Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

SOMNAMBULATION Sheriff Jacob Keller slept flat on his back, holding his wife's hand. Ruth lay beside him, but she was more restless in her sleep: she might roll up on her side facing him, she might lay on her back, but she never pulled her hand from his. It was something they never told anyone -- it was their secret -- but their last words before submerging into the dark lake of slumber were, "I love you," their first words upon awakening were a drowsy, "Yuvs you," and when they slept, they slept holding hands. Jacob, unlike his predecessors, did not suffer nightmares. Like his pale eyed sister, he'd strode boldly into his nightmares when they tried to plague his childhood sleep: he'd seized control of his nightmares, he'd put nameless terrors and shapeless monsters to flight. He maintained that same habit for the rest of his entire life, and slept soundly as a result. Ruth, however, was not only a wife. Ruth was a mother. When her quick ear heard the quiet hiss of a door opening, she was out of bed and on her feet, she was heading for the sound and moving fast. Littlejohn's bare feet were silent on the hook rugs and sintered stone floor, one hand on The Bear Killer's shoulder: his eyes were half-lidded, but not awake: the door released its intruder-prevention protocol long enough to open for the recognized life forms, hissed shut as they passed. Littlejohn was sleepwalking. Ruth caught up with him just as the airlock was starting to cycle shut. She half-dove into the airlock, shouldered the door hard -- red lights flashed bright, the airlock's safety engaged and the inner door pulled open -- Ruth seized Littlejohn around the ribs, pulled, jumped back out of the airlock vigorously enough to stagger backwards across the hallway and hit the green-enamel-finished wall, her son clutched to her front. The Bear Killer danced along with him, eyes shining, looking up at Ruth with an expression of honest delight: he might not know quite what was going on, but it looked like fun, and if it was fun, why, The Bear Killer was all in! Ruth squatted awkwardly, her voluminous flannel nightgown allowing her the knee room as she descended to her little boy's level. "Littlejohn," she said in a quiet, concerned-but-gentle mother's voice, "where are you going?" "Pa needs me," Littlejohn replied, his words slurred with sleep. "I'm helpin' Pa!" "Your Pa needs your help in here," Ruth said briskly, standing: she took Littlejohn's warm hand, walked him back down the hall, back into their generous underground quarters. The Bear Killer watched, tail-swinging and happy as Ruth threw his covers back, got him to climb back into his bunk, covered him up: she realized Littlejohn's eyes closed somewhere on the walk back, and he was asleep before he was horizontal. The Bear Killer thrust up onto the bed, laid down beside the boy, cuddled up close, a warm and reassuring presence. Ruth went to the door, keyed in a sequence, changed the programming to keep Littlejohn from going walkabout in his sleep. Jacob's hand twitched slightly as Ruth slipped hers back into his: she cuddled up against her husband, heard his near inaudible hum of pleasure as he felt her, warm and womanly, beside him. Ruth would complain later to her mother that men must have a habit of forgetfulness. Her husband never had nightmares nor any troubled sleep at all, and their son had no memory of trying to go out the airlock into the Martian night.

