamina carefully worked her way around, until she was in front of the proned-out prisoner.
She did a one-legged squat, her bad leg stuck awkwardly out to the side, both hands gripping the dog leg handle of her telescoping aluminum cripple stick.
"In case it's escaped your attention," she said quietly, "the Sheriff himself is on top of you, and he does not look very happy."
She smiled, and it was not a kindly smile.
The waitress was shrunk back against the wall, eyes the size of saucers.
Not sixty seconds ago, her eyes were filling with tears.
Her hands were over her mouth as she watched the result of one man's ill-mannered unpleasantness, as she and everyone else witnessed the bitter harvest of harsh words.
"You," Willamina said quietly, "just tore into a girl who's trying to earn enough money to go to school. She did nothing to offend you. I heard you give your order and she brought exactly what you said you wanted. The cook did her best to fix you a good meal, and she fixed exactly what you told the waitress. When she brought your meal you started to raise hell and then you ripped into her like she was Public Enemy Number One. You claimed she brought the wrong meal."
Strong hands held both his thumbs together; the Sheriff's free hand seized the hair of his head, yanked his sagging head back.
"I own this place. I don't have to serve you. As a matter of fact, I'm going to throw you out, and if you ever set foot in here again, I will place you under arrest for criminal trespass, and if you have anything more than a slip of paper on you I will make it weapon specification with an automatic prison term. Do you understand me?"
"I'll get you --" the man gasped, his voice seguing quickly from threats to a wordless scream of pain as the Sheriff applied jointlock pressure to both his wrists.
"Get him out of here," Willamina snarled, doing a one-legged squat to rise to a standing position: Linn frogmarched the swearing ex-customer to the front door, where the hotel clerk politely held it open and stood back.
Willamina got to the door just in time to see the man pick himself up off the pavement.
He rolled over, got up, reached for his car door, hesitated: he thrust out an accusing finger.
"DAMN YOU I'LL SHOOT THIS PLACE UP!" he yelled, yanking open the sedan's driver's door: he reached in, came back out --
Two gunshots sounded as one: inside the Silver Jewel, nearly everone flinched, ducked, clapped their hands to pained, ringing ears.
A dead man collapsed slowly, a pistol falling to the ground beside him.
Linn looked left, Willamina looked right: they looked back at the dead man, Linn backed up a half-step, looked to his right, over his Mama, as Willamina looked around her son's flat belly to her left.
Satisfied, they both holstered.
"I reckon I'd best get hold of Uncle Will," Linn said quietly.
Willamina considered for a moment. "Yes," she agreed, "and have him bring in the State Police to investigate. We don't want any accusations of family interference."
"Yes, ma'am." Linn looked over, looked down at his pale eyed Mama, leaning heavily on her cane.
"You shot one handed?"
"I did."
"Left handed?"
Willamina raised her dogleg cane, pale eyes tightening a little at the corners. "I sure as hell didn't shoot him with this."
Linn's eyes held a quiet smile as well: Willamina recognized it, and appreciated that it did not spread to the rest of his face, for she knew they were being watched, and quite probably they were on camera.
Linn descended the steps, turned the dead man over, held a stiff finger over one bullet hole, then the other, looked up at his Mama, who nodded: two fingers found the corpse's Adam's apple, dropped to the side, found the carotid groove, pressed: Willamina saw the Sheriff's lips move soundlessly and knew he was counting silently, the way she'd taught him.
Dirthy second one, dirty second two, dirty second three ...
Ten seconds later, Linn looked up, shook his head.
"Tell Uncle Will we'll need the coroner."
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580. HORSEBACK
Two pale eyed, lean waisted lawmen rode slowly along the coach road.
"Back East," Linn said quietly, "these roads were laid out so far as possible along the back bone of a ridge."
Jacob listened to his father's quiet observation.
When the Grand Old Man started to talk -- especially with no preceding impetus -- it meant either something was on his mind, or he was working toward a point he wanted to illustrate.
"When flood time came every year, roads along the ridge top did not flood out."
Jacob nodded a little.
His Apple-horse was not as smooth gaited as his Pa's Paso cross, but Apple wasn't bad; Jacob had ridden much worse -- one of the worst, choppiest gaits was that little ill tempered pony Bonnie's second husband bought for Sarah. It was a disagreeable little beast, prone to bite, kick and try to stomp on a man's foot, and Jacob was but a boy when he threw a leg over that ill-mannered escapee from a glue factory; he was happy to turn it back into the corral, he punched it hard in the jaw when it almost got him with those stout yellow teeth, and he finally stripped saddle and saddle blanket from the nasty beast, swung the saddle up as a shield, blocking a kick: Jacob backed to the gate, still carrying the saddle, and Sarah pulled him through the opening, pulled the gate shut, latched it after him.
He hung the little saddle back in the barn, turned to Sarah, who was viewing him with quiet amusement.
"Little Sis," he said, "you were right about that pony!" -- at which point Sarah smacked him on the shoulder and demanded, "Who are you callin' little sis, little brother?"
Each one planted their knuckles on their respective waist, each leaned close in toward the other, each gave the other a truly champion grade snarl, until finally they both cracked at the same moment, and ended up laughing, bent over with their hands on their knees, their heads almost touching.
Jacob smiled as he rode, remembering the moment: he came back to the here-and-now as his father continued, "Not much here but high ground."
"Yes, sir," Jacob replied quietly.
"How is Annette taking Esther's death?"
Jacob hesitated.
His Pa was hard to read sometimes.
Jacob knew his pale eyed Pa could not play poker to save his sorry backside, but he still had a most excellent poker face: losing his wife just plainly tore the man up, ripped the heart from his breast and cast it into a dark and bottomless gulf: Linn isolated himself, seeing no one for three days after burying his wife: on the third day he took a hot bath before breakfast, with his repeated apologies to the hired girl for putting her to extra work just for him: he scrubbed his hide almost viciously -- "I scoured off all the old and some of the new," he admitted later -- he stropped his razor, shaved carefully, put on clean clothes and came to breakfast as if nothing had happened.
Asking how Annette was taking Esther's death was the first time he'd said anything related to his green eyed bride's demise.
Jacob knew the man was only just back from Sopris Mountain, back from mourning at his nece Duzy's fresh grave: her death, so soon after Esther's, hit the man hard.
Hell, it hit Jacob hard!
Jacob turned and looked at his father's lean-jawed profile.
"She is taking it pretty hard, sir," Jacob admitted.
"I understand her family in Frisco is dead now."
"They are, sir."
"No aunts, uncles, in-laws, outlaws, grandparents?"
"No, sir. Either dead or might as well be."
Linn grunted.
"Mother was ... she said Mother was the last Mama she had left."
"She knew her grandparents, then."
"She did, sir."Linn drew up; Jacob's Apple-horse, keeping pace with the golden palomino, did likewise.
"Treat her kindly, Jacob," Linn said softly. "Women are tougher than men can ever imagine, but they are so easily wounded."
"Yes, sir."
Linn's pale eyes stared into the far horizon.
"Red sun this morning," he said thoughtfully. "Rain a-comin', maybe snow."
"Snow, I would reckon, sir."
"Did you see the sunrise, Jacob?"
"I did, sir."
"Don't ever fail to appreciate that, Jacob."
"No, sir."
"I remember sunrise, the morning after a battle ..."
Linn's voice trailed off; he was silent for nearly a full minute, then he looked down at his horse's neck, blinked.
"Reckon we'd ought to go back."
"Yes, sir."
"Jacob."
"Yes, sir?""I would speak with your wife."
Jacob nodded slowly, considering the formal manner in which his father referred to Annette.
Not as Annette.
"Your wife."
Jacob considered this might be an older man, formallly recognizing his son's maturity and recognizing his son's having come into full manhood -- older men, he knew, sometimes did this, as much as anything, to remind themselves that their son was grown, and a man in his own right.
Sometimes a father will remember his son too often as the child he used to be, Jacob remembered Linn saying, once, some time ago.
Perhaps his Pa was swimming through his own grief by reminding himself of such things.
"Annette was absolutely crushed with Mother's death," Jacob admitted.
Linn made no reply.
The two turned, pointed their horses' noses back towards Firelands.
They continued at the same easy pace, little more than a walk.
"Sir?"
"Yes, Jacob?"
"Did your Paso mare foal yet?"
"Not yet, Jacob."
Jacob smiled a little; Linn saw the slight tightening at the corner of his son's near eye."Sir, I recall when you brought that Paso colt into town and set it a-clatter down the boardwalk."
It was Linn's turn to smile: he'd done it just to be annoying, for the gait of the Paso is rapid, and the cold made such a wonderfully annoying clatter on the boardwalk's hollow, resonant surface: the colt seemed delighted with the noise it was making, and was more than happy to accept crackers hastily purchased from the Mercantile, in exchange for a quick and noisy ambulation down the boardwalk and back.
"Full moon and snow a-comin'," Jacob chuckled. "Every sheep, every mare and every mother will be in labor now!"
Linn's eyes tightened a little at the corners, and there was just the shade of a smile tightening the man's face as he said softly, "Jacob, I reckon you are right!"
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579. SPARE ME YOUR PHILOSOPHY!
Sheriff Willamina Keller was not an overly large woman.
Sheriff Willamina Keller was, however, a woman with a rather large reputation.
Sheriff Willamina Keller had torn into and torn down men big enough to make her look like the Tooth Fairy.
Sheriff Willamina Keller, bloodied, bruised, had charged back into a general brawl she'd waded in with intent to shut it down, and when she went back in, she wasn't the one that came flying out.
It was noted with some surprise, then, that when an enraged woman screamed in her face -- their noses about an inch apart -- Willamina's response was to put her hands gently on either side of the purpled, neck-bulged screamer's face, and speak to her in a patient and motherly tone.
Perhaps it's because she was beak to beak with her daughter in law.
Perhaps it's because her granddaughter was watching with pale and judgemental eyes.
Perhaps it's because it was in the middle of the firehouse, and not only Marnie, but the entire Irish Brigade was watching.
Willamina hobbled into the firehouse, dogleg cane in one hand and a walking boot on the opposite leg.
The Irish Brigade was engaged in something -- Willamina didn't know quite what, but she felt the need was there, so she said "Fellas?"
Nobody paid her any attention.
Willamina cleared her throat, raised her voice a little.
"Guys? Could I have your ... attention ..."
Her voice trailed off as she realized nobody was paying attention to a polite and gentle voice.
Sheriff Willamina Keller was nothing if not effective, and to become effective, she'd made a study of human nature, and that study prompted her next words.
She took a good deep breath, lifted her chin and sharpened her voice, shouted loud enough to echo in the brick interior of the firehouse:
"HEY, STUD!"
EVERY man stopped, EVERY man turned, EVERY man smiled, and EVERY man said "Yeeesss?"
Willamina laughed. "Fellas," she declared, "I've got news!"
Chief Fitzgerald raised his voice: "YOU HEARD THE SHERIFF!" he commanded, "COFFEE AND WHAT'S THERE THAT'S EDIBLE?"
The Brigade abandoned their project -- a mower engine was disassembled on a tarp spread over a table -- hands were wiped, then washed under hot water with dish soap to cut the grease, Willamina laughed and hobbled forward, lifted her chin to Shelly and her father.
The Irish Brigade coalesced around the kitchen table instead of around a torn down motor that wouldn't run when it should: coffee was poured, good natured insults traded, a plate of light rolls landed at one end of the table, a second plate at the other, each with a saucer of butter and a knife: everyone was ready to be seated, as soon as the ladies were.
Trouble was, the ladies weren't seating themselves.
Shelly was bent over a little, listening closely to Willamina's words: the Irish Brigade hushed, and the quiet voiced conversation was suddenly loud in the silent firehouse's interior.
"My results are back," Willamina said, "and I wanted you to know. Nothing outstanding was found. Age appropriate changes, my ejection fraction is high normal, there's dilation of the aortic arch but this appears congenital and not acquired. Stable for the past five years."
Shelly's face lost its color.
"I thought you were dying," she said, her voice hissing a little as if her throat were suddenly tight.
"I am," Willamina admitted. "So are you. Nobody gets out alive. Everyone dies."
Shelly's face went red, then purple: for whatever reason, Willamina's words hit her crossways: she shoved her face in her mother in law's face and screamed, "SPARE ME YOUR DAMNED MARINE CORPS PHILOSOPHY! YOU'RE THE ONLY MOTHER I'VE GOT LEFT AND I DON'T WANT YOU DYING ON ME!"
If the Brigade thought they were quiet before, the shocked silence that dropped over the assembled was as extinguishing of conversation as any water soaked quilt.
Willamina reached up, laid her hands gently on Shelly's cheeks; her words were gentle, her face was that of a patient and understanding mother.
"Shelly," Willamina said softly, "I believe that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
Shelly's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open as she realized -- first, what she'd said -- and second, how she'd said it -- and perhaps in that moment, she was wondering why Willamina was not politely handing her, her own ripped-from-her-neck, head.
The two women fell into one another, embraced; Willamina's aluminum cane, forgotten, fell over, slapped loudly against the floor
Fitz broke the spell, broke the tension in his usual wise-guy way.
"If the Mutual Admiration Society is all done," he declared, "there's rolls here that need eatin' up and we ain't going to wait on the two of you!"
Willamina laughed, released Shelly and yelled "Hey Fitz! Pass me a roll!"
Chief Charles Fitzgerald did just that.He passed Willamina a roll.
Airmail.
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578. I'LL LET YOU KNOW
The broken cane clattered loudly off the wall where it had been thrown.
Retired Sheriff Willamina Keller glared at it -- silently, coldly, powerfully: was anyone there to see it, one would expect the telescoping aluminum, padded-dogleg-handled cane to melt into a hissing, steaming puddle of silver-shining aluminum.
It didn't.
Willamina turned her glare to the heavy bag.
Dust hung in the air of the stone-walled basement of her solid-built house.
Willamina's lower jaw slid out, her eyes narrowed: she hobbled out of the room in an obvious ill temper; several minutes later, she came hobbling back, her irregular gait punctuated by the distinct thump of a cane, driven into the hand laid, stone flagged floor beside her good foot with the vigor of someone whose kindness was long since used up and gone.
Willamina leaned on the turned-walnut riot baton, breathing deeply, then brought it up in a two-hand grip.
"Damn you," she hissed from between clenched teeth, and then she turned her badger loose on the heavy bag.
Willamina's attack was fast, brutal, vicious and delivered at full power: she intended with all of her pale eyed soul to absolutely, utterly, completely, KILL this heavy bag -- not because it was a heavy bag, but because she was projecting every last bit of her frustration, her anger, her resentment, everything she'd kept hidden, everything she'd kept bottled, everything she'd kept contained.
Willamina's technique was a combination of riot baton training, and bayonet training: the US military no longer mounted a bayonet on their battle rifles -- her Uncle Pete spoke with contempt of "that damned Made-by-Mattel mouse gun" that replaced God's honest wooden stocked rifles worthy of the name -- he'd used his, in Korea, during human wave attacks that very nearly broke their lines, using the whole rifle as a weapon: once, and once only, had he told Willamina how he'd used both ends of that military issued, wooden stocked rifle to kill as many of the enemy as he possibly could, and it wasn't until they'd broken the human wave, not until he was standing on carcasses three deep to fight the shadowed enemy, not until an eerie stillness gave momentary respite to the slaughter, that he realized he'd taken an enemy bayonet through his side and a round across his ribs.
Only then did he stop and allow fresh troops to relieve his position.
He'd received a Purple Heart for that action, and he should have gotten more, but he never complained about it: he said every man there was fighting to keep his foxhole buddy alive, and every man there should have gotten medals enough that night to sink them and drown them if they fell in the river.
Willamina stopped, stepped back, breathing deep, her face damp, her hair damp: she was stripped down to a T-shirt and jeans, she wore the walking boot on one leg and a lace up work boot on her good foot, she was warmed from exertion and steamed in the still, cool air.
The heavy bag leaked sawdust from several baton-sized holes, where Willamina had honestly punched through the double layer of sawdust-filled, chain-suspended, sleeping bag covers: as she watched, a tear started, ripped slowly from one hole to another, finally dropping the lower two-thirds of the heavy bag to the floor in a splash of spilled sawdust, connected to the upper half by a single irregular ribbon of torn canvas.
Willamina stomped across the floor, stopped, glared at the silent figure standing, arms crossed, watching her with amusement.
"Feel better now?" Linn asked quietly.
Willamina leaned on her turned-walnut riot baton, still breathing deeply.
"Yes," she finally said. "Yes, I do."
Linn pulled out a pocket watch, pressed the stem, flipped the cover open.
Willamina saw his quiet smile and knew he was looking at his wife's portrait, rendered in the inside of the watch's spring loaded, outside-engraved cover.
"You've got time for a shower before your cardiac ultrasound. I've arranged a driver for you."
"You're all heart," Willamina snapped, then stopped: she looked down, her hand tightened around the end of the baton, and she took a long breath.
"I'm sorry."
She looked up at her son, her eyes not as hard as they'd been.
"You didn't deserve that."
Linn stepped into his mother, ran his arms around her, hugged.
"No," he agreed, "but part of my job is being a lightning rod for my ladies." She felt him take a deep breath, too, felt him let it out: his arms loosened, he looked down at her, smiled.
"Mama, you recall all the times I was at war with my automatic pilot -- when I was getting used to swimming in a new ocean of testosterone? You bore up most patiently with me while I got used to a new normal. How can I do any less with you?"
Willamina laid the side of her head against her son's chest, listened to his slow, steady heartbeat.
"I don't deserve you," she groaned.
"No," he agreed, "you deserve a knight in shining armor with an unlimited supply of coffee, hot chocolate and half-naked bodybuilders to bear your throne on a gilded litter." He laughed a little, hugged her again. "If I'm a lightning rod for you, that is a son's rightful duty."
Mother and son walked upstairs, into the silent house, and its crowded memories.
"Shelly's worried," Linn said as Willamina hesitated at the foot of the stairs. "She wants to know your test results five minutes before you're given the ultrasound."
Willamina laughed, set her uninjured hind hoof up on the first step.
"I'll let you know."
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577. "DADDY, WHY IS THERE GRAVY IN YOUR EAR?"
Angela Keller was Daddy's Little Girl, and she knew it.
Her favorite place in all the world, thus far in her six years of life, was her Daddy's lap: it was not at all rare for Esther or the maid to come into Linn's study, to find the long tall lawman asleep in his rocking chair, his arms around the little girl cuddled up against his chest, equally asleep: sometimes a gentle hand on his shoulder, a whisper in his ear, sufficed to wake the man; Angela would be carried upstairs to her bed, her Daddy kissing her forehead once she was laid down: other times, a quilt would be draped carefully over both sleepers, and Linn would wake in his own good time, with his little girl content and asleep atop him.
Angela delighted in everything about her Daddy.
Sometimes she would take his big hand between both her little hands and she would study them closely, as if seeking a great and universal truth in its lines, in its wrinkles, in its calluses: sometimes she reached up to carefully, gently stroke his iron-grey muts-tash, marveling at how her Daddy's muts-tash curled better than anyone else's: on this one evening, when Linn retired to his study, Angela went happily pattering in behind him, climbed up on his lap, turned and hugged her Daddy, and then sniffed: curious, she sniffed again, and Linn patiently endured a little girl's curious exploration, until finally she found the source of a familiar odor.
Angela drew back, frowned with the serious face of a puzzled little girl.
"Daddy," she said, "why is there gravy in your ear?"
Linn laughed and regarded his curious little girl, her bright-blue eyes and finger-curled blond hair, all ruffles and frills and ribbons, and he said quite honestly, "Daisy smacked me with a wooden spoon."
The Irish Brigade, to be honest, was not feeling any pain.
One of their number was a new father: like any new father, he was hailed by his fellows as if he alone were responsible for the child's existence, gestation and presentation: Mr. Baxter was busy filling mugs and shots, for there was much celebratory hosting of liquid happiness, and even the pale eyed Sheriff was laughing with delight and drinking deeply with his fellows.
Grief, sorrow and sudden death were too common in these men's lives: when there was cause to celebrate, why, celebrate they did, unabashedly and unashamedly.
The Bear Killer's tongue flicked out, caressed the back of Daisy's hand as she lowered a cracked plate of biscuits and gravy: it was a big plate, it was well filled, it was used only for this one duty: Daisy had a deep affection for the sinner's-heart-black Mountain Mastiff, and she whispered "You're welcome" as he lowered his muzzle and happily devoured a torn open, gravy slathered biscuit, groaning a little as he did, almost the sound of a happy puppy -- never mind it had been some long time since his puppyhood: no, one could not refer to a bear killing canine, who filled the entire space under the square-topped table in Daisy's kitchen, as a puppy.
Men were laughing without, singing, their words were unintelligible, but it was evident to Daisy's experienced ear that there was a celebration.
Her quick ear, her wife's ear, pulled a little as she recognized her husband's voice: raised, yes, and perhaps in anger: another voice, familiar, and Daisy frowned as she stirred a fresh batch of gravy: her head came up, she set the pan on the warming-shelf above the stove, rapped the wooden spoon twice against its rim, marched out into the hallway.
If her husband was angry, Daisy was angry, and at the moment, her temper was rather short.
Sheriff Linn Keller was squared off against the big Irish fire chief.
"AND ANOTHER THING!" he declared, poking a stiff finger in to Sean's chest (with the net effect of poking a brick wall) "THAT WIFE OF YOURS IS AN ABSOLUTE BEAUTY!"
Sean drove his stiff finger into the Sheriff's necktie and roared in reply "SHE'S THE FAIREST FLOWER E'ER TO TREAD THE EMERALD ISLE!"
Daisy shoved in between the two: "ARE YOU TWO SOTS FIGHTIN' OVER ME THEN?" she demanded. "It's no' bad enough I'm wife t' yer bed an' mither t' yer children, ye've been draggin' me secrets through th' common slop trough wi' yer discussion! Men! -- EEK!" -- her shout rose to a surprised squeak, cut off as Sean snatched his wife up, big Irish-red hands spread wide under her arms, hoisting her well off the floor, planting his mouth on hers with the passion of a man truly in love with his wife, with his inhibitions loosed and cast to the wind thanks to the volume of liquid celebration sloshing around behind his belt buckle.
Daisy twisted in protest, kicking: her arm swung, and the Sheriff flinched back, raising a hand to his gravy-smeared face: she'd hit him square across the ear with the narrow edge of a wooden spoon, and she hadn't him him gently -- he'd not be surprised to find she drew blood -- Sean came up for air and Daisy beat at him with her fists, the wooden spoon spinning through the air, landing in the German Irishman's beer mug: he set the mug on the bar, seized a fresh one and staggered happilly over to the piano, where two of his fellows and the piano player were loudly, happily and less than harmoniously singing the virtues of the dance hall girls, a tasteless, somewhat obscene and rather catchy tune that extolled the virtues of mythical ladies of undress and their assets, along with other anatomical structures.
The Bear Killer, untroubled by the confusion without, continued his single minded pursuit of biscuits and gravy: while Sean threw his wife in the air, caught her over his arm and swatted her bottom, while Daisy's protesting kick caught the Sheriff in the shoulder, while the pale eyed lawman made a staggering retreat, red-shirted Irishmen raised their voices in loud and happy chorus:
Linn's last memory of the place, before the doors closed behind him and the boardwalk assumed a distinct list to starboard, was something about "And they saw her in her gar-terrrs," at which point a strong and friendly hand closed about his upper arm: Linn looked up into his old and dear friend's face and said "Jackson Cooper, I believe I am drunk," and Jackson Cooper said, "Linn Keller, I believe you are," and the two made their way down the three steps -- it was more like Jackson Cooper picked Linn up, and Linn's feet moved as if he were descending the stairs, more out of habit than anything else -- it wasn't until Linn drank three fast tin cups of cold well water, not until he stirred another with his finger to dissolve that packet of bitters he carried for such moments, not until he'd bent over and heaved up the happiness he'd imbibed -- more water, more bitters, more self punishment -- not until he'd purged himself thusly three times did he straighten, did he look at Jackson Cooper, did he ask, "How big of a Jack Mule's backside did I make of myself?"
"Less than anyone else there," Jackson Cooper rumbled.
Linn belched, frowned, drank again.
"Think you can make it home?"
Linn whistled; his stallion came pacing up to him.
"Don't have to," Linn grunted. "Rey knows the way home."
Linn rode a longer route than usual to get home, letting the fumes clear from his head: he was almost sober when he crossed his own threshold: thanks to divesting himself of the imbibed poisons, he was able to eat a good meal, and Esther -- bless her dutiful soul -- gave him a knowing look but said nothing, and when Linn finished, and rose, Esther raised a finger, pinning Angela most effectively in her seat.
Esther waited until Linn opened the door to his study: he left it open the width of two fingers.
Only then did Esther lower her finger, look very directly at little Angela, and nod, and it was shortly thereafter that little Angela cuddled up with her big strong Daddy and asked him why he had gravy in his ear.
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4
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576. THE MISTER OF THE HOUSEHOLD
Sheriff Linn Keller leaned back, rubbed his eyes.
He's been writing letters, communicating with a half dozen silver mine owners: some he sent money, some had sent him money; thus far, his investments were paying off, or at least most of them were -- mining is a gamble, only instead of pasteboards, or a spinning roulette wheel, it was a bit slower, carved out of living earth with sweat and muscle and sometimes blood.
He'd had to visit two mine owners, over the years, he'd had to have an understanding with them, just like he had that understanding with Dirty Sam about buying the Silver Jewel.
He'd stabbed two knives into a tabletop, dropped a bag of coin between them: he opened Dirty Sam's cell door and told him he was buying the Silver Jewel, where is, as is, for that sack of coin, and if Sam didn't like it, why, they could each take up a knife and settle it once and for all.
The crooked mine owners weren't quite as cowardly, nor as bad smelling, as old Sam had been: one, when confronted with the two sets of books he'd been keeping, folded like a bad poker hand: the other was not as accommodating, and Linn was obliged to swing an ax handle fast and knock the hideout gun from the man's grip.
It hurt the pale eyed lawman's conscience not one little bit that he broke one bone and two knuckles in the mine owner's hand in the process.
Esther's hands rested on her husband's shoulders.
He sat at his desk in a shocking state of undress: he wore his trousers and boots, and he wore his shirt, but coat and vest were cast aside, hung neatly over the back of a chair: to appear in public wearing but a shirt, was to appear in public in one's underwear: it was only because he did not expect to be interrupted, that he allowed himself such a sinful luxury.
Esther's hands were not an interruption.
Linn leaned back and purred a little, or rather he produced a coarse rumble: Esther's fingers were strong, skilled, and she worked the stiffness from her husband's neck and shoulders.
"How are the accounts?" Esther asked quietly.
"They look good," Linn said. "Ever since I had an understanding with the Excelsior mine, word got around and nobody's tried to high-grade me."
He leaned back, looked at a rifle on the wall, and Esther felt him smile.
She knew the story that went with the rifle -- Linn never spoke of it but when he was relaxed, when his guard was down: his father built him that rifle, and gave it him when he came into manhood: it was of curly wood and inlaid silver, with the finest flint lock that his Pa could trade for.
It was a rifle of small caliber, a pea rifle they called it, but back East -- with all the large game shot out and gone -- a small rifle was just fine, and Linn took many a groundhog and other small critters for the pot with that rifle.
Esther felt her husband take a long, slow breath, sigh it out silently.
"You spoil me," he murmured, bringing an arm across his breast and laying a callused hand gently on his wife's cool knuckles.
"I do try," Esther murmured, bending down to kiss him under the earlobe: she whispered, "You spoil me too," and her breath puffed the fine hairs along the outer curve of his ear.
"When I married you," Linn chuckled, "I as much as looked your Pappy in the eye and said I would take care of and I would provide for, your, little, girl" -- he placed a hand dramatically on his breast, dropped his voice as near to an octave as he could manage -- which brought a delighted little laugh from his Carolina bride.
"My father," she whispered, running her arms around her husband and crossing them over his chest, bending to lay her cheek on top of her husband's head, "would be very pleased with the manner in which you provide for his little girl!"
"I made mention of that, you know."
"You made mention?"
"Mm-hmm." Linn turned, lifted his face: their lips met, and conversation was stayed for several long moments: when they came up for air, Linn swung the swivel chair around, took his wife above the hips, pulled her down on his lap.
"A young man admitted to me he was sweet on a girl."
"Anyone we know?"
"He's from over Carbon way."
"I see."
"He didn't say who the girl is, but I told him that no matter how old a girl gets, no matter that she is married, a mother, a matron, she will always, always be Daddy's Little Girl."
Husband and wife held one another, one seated in a chair, the other on his lap: conversation waned again, after which Linn ran an arm under his wife's thighs.
He stood; her arms were around her neck, and she gave him a knowing look through lowered eyelashes.
"Mrs. Keller," he said quietly, "I have designs on you."
"Mr. Keller," Esther replied, just as quietly, just before her mouth found his again, "I should certainly hope so."
The maid looked up, smiled: when the Mister's tread was heavy and measured on the staircase, that meant he was carrying his wife like a new bride for their bedchamber.
She'd gotten Angela abed in good time; the wee child was well asleep, and the maid knew that, on the morrow, the Mrs. would come downstairs, flushed and smiling and very nearly purring, the way only a contented and satisfied woman will do.
The maid sighed, wistfully, whispered a prayer to the Virgin that she might be so lucky to find a husband half as good as the Mister of their household.
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3
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575 SOMEONE I'D LIKE TO TALK TO
Sarah Lynne McKenna rode very properly.
Sarah Lynne McKenna wore a black riding dress, with a divided skirt (she tried sidesaddle once, and only once) -- she wore a shining silk, black-ribboned top hat with a rear veil, her gloves were black, her riding crop was black: the only touch of color she wore was a brooch at her throat, a cameo, with her face exactly reproduced in profile, framed with four shining, faceted, brilliant-green emeralds.
Her saddle, her tack, her truly huge, featherfoot mare were all black, all shining like Sarah's top hat, and coursing happily beside her, an equally huge, black-furred, ivory-fanged mountain Mastiff.
Sarah drew up as thunder boomed through the mountains, echoing from cliff to mountainside to scree-covered slope and back: Sarah drew up, frowning, looking around.
Behind and above her, a lean, sun-browned Kentucky mountaineer watched as well: he was supposed to be about his chores, but he was out with a drawing pad and his pencils, following his delight, taking what he saw and committing it to good rag paper.
He frowned, looking up, looking around, and for the same reason Sarah did.
It was a clear day: a few clouds, very few, there should not be thunder --
Something silver streaked through the thin mountain atmosphere, drew a gleaming circle a mile across, slowed: Sarah could see it was metallic, needle shaped, with something dark and bulbous at its nose, something dark and menacing under it --
Panels snapped open, jointed metallic plates lowered --
Snowflake shied, dancing, throwing her head: The Bear Killer ran around in front of Sarah, hair bristling up the length of his spine and across his shoulders: Sarah soothed her mare with voice and with her hands, watching as whatever this was slowed, as it lowered, settling its square plates down on the ground: it was silent, utterly silent, it stood up on legs long enough she could ride under it.
Something round and black apparently ran its length.
The diameter was impressive: it looked like a built in cannon of some sort, its bore as big across as ... dear Lord, it's as big across as my lower leg! Sarah thought: fear was dismissed, her overwhelming curiosity bidding her come closer.
Snowflake reluctantly walked up to the silent, shining needle.
As long as a locomotive, Sarah thought -- no, locomotive and tender, and a freight car, round in cross section, as big across as a freight car is long --
What in God's creation is this?
A click, a hum: near its ... front? ... something hinged, something swung down.
Sarah turned Snowflake, frowning as she studied whatever this was that opened like a bird opening its metallic lower jaw.
She saw what looked like a human figure, covered with something like a metallic blanket, something with a silver bulb for a head, something smooth, seamlesss --
Sarah blinked, surprised, her hands caressing Snowflake's muscled neck: she looked up at something painted on its -- on the front part --
Sarah laughed.
It looked like a girl, snarling with pleasure, thrusting a pair of Colt's Peacemakers out in front of her, driving two shots at some unseen enemy: this had to be someone's idea of a joke, women did not, did not! wear such short skirts -- it was blue material, too coarse for an underskirt, her legs showed, well shaped and very lifelike ...
Nice legs, she thought, the pistols are well executed ...
I like the red boots ...
... Gunfighter?
"Something funny?" an oddly accented voice asked, and Sarah looked down, surprised.
The smooth metallic blanket was gone, and a rather attractive young woman sat up from what looked like a form-fitting lounge of some sort: she wore black boots, laced up the front, she wore a light-blue garment that seemed to merge trousers with a blouse, but all of the same material: there were decorative patches of some kind on her shoulders, and one over the left breast.
Sarah regarded this newcomer as she stood, twisted, squatted twice.
"Dear God," she groaned, "it feels good to stretch!"
She rose, tilted her head, regarded Sarah rather frankly, looked down at the still-bristling Bear Killer.
"I get swallowed by a Shipkiller, I'm feted on the Confederate homeworld, and now I'm going to be eaten by a young bear?"
Sarah whispered a command: Snowflake knelt, and Sarah stepped delicately out of the saddle.
The woman in the light-blue, one-piece suit stopped, stared, her mouth dropping open.
"You!" she whispered, the color fading from her face: Sarah stepped closer, lifted her chin, regarded the visitor cooly.
"It is I," she said dryly.
"No -- no -- you don't understand --"
Sarah waited while the stranger sorted out her thoughts.
"You don't understand. You're dead!"
Sarah raised an eyebrow. "With respect," she said coldly, "I must disagree."
Melanie's hands went to her mouth and she shook her head.
"I am going to kill that idiot," she muttered, then lowered her hands, looked beseechingly at Sarah.
"What year is this?"
Sarah's mouth opened and she frowned a little.
"1895," she said. "July seventh."
The stranger raised her bent wrist to her mouth, chanted a series of commands: Sarah saw she wore a lumpy bracelet of some kind -- Sarah tilted her head, stepped closer, saw the lump was rectangular, smooth faced, saw there were moving figures of some kind inside it --
"Recalculate time differential. Mark local as seven July 1895."
A pause, a beep.
"Ready for reprogram."
"Damn you reject from a cell phone factory," Melanie swore, "get me home this time!"
"Engage when ready."
Melanie looked at Sarah. "You're her," she breathed, shook her head. "I have to get home."
"Where is home?"
Melanie considered. "I can't tell you. This is the past. The longer I stay here, the more likely I am to damage the time stream and alter the future. I have to leave before I destroy everything."
"So you're from here, from my future."
"Yours -- yes," Melanie said, hesitating.
"Listen," she said stepping close to the pale eyed woman in the elaborate black riding-costume, "it is more important than you can possibly know that I was never here, you never saw me and you never saw my ship! Promise me you'll forget I was ever here!"
Sarah's eyebrows rose. "I can't do that."
"Then keep me secret!" Melanie hissed. "Look, I have to leave. Live long and prosper and all that."
Sarah raised a black-gloved hand.
"My name," she said, "is Sarah Lynne McKenna. Might I know yours?"
The pilot thrust her feet into recesses of some kind, leaned back, closed her eyes.
The silver blanket flowed over her again-- Sarah saw her hands close around a stick of some kind on her right, spread her fingers over a colorful panel with several buttons that rose under her left.
Just before something dark, shining and bulbous lowered over her face, she looked at Sarah.
"I'm Valkyrie Five," she said. "Valkyrie Flight, callsign Gunfighter. My name is Melanie and I'm from Mars."
Something hummed inside the needleship: the silver bird closed its lower jaw, and Sarah wondered absently if it was swallowing the young woman in the light blue one piece suit.
There was a click, and Sarah heard, "You may wish to pull back. I don't want to fry you with takeoff."
Sarah had no idea what she meant, but the meaning was clear: she kissed at The Bear Killer, swung her leg over Snowflake's saddle.
The silver bird jaw lowered again, the silver blanket split, the shining black head-bubble swung up, the woman stepped out again, a rectangular plate in her hand.
"Come here," she said. "You deserve to know this much at least."
Sarah leaned down a little as the woman held up what looked like a glass rectangle the size of a schoolbook.
"This is Valkyrie One," she said. "Notice the nose art."
"The flying horse?"
"You are the inspiration. Here's Valkyrie Two. Here's Three. Here's Four. I'm Five."
Sarah blinked, surprised: the plate the woman held up at arm's length, for her inspection, showed remarkably clear pictures -- like a magic lantern show, in a pane of glass.
The woman lowered the plate. "You are the inspiration," she said, looked at the plate, wiping her finger across it a few times, tapping it a few more.
She held it up again.
"Here."
She saw Sarah's eyes widen with surprise.
"This is our Sheriff. She's on Mars. Our colony is called Firelands, it's named for a town in Colorado. Unless I'm absolutely wrong, you are the one we read about in school."
Sarah watched as the bird swallowed the silver-cocooned woman a second time, she and The Bear Killer trotted away by a couple hundred yards, turned: they watched the silver needle rise, saw its feet pull back into its belly --
It disappeared.
Sheriff Willamina Keller smiled as she held a little girl on her lap.
The child was five years old, all big eyes and giggle and red cowboy boots.
Willamina had a book open, turned the pages slowly: the child paid close attention to her Gammaw's words.
"This," she said, tapping a photograph, "is my Very Great Grandmother Sarah Lynne McKenna. She's fourteen in this picture."
Five year old Marnie Keller regarded the photograph solemnly, turned to look at her Gammaw.
"She's vewwy pwetty," she said, and Willamina smiled, hugged her granddaughter again.
"Yes she is, sweets."
"She looks like you, Gammaw."
Willamina was quiet for several long moments, then she finally said, "She looks exactly like me, sweets."
Marnie hesitated, then touched another image on the page hesitantly. "Bear Killer?" she asked, and in front of the stove, a curly-black canine raised his head at the sound of his name.
"Yes, Sweets. That is The Bear Killer."
Marnie twisted in her Gammaw's lap, turned to look again.
"Gammaw," she said, "howcome that's The Bear Killer? He's vew-wy vew-wy oldt!"
Willamina laughed, kissed the top of her granddaughter's head.
"The mountains hold secrets," she whispered, "and someday I'll tell you some of them."
Sheriff Marnie Keller watched as the Interceptor eased down into its launch cradle.
Technicians rolled their platforms up to the ship as it was lowered to level, as hatches opened: there were systems to check, the magazine to reload: Marnie watched as the pilot's hatch lowered.
It always reminded her of a great steel bird lowering its jaw to disgorge its living brain.
She watched as the empathic coccoon withdrew, as the helmet swung up, as three light-blue-suited Valkyries ran across the bay, seized the fifth, jumped up and down like a clutch of excited schoolgirls: Marnie smiled at the confusion of voices, for some things never change: only the female has the ability to hold multiple conversations, while talking, all at the same time, and to understand every word of every simultaneous line of conversation.
The happy, noisy, bouncing pilots had their arms around each other, flowing in an excited clutch over to Hans: arms dropped and Melanie looked at their squadron boss, seized him around the middle like a little girl seizing her Daddy after not seeing him for a very long time.
Hans bent and hugged her back.
"I'm glad you're all right," he said, his voice husky.
Melanie turned, saw Marnie on the other side of the glass.
She looked up at Hans.
"Debrief," she said, her voice suddenly serious. "Bring the Sheriff."
Nancy looked with gentle and marveling eyes at the little boy-baby dining at the Topless Restaurant.
She drew a blanket up over him, and herself, looked up.
"Enter," she said, and the airtight hatch indicator went from red to green, the ugly green flat-panel door hissed open.
Melanie stepped in, eyes big: her hands clapped to her mouth and she squeaked, "Really?"
"Really," Nancy said tiredly. "I was so scared when you disappeared."
"You were scared?" Melanie laughed. "Babies aren't the only ones that need diapers!"
Five-year-old Marnie Keller was asleep on her Gammaw's lap.
Willamina turned one more page in the book.
This page she'd never shown anyone.
It was drawn by one of the Daine boys, one of those remarkably talented mountaineers, someone who'd seen something he never talked about.
Willamina looked at the picture: it was a remarkably detailed drawing of a Martian interceptor, long, sleek, its landing gear down: so well drawn was this picture, that Willamina recognized the location: another page, and several smaller drawings, arranged in a circle, and in its center, a young woman in a one piece flight suit, patches at the left breast and right shoulder: the long dead artist perfectly captured the drape of Sarah's top hat's back veil, of her skirt: he'd rendered The Bear Killer's suspicious bristle and snarl, and he'd had a good enough look at both women's faces to reproduce them with nearly photographic accuracy.
Willamina put the book away, later, after Marnie returned home, and after her death, another set of pale eyes regarded these drawings: Sheriff Linn Keller considered the pencil rendering of a Martian interceptor, landed in a particular pasture with which he was more than familiar.
He stared for several minutes at the pilot, then he touched a computer key, another: his big sis Marnie stood in a cavernous hangar, with a silver Interceptor behind her and a half dozen pilots in light blue coveralls: all young women, all laughing, looking more like a cheerleading squad than warriors.
Linn looked at the pencil drawing, reached for a magnifying glass, considered the nose art faithfully reproduced on the drawing, looked at his screen.
He nodded.
"Gunfighter," he said aloud. "Now there's someone I'd like to talk to."-
3
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574. SHE'S GONE
Nancy Hake closed her eyes, took a long breath, laid a hand on her swollen belly.
"Soon," she whispered. "Soon, my son."
She opened her eyes and saw gagues, vectors, flight paths; she saw curtains of radiation sleeting through empty space, dust particles moving at unbelievable velocities -- what few hit her shields, surrendered their energies to the Confederate technology, adding to its strength: generations of enhanced minds improved on alien technologies, until her ship was proof against almost anything.
Almost.
Nancy's hands had eyes of their own; she was relaxed, in an absolutely comfortable seat, surrounded by her own field -- an energy shell in which she saw with her ship's eyes, felt and heard and tasted with her ship's sensors: her body was on Mars, safe underground in a room off the main hangar, but her mind ... her mind strode through space with Tarquin's boots, connected with her robot ship.
Nancy was big and pregnant, and she was not going to risk her child's exposure to anything she didn't have to, and sitting here, in a silent control room, while her ship screamed through vast and darkened distances -- this, she felt, was the best way to use her skills while safeguarding her son.