AN ANGEL, ON A COPPER COLORED MARE Reverend John Burnett sat beside an old man's bed, listening to his labored words. Modern medicine did all that was possible to stay the beast that ate the old man alive: he'd refused further treatment, knowing it was hopeless, knowing that trying to stave off the inevitable would mean he'd suffer longer. He'd suffered enough. The old man smiled -- just a little -- he lifted his hand, turned it, the move of a man who wishes human contact. The Parson gripped the man's hand, gently, carefully. "Calluses," the old man whispered approvingly, and closed his eyes: a few breaths, he opened them again. "Not ... afraid to die," he whispered, gave the Parson a knowing look. "I'm good with the Lord," he said, pausing mid-sentence to take another breath. Oxygen hissed quietly through the two-pronged nasal cannula. "There's a Heaven, Parson." Reverend John leaned forward a little, listening closely. "I seen angels, years ago." "Angels," the Parson echoed. The old man swallowed, gave a shallow nod. "Thirsty." The Parson picked up the pink plastic cup of water, moved it so the straw just touched the old man's lips. He took three careful swallowed, nodded. The Parson set the plastic cup back on the sidetable. "Angels," the old man repeated, then looked at the Parson, amusement in his tired eyes. His breath caught, his hand tightened momentarily, then relaxed. Behind him, a voice, a hand on his shoulder: he rose as the nurse laid efficient, professional fingers against the old man's emaciated throat, then spun the pastel stethoscope from around her neck, dropped the smooth ear-tips into place, laid the bell against the old man's breastbone. She listened -- it seemed to the Parson she listened for a very long time -- then she rose, laid her stethoscope back over her neck, looked at the Parson and shook her head. Linn Keller was fifteen years old, tall and skinny, pale eyed and good-natured: he and his Mama were horseback, following the dispatcher's summons. Willamina's aging, copper mare, Cannonball, named for her dam, labored through deep snow and deeper snow: she and her son took turns breaking trail, headed for a curve they knew of, toward a call for help the dispatcher received and relayed. Equipment and manpower was fighting the storm, headed their way as best they could, but the Sheriff knew she and her son could get there faster, and so they headed into the teeth of the blizzard with what they needed. Willamina almost rode past the truck, buried in the snow: Linn stopped behind it, reasoning the contour of the snow likely reflected the moving map in his head: he stopped to try and reconnoiter, then frowned. He dismounted, pulled a folding shovel from behind the saddle, slogged forward: he thrust the handle ahead of him, hit something that wasn't snow. He and his Mama started digging. Lights were bright in the ranch truck's instrument panel. Willamina reached through the wheel, turned off the ignition -- the engine wasn't running -- but she did not like the looks of the driver or his young passenger. "Carbon monoxide," she said, her voice loud against the wind: "they're out of the wind here. Let's give it a minute to change out the air." Linn nodded, waded back to his Appaloosa mare, led her forward. He dug enough snow to get the door open further, providing a temporary windbreak for his Mama and at least two horses' heads. Willamina climbed over the man's lap with a silver rescue blanket, wrapped the child: unfasten the seat belt, bring the comatose form toward her, she tucked in the tag side, rolled a little boy she remembered back over against the door, brought the blanket around and tucked in. She checked his pulse, laid her cheek against his nose, nodded. "He's breathing," she said. "Help me with Jake here." They got the father wrapped -- quickly, the snow was whipping in, apparently intent on filling the cab. Willamina took a World War II surplus wool blanket, dug and thrust and grunted and shoved it in under snow piled up on the truck's cab roof, draped it over the open door, gaining a little shelter. Linn busied himself excavating, pacing himself, knowing if help arrived -- if they could fight through drifts with a snow machine and sled, they'd want room to work to bring the patients out. The mares were quite happy to have room to stand without standing in snow. The old man rallied, roused, at least a little bit, then went back to sleep. The wind slowed: snow was still coming down, but not as heavy: Linn paused, straightened, then grinned, looked at his Mama. They heard the snow machine snarling its way toward them. The Parson stood with a young woman who stood with one arm across her belly, gripping her elbow, while her teeth tightened a little on her knuckle. "He told me he wasn't afraid to die now," she said, her voice just short of breaking apart and falling to the floor in shattered pieces. "What did he tell you?" Reverend John asked in a kindly voice, knowing that in such moments, it was important for family to speak of their memories. "He said he and my brother went off the road and got hung in the worst blizzard we'd had in years. He said they ran the engine to keep warm and he'd gotten a call out to the Sheriff's office, and he said he ... he said the exhaust ... he ..." She buried her face in a folded kerchief for a long moment, the Parson's hand warm and reassuring on her back. She raised her head, took a breath. "When they got them to hospital, they had them both on oxygen. Carbon monoxide poisoning. They said if the Sheriff hadn't got there and gotten them into clean air, they would have died." The Parson nodded. She looked at him, wiped one eye, then the other. "He didn't tell me it was the Sheriff. I didn't know she was even there, not for ... not for years, not until I read the actual reports. "He said an angel came in and floated him out of his truck. "He said he saw her on a copper colored horse, he said her wings were broad and white and sparkled with snow, and that's the last he remembered until he woke up in hospital." Willamina and Linn drew back while the Irish Brigade swarmed in, brought the man out, logrolled him up into their chest, sidestepped through the deep snow and laid him on the broad plastic sled: they brought the man's grandson out, wrapped in his silvery cocoon, laid him with his grandfather, covered them both: Willmina and Linn mounted up, watched as the Irish Brigade labored through snow, one machine ahead of the other, snarling their way back to Firelands. For a moment Willamina thought the man raised his head and looked at her, but then dismissed the notion: likely a trick of light and shadow, or wishful thinking. They sat their mares, side by side, Sheriff and her teenage son, then she pulled the wool blanket free, shoved the truck's door shut with a booted foot. She turned her mare to face her son. "I think we still have some hot chocolate at home that hasn't been drunk up yet," she said innocently. Linn grinned. "Yes, ma'am!" A rancher rose from the hospital bed, stood, stretched. It's nice not to hurt, he thought, and laughed quietly at the sensation. He turned and looked at the skinny, worn out, old carcass in the hospital bed, and he looked surprised. He looked to his right, toward a sorrowing young woman, salt water tears soaking into a bedsheet hankie, and he looked sad. He turned and looked out the window, and his expression was suddenly one of delight, of anticipation. An angel on a copper mare spread snow-sparkling wings and extended her hand. "Saddle up," she called cheerfully, "work's done, time to go home!"