Valkyrie Flight was flanked out from the robot ship, sleek arrows like arrowheads, angled back, echelon left, echelon right: they maintained a precise spacing as a matter of pride, of professionalism.
Nancy saw an anomaly ahead, saw it with sensors unknown back on Earth, sensors that could see well ahead: what she saw looked like a curved funnel -- and it looked like trouble.
"Valkyrie Flight," she said quietly, knowing her voice would travel well faster than lightspeed, would come out quietly, confidently in her flightmates' earphones, "anomaly ahead. Weapons authorized, lock and load."
She felt the depleted uranium dart roll into battery in her Gauss cannon, she felt as much as heard capacitors sing power: their resonance was inaudible to the human ear, but Nancy honestly believed she heard them, just as she'd heard the defibrillator sing as it charged up, as Dr. Greenlees knelt beside her dying mother, as he barked "CLEAR!" and pressed greased paddles to the woman's bared chest.
The Ambassador laid a hand on Nancy's shoulder, knelt beside her, peered ahead at the anomaly.
"Hard about," he said quietly, tightening his grip on her shoulder. "Get away from that thing, maximum thrust!"
Nancy's ship turned like a ballerina under her hands, reactors screaming against her momentum.
"Valkyrie flight, hard about," Nancy chanted into her boom microphone. "Emergency thrust, get the hell away from that anomaly!"
Five ships' exhausts flared brightly against multiple dimensions: each of the Valkyries felt themselves shoved hard into their acceleration couches, felt themselves slow, then accelerate: their speed was well beyond the tolerance limits of the human body, but thanks to Confederate technology, they felt no more than one and a half gravities: the conflicting stresses were converted to thrust, and five Interceptors spread their trajectories and streaked away from this unknown phenomenon.
"It's a trap and it might get them yet," the Ambassador said quietly: Nancy relayed this to her sister Valkyries, her big and pregnant body singing with her ship's acceleration: she felt the thrust, she felt the reactors behind her, she saw the instruments swinging closer to red line.
"How can we kill it?" she grated, her hands tight on the controls.
"It will have a power source at its rear," the Ambassador said, "about twenty meters square."
"Can my weapons kill it?"
"Hit it on a flat surface and you can blow it to hell."
"Valkyrie Flight, come about and prepare to attack. There is a power source at the funnel's rear, twenty meters diameter. Hit on a flat surface and you can take it out. Stand by further."
Five ships sent the roger: the Ambassador considered the Valkyries' spread, reached for Nancy's master panel, keyed in a sequence, another.
"Valkyrie flight," he said, "the anomaly is an interdimensional funnel. It automatically turns toward any approaching ship and will try to pull it in. Attack with equidistant spacing, come at it simultaneously, fire at the first opportunity. The closer you get, the more likely it will turn and suck you into another universe."
Five rogers flashed across the comm screen.
Valkyrie One, the robot ship, hauled about on a broad arc, the legacy of Nancy's fighter pilot father's training: she could as well have swapped ends, blasted her exhaust against her momentum, and driven straight for the enemy, but she turnred, banked, kicked the rudder and came in on a big circle.
Valkyrie Flight screamed defiance into the silent void, catching up with their leader, running hard to form up into formation.
Valkyie One had a black stallion painted on its nose, a stallion rearing with windmilling hooves: astride the stallion, a woman with floating, pale blond braids, a winged helm on her head: she wore steel plated greaves over knee high boots, she carried a war-lance, star-bright at its tip.
Valkyrie Five had the portrait of her pilot, a compact young woman in a wind-whipped denim skirt and cowboy boots, both hands extended, with an old fashioned Colt revolver in each hand, driving fire and lead toward an unseen enemy: beneath, the word GUNFIGHTER.
Valkyries Two, Three and Four had similar nose art: all bore the portraits of the pilot, and all were in various acts of less than gentle aggression: one with a double barrel shotgun, one screaming with apparent joy as she straddled a bronze Napoleon smoothbore, as she touched match to the touch-hole behind her, as the cannon's fire thundered forth from its bore in bright-yellow sulfurous flame: beneath her portrait, in aggressive, sharp-edged letters, HELLRIDER.
One had its pilot in flowing, wind-blown silks, leaned forward with a blade in each hand, hard-swung steel drawing blue fires in their shining arcs
Valkyrie Four's very lifelike portrait danced on her chosen designation.
Blademistress!
Sheriff Marnie Keller stood outside the airlock, grinning like a delighted child.
She skipped across the sand-gritted walkway, for all the world like a delighted schoolgirl: if her hair were longer, she might have it in braids, bouncing against her shoulder blades: she wore a denim skirt and her trademark red cowboy boots and an expression of absolute delight.
She stopped, she drew: her uncle Will's .357 came up, fired, fired again: steel plates swung with the impact of hard-cast, fast-moving handloads: she swung, engaged two targets, ducked behind a drum, reloaded: she rose, drove a half dozen rounds at a like number of plates, and had the sixth one hit before the first one finished falling.
Sheriff Marnie Keller rolled the cylinder out, smacked the ejector rod, drew her second speedloader and dumped in a fresh cylinder full, holstered: she policed up her brass -- she knew the replicators could manufacture as much fresh brass as she could ever want -- but she liked the discipline of reloading her own rounds.
Rolling her own was a familiar act, one in which she delighted when she still lived with her pale eyed Daddy, back in Colorado.
She stood, took a long breath, looked around.
The Martian surface was just as bleak as it had always been.
Marnie laid a hand on what looked like a smooth plastic fanny pack: she had no idea how this little thing enveloped her with what amounted to an invisible skinsuit, but it did -- which is how she could wear a flannel shirt and a skirt out on the Martian surface, and not die instantly of cold and of catastrophic depressurization.
She smiled, turned, pressed the airlock open control, stepped inside: as the pressure normalized, she said to the empty chamber, "That was FUN!"
Valkyrie Flight came at the anomaly from five different directions at once.
They maintained position, each equidistant from the other, converging on the anomaly's backside: as the Ambassador warned, it turned -- but it swung uncertainly --
"Target the rear," Nancy said quietly.
Five capacitor banks shimmered with contained enrgies, five hardened, hyper-dense darts, silver, shining in the dim starlight, waited patiently for the command--
The anomaly turned, surged --
Five fingers tightened on red plastic triggers --
"MELANIE GET OUT OF THERE!" Nancy shouted. "VALKYRIES, CONTINUOUS FIRE!"
Nancy felt her flightmate turn her ship, felt ten nuclear hells blasting from the exhaust, felt her thrusting hard against multiple realities as her ship tried to escape the funnel, turning toward her, rushing toward her, opening like a great black featureless mouth --
What I wouldn't give for a rear facing gun, Melanie thought, just before she was mashed back into her acceleration couch.
Four silver lances drove at an unvelievable velocity toward something black, cubical, at the rear of the featureless funnel --
Four sides were hit simultaneously --
The detonation occurred half a second later --
Nancy ground her teeth, breathing deeply, willing herself to control.
"Valkyrie Five, report," she grated.
The Ambassador looked sharply at her, laid a hand on her maternal belly, his eyes widening with alarm.
"Valkyrie Five, report," Nancy gasped.
She closed her eyes against her sudden discomfiture, opened them just in time to see the anomaly detonate, just in time to see Valkyrie Five wasn't there anymore.
"Valkyrie Lead, this is Two," she heard. "The Gunfighter is gone."
Nancy threw her head back, stripped the comm from her ears, screamed like a damned soul, then laid both hands on her belly and doubled over.
The Ambassador toggled the red switch: "Medical emergency, launch bay. Dr. Greenlees to launch bay."
Melanie felt herself drawn out thin like a thread, felt herself snap back like a stretched rubber band.
She felt her ship, solid and real, beneath her.
It took almost a full minute for her vision to clear, for her to realize she was alive, that her hands still worked.
"Valkyrie One, this is Valkyrie Five."
Silence.
"Valkyrie, this is Gunfighter."
She looked ahead, through the augmented-vision field, clenched her jaw.
Ahead of her, a planet: automatically she ran the calculations, found orbit, coasted into the gravity well, through the keyhole --
I'm moving slow, she thought. With that much thrust I should have been near lightspeed.
A voice in her earphones.
A man's voice.
"Unidentified ship entering orbit, state intentions."
Melanie blinked, surprised.
Of all her training, of all her instruction, she hadn't been told what to do if she suddenly found herself in orbit around and unknown planet.
"This is Valkyrie Five," she said, thumb heavy on the transmit button. "I just came through a funnel trap of some kind. Who is this?"
There was a long silence, then: "You came through a trap?"
"Wasn't my idea," she admitted. "We blew it to hell but I was in too deep to get out."
"Who," the voice asked cautiously, "is we?"
"Valkyrie Flight. We're out of Mars."
"Mars?"
"Fourth planet from the sun."
"Stand by one."
Melanie looked at her ammunition supply.
She had three darts left.
I am a Valkyrie, she thought.
A Valkyrie will not be taken.
She felt the vibration, the hard klunk as the depleted uranium dart rolled into battery.
Melanie took a long breath, felt her soul riding a sudden wave of fresh adrenaline like it was standing on a surfboard.
She charged the cannon.
If you're not peaceful, she thought, I can make you that way.
Her proximity alarm went off and she looked to her right.
A ship -- not terribly different from hers -- was coming abreast.
The pilot was a young man, not bad looking, regarding her with frank interest.
"Valkyrie Five," she heard, "are you the Gunfighter?"
Melanie turned on her cockpit lights so the other pilot could see her, and she saw his quick grin as she laughed.
"That's me," she said. "I was trained by the best!"
"Who was your trainer?" he asked.
"Sheriff Marnie Keller."
"Gunfighter, stand by one." The other pilot's cockpit lighting went out.
Melanie knew she could accelerate, and fast: she considered her orbital position, she called up the position of orbital bodies, saw a big one ahead, artificial, some kind of orbital structure ... quickly, she calculated how to miss it if she had to get the hell out of Dodge --
"Gunfighter, this is Defense Command," another, deeper-toned voice said. "Could you tell me more about your instructor, please."
It was not a request."Sheriff Marnie Keller. Daughter of Sheriff Linn Keller of Firelands County, Colorado. She has pale eyes and she wears a white Olympic skinsuit."
She caught a flash to her right: cockpit lights came back on, and the young man in the stationkeeping ship had a grin on his face as broad as two Texas townships.
"The Sheriff is known to us," the deep-toned voice said. "You are welcome here. What assistance do you require?"
Melanie took a long breath, feeling something unwind in her gut.
"I'm kind of hungry," she admitted, "and long range rations aren't that great."
The Ambassador looked up at Hans.
"She's alive," the Ambassador declared, "and she's not hurt!"
"How long to get her home?"
The Ambassador consulted his comm panel.
"We can have her back here tonight," he said, "but she's being treated as an Ambassadorial guest. I'd suggest we let protocol play itself out."
"I don't follow."
"The Sheriff went with our Ambassador's body to our homeworld, and she was received as a hero because of her actions when the scoutship was damaged in-flight."
"I remember," Hans nodded.
"Valkyrie Five -- Gunfighter -- came out near one of our planets. It used to belong to the aliens that kidnapped my ancestors. It's ours now and a good thing, otherwise she'd have been incinerated by now."
Hans nodded, lifted his chin as the annunciator chimed.
He leaned over, toggled a switch.
"Hake here, go ahead."
Hans Hake turnred a little pale and his knuckles whitened on the corners of the control panel: he looked at the Ambassador, and then he sat down, slowly, carefully, and a grin split his stubble-cheeked face.
The squeaking cry of a newborn infant came from the speaker; there was something inaudible, then he hear his daughter's weak, "Let me see my baby," and then Dr Greenlees looked out the screen at the new grandfather.
"It's a boy."
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3
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573. I DIDN'T RECOGNIZE YOU
Past Sheriff Willamina Keller's hat brim lowered by a fraction.
Her eyes were as pale as the knuckles gripping the Suburban's steering wheel and she felt an old joy, a dark pleasure in knowing she was about to wade into enemy territory.
There was a freedom to being a deputy -- as Sheriff, she was an administrator; as Sheriff, she directed the troops, as Sheriff she was Big Boss Figurehead -- but as a deputy, she was the arm, the hand, and if need be, the hard-knuckled fist of justice.
Past Sheriff Willamina Keller picked up the heavy microphone, pressed the key: "Six Papa, enroute," hung it back in its clip, came down smoothly, heavily on the go pedal, and every last cubic inch of big block injected Chevrolet power came to life under the hood.
Willamina was going to war, and it felt good.
Jelly pulled the expensive bottles from the shelf, lowered the screen in front of the mirror -- it was not the big, ornate mirror in the Silver Jewel, because the Spring Inn was not as fancy a place as the Jewel -- it was a concrete block beer joint, where hard men came to drink and play pool, to cuss and laugh and pat the waitress's fanny and get slapped, generally in that order.
It was a place where men sometimes settled differences with knuckles, and that was an accepted activity here, unless things got out of hand, which they were about to.
Jelly grabbed a tray, used it as a shield, intercepted a thrown beer mug: the heavy glass container splashed against the tray, knocking it back almost a foot, the mug hit the floor, rolled, but did not break -- for a miracle, Jelly thought, those things are not cheap! -- and as a chair smashed against a tabletop, Jelly groaned, for chairs were not cheap either.
He heard tires squalling outside, his ear had heard such things before, but not since that old Navajo deputy retired: big engine, broad slide into the parking lot, he'd come wading in with that war club of his --
The door swung open, and with it, cold air rolling through, as plain a warning as any.
A woman stood in the doorway.
She was very evidently a woman, for all that she wore the standard deputy's uniform.
Jelly's stomach shrank a little as he saw those cold and pale eyes under the hat brim and his shrivelling gut told him things just got really, really interesting, and in the back of his mind,his piggy bank began to whimper as well.
A fist shot her way -- the barfight had become general -- the woman caught the fist coming in -- her moves were quick, economical, efficient: a grab, a twist, the man hit the floor, hard, a set of knees drove into his kidneys, used his carcass as a springboard: she was on her feet, kicked another just north of the belt buckle and introduced his face to her uprising knee: she seized a beer bottle coming in, brought her knee up again, left the third attacker wallowing on the floor, in too much pain to so much as whimper.
"ENOUGH!"
The whiplash of the pale eyed woman's voice, following the rolling wave of cold outside air, was enough to shake attention from combatives: Willamina reached without looking, pulled a pool cue from startled fingers, and looked at the center of the conflagration.
A bar fight is often like a boil.
It has a core, and if you extract the core, the situation will heal up.
Willamina caressed the pool cue, smiling just a little, and Jelly's blood cooled a few degrees to see that smile.
He's seen it before, and men came out in second place every last time he'd seen it.
An unpleasant looking fellow with an unpleasant expression squared off with the woman in the deputy's uniform.
"Play you a game," she said, smiling just a little.
He roared, swung the heavy end of the cue.
Willamina's moves, it was testified later, were those of a dancer: she swung her cue like a blademaster handles a fencing foil, at least for the first second and a half: she got in close and she cut her badger loose on the man.
Past Sheriff Willamina Keller just honestly knocked the dog stuffing out of a man that would make two of her: a compact woman who could dance like a feather on a breeze, turned into a fast moving, tan colored jackhammer, all elbows, boot heels and heelstrikes: three fast strokes and the cue fell from the man's hand, three strikes and he had two broken knuckles and a fractured elbow, and then the woman proceeded to get mean with him.
No man there that night ever forgot the sight of a slender built, pale eyed woman, a woman they were used to seeing in a tailored suit dress and heels, a woman they were used to seeing wear a pleasant expression, a woman they were used to hearing speaking in a pleasant and gently modulated voice -- now this same woman, in the standard deputy's uniform and well polished Wellington boots, moving faster than most could follow, reduced a hard-muscled, hard-drinking barfighter with a speed, an efficiency, a ruthlessness, that left every man there honestly shocked and staring.
The door opened again and another pale eyed lawman came in, a tall and lean fellow wearing a six point star that said simply, SHERIFF: the man came in, shotgun in hand, and silence came in with him, rolling through the shocked-silent beer joint like the draft of cold air that came in with him.
He looked around, meeting every eye: he nodded, looked over at Jelly, who looked at the deputy, who was a-straddle of the proned-out prisoner like she was riding a saddlehorse.
The metallic chatter of a set of cuffs being applied was suddenly loud in the stillness.
Willamina stood.
She still wore her uniform Stetson.
The color was up in her cheeks, she was breathing deeply, and she had a look of absolutely vicious satisfaction on her face as she rose and turned to her firstborn son.
"Not bad for an old woman, eh?" she challenged loudly. "I've done your light work. You get him out of here."
She stepped up to the bar, slapped a sheaf of bills on the countertop.
"There's for the damage. I'll take it out of that fellow's hide later."
Heads turned like radar dishes following an enemy fighter as it departed over the horizon: no eye beheld anything but the backside of a pale eyed female deputy as she paced silently into the outer darkness.
Linn looked around, walked over to the cuffed prisoner: he seized the man by the back of the coat, his hand slapping hard down between his shoulder blades: he twisted up a good handful of material, hoisted him one handed off the floor, dragged him toward the front door, the toes of the man's steel toed work boots chattering a little as he was dragged.
Later that night, in the quiet of the Sheriff's office, Linn and his Mama sat together in the conference room, talking in quiet voices.
Willamina had a satisfied look about her -- "she looks like the calico that ate the parakeet," their dispatcher later described it -- and Linn's expression was concerned.
"Mama," he said, "you are a full deputy and you have full authority as such."
Willamina looked at him, her eyes quiet. "Go on."
"Mama, I don't want you hurt."
Willamina smiled. "Shoe's on the other foot now, is it?"
"Come again?"
Willamina leaned forward, laid gentle fingertips on the back of her son's hand."All these years and you, the child of my womb ... I never once held you back."
Linn nodded. "No, Mama, you never did."
"Then don't worry about me. I did all right."
Linn nodded. "This business of me being Sheriff is taking some getting used to."
"You'll get used ot it, and you're already doing a fine job of it. Doughnut?"
Linn chuckled. "Got any duck tape? I might as well tape it to my belly as eat it, that's where it's going anyway!"
"Yeah, but what a way to go." Willamina bit into a cream filled stick dougnut, hummed with pleasure, leaned forward so the cascade of powdered sugar fell on the tabletop and not her uniform.
"You've got the video."
"I've got the video."
"I think you'll find I didn't do bad for an old woman."
"Old woman my foot," Linn muttered. "Mama, you could die --"
"I know I could die," Willamina interrupted, her eyes intense. "I have pulmonary hypertension. I am at risk for right heart failure, clots in the lungs, sudden onset pneumothorax. I could fall over dead at any moment. A punch to the chest could kill me. I know this." Her voice was quiet, intense, as were her eyes.
"I learned something from all the people I've known," she continued. "I can either shrink and shrivel and whimper that I'm afraid of dying, or I can walk up to the Reaper and backhand his bony face and dare him to do his worst." Her voice was suddenly intense, passionate. "I intend to live. Now if there's a problem with that, say so right now. I maintain multiple commissions and I will be welcomed anywhere I go!"
Linn stared for several long moments into his Mama's fierce, glaring eyes -- they were not marble-cold, they were ... they were more like rawhide tough.
"Mama," Linn sighed, shaking his head, "when you die, if they run an autopsy, they will find you've got a spine laminated from stainless steel and whalebone."
"I know," Willmina said, thrusting a chocolate-iced sprinkle doughnut neatly between her son's teeth.
The dispatcher's ear twitched a little and she smiled.
She caught the sound of laughter from the conference room.
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2
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572. UNPROFITABLE
It is distinctly unprofitable to trouble a quiet man.
Quiet men generally enjoy the quiet and don't like being aggravated.
The Sheriff was a quiet man, and he'd been aggravated, and he showed his displeasure in a most understandable way.
Jacob's head came up as he heard two gunshots -- muffled, but close -- The Bear Killer's head came up, as did the fur on his back: the big mountain Mastiff did not stand as much as he levitated, with legs extending almost as an afterthought: Jacob seized the double barrel shotgun, yanked open the door, cleared the steps in one jump, looking around: he heard his father's angry shout, he turned, ran toward the barn.
The Bear Killer was a streak of black death, outpacing the tall boy with pale eyes and a white-knuckled grip on the Damascus barrels of his Mama's bird gun: war and ruin sang in the big Mastiff's throat, and the war-bay of a hound intend on death and the rending of man-flesh offered to run ice through the veins of any who heard.
Jacob's blood was up and hot and did not chill; he sprinted into the barn, skidded to a stop.
His father was angrily forking smoldering straw out the door -- angrily, for his moves were normally smooth, controlled, contained: he attacked what was apparently a small fire as if he were attacking a personal enemy, and Jacob, seeing a dead man on the floor and seeing no other threat, looked at his Pa.
His question was unspoken, as was his father's answer.
Jacob parked the shotgun, seized a shovel and went outside, smothering the forked-out flames, sliding stamped Ames steel over the fires, the smolders, suffocating them against cold, muddy earth.
They worked in silence, father and son; Jacob seized the dead man's ankles, dragged him outside, dropped the legs with an utter lack of ceremony.
There was no need to keep an eye on him.
There was a hole just above the lip, just below the nose; the back of the head was somewhat the worse for the .44's exit: blood, and other matter, left a broad streak as the carcass was dragged outside.
Jacob used the shovel to scrape the floor down to the bare, looked around; smoke still hazed the barn's interior as he looked at his long tall Pa and asked quietly, "Sir, are you hurt?"
Linn's knuckles were white as he stopped, as he set the pitch fork's tines carefully, almost gently against the floor boards -- Jacob did not miss the gentleness of his father's move, and from this he deduced the Grand Old Man was quietly, deeply, to his soul, boiling mad, even yet.
"No, Jacob," Linn said quietly, his words carefully shaped, confirming Jacob's suspicion that his pale eyed Pa was more than madder'n hell.
"What happened, sir?"
Linn's bottom jaw thrust out slowly, he took a long breath.
The Bear Killer padded outside, sniffed at the bloodied carcass and cast his ballot upon the situation as he usually did: Linn looked at the watering dog, looked at his lean waisted son and said, "Jacob, that fellow tried to kill me."
Jacob raised an eyebrow.
"He was over here" -- Linn thrust his chin in the indicated direction -- "he was behind some straw piled where I hadn't piled it. He had his pistol stuck through the straw and when he fired, he missed me and fired the straw." Linn's already tight hand tightened further and Jacob heard two of his Pa's knuckles crack for the strength of his grip on the work-smoothed pitchfork handle.
"He missed," Linn continued quietly, "and I did not."
Jacob nodded slowly. "No, sir," he agreed.
"I had to get that smoldery straw out before the place went up," Linn said, his voice hoarsening a little as his anger started to wane: "no way in hell did I want to lose this barn!"
"No, sir."
"Jacob."
"Yes, sir.""Mount up and ride in to the Irish Brigade. Tell Sean I want him to come out and take a look at our two wells and see if they're good enough for his steam machine. It takes water to put out a fire and I want to make sure we have enough."
"Yes, sir."
Linn waited until Jacob whistled up his stallion, until he was saddled up, until he and The Bear Killer headed into town -- Jacob would fetch back the dead wagon, Linn knew, and that would give him time to go through the dead man's particulars and see if he could figure out who this Bush Whacker was.
Linn had put enough men in prison, killed enough who didn't want to be taken, that he had enemies: this had been an amateurish assassination attempt, or an extremely professional attempt: a rifle or a shotgun at this range would have been fatal, but shoving a pistol through a pile of straw and firing?
Linn considered for a long moment.
Of all the professional killers he'd known, of all the hired murderers he'd heard of, or read about, none to his recollection preferred a shortgun for assassination, and none fired through a pile of straw in a barn.
No, a professional would have waited just inside, with a shotgun, and given him two barrels in the back of the coat.
Linn stood unmoving for a very long time, still and silent, a quiet man in a quiet barn, a man who simply wished to be left alone to enjoy the moment's peace.
It does not profit to trouble the quiet man.
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2
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571. LETTERS, IN SCARLET
Marnie heard the stallion walking quietly up to the barn.
She smiled a little, stroked the hand forged Damascus pattern blade across the stone.
Unlike her father, she preferred a shaving edge to her blades: Linn liked his edges coarse -- "better for skinning," he said, "and Doc Greenlees said that's the kind of edge they have on surgical scalpels" -- a fact Marnie corroborated with young John Greenlees Junior, now in advanced placement college.
Jacob walked Apple-horse into the quiet, shadowed interior.
Marnie sat with her back to a wall; she'd hung a tarp to block the wind, she had a propane heater set on the bare cement floor, facing her: she was perfectly comfortable with the heater's meager warmth, the work of her hands, and her own thoughts.
Marnie turned the blade, stuck it shallow into an apple: she raised the prize, gave her blade a flip, tossed the apple to Jacob, who caught it, took a bite and offered the rest to the stallion.
Apple-horse accepted the kindness, happily crunching the treat, and Marnie did not need to listen to know her brother was calling his father's stallion a hard headed glue hoof, and that he bribed as well as any politician.
Their father said that every time he gave his saddle stock half an apple, or a pinch of shredded chewing tobacco, or whatever other bribe he offered: it was a matter of amusement to her boyfriend that Apple-horse had an appetite for dog biscuits, and The Bear Killer did not care for them at all.
Jacob walked over to his sister, dropped his skinny backside on a handy bale of hay.
"They're talkin'," he said simply.
Marnie nodded, not looking up; the knife whispered secrets to the whet stone, the propane heater was silent in its generous warmth.
"Pa gave her some flowers," Jacob persisted.
Again Marnie nodded.
"I like that trunk you had made."
This time the knife stopped.
Marnie looked up at her younger brother -- she raised her head barely enough to see him from under her hat brim.
"You fixin' to move out?"
Marnie's right ear pulled a little as if tugged by an invisible thumb-and-forefinger: it was a phrase their pale eyed father used, and it struck Marnie as both significant, and unexpected, to hear her father's voice fall out of her brother's mouth.
Are you fixin' to, she thought.
He is becoming his father, at least he sounds like it.
Good God.
Does this mean I'm going to become my mother?
Marnie lifted the blade from the broad, heavy stone, laid the stone carefully on the ground: she wiped the blade with a piece of burlap, reached over to the razor strop, proceeded to strop off any wire edge with long, practiced strokes.
"I'd rather not," she admitted, "but sometimes we don't have much choice."
"How's that?" Jacob leaned forward, elbows on his knees, for all the world like his pale eyed Pa: he looked like a Beagle dog catching a hot scent, right before he raises his muzzle and starts to sing.
"Jacob, I've seen that tune played before," Marnie said quietly. "I was there when Mama got all jealous because she thought Pa sired a child on another woman."
"I heard them talkin'."
"If she gets all jealous and decides to leave, we might be homeless. There could be a screamin' fight and I'm not going to stand for that in my home, even if it is my parents. Had Mama taken a swing at Pa, I'd have been on her back with a choke hold."
Jacob's eyes were suddenly unreadable.
"If they come to grief and we have to move -- say we are given in custody to one or the other -- my clothes are already packed and I can be gone in five minutes."
Jacob was silent for several long moments: he looked down at the floor, nodded.
"You lived through that back East."
"I survived it, yes."
Jacob shifted uncomfortably, frowned.
"You said there were flowers, and they were talking."
Jacob nodded.
Marnie began stropping the knife's edge again, her strokes long, slow, thoughtful.
"You gonna shave your legs?"
"I prefer waxing. I don't like stubble."
"That would hurt."
Marnie shrugged.
"Mama thought Pa was steppin' out on her?"
"She thought that picture was a woman letting him know he was a Daddy."
Jacob's eyebrow raised and he grinned that crooked grin of his as he shook his head.
"Can't see it happening."
"Me neither. Not him."
"Why'd Mama accuse him, then?"
"She's a woman."
"You are too."
Marnie nodded thoughtfully, combed her fingers through her hair, took a single strand of fallout and drew it gently across the honed edge.
It fell cleanly in two.
"So what happens now?"
"If Mama is smart, she'll apologize. Pa made the smart first move with flowers. I would think he said he was sorry that e-mail caused her concern. That'll open the door for her being sorry to have disappointed him."
"Will she?"
"I don't know." Marnie's blade slid into its sheath; she drew her coat over it.
"Uncle Will's .357 doing okay for you?"
Marnie nodded.
"I need to get one," Jacob said thoughtfully, looked down at his hand. "Something else, maybe. That -- yours -- doesn't fit my hand the way I'd like."Marnie nodded again. "You recall what Pa .. what Gammaw teaches when she gets new people in the Tea Society."
Jacob's grin was quick, genuine. "Go try several until you find one that fits your hand."
Marnie rose and so did Jacob: Marnie rubbed Apple-horse's jaw and looked at her brother.
"You look natural in the saddle."
"I don't recall the first time I was a-straddle of a horse."
"You were still in diapers."
Jacob frowned. "I didn't wet down Pa's saddle, did I?"
"Not his saddle. His leg but not his saddle."
"You remember it?"
"No." Marnie smiled quietly. "But I remember his telling the story."
It was another hour before the two returned to the house, and there they found the answer to their question.
Supper was as it usually was, conversation and laughter, and there was something passing like water running underground, a hidden current between husband and wife, and after the dishes were cleared and dessert plates set out, Shelly placed a cake in the middle of the table.
She handed the cake knife to Linn.
Pale eyes regarded the carefully made, precisely lettered dessert, and before Linn sliced through the two layers of double dark chocolate with cherry frosting, Marnie and Jacob read the words in dark red, written in an arc, right before Linn's careful, incising stroke clove the cake in two and then further subdivided it.
Neither Marnie nor Jacob commented on its legend; both later admitted to each other it was best to pretend they saw nothing, and even better to say nothing.
Before the shining stainless steel cake cutter divided the bounty, they read the words, in scarlet, a wife's apology:
I was wrong.
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2
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570. "SHE NAMED HIM AFTER MY HORSE"
Marnie knew there was trouble.
Marnie watched Shelly fold her arms and regard her husband with a cold, suspicious glare, and Marnie began thinking in terms of possibilities: it was possible there was going to be a disagreement, there was the possibility there might be violence, and if that happened, how would she respond.
Marnie's tread was absolutely silent as she approached her parents, adrenalin singing in her veins and the taste of copper stinging her tongue as she walked nearer to what her gut told her could be a minor thermonuclear detonation.
"Is there something you'd like to tell me?" Shelly asked icily.
Linn looked up at her and raised an eyebrow, smiling just a little as he did.
"As a matter of fact, and since you asked," he said, then looked at Marnie: "Could you fetch me that manila envelope off my desk, please."
Marnie gave a brief, shallow nod, turned: she headed for the desk with no pretense of stealth, brought the envelope back.
Shelly snatched it from her, seized the once-opened flap, ripped it open: she glared at her seated husband, reached in, tore the big yellow envelope apart in her short-tempered haste to evacuate the contents.
She stopped, looked at the sheaf of papers, at the photocopy of a newspaper article and its accompanying picture, the photograph of a very familiar Appaloosa stallion and its very familiar rider, with lariat in hand: her pale-eyed husband was dismounted, standing beside an embarrassed looking young woman and two people with her, presumably her parents, with Apple-horse's head turned to face the camera squarely.
The article itself bore a bold headline: DARING RESCUE FROM HORSEBACK, and beneath, Western Sheriff Saves Local Girl from Sudden Death, with a byline and a date.
Behind this, on a village's official stationery, a letter of commendation; another, from the jurisdictional police department: confused, Shelly looked at her husband, who turned his laptop around to show a young woman in a pink trimmed nightgown, holding what was obviously a very young infant: the woman looked damp, exhausted, and was still in a hospital bed, and Linn enlarged the text beneath so Shelly could read the message.
I named him Paul, she read, and beneath, I hope you don't mind, but I named him after your horse.
Linn raised an eyebrow as his wife's body language and expression became less hostile and more chagrined.
"Do you want to take a swing at me now," Linn said quietly, "or shall I tell you what happened?"
Sheriff Linn Keller laughed as he shook hands with an old and dear friend, a man with whom he'd worked years before: Curt Frazee had just made Detective and Linn went East to visit with the man and meet his family.
"Bring your horse," Curt told him, "my boys are just crazy to meet a genuine Western Sheriff!" -- and so Linn and Apple-horse rode East, though most of their journey was behind the horsepower of a hired Diesel engine: they arrived at the village just in time to get caught up in their annual Homecoming Parade, and Curt insisted Linn ride in it.
"Oh, hell," Linn complained, "I'm the only mounted unit?"
"You'll get first place for the Mounted division!" Curt laughed. "Here, I'll slip a note to the judges so they can announce you as visiting from Colorado!"
"Oh, hell," Linn muttered again, shaking his head. "All right. Apple, you up for this?"
Apple-horse responded to a signal -- invisible to anyone else -- Linn's slight gesture brought a vigorous, exaggerated head-nod, gaining him a jaw-rubbing and a molasses twist bribe.
Curt's two little boys were big-eyed and delighted, having been raised on a steady run of Westerns on DVD; they stood back in absolute awe at this lean-waisted, pale-eyed lawman who wore a genuine cowboy revolver in a carved-leather holster and he rode a horse and he had a rope and everything!
The parade was as are as all small town parades: confused, stressed, messengers carrying suddenly urgent communications to this unit, or that unit, at least until the parade started -- then, as always happens, everything fell into place.
Linn was between the marching band and the VFW float, pulled by a redbottom Ford tractor: Linn grinned and waved self consciously, wondering to himself why in the world he let himself get talked into this.
His head was on a swivel, as it always was: it occurred to him that, as a lone rider, between units he would make a fine target for a sniper: his Winchester rifle was in its scabbard, his revolver was on his belt, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something just wasn't right -- and Apple-horse felt it too, or perhaps he picked up on Linn's discomfiture.
Apple started to dancing sideways, the way he did when he wasn't happy, and Linn let him dance: it looked fancy and it let his stallion discharge some nervous energy, and that was working pretty well until Apple decided he wanted to show off, and Linn caught his Stetson after it flew off his head.
Apple managed two fast bucks before Linn grabbed his skypiece and kept it from hitting the ground: it was completely accidental, but it looked really good -- and Linn was too busy bucking out to consider how good it had or had not lappeared.
There was only a brief delay while Apple threw his little fit, spinning, sunfishing, rearing: Linn swatted him fore and aft with his Stetson, raking nonexistent spurs, feeling the shock clear up his spine: Apple gave a final triple-hop, stopped, legs spread a little, head down: Linn settled his Stetson back on his head and said "Yup, boy," and Apple-horse shivered his hide like he was shaking off a pesky fly and stepped out, just as nice as you please, following the marching unit as if nothing had happened.
Linn's head came up and his eyes met Curt's.
The detective was at a police cruiser, standing outside the door: he had microphone in hand and was in some urgent communication.
He looked up at Linn, gestured him urgently over.
Horse and rider, when properly matched, are one living soul: Linn did not have to tell Apple what he wanted, Apple-horse raised his head and his tail and trotted smoothly over to the cruiser.
Curt's face was white.
"Linn, we've got a girl committing suicide and we can't get there for the parade." Curt looked at Apple.
"You could make it."
"Whither away?" Linn demanded, and he felt war rise in his soul: Apple-horse threw his head, reared, clearly eager to ride the rising tide of adrenaline he smelled rolling like a cloud from the saddle.
Curt chopped a hand straight out: "Three hundred yards that way," he said, "she left a suicide note and she's walking in front of the freight."
Linn swore: his head came up at the sound of a Diesel horn -- not the usual crossing whistle, it was long, sustained blasts, a locomotive engineer's desperately warning someone off the tracks.
"YAAHH!"
Apple-horse whirled, streaked across in front of the red-bottom Ford tractor, ears laid back, nose punched into the wind: Linn leaned forward, hands flat on Apple's neck, yelling encouragement as Apple shoved hard against concrete, lifted his forelegs, soared into the air (and over a delighted, open-mouthed pair of schoolboys) and pounded across the open field.
Curt ran after him, as did nearly a dozen spectators: phones were raised, hoping to capture whatever insanity was about to transpire.
Linn saw the freight coming and coming fast.
He saw a young woman walking down the tracks, a pillow wrapped around her head -- presumably to block the sound of the freight roaring up behind her.
"RUN, DAMN YOU, RUN!" Linn screamed, dropping into the seat and pulling his lariat free: he'd have only one shot -- he was running crosswise to the tracks, Apple-horse was punching a hole in the wind as he ran, Linn's eyes were pale, he aimed between Apple-horse's laid-back ears like he would aim a rifle's barrel --
Apple-horse soared over the gravel ballast, over shining steel rails --
The loop floated, dropped, Linn made a quick double-turn around the saddlehorn --
Plaited leather snapped taut, dug painfully into Linn's thigh: when close to half a ton of hard-running horseflesh comes to the end of that springy line, a girl of barely a hundred pounds stands no chance at all of resisting the unmistakable summons to GET THE HELL OFF THE TRACKS!!!!
Linn leaned back -- "Ho!" he barked, and Apple-horse's haunches dropped, he stiff-legged into a fast stop, backing as he'd been trained, waited while Linn launched out of the saddle and went to one knee beside the girl.
"She left a suicide note," Linn continued quietly: Shelly had settled into a chair, Marnie as well, and both listened, seeing the scene in living color as his words painted the picture.
"She could not live with the disgrace of coming home pregnant and unmarried, and so she took the pillow from her bed and took off walking down the tracks. She'd wrapped the pillow around her head so she could not hear the train coming up behind her."
"Dear God," Shelly whispered.
"And you saved her," Marnie said.
Linn nodded.
"She named the baby after Apple."
"Appaloosa, Paul," Linn said. "I reckon you could say that."
"Don't tell Apple," Marnie said quietly, rising: "He'll get such a swelled head he'll be absolutely insufferable!"
Linn watched his daughter's retreating backside as her red, fancy-stitched cowboy boots took her out the front door, waited until the door was closed.
"Now," he said, shifting his pale eyed gaze to his wife. "Is there something you wanted to tell me?"
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2
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569. I WAS DEAD TWO WEEKS AGO
Shelly bit her bottom lip uncertainly.
She heard, very faintly, the sound of Willamina's advancing cane: she imagined how the poor woman must be laboring, painfully, toward the door, using the cane to keep herself from falling, her hip complaining with the extra weight of that awkward, ugly walking boot --
Shelly blinked, surprised, as the door opened, as she beheld the Sheriff's face, flushed, damp, her eyes bright, glittering, seeming on the edge of tears: Shelly's mouth opened and stayed that way as Willamina reached out, laid a hand on her shoulder -- and laughed.
The near-retirement Sheriff pulled Shelly in, closed the door: she leaned against the hallway, smiling, looked at Shelly, looked back toward her desk, shook her head and laughed again, leaning her head back against the age-darkened hall panels: she pointed with her cane, her face turning an incredible shade of scarlet, and she was obliged to wipe the mirth and merriment from her cheeks, where laughter spilled from her eyes and ran wet down her cheeks.
It took a while for her to calm down her Hysterical Bubbles so she could breathe, a few more moments before she could speak: she thumped and hobbled her way into her kitchen, whacked a chair with her cane, pulled out another, sat: she finally took a deep breath, blew it out, looked at her visitor and said, "You'll have to get your own cookies and coffee. Coffee's made, cookies are in the keeper on the counter."
Shelly opened the cupboard, withdrew two sizable mugs: she poured coffee, unfast the airtight lid from the cookies, set the plate on the table, placed one steaming, fragrant mug in front of Willamina, hers went to the opposite side of the table, and it was not until milk was drizzled, not until the hospitable beverage was sampled, that conversation started, and not in a way Shelly was really expecting.
She'd come to Willamina's house feeling like a bucket of stirred-up creek water, turbulent and uncertain: now she sat in this immaculate, familiar kitchen, this one place that felt so very much like home, as much so as her own kitchen, and she looked at Willamina, who looked back with a knowing smile.
"Do you know," Willamina said quietly, "that a recent study of a hundred and a half pulmonary hypertension patients saw more than half die in the first year?"
Shelly's worried eyes widened a little more.
Willamina nodded, took another bite of cookie. "Mm-hmm," she nodded, took a noisy, un-ladylike slurp of coffee. "I did some more research on my conditions -- the Internet's a wonderful thing -- do you know what I found out?"
Shelly shook her head fearfully: her eyes were wide, worried, and she realized she'd taken several sips without tasting the coffee at all.
Willamina placed her mug on the table, placed both palms flat on the checkered tablecloth, leaned forward a little: "I fed in all my symptoms and discovered I died two weeks ago!"
Shelly was in mid-sip when Willamina made her intensely pale-eyed pronouncement: she snorted into her cup, splashed her face, coffee ran down her chin: Willamina picked up a cloth napkin, tossed it: Shelly felt something cloth hit her face, reached up blindly, wiped the embarrassment from her face, wiped her closed eyes, looked at Willamina, and she could not help herself.
She laughed.
Something unwound inside her, something that had been worried and twisted up tight: it uncoiled, relaxed, and the laughter of two women filled the solid old house that had housed one pale eyed Sheriff or another for well more than a century.
Shelly felt something heavy and warm rest itself on her thigh and her hand floated down and caressed The Bear Killer's head: she felt his welcoming groan vibrating in his black-furred throat and she barely saw his huge brush of a tail swinging in her peripheral vision.
"You've been worried about me," Willamina said quietly.
Shelly nodded.
"You lost both your grandmothers and all of your aunts."
Shelly nodded.
"Your mother passed a year before you met Linn."
Shelly's eyes dropped and she nodded again, fingertips just touching the reassuring warmth of the heavy ceramic mug."And you were afraid you were going to lose me."
"You're the only Mom I've got left," Shelly whispered, her eyes hollow, haunted.
Willamina nodded, thought for a long moment.
"Shelly," she finally said, "you are going to lose me."
Shelly looked up, alarmed.
"I am going to die. So are you, so will Linn and Jacob and Marnie. Everyone you know will die, sooner, later, sometime. Nobody gets out alive."
"That's not helping," Shelly said miserably.
"I've died three times, Shelly. I've seen the Valley. I know what comes after and I'm not afraid."