Yep, an American is now Pope! Never thought I'd see the day!

Yep. Read it in seventh grade while the teacher droned on about something uninteresting, which I'd already studied. I didn't get caught, one of the girls in class started talking and he bounced a blackboard eraser off her head. Probably why I remembered reading it.

Years ago my bride and I went to the movin' pitcher thee-ayter and saw "Enemy at the Gates." She immediately wanted a Mosin-Nagant. The wise man knows when to say "Yes, dear!" and to look utterly innocent at the same time ...

HARRY DID WHAT HARRY DOES BEST A lean waisted lawman on a good looking Appaloosa stallion drew up, looked at the grinning, barefoot boy watching from the end of the boardwalk. He was a boy like many others: cloth cap, indolent posture, a sharp and watchful expression, the kind who knows what's going on, calculating quickly whether there's anything in it for him. The boy turned, sauntered down the narrow alley beside the building. The Sheriff waited, looking around, eyes busy: he waited a long minute, then followed the urchin with the knowing expression and the calculated slouch. The Sheriff walked his stallion across the street and down the little alley. He leaned down a little: a coin shone a little as it dropped from one hand into another. "Obliged for your help," the Sheriff said quietly, four more silvers following the first. He saw surprise in the lad's eyes and his own eyes tightened approvingly at the corners: the boy's face showed no change at all. "You'd play a good game of poker," the Sheriff rumbled. "Nah," the boy grinned. "My baby sis skins me at poker." The Sheriff's eyes smiled a little more, and he nodded, once: "Yep." The boy squinted up, allowed himself a knowing smile: "You too?" "Surprised?" "Kinda." The boy wrinkled his nose a little, and the Sheriff saw new freckles scattered across healthy-- if slightly dirty -- cheeks. "I can see through a man like window glass," the Sheriff admitted, his voice low: "if he's lyin', I know it right away, but women" -- he shook his head, chuckled -- "women can pull the wool over my eyes fast, hard and nasty!" The boy considered this, filing it away as Very Useful Information. He'd seen this Sheriff work, he'd seen this Sheriff question men, he'd seen this Sheriff call a man on his lies. If there was a living creature that was proof against this particular lawman's skills and abilities, he personally wished to fight shy of them: if they could bamboozle the Sheriff, how much more could they slicker him! "Seen Macfarland lately?" the Sheriff asked casually. "He'd ought to be back just any time. I think he went down-street to talk to th' Padre." Another coin, a wink: "Obliged." Law and Order Harry Macfarland hung his flat crowned townie hat on its peg, went to his desk: he pulled out a bound book and a pencil, he frowned a little as he put his thoughts on paper. The Padre was a wise man, but a fair man: he absolutely would not violate the seal of the Confessional, but he had pointed Harry on more than one occasion toward things he'd ought to look at, and his quiet observations had been useful to Carbon Hill's taciturn town marshal. A shadow, a silhouette, outside the front window: Harry continued writing, his scalp tightening a little behind his ears, they way it did when he had a grin that wasn't going to be allowed out to play. The door opened and a man's shoulders blocked the doorway, along with the rest of him: a step, two, the door was shut quietly, firmly. Harry's Barlow-whittled pencil ran quickly across the page. The Sheriff did not interrupt the man's progress: he waited until Harry closed the book, opened the drawer, placed book and pencil with precise care, closed the drawer, looked up. "You got him." The Sheriff nodded, once. "Hell, sit yourself down, you're makin' me tired just lookin' at you standin'." Harry pretended to ignore the slight change of expression as the Sheriff sat: he had a few poorly healed injuries, and Harry knew the man had to sit carefully, thanks to a bad fall years before. "What else did you find out?" Linn frowned a little, looked to the side: he rose, pulled the chair right close to Harry's desk. Harry tossed him a pillow -- he caught it, squeezed the calico padding, looked at Harry, raised an eyebrow. "Hair pillow?" Harry blinked, looked away, looked