Shelly's eyes widened -- alarm was replaced with curiosity -- Willamina waved a hand, shook her head.
"Long story, maybe some other time. The point is" -- she looked very directly at Shelly -- "I'm alive right now. Yes, I have pulmonary hypertension. Yes, it can cause sudden death. So can a meteor or some drunk running a stop sign, I could trip and fall and break my neck or have a subdural or go face first into a mud puddle and drown. The point is" -- she lowered her head a little, her gaze intense -- "I'm still here and you're still here and there's still work to be done. Besides" -- her smile was sudden, bright, actually ... actually joyful, as if an Artesian spring of delight were bubbling inside her, and flowed up into her face to light it from within -- "I still have grandchildren to spoil!"
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2
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568. MAN OF WAR, MAN OF PEACE
Parson Belden drove his elbow into the man's kidneys.
Hard.
The preacher -- his worn-soft Bible still in his off hand -- reached around, seized the cocked pistol.
He ran a thumb ahead of the hauled back hammer, seized the machined steel frame, stripped it from the agonized man's grip: the Bible went up under his arm, was clamped down between upper arm and ribs, his fingers had eyes of their own as he lowered the hammer, half-cocked it, rotated the cylinder while backing away from the brawl, letting shining brass bottleneck cartridges hit the floor as he pulled back.
A quick check, a flip of the loading gate: he felt it snap shut, there was too much noise from the knock-down, drag-out festival of fists to hear the quiet, metallic sound of the blued-steel gate's return to normal position.
Parson Belden flipped the revolver, caught it by the barrel, turned the handle up out of the way, and waded into the general melee, laying left and right like Samson with the jaw bone of a jack mule.
The Parson had been in that damned War, as had many there in town; he was no stranger to violence, and he'd learned the hard way never to lose concentration, to never stop thinking, even in the heat of a skirmish: he backed up a half step, dropped his Scripture into his hand, turned, tossed it behind the altar rail where it would be safe, and then he came back in.
As quickly as it started, it was ended.
Sheriff Linn Keller tilted up the beer and took a long drink.
His was a roaring appetite and he had a thirst to match: for all that the saloon was named Number Seven, there was no One through Six: this did not interfere with its being well attended, for it had food, it had drink, it had occasional dancing girls and it had cheap and tawdry entertainment, both gambling downstairs, and girls upstairs, none of which concerned the Sheriff.
It was in his county, yes; he was Sheriff, yes; he did not, however, concern himself with the usual usury, graft or strongarm squeeze of their profits: no, he preferred to leave its regulation to Law and Order Harry Macfarland, and Harry did a fine job of keeping the peace.
Linn chewed good back strap and swallowed.
He was after a man and he was not done yet; he'd like to have attended the funeral back in Firelands, but people in hell wanted ice water, and that hadn't worked out either, so he stopped for sustenance and whatever casual gossip he might encounter in this favorite local watering hole.
Linn's ear picked up a conversation: he turned his head slightly, lifted his chin: the barkeep refilled his beer, laid down another thick sandwich, and Linn proceeded to slouch against the bar, lifting his refilled, foam-dripping mug to hide a slight smile as he considered that bad news moved faster than the Sheriff: he considered the speaker's account of a good old fashioned knock down drag out brawl in the church over in Firelands, something to do with harsh words spoken at a man's funeral.
Doc Greenlees sewed up two lips, three scalps one cheekbone and a split open chin.
He assessed the amount of blood in one sufferer's water, dissolved some bitters in steaming-hot water, let it cool a little and had the blood-passing man with aching kidneys drink it down without taking a breath: his several patients, having sobered up in a hurry, agreed universally and rather ruefully that it did not profit much to throw a knuckle party at a funeral, because attair preacher just did not have no sense of humor a'tall about the situation.
Sheriff Linn Keller removed his Stetson as he crossed the threshold into Carbon Hill's Catholic church.
He always did like the way it smelled, bees wax candles and incense and cedar wood: he knew it was the custom to drop a knee toward the Altar, to show due respect for the Host: as Linn was not Catholic, he inclined his head gravely toward the East, indicating his own respect for the institution.
He advanced down the aisle, sought out the priest: he spoke quietly to the man, showed him the wanted dodger: the priest's eyes shifted toward the closed door of the confessional, and Linn stepped quickly to the door, threw it open --
Empty.
He turned as the priest looked patiently at the pale eyed lawman.
"He was here yesterday, Sheriff," Father Meyer said quietly. "I heard his confession, and he left."
"Horseback, stage, train?" Linn asked, and the priest smiled sadly.
"He was walking, Sheriff. His horse was lamed and he sold his saddle, he had a meal and he left."
Linn's chin lifted.
"Whither away, Padre?"
"East, toward the rising of the sun."
Linn nodded. "Thank you, sir."
"Sheriff?"Linn raised an eyebrow, looked very directly at the tonsured cleric.
"You will not find him alive."
"I know."
Parson Belden drew the reins gently: "Ho, there, ho now, ho, girl," he called, and the rented mare stopped, dropped her head as if ready to collapse, the way she always did.
Parson Belden climbed down, walked over to the man's unmoving form.
A Derringer punched quickly toward his face.
The Parson's reflexes were good before he swore into Ohio's volunteer infantry, and they did not get any slower for having surviving that damned war: he seized the wrist, shoved it from him, twisted: the Derringer fell, unfired, and the Parson's knee drove straight down into the supine man's gut, knocked every bit of wind out of him.
The Parson looked up as a shining-gold stallion stopped, as a pale eyed man looked down upon the scene.
"Friend of yours?" Sheriff Linn Keller asked dryly, and the Parson could not help but laugh, and wonder how in the world he could possibly work this into a Sunday sermon.
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3
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567. DAS BOOT
Sheriff Willamina Keller sighed patiently.
She pressed the intercom button.
Her voice was tired, her soul was tired, and it showed in her simply reply to her dispatcher's summons:
"Yes, Sharon?"
"A delegation to see you, Sheriff."
"I'll be right out."
Sheriff Willamina Keller brought her right leg under her, gripped the side of her desk in her left hand, her adjustable-for-length, dog-leg-handled cane in her right: not for the first time, she blessed her Uncle Pete for observing quietly, many years ago, that a cane helps a crippled up old man rise from a chair or from a seated position.
The Sheriff stood, took a long breath, and paced off on the left, as was her habit.
Instead of the click of her usual three inch heel, she heard the soft k-klump of a walking boot; her right foot, in the ugly but supremely comfortable Marine Corps issue woman's shoe, was silent.
Sheriff Willamina Keller, dancer, warrior, wearer of multiple colorful belts in a variety of Oriental schools of ungently pacifying thy neighbor, hobbled carefully to the door.
She drew it open, blinked, smiled, grinned, laughed.
Her boys had come to see her.
Two rows of waxed, shining football helmets, two rows of padded shoulders and thighs, jerseys and cleats, grinning young men, one with a red pennant with a white, jawless skull: the two lines were slightly divergent, and between them, in front, a wheelchair.
No.
Not a wheelchair.
This had tracks.
It had tracks, fenders, it had lights, it had what looked for all the world like a pair of Vulcan cannon on either side: it had a short roof, a set of air horns, it had a sign directly above the seat that said OUTTA MY WAY! -- and as Willamina watched, the pennant was placed in a socket: in lieu of a bicycle flag, this brand new, tracked, powered wheelchair, had a blood-red totenkopf as its signal that the Sheriff Is Comin' Through!
Sheriff Willamina Keller laughed and hobbled carefully toward Her Boys, the Fireland Football Team, Willamina's Warriors: these were the fellows she ran with on a daily basis, these were the fellows who asked her to teach them the delightfully obscene marching songs that are the delight of strong young men marching in ranks and in formation.
These were the mountain-bred, rawhide-tough sons of high-country ranchers that had provided the Marine Corps with some truly superb recruits.
Willamina's laugh, her expression of surprised delight, was captured on a few surreptitious cameras: the speech was mercifully brief, something to the efffect that they knew she didn't need a wheelchair, they knew she was fine with Das Boot and a cane, but they wanted to show their pale-eyed Warrior that they could come across in proper style if need be!
A chair was brought up, Willamina was quickly surrounded by grinning, laughing boys, all wanting to talk at once, until finally Willamina put two fingers to her lips, whistled: "You," she pointed to the team captain, "you talk. The rest of ya, SHADDAP!" -- and her laugh and her bright-as-a sunrise smile took every bit of sting out of the shouted command.
The Captain was down on one knee (and grateful he wore his pads, polished quartz is not a kind surface to kneel on!) -- and said, "Boss, there's a kid in town that can't afford a wheelchair. This is actually his, but we wanted to give you a laugh since you're kind of --"
His eyes went to her walking boot and he stopped, uncertain.
Willamina nodded, her eyes a light blue: "Go on," she said gently.
"We dummied up the Vulcan cannon. We could have mounted a 107 recoilless rifle, but that would make navigating a store aisle awkward in making a turn and besides the exhaust is poisonous and that could lead to misunderstandings."
"You've been listening to Linn again," Willamina murmured.
"Yeah," the team captain grinned. "This is actually that kid's chair but we had to gussy it up and show you!"
Willamina laughed, leaned forward, gripped his shoulder pad, her eyes bright.
"Come here, fellas," she said, and Willamina's Warriors swarmed in, crowding her: they were on one or on both knees, their arms around her and around each other, surrounding her with a sea of young and armored masculinity, and they remembered for the rest of their lives what it was to see a pale eyed Sheriff with tears running down her face as she looked around and whispered, "I have never had a better gift in all my life. Thank you all for this," and then she threw her head back and declared, "You went to all that work, let me try it on! We need some pictures!"
Two days later, when a twelve year old boy settled into the seat, after he'd fast up his seat belt, been briefed on the controls -- joy stick here, speed control underneath -- this knob -- master switch here, this is your power on/off, that's your power level, plug in and charge up overnight or when it hits this level -- Willamina leaned on her cane and grinned as he ran it forward, then back; turned, forward again, circlespun, laughed.
The dummy cannon were gone, as was the the aggressive get-outta-my-way sign, but the small, forward facing, high intensity lights remained (they have their own power supply, they're LED so you'll get a good battery life), and a quick consultation with the resident electronics geek resulted in a spare ham radio's installation, with its antenna sprouting from behind the tubular steel roll bar.
The roof remained.
Air horns, like the ersatz Vulcans, were strictly for show: Willamina's picture, on the front page of their weekly newspaper, circulated to a surprisingly wide audience, and certain members of the Firelands Football Team began receiving inquiries about their custom wheelchair, and could they build one, and so the Sheriff helped another local business start up.
Willamina grimaced as she lifted her left leg slightly to try and reduce any pressure on the back of her heel.
Heel spurs are a not uncommon runner's injury; Willamina had over stretched her Achilles tendons; the right healed without difficulty -- Dr. Greenlees explained that the over stretches caused multiple microtears -- she was lucky her right healed well, but the left, he said, was calcified, with a bone spur beneath, and he sent her to a specialist: "You have really good looking legs, Willa," he said quietly, in the privacy of their exam room, "and I want yours taken care of by a specialist!" -- and so Willamina had to hobble about on a walking boot, with a cane, which of course she used to her advantage.
With her reputation, everybody and their uncle expected her to use the cane, close-in and nasty, whipping it about like a blademaster with a fencing foil: in truth, the closest she came was to stand up at a County Commissioner's meeting, when comment was made about her (ahem) "condition": she shook her cane threateningly and declared in a peevish old-woman voice, "Why, I never! In my day! These young whipper-snappers! When I was in the war!" -- her voice quavering, reedy, utterly at odds with her usual pleasantly-voiced tones: her expression, her voice, her posture, her words were so surprisingly at odds with her usual self, as to instantly strike the Board of Commissioners as comical, humor disarming the sudden, critical comment and its implications, which was her intent.
She would brook no suggestion that she was any less than perfectly capable, and rather than allow that implied criticism to stand, she deflected it with a laugh.
It was well that the Commissioners -- especially the one who dared suggest she was perhaps not fit due to her injury -- laughed, and let the matter slide.
Willamina sat with two solemn-faced young men on either side of her, unsmiling young men in white shirts and neckties, carefully humorless young men in pressed slacks and shined shoes, strong-muscled young men with the broad shoulders of football players, rancher's sons: two on her right, two on her left, a row behind her, all silent, all unmoving, all glaring at the Commissioners, their expressions quiet: they'd formed a protective squadron around her as she entered, and they formed a protective detail around her as she departed, and none there doubted the accuracy of the Medieval author who wrote, "Faithful retainers are the bones and sinews of old age," and here -- here, in the County Commissioner's meeting, right out where God and everybody could see it, Willamina's Warriors showed yet again just how much they thought of this Cool Little Old Lady who ran with them, who taught them those delightfully obscene running cadences, who baked them chocolate chip cookies and who did them the supreme honor of allowing them to show their loyalty to her.
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3
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566. THE SIGNAL
Jacob Keller's eyes were busy under the shaded overhang of his pearl-grey Stetson.
It was said that, at a distance, father and son were indistinguishable: they were two men of like height, of a like breadth of shoulder and lean waist, two men who favored black suits and knee high black boots, two men with pale eyes that could look through a man and take a good close regard of his back bone and see if there was a streak alongside it -- whether white, if he was a skunk, or yella, if he had a shade of the coward in his soul.
Jacob preferred an Appaloosa stallion; his father, a Palomino: two stallions sometimes did not get along well, and there were times when two horses were at odds with one another, which is why most preferred geldings.
The lawmen Keller were not most men.
Jacob cantered his Appaloosa down the middle of the rutted, froze-hard street: his hand rose in salute, touching his hat brim to the ladies, or giving a grave, shallow nod to the men he recognized: it was obvious the man was looking for something.
Or someone.
All upon whom his pale eyes rested, felt a chill: the good folk of town felt a trickle of a chill at those pale eyes, as if a cold blanket of silence passed momentarily over their beating heart: those with a guilty conscience felt more like a ladle of cold snow melt sluiced right down the middle of their back bone, and they had the instant impression that the climate just might be healthier some distance away.
Jacob ho'd softly and Apple-horse ho'd, turned: he stood at the hitch rail, Jacob took a single turn around the cedar with one rein, caressed Apple's neck, and as he always did, he said "Anyone troubles you, boy, kill 'em."
No one this side of the Mr. and Mrs. Sippi had ever been foolish enough to lay hands on Jacob's stallion.
One, and only one, living soul had ever been that utterly stupid, and that was when his pale eyed Pa sent him back East with a warrant: he'd ridden the steam train from here to there and ended up in a dirty little mining town in the Appalachian hill country, he'd taken a room at the Widow Hanson's boarding house, and he'd found one Donald Douglas, named on the warrant and particularly described -- and when he was admitted into the Douglas household by the maid, when he crossed the threshold with a gentle voice and a quiet smile, he'd been shown into the presence of the man, and he'd taken a long look at him.
Donald Douglas lay in his bed, unable to move: only his eyes showed any sign of life, of movement: Jacob thanked the maid and asked for a moment alone, and when the door closed behind the hired girl, Jacob took out the warrant which authorized his arrest of this criminal, this lying man who'd falsely sworn to his pale eyed Pa's being a murderer.
Jacob looked at the man like he might examine a bug on a professor's plate.
He withdrew the warrant from his coat, read it aloud, his voice quiet, gentle: he read the charges, the order of the Firelands District Court, he looked down at Don Douglas, lying there, paralyzed from an attack of apoplexy, his eyes and his mind the only active parts of his existence.
"Mr. Douglas," Jacob said, "a lawman has considerable discretion."
He folded the warrant and returned it to the inside pocket of his immaculately-brushed black coat.
"Were you a well man, I would bring you back in irons, peacefully or otherwise, and otherwise would suit me just fine." He looked quietly at the invalid. "Look close, Mr. Douglas. I'm told I favor my father considerable. You might remember him, his name is Linn Keller and he walked down Butcher Knife Joe out on the main street and you were on Council, layin' bets as to how fast my Pa would get killed a-doin' it."
Jacob leaned over until his nose was an inch from Douglas's nose.
"Was I to take you back, you would be sentenced either to death, or to prison."
He straightened.
"You are already in prison, Mr. Douglas, and I don't reckon you'll ever get out. Was I to guess, I'd guess you will die of pneumonia." Jacob settled his pearl grey Stetson on his head, stepped back one pace.
"Sir, I leave you to your prison, but know that your name is known to good men, and that name is not well regarded."
If a man's eyes were weapons, Douglas would have been launching daggers and ballista-bolts at his pale eyed visitor.
Jacob opened the door; it did not surprise him that the maid was bent over, listening at the keyhole.
Jacob closed the door behind him, turned to the maid.
"I have no further business here," he said, "and I do not reckon I will return."
He didn't.
He did, however, stop in Athens, both on his way in, and on his way out, and while he was consulting with the local Sheriff's office -- who found it a grand novelty to entertain a genuine Western Sheriff's deputy -- a group of college boys thought it would be grand fun to steal this horse they found, waiting patiently for its rider: one sustained a crushed hand, another, two broken ribs and significant bruising, and a third, the one who actually made it into the saddle, discovered that a Western horse is a marvelous creature that can sling a man far closer to the moon's surface than he ever really wanted to get.
Jacob looked down at the horse thief as said scoundrel lay flat on his back on the Athens cobbles, the wind knocked clear out of him: Jacob turned his lapel back to show a six point star and quietly offered the observation that it's not wise to steal a man's horse -- "matter of fact," he continued, "that is a hangin' offense" -- and so saying he took the braided leather reata from his saddlehorn, shook out a loop, and as the horse thief tried to scuttle away like a crab, Jacob flipped the loop around his neck, threw the rest of the coil over the arm of the street light, and hauled him off the ground, to the shock and protestations of his fellows.
The town constable stopped and grinned: he was long since fed up with these rich men's sons getting away with whatever they would, buying off justice with their fathers' money and influence: he folded his arms and watched, suspecting that this lean Western deputy would not actually kill this young fool, but would instead put the fear of Almighty God into him.
He was right.
Jacob and Apple-horse continued their journey back to Firelands without further difficulties, and this was the one, the only, time anyone ever, EVER tried to steal a pale eyed lawman's horse.
Jacob and Apple stopped in front of the Silver Jewel Saloon.
Jacob swung down, looking around: he reached up, knocked a chip of wood from between two boards, drew back: the chip was a signal, something so innocuous as to escape the common eye, yet a flag of importance to the man who knew its significance.
Jacob considered a moment longer, then took Apple's rein, pulled it easily free of the single turn around the shaved cedar hitch rail, walked around back of the Silver Jewel.
Sarah smiled ever so slightly as the hidden panel slid aside, as a long tall lawman ducked and entered, standing up straight in the hidden stairway as he returned the panel to its usual configuration.
He looked up at Sarah and smiled, just a little.
"Been waiting long?"
Sarah sighed dramatically, laid gloved fingertips against her cheekbone, rolled her eyes upwards and complained dramatically, "Oh, a lifetime!" -- then she laughed and said "Less than two minutes!"
Jacob climbed the steps to where she sat, turned, sat beside her, his Stetson in hand.
Silence filled the hidden stairway.
Jacob ran his arm around his sister's shoulders, drew her in close: she leaned her head against his, and the two sat in companionable silence for several more minutes.
"Jacob," she finally asked, "do you love your wife?"
"More than life itself," he replied, his voice quiet.
"Can I tell you something?"
"Always."
"I wish you were no relation to me."
"God loves you too."
"No, Jacob, I'm serious!" Sarah leaned away from him, shoved petulantly at his bent knee.
"And why this sudden fit of pique, O young and pretty one?" Jacob asked teasingly.
Sarah looked at him and Jacob was suddenly very serious, for he realized his sister was neither teasing him, nor was she being the least little bit funny.
"Jacob," she finally said, "a woman should marry someone she truly loves."
"Ideally, yes, she should."
"I wish I could marry you."
Jacob was suddenly very, very still.
Sarah held her breath, uncertain as to his reaction to her confession: she knew she spoke honestly, she knew she spoke from her heart, and she knew things could go very, very badly from now on, but it needed said, and she had to say it, and so she did.
Jacob lifted his hand, reached over, laid very gently over on her clasped hands in her lap.
"Sarah," he almost whispered, "if we were not blood -- and was I not married to Annette -- I would marry you right here and right now!"
"You would?"
Jacob nodded, once.
Sarah dropped her head, sighed.
"I know I shall marry badly," she said. "I will marry because I must, for the good of our family, I will marry a man I've never seen yet, I will --"
Sarah bit off her words, shook her head.
"You are a fine husband, Jacob," she finally said, "and you are a wonderful father."
"I doubt me not you will make a fine wife and mother."
"I will bear one child only," she said, her voice hollow, her eyes haunted, "and that child will have to ... "
Jacob waited for her to finish her sentence.
She didn't.
"Hold me," she whispered, and brother and sister held each other in the silence of a hidden staircase, one drawing comfort, the other giving comfort: it was not the first time they met thus, hidden and alone, it was not the first time the signal summoned a meeting, and it would not be the last, and one week to the day that Jacob was given to understand his sister, married to a nobleman the hell and gone clear on the other side of the world, had been killed -- it was one week to the day that he saw a wood chip between those two boards again.
He and Apple-horse walked around back of the Silver Jewel.
Jacob opened the secret panel, slipped inside, replaced the panel.
He drew his fighting knife, for he knew ghosts and spirits were not affected by bullets, but haints, boogers and speerts could but cut with a sharpened blade, and his blade had a skinning edge, superb for laying open an enemy.
He need not have worried.
He looked at the step where Sarah last sat.
A scarlet rose, its fragrant petals dew-wet as if fresh cut from a morning garden, lay on the step, and one step above, a framed portrait.
Jacob stood and regarded the pale eyed visage staring at him from the framed oil painting.
It was beautifully executed by a master of the art; the frame was rich, ornate, gilded: the background was a dark, brooding mountain scene, with an ornate stone residence, almost a minor castle: in the foreground, a woman, wearing knee high boots with riveted plates protecting her shins, a knee length skirt of leather strips with overlapping scale male riveted on: she wore a Spanish curiasse, contoured to the female form, and her helmet was under her arm, a simple Nordic helm with white wings.
Behind her, a truly huge, absolutely black horse, its white wings extended, and beside her, a very familiar, very lifelike, very black, curly-furred canine, fangs bared, eyes red and burning, and the hair standing up the length of his backbone.
Jacob stared at this framed portrait for a long time: he finally picked up the rose, smelled it, slid it into a slit he'd had sewn into his lapel for just such duty.
Well more than a century later, the portrait would be discovered again, and on orders of a certain retired Sheriff, placed in the Firelands museum, with other artifacts of Firelands history.
Jacob rode slowly home that night, and he asked his wife for a little vase to put the rose in, and he stood the rose on his bedside table in a narrow necked, tall white vase, and it remained as fresh as if newly cut, for just over a month.
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565. TIKKIE PINGERS
The wind had stopped, which made it feel a little less cold, especially where the weak sun could caress the Sheriff's overcoat.
He followed the great black dog through drifted snow, until The Bear Killer stopped and looked back and woofed.
Linn swung down, dropped the reins on the bitless bridle: "Stay," he said quietly, carressing the brindle mule's neck: the mule muttered, laid his jaw companionably over the Sheriff's shoulder.
"I know, fella," Linn said quietly. "The faster we find him and get him back, the faster we can get you back in the barn."
The pack mule tethered behind swung his ears toward the lean waisted lawman's voice, but offered no comment.
Linn slogged through knee deep drifts, grateful the wind blew the worst of it somewhere else, saw where The Bear Killer dug out a hand.
It was a relaxed hand, but it was a dead hand: blue, stiff, attached to a carcass that was not only stiff in death, but froze as well.
Linn wallered the carcass free of the entombing drift -- "Damn you dirty John Allen," he muttered, "you thievin' son of Perdition, why'd you have to go and die on me" -- he got the stiffened carcass worked free, over his shoulder: he stood, turned, headed back to the pack mule.
"Damn you dirty John Allen," he snarled between clenched teeth, "you stole from everyone you could and now you're stealin' my comfort! If you weren't dead I'd kick your backside up between your shoudler blades!"
The jack mule stood patiently as the Sheriff fought the carcass into place, got it tied down: he did not bother to tarp it -- his feet were cold and his fingers were cold and he was not in a good temper a'tall -- once he was satisfied the frozen soul would not escape the lashings, he mounted up, called "Bear Killer! Let's go home!" -- and the four of them set out along their back trail, back for Firelands.
Part way back he pulled a card out of his inside pocket -- the sun hadn't been this strong on the way out -- Sarah made it and gave it to him, she said it was something the Esquimaux used, up north -- she'd taken a stiff card, as wide as a playing card and twice as long -- she cut a relief for a man's nose, cut two crosses for him to look out of -- and told him, "Wear this to keep from going snow blind."
The Sheriff lifted his Stetson, ran the string over his head and adjusted it for taut, resumed the skypiece, and was grateful for the relief, for it did help.
Digger heard a man's boots on the boardwalk outside.
Men stomping snow off didn't always mean business, but when the first stomps were followed with a distinctive tattoo, he knew it was the Sheriff, punishing the base of a decorative column beside his front door, knocking the toe of one boot, then the other, against the broad base to get rid of the adherent snow.
Digger looked up, stood, took one step toward the door, and the bell rang cheerfully: a single pull.
One pull meant it was not an unexpected death, one pull meant the potential customer was not distressed, aggrieved, upset: had the bell rang, swung, clanged, alarmed with many vigorous pulls, he would expect to see a terrified child, a weeping woman, a bereaved husband with a child in one arm and two others clutching his coat tails: no, he opened the door and was not at all surprised to see the pale eyed Sheriff -- at least he thought it was the Sheriff -- wearing some kind of a square mask across his eyes.
Linn removed the Stetson, the snow shield, replaced his sky piece.
"Customer," he grunted. "Tikkie Pingers."
Digger nodded, frowning. "At least he won't be stealing from me this time. Bring him in back."
Moments later, Digger and the Sheriff lay the frozen carcass of a local small time thief on Digger's work table.
"I don't care if you thaw him out or just cut off his arms to fit him in the coffin," Linn growled. "The fellow's dead and good riddance. County will pay for the usual. Check his pockets carefully, no telling what he'd stolen this time."
"I'll do that, Sheriff."
The arrival of a masked lawman, with an uncovered, obviously frozen, lashed-down body on a pack mule, did not go unnoticed.
That the body was tied down on the back of the Sheriff's mule, told the watchers it was being brought in, that it was not under its own power.
That its liimbs stuck stiffly awry, told them the body was not living, and hadn't been for a while.
That it was uncovered, told the watchers how little respect the Sheriff had for this soul, and this was significant: the Sheriff was known for his explosive temper when provoked, but he was also known as a man of great patience and unfailing courtesy, and for him to haul in a body without discreetly covering it, told all who saw it, just how much contempt, how much dislike the Sheriff had for this poor soul.
The event itself was not terribly significant; it merited but brief entry into the Sheriff's ledger; that dirty John Allen was buried in a pauper's grave, its location marked by a simple stone that was eventually lost to time and overgrowth, located again and identified more than a century later by one of the Sheriff's descendant successors.
Marnie Keller stood beside her Gammaw as Willamina consulted her hand-held tablet: she took a photo of the just-uncovered stone, washed free of dirt, scrubbed and now legible again, and she nodded.
"Gammaw?" Marnie asked, looking at Willamina with serious eyes. "Is this the dirty John Allen Daddy talks about?"
Willamina laughed. "You mean yesterday, when he could not find his lock pliers and he said that dirty John Allen stole it?"
"That's the one," nine-year-old Marnie nodded, pale eyes big and solemn.
"He's the one, sweets. He was also known as Tikkie Pingers."
Marnie looked curiously at her pale-eyed Gammaw, and Willamina laughed at her granddaughter's puzzlement.
"He had tikkie pingers," she explained. "If he saw something he liked, it stuck to his fingers ... and I think someone's child couldn't speak clearly and instead of 'Sticky Fingers' it came out 'Tikkie Pingers' and it stuck."
Marnie nodded solemnly, looked down at the clean-scrubbed stone.
"We'll have our Digger reset this stone," Willamina said. "This isn't the only one that's been found. Potter's Field was for indigent deaths and for criminals, people who were hanged."
"Like that Beulah woman -- or was it Clara?"
"Clara, I think. One of the only women hanged here in Firelands." Willamina looked over at the stone marking the subject under discussion, bent down a little, looked at Marnie, winked.
"Don't tell anyone," she said quietly, "but every one of their hanged criminals was buried face down so they could see where they were going!"
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564. GRENADE?
Sheriff Willamina Keller lay back and willed herself to relax.
She looked up at stark-white acoustic ceiling tiles, she lay still as intravenous contrast warmed her arm, and a moment later she suppressed a giggle: she'd been warmed that she would feel flushed, and it would feel like she'd wet herself, and had they not warned her, she realized, she would be most distressed right about now.
The table hummed and started to move, and she rolled slowly, smoothly, through the CAT scanner's doughnut.
Shelly was very quiet.
Shelly was normally second cousin to the Energizer Bunny.
Shelly was seldom still: she was either inventorying the squad, or polishing brass, she was either mopping or stocking linens or getting under the hood to check motors.
Captain Crane saw her sitting, alone, an untouched coffee no longer steaming in front of her, and he knew something was not as it should be.
He came over, sat beside his daughter, ran his arm around her shoulders: Shelly leaned into her big strong Daddy: no longer a confident, self-sufficient paramedic, no longer wife and mother, Shelly began to shiver.
She laid her head over on the Captain's shoulder and quavered, "I need my daddy," in a small, almost a little girl's voice, and the Captain turned a little and held her with both arms.
Jacob waited, silent, patient; he stood at a correct parade-rest, his eyes pale, his boots polished, his jeans pressed, his shirt military creased: there were chairs, but he chose to stand, and the few who came into the waiting room had the distinct impression that cold was cascading off the lean young man like cold rolling down a granite mountain in winter.
Sheriff Linn Keller came into the waiting room, looked at his son, lifted his head, but barely: his hat brim rose all of a quarter of an inch, but it conveyed the message.
"She's still in, sir," Jacob said quietly.
Linn nodded.
He paced across the floor, burnished boot's heels loud on mirror-polished tile: he came over beside his son, turned, fell into an identical parade-rest beside his son: side by side, there was a distinct, a very distinct, resemblance, not only in appearance, height, build and shape of face, but in posture and in a silent, pale eyed glare ... and in the way that their eyes, and nothing else, moved: Jacob was not yet a sworn deputy, but he stood like a lawman, he stood with his back to a wall, facing the only entrance to the room.Father and son gave the distinct impression that they were actually tightly-coiled springs, only incidentally contained in shells of flesh, and they were more than ready to release their pent-up energy, very quickly.
Very quickly.
Shelly looked up as one of the Irish Brigade removed her cooled mug, replaced it with a fresh, hot, steaming mug of coffee: a strong hand laid gently on her shoulder, squeezed, released.
Shelly stared, unseeing, into the shimmering blackness: her voice was faint, uncertain.
"Daddy," she said, "she is the only mother I have left!"
Captain Crane nodded, slowly: he waited until she took a sip of coffee, and set her mug down, before pulling her into him again.
"I know, liebchen," he said softly. "I know."
Willamina closed her eyes as she passed beneath the aligning lasers.
The table ran smoothly as the CT head rumbled and rotated inside its tan housing: eleven minutes later, Willamina stood, buttoned her flannel shirt, thrust sock feet into her well polished Wellington boots: she looked at the tech and asked, "How long until we know about this grenade in my chest?"
"Grenade?" the tech asked, momentarily alarmed: she turned, looked at the monitor, looked back, shook her head: "The radiologist will have to read it, I'm sorry. I can't interpret."
"You're not running out at the top of your lungs, waving your arms in the air."
"No." The tech smiled. "No, I'm ... not running."
"Good enough." Willamina smiled. "Thank you for your hospitality."
She paused. "I expect I'll have someone waiting to give me a ride. Which way is the waiting room?"
Linn and Jacob felt a surge of adrenaline as the door pushed open, relaxed just a little as a pair of pale eyes came in, with the familiar figure of a woman surrounding them: she came over to the Keller men, who both dropped out of parade rest -- not quite into an atttention posture, but definitely an attentive posture.
Willamina took Linn's hand and Jacob's both.
"What do we know?" Linn asked, his voice tense.
"We know one polyp was precancerous, but nothing else was suspicious."
"And your scan ...?"
"Will have to pass before the radiologist's eyes."
Jacob's silence spoke as loudly as his voice might have: Willamina looked at her grandson, smiled.
"Your eyes," she murmured, then hugged Jacob, quickly, tightly: "you're just like your father!"
"Thank you, ma'am," Jacob replied, hugging her back.
Willamina turned, hooked her arm in Jacob's elbow, the other arm in Linn's: "I'm hungry," she announced. "Who's buying?"
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563. AN UNDERSTANDING
Jacob Keller's hands were too fast to follow.
Jacob Keller's hands were callused from honest labor.Jacob Keller's hands were also pretty damned strong.
Jacob Keller seized the wrist, twisted it, spun: his hand seized the thumb, brought it around, back, fast, brutally, with full intent to rip it from the hand that sprouted it.
He didn't quite get that done.
He did, however, tear the wrist apart, and he did bring the knife out of the opponent's hand, and he did bring the thumb out of its socket.
Jacob Keller's eyes were dead pale, his face was dead white and stretched like old parchment over a mummy's skull, but this was not what struck dread into Emma Cooper's stomach.
Jacob Keller's face was -- for all its pallor, for all its tautness, was utterly, completely, without expression.
It would have been easier for the schoolmarm if Jacob's face were contorted in a snarl, if his teeth were bared, if his was a mask of fury and of rage and of blasting red anger: somehow his utter calm, his completely emotionless expression, drove a lance of cold fear into the woman's soul, and she brought her hands quickly to her stomach as if she herself had been lanced.
Jacob released the wrist, stepped back, turned quickly left, turned right, his forearm shot up and out and blocked the cudgel coming down toward his head: his arm spun, snugged in, he twisted, and elbow splintered and another boy screamed in agony.
Jacob released the arm, let the howling attacker fall to the ground, turned again: left, then right, then clear around, hands up, bladed, ready.
The first one -- the one with the thumb that laid limp, misshapen, discolored -- sniveled through tears and snot, tried to glare through his pain, screamed "I'LL KILL YOU!"
Jacob took a fast step forward, kicked: his boot caught his first attacker under the jaw, slamming teeth together, snapping the neck back: he stepped in, stomped the attacker in the gut, driving his weight through his boot heel, driving the living breath from the agonized boy's belly.
His attacker was an older boy, a bigger boy, someone who wanted to rule the others, and when Jacob would not submit to his demands, he pulled a knife and threatend to cut Jacob open.
Jacob picked up the knife, tested the edge.
"Dull," he said, shaking his head. "You can't even do that right."
Two tall boys, on the ground, offered no comment save only their sounds of agony.
Jacob Keller seized the wrist, caught it coming in: he spun, pulled, drove the stiletto switchblade into the brick wall of the Firelands High School hallway.
His elbow came up, caught the attacker's jaw, snapping it: he pulled back, spun, swept the knees from under the next attacker, drove a side-snap into another's crotch: he was spinning, and with each revolution he delivered a ridgehand chop, an elbow strike, a kick: there were four of them, but they were in close, too close, and another blade intended for Jacob's kidneys, ended up in the guts of a fellow attacker: Jacob was a tornado with a white face and ice-pale eyes, utterly silent, absolutely without emotion, fast, effective ... and deadly.
Two that tried to kill him, were dead, two more were crippled, their knees ripped apart from being kicked, hard, in the side: Jacob turned, left, then right, turned clear around, hands up, bladed, ready.
"I'll kill you," one of his attackers gasped.
"You had your chance," Jacob replied in a quiet voice. "I see you again, you die."
Two nights later, a car was found burning on a back road.
Two bodies were found inside.
The autopsy was difficult, but not impossible.
Cause of death was gunshot, from close range.
Very close range.
Jacob Keller was, of course, asked as to his whereabouts that night, and he answered honestly that he'd been home in bed.
He did not lie.
Nobody asked where his sister had been that night.
Two days later, when they were well away from the house, when there was none but their horses to hear them, Jacob asked, "Was it difficult?"
"No," Marnie said offhandedly. "I named the place and said if they thought they had the guts, they'd meet you there."
"They found two guns in the car."
"What was left of two guns, yes."
"They intended to kill you, Jacob."
Jacob nodded, looked at his big sister.
"Gammaw always did like her shotgun."
Marnie smiled, just a little.
"So do I."
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562. "YOU WERE VER-RY, VER-RY GOOD!"
A litttle girl in a proper schoolgirl frock sat on her front porch, looking out at a misty curtain of fine, silent, falling snow.
It was Saturday -- her Mama would emerge momentarily, and she and Sarah would go to town and do their marketing, but for the moment, Sarah sat on the front porch, a folded saddleblanket under her, a huge, black, curly-furred dog happily panting beside her: The Bear Killer leaned companionably against the beribboned child, mouth open in a doggy grin, pink tongue panting in the cold Colorado air.
Sarah was content to sit in the silence, and in the isolation: she was warm, and she was safe; her cloak was around her, except where she'd drawn the right side up and thrown it over The Bear Killer's spine, as he sat cuddled up beside her: she knew he'd likely not appreciate the gesture, as his natural insulation beat anything she wore, but it made her feel better, and The Bear Killer did not object.
Sarah was not yet nine years old, though her mother saw a far greater age in the wee child's eyes: Sarah had survived horrors and hells no child should ever experience, and though she never woke screaming with nightmares, Bonnie knew Sarah's bed was generally torn up by daylight, as if she'd been fighting monsters in her sleep, and not infrequently Sarah's hair would be sweat-plastered to her face, and she'd come to breakfast with a haunted expression, as if hell itself had tried to swallow her, and she'd only just managed to escape.
In later years, Sarah told Bonnie of the things she'd survived: at first Bonnie shook her head and said "No, no, Sarah, that can't be," until Sarah described Bonnie's appearance, and her simple, quietly stated words blasted the wall Bonnie had built between her memories and herself: mothers usually hold their daughters, and comfort their daughters, when their daughters wake screaming with night terrors, but sometimes, sometimes it is the daughter that holds the mother, sometimes it is the daughter who murmurs, "We shall get through this together," and sometimes, when the mother and the daughter have both been wounded most grievously -- whether an unseen, psychic, soul-crippling wound, or a physical, flesh-tearing, bone-breaking, body-crippling wound, mother and daughter heal together.
Sarah was not content to wall away her horrors and deny them.
Sarah Lynne McKenna, every night, waded through the hot, red sands of Hell itself, gathered what weapons she could manage, and charged her memories, assaulted her terrors, brought destruction to Chaos and the monsters that tried to rend her soul and keep it for their own.
Bonnie's trials were terrible indeed -- what happened to her, especially when a brothel still ran in the upper floor of the Silver Jewel -- are things no woman should ever endure: it is a testament to her strength, her resilience, that she survived: more honor must be given, more must be recognized, that she was able to prosper afterward, that she built her own business and became a respected woman of Firelands society and Firelands commerce, after all that.
But this morning, today, in the hush of a steady snowfall, a little girl and a huge, black, bear killing mountain Mastiff sat together on a front porch, feeling the silence, tilting their heads back and tasting the snow, rejoicing in a moment of calm and of isolation, and of sharing their mutual warmth.
Feral, yellow eyes gleamed, unseen and shining, through the steady snowfall.
A girl sat on her front porch, a girl in jeans and a blanket lined coat, a girl with a Winchester rifle across her lap and a gentle smile on her face.
A huge, black, curly-furred dog sat beside her, cuddled up against her: she ran her arm over The Bear Killer's back and rubbed him gently with a deerskin-gloved hand.
"I'm glad you're here," she whispered, and The Bear Killer turned, lowered his head, gave her jawline a quick laundering, his tail swishing soundlessly across the snowy porch boards.
Marnie sat on a folded saddle blanket, snow dusting the brim of her Stetson; her hair was braided, wrapped around her throat, tucked into her flannel shirt collar; she'd read of the McKenna Ranch and a ranch hand -- oh, what was her name, it was a man's name and the record fooled a lot of people -- she wore her hair braided and around her throat, and it kept her alive in a knife fight once --
"Bear Killer," Marnie complained, "what was her name?"
The Bear Killer muttered, deep in his chest, but made no other reply.
"Clark," Marnie said with satisfaction. "She had thick auburn hair and she wore it braided around her throat, she was a marvel with handling cattle and her name was Clark --"
The front door opened: "Marnie," Jacob said, his voice serious.
Marnie turned her head: something in his voice told her this was not little brother teasing his big sis.
"They've a lost child. I think we ought to saddle up. You had breakfast?"
"No," she admitted, pulling her legs up from their dangle-in-the-snow: she cracked her bootsoles together to knock off the white stuff, came up on her feet, snatching up the saddle blanket.
"I've got bacon and eggs ready, toast is coming up, hot chocolate is mixed!"
"Jacob, I love you from the bottom of my heart," Marnie groaned as she and The Bear Killer made for the open door.
"Yeah, and you've got Mom and Dad in the top!" Jacob retorted, and they laughed, for it was an old joke between them.
They knew well the need to have their inner furnace stoked before heading out on an important job, and finding a lost child in the snow was very definitely important.
Sarah Lynne McKenna sat very straight and very proper beside her Mama in the front seat of their sleigh.
The streets had been rolled, packed down, to make sleigh runners slide easier; the road to their ranch, as well, had been rolled, but snow had fallen since: still, their smooth, waxed sleigh-runners glided easily, their steelshod, matched Dapples -- which Sarah insisted be named Butter and Jelly -- made light work of drawing them through the winter snowfall, harness bells singing happily in the cold, thin air.
Sarah and Bonnie were warm in furs and cloaks, with a buffalo robe across both their laps: Sarah delighted in her Mommy, for her Mommy was very, very pretty, and she was very, very proper, and frankly Bonnie was a really good looking woman: a trim figure and violet eyes, a gentle, understanding smile and a soft voice: she was every inch the Lady, and Sarah aspired to be just like her: children learn more by observation, than by didactic lessons, and Sarah was laying down her pattern according to what she saw in her lovely, feminine, Mama.
Jacob and Marnie swung into saddle leather: they had full bellies, they had thermoses of steaming-hot chocolate, they had rations in their saddlebags, and they had a rifle in a saddle-scabbard and a belted revolver under their jackets: they were too young for such things, they knew, but they also knew that Concealed meant Concealed, and as long as they were not stupid, they could probably get away with it.
Besides, they could argue these were signaling devices, for use in an emergency, and in this weather, a lost child was an emergency.
Each wore a screaming-neon-lime, reflective-striped vest, and each had supplies behind the saddle, and when a pair of broad brimmed horsemen rode up to the firehouse, where the searchers were gathering, Linn looked up and nodded with approval.
"You're just in time," he said, as if he'd expected them: "come on in for the council of war!"
A bay door clattered open and Jacob and Marnie walked their mounts inside, in where it was warm; the doors rattled and squeaked a little as it closed, shutting out fine, blowing snow and a cold wind.
Marnie and Jacob swung down, each one pausing to rub their mounts' noses, each murmured, "Remember, you're housebroken," which of course did not work, but it made a good line.
Bonnie tethered Butter's bridle to the hitch rail in front of the Mercantile.
Sarah very carefully stood, standing erect and ladylike in the front of the sleigh: she stepped up on the side of the sleigh, balancing easily on its edge, standing straight and ladylike, gauging the distance she'd have to jump to land on the mounting-block: just as she started to bend her knees for the feat, The Bear Killer shoved her powerfully in the small of the back with his nose, and Sarah fell, all arms and legs and a startled little squeak, as an anonymous townsman caught the falling child: he went over backwards, landed flat on his back on the snowy boardwalk with a pale-eyed little girl on top of him: Bonnie's gloved hand went to her mouth, her violet eyes wide, shocked, while The Bear Killer, looking down from the sleigh, swung his tail happily and looked most pleased with himself.
The townsman's hat fell from his head in slow motion, landed upside down on the snow-dusted boardwalk, cold-blown flakes hitting his hatband and melting from the retained heat; other wind-driven, icy little flakes started to gather in the hat's deeper crown crease.
The townsman -- once the startle wore off -- blinked, looked into the cherubic, red-cheeked face of an absolutely beautiful, fur-framed, laughing little girl: the child kissed him quickly, delicately, on the tip of his nose and said in an utterlly charming, little-girl voice, "Hello, I'm Sarah, and I don't believe we've been properly introduced."
Marnie and Jacob did what they have always done best.
They held back, they listened.
Children learn more by observation than by didactic instruction; children also learn from casual comments: when their pale eyed Pa commented, "I never learned much with my mouth a-runnin'," they took this as instruction, and when their pale eyed Pa remarked, "Mouth in gear, mind goes on vacation," they accepted this as Gospel: adults discussed the plan of attack, assigned quadrants to be searched, discussed terrain, weather, wind chill: to all of this Marnie and Jacob listened without comment, until Linn looked over at Marnie.
"You've ridden your sector before," he said. "Any thoughts?"
"Yes," Marnie said without hesitation: she stepped forward, overlaid the county map with a topographic map transparency, picked up the Sheriff's shining-chrome, telescoping pointer. "You said last known location was here."
The pointer rested on the clear plastic.
"Known hazards this area will be dropoffs here and here" -- the pointer lifted, tapped gently -- "but with this snow, the ground here -- tap -- "close to the house, is level and easy walking and it's along a long dropoff. It's gorgeous and with the snow it would be absolutely spectacular, but here -- it's a level walk, an easy walk, and it's a ways from his house -- it's suddenly very rocky and easy to twist an ankle." She paused, thinking, then added, "Especially if you're not expecting it."
Linn saw his daughter's jaw slide out a little as she thought.
"There's an old line shack here. If he was hurt and he was a distance from the house, but he saw the line shack, he might make for it. On the other hand" -- she looked at Jacob -- "we found a ravine here."
She looked up at her pale eyed Daddy.
"A wounded animal, a lost child or a confused seasoned citizen will track uphill because it's easier to keep your balance. Was he hurt here and made for shelter here, he may have hit that snow filled ravine and gone down, here." She laid the pointer down. "That's in our search quadrant. We'll go there first. Bear Killer?"
A huge black head shoved through crowded humanity, raised up under Marnie's dangling hand.
"What do you think?"
The Bear Killer turned his head, looked toward where the Irish Brigade was setting out a plate of biscuits.
"No biscuits and gravy until we're done," Marnie scolded, and The Bear Killer's ears fell, his head dropped, and his sad little whine -- from such a huge and impressive mountain Mastiff -- struck most there as comical, at least for that moment.
"Anything else?" Linn asked, looking around.
Men shifted impatiently from one foot to another.
"All right. Let's find that boy!"
"Mrs. Spencer?" Bonnie asked. "Forgive me, but you look troubled!"
"It's my nephew Reginald," Mrs. Spencer admitted with a distressed look. "He's visiting from Atlanta and he's never seen snow before, and I'm afraid he's ... outside!"
"Don't worry, Mrs. Spencer," Bonnie said reassuringly. "He's in town. He can't have gone far!"
"Yes, but he's so little and I was supposed to be watching him --"
Bonnie gave Mrs. Spencer a knowing look.
"You know how boys are," she said soothingly. "He is very likely laughing and throwing snow in the air. We'll find him, won't we, Sarah?"
Sarah Lynne McKenna looked at her Mommy with wide and innocent eyes.
"Yes, Mama," she said dutifully, and laid a hand on The Bear Killer's muscled neck.
"Come on, Bear Killer."
A pretty little child and a black, curly-furred guardian scampered happily for the front door of the Mercantile.
Mrs. Spencer watched with worried eyes as the door closed behind the pair: Bonnie took Mrs. Spencer by the arm and turned her gently toward the sewing notions.
"Now, Mrs. Spencer," she said in a gentle voice, "let's make our purchases, shall we? Have you any need for a paper of pins today?"
Outside, The Bear Killer's nose was busy on the boardwalk: Sarah looked at the snow, drifted up against the side of the building, filling the alley to a surprising depth.
The Bear Killer raised his muzzle, tasted the air, dove into the drifted snow, swam a little distance in the white, fluffy stuff, submerged.
Sarah watched as his path was marked by a steady collapse of fluffy snow, his progress plain to see.
Sarah leaned out as far as she dared, then put one shining little patent-leather slipper on the first step down, leaned out a little farther.
She saw The Bear Killer come up on his hind legs, for all the world like a great cetacean breaching the ocean's surface: a spray of snow, a doggy sneeze, a shake of his head and a cloud of the powdery stuff: he looked around, got his bearings, dove again: he came up a second time, and this time he did not come up alone.
The Bear Killer turned and Sarah laughed and clapped her reddening little hands together with delight.
The Bear Killer lunged powerfully out of the snow with a set of arms and legs swinging beneath his muzzle: he had something by the back of a coat, something that looked kind of like a little boy, something that still held a swallowtail-ribbon round hat in one hand, something snow-glittered and white, something The Bear Killer hauled back to the front of the Mercantile in a series of powerful thrusts and lunges as he breasted the snow, as he gained a purchase, as his hind legs found solid ground, as he thrust again: his rescued cargo was immersed in snow, then hauled out, immersed, hauled out again: Sarah could not tell what the lad was saying, or if he was saying anything at all, at least until The Bear Killer proudly powered up the steps and onto the boardwalk: Sarah laughed as The Bear Killer shook winter from his fur, she opened the door to allow the great, bear-killing canine to carry the protesting lad into warmth and light.
The Bear Killer fairly strutted as he carried the lad in close to the stove: Mrs. Spencer crouched, seized the lad under the arms: The Bear Killer released his grip, swung his tail happily, obviously very pleased with himself, just before he shook again, sllinging winter in all directions.
Snowmobiles snarled across the snow, swift arrows bearing sleds and rescuers.
Sharon listened closely to the radio traffic, answered the phone, made copious notes on her yellow legal pad, her regular print legible, distinct: she'd gotten in the habit of printing when she was a paramedic -- if she were charting on a patient in script, a pothole could destroy an entire line of her work, but if she were printing, she might lose one word -- not to mention the improved legibility, and so she printed for the rest of her life, out of well formed habit.
Sharon had a county map on an easel, set up on her left: it had a clear plastic overlay, and she had erasable markers: wavering, hand-drawn lines marked the paths of the snowmobiles, of the equestrians, of the wheeled vehicles, each color coded: red for ambulance, green for snowmobiles, black for horsemen.
Sharon's work at her dispatcher's desk, for a time, looked very much like a dancer, performing while seated: was there anyone else in the office to observe, they might consider that she had to be very good at what she did, for she was making this complex task, look easy ... and only those who are really good at such a task, can make it look easy!
The Bear Killer surged through the snow.
Marnie and Jacob walked their mounts after him, cautious: they knew the ground turned suddenly rough, and neither wished to injure their horse: sure enough, in spite of drifting conditions, Marnie and Jacob saw the slight, irregular depression where snow had been troubled -- just before The Bear Killer blasted happily through it -- and Marnie's mare hesitated.
"Ho," Marnie murmured, swung down: almost immediately, her boot slipped, and had she not been ready, she would have turned an ankle.
"Here's the rock fill," she said. "Nearly rolled my ankle on that one!"
Jacob swung down as well: they advanced cautiously, looking ahead.
The Bear Killer looked back at them, bayed: he threw his muzzle up, his sustained howl steamed in the chill air.
"This way," Marnie said. "I don't think the rock fill goes this way."
She and Jacob turned, went carefully downhill: Marnie led the way, dismounted, Jacob followed.
They knew this hollow, they'd ridden it in warm weather: they made their way cautiously downhill, around the curve of the hollow into the bottom, where The Bear Killer waited.
Marnie froze, stripped the glove from her gun hand, ran her thumb up under the skirt of her coat, hesitated.
Feral yellow eyes regarded her steadily: unafraid, unblinking, something with slanted, startling yellow eyes regarded her with an ancient wisdom.
The Bear Killer sat right beside -- or almost -- something was between them, something with a knit stocking cap and red cheeks, something grateful for warmth on either side of him.
Marnie's fingers had just touched the checkered grips of her .357.
She stopped, she lowered her hand, allowing her coat tail to lower as well: she worked her hand back into the deerskin glove.
"I see you, Old One," she murmured. "Thank you."
Jacob waited: he was directly behind his big sis, he watched without comment, his eyes pale with an ancient wisdom of his own.
Marnie slogged through the snow to the boy.
She stopped ten feet from the trio, looked at the White Wolf.
"What wilt thou?" she whispered.
Both of them -- the White Wolf and The Bear Killer -- both of them yawned, with a truly impressive display of dentistry: both pink tongues curled, both made a little puppy-like yowww as they did, both stretched, arching their backs: the little boy looked, startled, at the space where the White Wolf had been, where a little wisp of vapor was corkscrewing down into the snow, and then was gone.
Paul Barrents lifted his chin, looked into the distance, looked at Linn.
"They found him," he said quietly, and Linn saw a knowing, a satisfaction in his old and dear friend's obsidian eyes.
"Dispatch, Six-Bravo," Sharon heard.
She slapped the transmit bar on the desk mike, wheeling over to speak without leaning dangerously over in her wheeled office chair. "Six-Bravo, go."
"We found him. Sprained ankle and otherwise well."
"Roger your found him and sprained ankle only, break, break. Firelands Squad One, stand by for traffic. Six-Bravo, your location."
"We're about a half mile from the house. Six Actual knows the location."
"I roger your half mile from the house, break. Six Actual, go direct Firelands Squad One for location."
Sharon leaned back, turned to the map, listened to the radio traffic.
She picked up the red marker, located the spot with her eyes, drew a circle.
She capped the erasable marker and noticed her hands were shaking, and she dropped the marker as she tried to put it back on the easel's trough.
Memories filled her eyes and overflowed as she remembered what it was to be that mother who didn't know where her child was.
Her firstborn hadn't sprained his ankle, he'd drowned.
Sarah Lynne McKenna pattered happily down the hallway, flat-heeled slippers loud on the varnished floor, The Bear Killer hobby-horsing happilly after her.
Sarah slipped into the kitchen, selected a knife, sliced off four thin slices of beef.
The Bear Killer sat, his muzzle-washing tongue declaring his happiness at the prospect of a treat.
Sarah held out the dainty with thumb and forefinger, and The Bear Killer took it carefully, delicately: Sarah waited until she'd given him all four pieces, then she looked at him and said in a happy little girl's voice, "You were ver-ry, ver-ry good!"
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561. SIR, I AM A MOTHER!
The broomhandle drove through door glass, blasting bright shards of safety glass in an expanding constellation of bright, sparkling destruction.
The broomhandle's rounded end drove hard into a man's left eye, driven with all the strength in a desperate young mother's hands: she put her weight into the thrust, so much so that the eye socket failed and the broomhandle went four fingers deep into the would-be home invader's brain.
Two others with him fell back: one reached into his waistband, pulled a stolen, tape-handled revolver, emptied it into the door and his collapsing, screaming partner in crime.
He lost control of his functions when the twin muzzles of a twelve-bore thrust out the hole where a window used to be, and the last thing that went through his mind -- before it was replaced by a swarm of #4 buckshot -- was that it was suddenly difficult to turn and run as he'd done when things went bad before.
Bonnie Lynne McKenna stood, shocked, as her daughter's rag doll exploded.
She had no real idea what just happened, only that this stranger came into her home and stated his intent to take her and her daughter to the flesh palaces, there to be sold into white slavery.
All the fears, all the memories of what she'd endured, roared back, overwhelming her, paralyzing her: she'd endured, she'd survived, being one such, when that crooked banker and that crooked attorney poisoned her husband and took their ranch and their savings, and took her as well.
Her daughter Sarah had other ideas.
Sarah remembered what it was to be a helpless little girl, hiding in the saloon between two pianos as the Raiders came through, intending to kill and burn, and she knew what it was to see her Mama stand, straight, tall, confident, as her Mama raised a Navy Colt revolver and deliver final judgement to one such invader.
Now Bonnie watched as her daughter stripped what was left of her rag doll from a .44 Army revolving pistol, as she stepped back, raised the heavy Cavalry revolver and drove another ball through the attacker's face, as she followed him to the floor with her gun muzzle and drove round after round into his bloodied carcass, fury, rage, hatred and loathing turning a pretty girl's face into a mask of horror ... almost the visage of evil itself.
Bonnie stood, frozen in shock, ears screaming from the repeated concussions in the enclosed room, eyes watering from sulfur smoke: she knew her daughter's hard-heeled shoes were loud as she turned, as she ran down the hallway, she saw the light increase and she knew Sarah opened the front door, but she could not hear her running footsteps, she could not hear the door slam open, she could not hear Sarah as she bent over the porch rail and threw up everything she'd eaten for the past week.
Bonnie Lynne McKenna did remember what Sarah told the Sheriff afterward.
"Mama kept me safe," she'd explained, "and now it was my turn," and Bonnie remembered how Sarah looked up from the floor, looked the pale eyed Sheriff very directly in the eye and added, "I will be a mother in due time, and I must be able to keep my child safe" -- words Bonnie admitted later that she was surprised to hear, for though Sarah was growing and maturing, and was probably ten or eleven when this debt collector came to gather his pound of flesh and more, she'd dressed like a little girl and Bonnie automatically thought of her as much younger than she really was.
Linn listened carefully to each of the ladies.
The scene was being processed; the mother and her two daughters were pulled back into the kitchen, where they felt safe: Linn had the shotgun, still with two spent hulls in its chambers, in a gun case: Linn spoke with each individually, listening carefully, his manner gentle, encouraging.
He'd kept them separated, as best he could; the mother tried to make coffee, but her hands were shaking too much to ladle out the grounds: Linn drew out a chair, guided her into it, murmured quietly that he'd take care of that detail: the mother buried her face in her hands, shivering, and her daughters came up on either side, their arms around her.
Linn didn't interfere with this moment.
He filled the coffee carafe with water, poured it into the reservoir; slid the basket into place, the empty carafe under, flipped the lid shut, saw the red light come on.
He drew up two more chairs: he'd intended to speak to the mother, and to each daughter, separately, but his gut told him to keep them together, they needed to be together in this most terrible night.
Both daughters said the same thing.
They said they saw the strangers come up onto their porch, heard them ring the doorbell: the girls stayed quiet, they didn't answer the door -- that's what their Mama told them to do -- one stranger waited on the front porch, the others went around back, tried the doors, came back around front.
A hard pull and the aluminum storm door latch broke -- "It was really loud," the youngest daughter said, her eyes big and solemn -- "and he kicked the front door."
Her sister nodded. "I grabbed Sissie and pulled her back towards the kitchen. We were going to go to the basement if they came in."
"I picked up the broom," the mother said, her eyes and her voice distant: "I keep a broom beside the front door. All I could think about was --"
She looked from one daughter to the other, pulled them to her.
Linn gave them a moment.
"I remembered what your mother said," she finally gasped, raising her tear-streaked face and looking at the pale eyed Sheriff. "I am the weapon and everything is a tool for my hands."
She took a breath, shivered.
"I drove that broomhandle through the glass just as hard as I could," she quavered. "I was ... all I could think of was ... were ... my girls." She looked at the Sheriff, trying to smile: "Was? Were?"
"You're doing fine," Linn soothed. "What happened next?"
"I saw the next guy ... he ... a hoodie, he pulled up .. he had a gun ... waistband ... and I knew I was in trouble."
"What happened next?"
She smiled a little less uncertainly.
"Your Mother taught us that a shotgun ... she ... I had Daddy's double gun and ... he shot at me and I shot at him."
"Did he miss?"
She nodded.
"Did you?"
She shook her head, then looked utterly lost as she asked in a small voice, "Is he dead?"
Linn leaned forward, took both her hands in his.
"Listen to me," he said, his voice low, urgent: "you stopped a threat. You were facing a threat to your life, you were facing a threat to both your girls' lives, and you stopped the threat."
Bonnie Lynne McKenna stood in the doorway of the Silver Jewel.
Sheriff Linn Keller ran up, seized her arm, his voice loud, harsh.
"BONNIE, ARE YOU HURT?"
Bonnie lifted her chin, gave him a look he'd only seen in the eyes of a hunting hawk.
"I killed two of them," she said, her voice harsh edged, then added: "Sir, I am a mother!"
The woman had a hand on each of her daughters as they and the Sheriff walked to the front door.
"We'll have that door fixed," Linn said. "You might want to stay somewhere for the night."
"We will stay here," she said. "This is our home. We will not be run out."
Linn nodded.
"We'll have manpower close by. The house will have eyes on it until the door is replaced and secure."
"Thank you."
"Will the three of you be all right for the night?"
"We will," she said firmly, lifting her chin, drawing her daughters closer, and added, "Sir, I am a mother!"
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560. A MAN'S HANDS
Shelly stroked Linn's fingers, tilting her head a little as she studied them.
Shelly touched the lined, brown tissue behind Linn's nails.
"This looks odd," she murmured.
"Burn scar," Linn explained, and Shelly's blood ran cold as she listened to her husband's quiet-voiced account.
Five-year-old Linn Keller watched everything his big strong Pa did, with shining and admiring eyes.
His Pa was big and his Pa did stuff and when his Pa burned a little pile of greasy rags, rather than leave them in the shop to catch fire from spontaneous indigestion, five-year-old Linn considered that his Pa was a big man and that was just a little fire and his Pa deserved better.
Linn watched his Pa's retreating backside, until the man was back in the house, and Linn scampered for the garage.
Linn picked up a beer bottle, unscewed the little cap from the round five gallon gasoline can, carefully decanted about a third of a beer bottle of gasoline -- careful though he was, there was some spillage -- Linn carefully screwed the lid back on the can -- he picked up the beer bottle and carried it to the fire.
This stuff burns fast, he thought.
I'll hold it way up on tiptoe so it doesn't get me.
Linn was five years old.
A five year old doesn't really grasp just how fast fire can climb a column of descending gasoline.
All Linn knew was that suddenly his hands exploded in utter absolute AGONY and he ran, too scared and in too much pain to scream, he tried to run from the pain and he saw the spring in the little run behind the house and he drove both burning hands forearm-deep in cold water, drove his burnt hands into the deep sand in the bottom of the sweetwater spring, held them there until his hands were numb.
His Mama appeared from somewhere -- he'd lost all track of time, his world shrank to a single point in time, a bare moment, shrank to now -- no past, no future, just the numb pain of his hands.
Captain Linn Keller wore Union blue, he wore the insignia of rank, he wore a Navy Colt revolver and a Cavalry sabre, and he could not move.
He was in an old mountain woman's cabin and she held his hands, turned them over, regarded his palms.
"You have hot hands, a Healer's hands," she said in an old-woman's voice: the old mountain witch nodded, stroked his palm with her fingertips.
"You carry the Blood," she said. "No man may carry the Gift, but you will, you will." She reached to the sewing basket beside her, took out a pair of scissors.
"I am an old woman," she said, "and my death is upon me. I give this to you" -- she slapped the handles of the scissors into his hand, and his fingers automatically closed on the black-handled shears, and he felt something sear through his body, something that roared like lightning on rails through his entire long tall cavalryman's carcass.
The old woman replaced the scissors, picked up a worn book with a broken spine: she opened it, turned it, placed it on his hands, placed a palsied finger on the text.
"Read this," she said -- it was not a request -- and Linn blinked, focused on the text, read.
"“And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' "
"This," the old mountain witch said, "is how you stop blood with the Word. You say their full name instead of saying 'you.' "
In the years that followed, Captain Keller, then Brevet-Colonel Keller, then Sheriff Keller, had occasion to use this knowledge, this Gift.
He used it when his son was shot, when his son fell back with a rifle bullet under his collarbone, when his son fell back, bleeding to death.
Linn seized his niece's hand, slapped his knife into her startled grip, pressed the knife crosswise over his son's gushing hemorrhage, pressed his niece's hand down on this hot red river and said, "Repeat after me," and she did, word for word, syllable for syllable: something hot and powerful seared through his hand and through hers, and the bleeding stopped instantly.
Sixteen-year-old Linn Keller talked quietly with Shelly's father, who'd just hired onto the fire department as a fire paramedic.
They were laughing over a dispatcher's joke when they heard Shelly scream.
Her father turned -- Linn didn't turn, he launched into a full-on sprint -- Shelly was pouring boiling water from a kettle into a mug, to make them instant hot cocoa -- she'd slopped boiling water over her hand --
Linn seized her wrist, drew it toward him: he pursed his lips, blew gently on the reddened flesh, made a pushing motion with his other hand.
Shelly had the impression he was blowing snow and frost-cold into the burn, while pushing living flames from the far end.
Three times he blew gently over the burn, three times he pushed the fires away, and on the third pass, he said "Amen," and Shelly looked at him with the uncertain wonder of an injured child whose injury was suddenly erased.
"It doesn't hurt," she said, and her voice was not that of a high school age young woman: it was the wondering voice of a little child.
Linn smiled, nodded, released her wrist.
Shelly turned her hand over, looking at it in honest surprise.
"Where did the pain go?" she asked, childlike, and Linn smiled and said, "I made it go away."
Jacob Keller walked his Apple-horse up beside the All-Night.
He was still in uniform; Apple wore the Sheriff's harness -- at the bottom of the breast strap, a six point star, and on the gold-edged, black saddle blanket, the six-point star at the rear corners -- and as Jacob swung down, he saw two children in a car, regarding him with obvious longing, and some sadness.
Jacob walked over to the car: the mother was just coming out from behind the wheel: the car had out of state plates, the woman wore black, and looked as if she'd been crying.
Jacob saw the children turn to the mother, heard their voices saying something: Jacob walked around the front of the car, Apple-horse following.
Sheriff Linn Keller pulled into the All-Night to gas up the cruiser.
He picked up the heavy Motorola mic, marked in with Dispatch, shut off the engine: he looked ahead, at the Appaloosa stallion beside the out-of-state sedan, watched as Jacob gripped a grinning little boy under the arms, swung him high in the air, and into the saddle.
Linn could not help but smile knowingly, and nod a little: he well remembered how safe he felt in his Pa's hands, when he was but a wee child.
Jacob walked Apple-horse around the All-Night, walked him back, the little boys' hands welded to the saddlehorn, a grin on his young face you could not have gotten off with a belt sander: Jacob reached up, brought the lad out of the saddle and set him down, picked up the little girl and swung her high in the air, and down into saddle leather, and walked her around as well.
Linn walked over to the young mother, who by now had tears running down both cheeks.
Linn silently pulled a bedsheet handkerchief from his sleeve, handed to her: she pressed the clean, sun-dried cloth to closed eyelids, sniffed.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "We ... we're ... we buried my husband today."
Linn nodded. "My condolences, ma'am."
"He was with a mounted unit" -- she named the department, Linn recognized the department, but didn't recognize the name -- "he had cancer and he was never able to show them his horse."
Linn nodded.
"It's late," he said, "if you'd want to take a room in town, get a good night's rest, have a good breakfast and take out in the morning --"
"I couldn't afford that."
"Lawman's discount. No cost."
The tears started again and Linn gathered her into his arms: it was not the first time he'd held a grieving new widow, it would not be the last, and afterward, the widow admitted she never remembered what that Colorado Sheriff looked like, she never knew his name, but she never, ever forgot how safe she felt when his arms were around her, when his hands were flat on her shoulder blades, and in the years that followed, two little children grew up remembering the feeling of a pale eyed lawman's hands swinging them a hundred feet in the air, onto the back of a reeeeally tall cowboy horse that wore a badge like the Deputy did, a horse that was just like the one their Daddy used to ride!
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559. A CRAZY UNCLE, YODELING
Marnie reached for a red pencil, then a blue one: soft lead whispered against eggshell paper, pale eyes fixed on her work: she smiled a little as she drew, and under the several pencils she manipulated, a horse-drawn sled emerged, snowdrifts and caricatures, and above the horse-drawn sleigh, a stork -- stroking hard against a headwind -- old-fashioned leather flying helmet, screaming into a boom microphone, and below, a woman with a ludicrously large catcher's mitt, extended toward a plummeting bundle with a little pink foot sticking out.
Dr. John Greenlees, Jr, looked over her shoulder and smiled.
"I remember that night," he said.
"How could we forget it!"
Marnie's hand snatched up a blue pencil, a white: a few strokes, and a blue teardrop light appeared on the sled's frontmost covered-wagon bow.
"I never found out how you came by that one."
"Jacob made it."
"What?"
Marnie chuckled, leaned back: she stretched, luxuriously, twisting one way, then another, reminding her husband of a cat stretching before a fire-warmed hearth.
"Jacob was working on what used to be a sled for about two years," Marnie explained. "He heard scanner traffic that ... well, we had that snowstorm --"
"I remember that snowstorm!"
"He slogged out to the barn and crawled under the sled with a socket drill and spun the bolts off the seat mounts. He had two rows of seats in the sled -- the runners were original to Old Pale Eyes, as near as we could tell -- he had it finished, and with all that snow, why, he whistled up a warmblood and hitched up the sled and jingled his way to the firehouse to show it off."
"Looks like a roof on it."
"He had bows like a covered wagon -- it was fast and dirty, staples and duck tape, tarps and plastic sheeting on the side, enough to keep snow out and break the wind and not much more. He threw in a propane heater just for grins and giggles, he got Old Glue Hoof ahead of the singletree, and damned if he didn't trot right down the middle of the road like he owned the place!"
"I don't think there was much traffic to get in the way."
"Much traffic? Snow was coming down and the plows gave up until it quit!" Marnie exclaimed.
"So tell me, who's the guy on skis?"
"That's the crazy uncle, yodeling."
Jacob Keller's head came up: he was an incurable listener -- scanner, shortwave, ham radio -- his heart's delight was to pull signals out of the air, and he listened to reports of how bad the weather was getting, how fast it was getting bad, and his gut told him that he would be wise to prepare transportation that would get there and get back, in spite of the weather.
Jacob shrugged into a stained, faded, sleeve-frayed Carhartt and yellow overboots; he clattered noisily to the basement, picked up a drill-driver, a deepwell socket: he knew which one he'd need -- hell, he'd put that sled together, he'd ought to know how to dismount the seats! -- he slogged through knee deep snow to the barn, stomped the excess off his boots and wallowed under the sled.
He stacked the seats off to the side, picked up wooden bows, slid them into the sockets he'd stick-welded to brackets bolted to the wooden bed: a short stepladder, tarps, a stapler, duct tape: he shortly had an unattractive, mismatched, but functional roof; he hung plastic sheets from the sides, tacked them down.
I'll leave the back open, he thought: if we need it, we'll have enough hands aboard to keep everyone from falling out.
He went to the fence, shoveled enough snow away from the gate to force it open: he whistled up the warmblood -- it was a big horse, not as big as a pureblood draft horse, but sizable enough, and steelshod: Jacob knew its shoes were aggressive, suitable for snow and even ice, and that's what he'd need.
The warmblood was well used to being hitched up; Jacob took the cheekstrap in his gloved hand, murmured "Come on, fella," and walked the horse out of the barn, dragging the sleigh through straw and second hand horse feed into clean, pure-white snow: Jacob stopped and rubbed the horse's neck, talking quietly to it: the horse laid his head over Jacob's shoulder, muttering happily.
Jacob swung up into the driver's box.
He had no reins.
He didn't need them.
"TIMBER!" he barked. "MUSH!"
The warmblood stepped out lively.
"HAW!"
They swung left, headed down the driveway.
"GEE!"
The sleigh rode easy and light on the heavy wet snow: horse's hooves were well muffled by the snow, but harness bells sang happily in the cold air as a pale eyed man on a resurrected sleigh drove, bitless, down the middle of the road, and into town.
Captain Crane's good right hand was in his hip pocket, a steaming mug of coffee in his off hand: he watched the Brigade shoveling the apron clear, or trying: the snow was too wet to use the snow blower, so they resorted to the tried and true Hillbilly Draglines: they worked steadily, taking snow down to bare concrete.
"God Almighty," Crane breathed, "I don't like snow!"
Shelly came up beside him, her coffee mug in both hands.
"Snow brings babies and heart attacks."
"Damned right it does, and I don't like either one!"
"Don't worry, Daddy. I'll wear the catcher's mitt."
They stared out at the laboring firefighters.
"Now what in two red hells ...?"
Shelly laughed as Jacob and Glue Hoof came jingling down the middle of the street, heard his cheerful "HAW! HO!"
"Now there," Captain Crane said approvingly, "is an ambulance I can believe in!"
Jacob grinned at the Irish Brigade as they waved their shovels cheerfully at him: he brought the sleigh onto the broad apron, brought it about on snow not yet cleared: men froze, heads came up, Glue Hoof's ears swung forward, and men scrambled for the door as the howler went off inside.
"Firelands Fire Department, woman in labor, 1303 Main Street, time of call ten-oh-one."
Captain Crane threw the door open: "JACOB! WE NEED YOUR SLEIGH!"
The howler again: "Firelands Fire Department, man down, CPR in progress, 1350 Main, time of call ten-oh-one."
Jacob soothed the restless warmblood as men ran out with blankets, an ambulance cot, a folding canvas cot -- crash box, oxygen tank, drug box -- Jacob was out of the driver's seat and went to Glue Hoof's head, rubbing his neck, talking to him, whispering secrets known only between a horse and a rider.
Jacob waited until the Captain climbed aboard, with four other firemen and Jacob's mother, then he climbed back into the upholstered seat.
"GLUE HOOF! GEE! GEE, BOY, NOW MUSH! MUSH, DAMN YOU!"
Shelly gripped the back of his seat: "Mush?"
"Hey, it works," Jacob shrugged. "Where we headed?"
"I remember when they called in," Marnie said quietly, her voice thick with the memory: "they dropped off one crew with the mother, Mama stayed there to deliver the baby, Grampa Crane went on ahead with the Brigade and they ran a code in the back of a horse drawn sleigh."
Marnie giggled.
"I wanted someone to blow Boots and Saddles on a Cavalry bugle, or at least the old Navy General Quarters -- a code, and a delivery, arriving at the same time?"
"Didn't the mother deliver at the hospital?"
"She did, but it was a near thing. Your Daddy had Mama sign the birth certificate."
"What about the blue light? Did Jacob put that on?"
Marnie laughed.
"No. No, after everything was all over -- after the baby was delivered, after the code was turned over to ER, after Jacob took everyone back to the firehouse -- one of the guys brought out a blue teardrop and set on top of the frontmost bow so they could take a picture."
"Wasn't there some guy on skis keeping pace with you?"
"Jacob never found out who he was. He finally said it must have been a crazy uncle or something, the way he kept abreast of them, yodeling every foot of the way."
"Some siren," Dr. John Greenlees, M.D., laughed quietly as he sat down beside his wife.
Dr. John laid a gentle hand on Marnie's belly.
"How's John Junior?"
"He's restless," Marnie smiled, "but so far he hasn't stomped on my bladder."
"You're barely showing."
"A mother knows." Marnie kissed her husband, laid her hand on his, pressing it gently against her belly.
John shook his head. "You know," he chuckled, "if we told people about that -- about taking in a laboring mother and a working code, at the same time, in a horse drawn sleigh -- they'd think we were bald face liars."
Marnie twisted again, working a kink out of her back.
"Don't worry, John," she said confidently. "I can get in trouble just settin' in my easy chair."
"Speaking of easy chair, dearest, isn't it your bedtime?"
"Only if it's yours," Marnie smiled. "I like cuddling with you. You're like sleeping with a warm brick."
"At least I'm useful for something," Dr. John Greenlees muttered.
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SHORT STORIES!
in SASS Wire Saloon
Posted
583. IN A CHILD'S EYES
Marnie's little brother was very noisy.
Marnie's Mama was tired and needed her rest and her little brother was cutting teeth and he was screaming and Marnie watched her Mama throw herself on her bed and cover her head with a pillow and bury her face in the mattress and Marnie heard her Mama's scream, muffled in springs and in quilting, a scream Marnie had heard before.
Marnie was maybe six years old, and she didn't know what to do.
She did know who to ask.
"Sheriff Keller."
"Gammaw," a little girl's voice quavered, "I dunno what to do."
Willamina blinked, surprised: when a call came in to her direct line, it was usually some official business: this very much commanded her attention, as it was a little girl's voice she recognized, and she recognized a baby's pained scream in the background.
"Marnie, is your little brother teething?"
"Yes, Gammaw an' he won't let Mama get any sleep an' Mama has about had it!"
Willamina could not but smile, just a little, at the serious words of her little granddaughter.
"Marnie, do you remember where your Daddy keeps his whiskey?"
"Yes, Gammaw."
"I want you to go get one of Daddy's little whiskey glasses and pour it half full of Daddy's whiskey," Willamina said reassuringly, pitching her voice the way only a veteran Mommy can do: "I want you to carry it up to your little brother."
"Okay," Marnie said uncertainly.
"Then I want you to dip the pad of your little finger in the whiskey. Only the pad, not the whole finger. Open your little bother's jaw, push down on his chin a little and run the whiskey-pad of your finger along his gums. Dip your finger as often as you have to, Marnie. You want to paint his gums, top and bottom. It should help."
"Okay, Gammaw."
"When you're done, I want you to set the little whiskey glass on the side table because you'll have to do it again in a few hours."
"Okay, Gammaw."
There was a click, and Willamina smiled again: her granddaughter was direct; when she received instructions, when she had a course of action, she did not hesitate, and she did not waste time in unnecessary conversation.
Willamina gave the telephone an approving look as she hung up her receiver.
Marnie's little brother slept, finally, and so did her exhausted Mommy.
Marnie tilted her head a little and watched her baby brother, asleep in his crib: she'd been a Responsible Big Sister and she'd changed his diaper, she'd bottled him, she'd painted his gums again just to be safe.
She turned, frowned, eyes busy, as if she'd heard something, and then she pattered quickly downstairs.
She slipped out of her house shoes and into her red cowboy boots, she whirled her coat around her and fast it up, she took her little Stetson and mashed it down on her head, running the storm strap tight under her chin, and then she slipped outside.
Marnie's face brightened as she saw a familiar figure beside the barn, waiting for her: she ran happily up to The Pretty Lady, who squatted to receive Marnie's happy charge: Marnie hugged The Pretty Lady and looked at her with bright and wondering eyes, because The Pretty Lady looked so very much like her Gammaw only younger, and The Pretty Lady always wore such nice dresses!
"I want to show you a secret," she whispered, and Marnie nodded: she took The Pretty Lady's hand, wishing she had a nice pair of gloves like The Pretty Lady wore, and skipped happily beside her as a huge black horse folded its legs and bellied down for the ladies.
Marnie gave a happy little squeak as the horsie rose: she and The Pretty Lady rose with the big black horsie, and Marnie giggled as the horsie began to trot, then gallop, as a set of big white wings snapped out and they soared across the pasture and into the air, as wind teased her hair and her ears with cold fingers, as it rippled her denim skirt and chilled her bare knees: they were flying, but only for a moment, and the horsie set down and trotted again, and Marnie recognized the place.
It was the Firelands graveyard.
The horsie bellied down again and The Pretty Lady swung Marnie down, then dismounted herself: still holding hands, they walked over to a new stone, one Marnie had never seen before.
It had an oval in the middle, and in the oval, a formal portrait of The Pretty Lady, and the portrait wore the same dress The Pretty Lady wore today.
Marnie looked up, curious.
"Do you know," The Pretty Lady said, "I had a brother named Jacob?"
"I have a brother named Jacob!" Marnie declared happily.
The Pretty Lady touched a delicate fingertip to the very tip of Marnie's nose, smiling: "I know you do, sweets, and he is a fine brother!"
"Yes he is!" Marnie declared with a happy, emphatic nod.
"Do you know what my brother Jacob did on this very spot?"
Marnie shook her head solemnly.
The Pretty Lady made a quick fist, as if snatching something out of the air: she held it up, turned her hand over, opened her hand, blew across her palm.
Marnie felt suddenly dizzy.
She rubbed her eyes, confused: there was fire, smoke, she saw men shouting, screaming, falling, and on the stairs, The Pretty Lady: she was all in black, she had a shotgun in her hands, and she was singing.
She was singing.
Her voice was a high, sustained, soprano note: she slammed the action shut on the 97 Winchester and fired, she shucked the action and fired again: she shoved two more brass rounds into the magazine, took another step, fired four times, fast: men fell before her, fell back: she shot until she was out of shells, her hands dropped to her waist, came up with a pair of .44 revolvers.
Sarah felt men's fear, smelled their blood, tasted their rage: she heard The Pretty Lady's song change, she heard her sing a minor note, punctuated with precise shots from her .44s, until they too were empty: Marnie saw her holster the revolvers, thrust her arm out and deflect a pitchfork, saw her strip it from its user's hands, spin and strike and thrust and spin again, until it fell, broken: she reached over her shoulders and brought out a shining pair of steel blades and began laying about like a double windmill, steel and shining red surrounding her as she laid into the attackers.
Some might have said she was screaming her defiance as she fought and as she died, but she was not screaming.
She was singing.
Marnie saw another Pretty Lady reach down into the fire and into the blood and into the bodies and pull The Pretty Lady out, and hoist her up onto the back of a huge black horsie with big white wings, and suddenly Marnie was dizzy again, and her Pretty Lady smiled at her the way she always did, but she wore a funny tin hat with big white wings and she wore a steel breastplate and a skirt of steel plates riveted to leather strips, and Marnie giggled 'cause they must feel heavy when she walked, and The Pretty Lady laughed and said "Yes, they do, sweets."
She caressed Marnie's cheek and whispered, "Now see what Jacob thought of me," and they turned.
Marnie saw a pale eyed man in a black suit, a man she recognized instantly -- it was Jacob, but different -- and she saw he'd staked out a rectangle, there in the family row, and he was talking with someone, another man in a suit, who wrote down the measurements and nodded and said something about filing the deed for this gravesite in his sister's name, against the time when her remains were returned.
Marnie looked quickly at The Pretty Lady.
Marnie knew what it meant when somebody talked about remains.
Jacob Keller waited until Mr. Moulton was departed, before looking at the empty, unused plot, a plot with string and stakes and without a stone.
He drew a short, sharp knife, slowly -- as if torturing himself -- slowly cut his palm, fisted his hand, squeezing his life's blood from him and onto this empty ground.
Marnie was just a little girl, but she could still feel the sorrow in this Jacob's soul as he whispered -- as he choked, with tears stinging his eyes -- "Little Sis, come home to us," and Marnie watched as Jacob slowly, slowly went to his knees, as he raised the knife, as he drove it into the ground as if murdering a personal enemy.
"He was my brother, just as your Jacob is your brother."
Marnie regarded The Pretty Lady with big and solemn eyes.
The Pretty Lady spread her arms, as if gathering something to her, then drew her arms in: Marnie was dizzied again, and blinked, and the graveyard was as she remembered it, with The Pretty Lady's stone back where it always was.
Marnie frowned, tilted her head a little, walked over to the grave, stopped.
Blood she saw, fresh and shining.
She looked at The Pretty Lady, who knelt, who took Marnie's hands.
Marnie watched as a single tear rolled from The Pretty Lady's left eye, as it fell, slowly, shining, silver, as it fell on the largest of the shining red drops.
"As much as my brother loved me," The Pretty Lady whispered, "your brother Jacob loves you just as much!"
Marnie blinked, put an uncertain finger to her chin.
"But I don't have a grave," she said in a sad, little-girl voice, and The Pretty Lady laughed, and she hugged Marnie, then she lifted her head, smiled, touched her ear as if hearing a distant sound.
"Listen," she whispered, looked down at Marnie, smiled . "We need to get back."
The Pretty Lady snapped her fingers and they were back in Marnie's house, beside the crib: Marnie's little brother was starting to whimper, his face was reddening, and Marnie dunked her little finger in the whiskey and ran it carefully into her little brother's mouth.
Marnie felt a light hand on her shoulder.
"My Mama used to do the same thing," she heard, and she turned her head and smiled at her Mommy.
"Thank you, sweets," Shelly whispered. "I needed that nap!"
Marnie stepped back and let her Mommy pick up her little brother, and she looked at the chair where The Pretty Lady often sat at night, and she smiled, for there was a fresh cut rose on the seat of the chair, and there was the smell of roses.