back, nodded. Linn raised an eyebrow, nodded. "Obliged." He eased his backside down with the hair pillow between his tailbone and the hard chair. He knew the story behind the pillow, and though he might accept his friend's kindness and use it to pad his backside, he would do so with courtesy, for the pillow had been a gift from someone Harry cared for. Harry waited. "Father Mayer doin' all right?" Harry nodded, leaned back until the back of his chair hit the chair rail. He saw the Sheriff's eyebrow raise. "I ain't goin' to fall," Harry muttered, as if responding to a verbal challenge, the chair slid out from under the man: Harry's teeth clenched as he slid, as he fell, as he knew there was nothing to do but ride it out. The Sheriff waited while his old friend rolled over on his side, got up, set the chair in place and glared at it as if the chair had acted, knowingly, maliciously and deliberately. "Mine does that," Linn offered quietly, and Harry gripped the back of his chair, looked at the Sheriff, dropped his head and laughed quietly: he'd been in the Firelands Sheriff's Office when one of the four legged office chairs flipped out from under the Sheriff, leaving the man flat on his back, legs straight in the air, boot heels to the ceiling. "If it's any help," Linn said with a straight face, "I have a standing order for new chairs with the Mercantile." "Yeah, you and that broad ax," Harry muttered. "Ain't it kind of expensive, bustin' up a chair when it kicks out from under you?" "Not any more," Linn said quietly. "Nah? You skin flint, you're tighter'n John Wesley's hat band!" Linn leaned forward, elbows on his knees, sandpapering his palms together slowly as Harry settled himself back in the offending furniture. "Harry," he said finally, "I set the old chair out in the street and lean the ax up ag'in the porch post so's it can see what's goin' to happen to it, and then I got and get that new chair. "I fetch it back and set it nose to nose with the old chair and I go over't the Silver Jewel and have me some coffee or some-such, I'll wait'll that old chair warns that new chair about what happened, then I'll go and take an ax to the chair that throwed me an' I'll let attair new chair watch it. So far that new chair has not offered to throw me, not once!" Harry considered this, his only comment a raised eyebrow: a solemn faced Sheriff and a solemn faced Town Marshal regarded each other impassively until neither one could stand it any longer, until they both laughed. Once they both came up for air, Harry looked at Linn and said "Now you didn't come over here just to tell me about educatin' a new chair." "No." Linn shifted his backside a little, worked his back, frowned. "A young man come to me yesterday, Harry, and I ... didn't know what to say to him." Harry nodded, once, leaned forward, hands not quite clasped on the green desk blotter. "He had trouble about him ... he looked like trouble laid itself over his shoulders like a blanket and it'd been there so long it was part of him, but he looked just awful lost. Come to find out that heavy blanket of trouble he'd been wearin' was fell off and gone and he didn't know what to do now that it wasn't there." "What happened?" Harry asked, leaning forward a little more, clearly interested. "He'd set out for vengeance. Family was killed that shouldn't have been and him that did it, realized he'd killed the wrong people. He took out and when this young fella come upon the situation that night, once he l'arned who did it, he took out after 'im. "He said he'd been followin' this murderer better'n a year." "Did he find him?" Linn nodded, his bottom jaw slid out a little. "Found him freshly killed over'n the City. He'd been accused of card cheatin' and come out in second place." "And this fella that was after him ...?" "Got there right after it happened. He went over and looked into his dead eyes and then he left. Never said a word to no one." "So how'd you get in this?" "He got off the steam train in Firelands and come over't the Silver Jewel for a meal. "I saw he looked just awful lost, like he was ... like someone pulled a cork out of his boot heel and just drained him out and he was read to collapse like an empty water bag." Harry blinked, considered: he'd seen that look before. "I stood him to a meal and a beer, and he got to talkin'. "Harry, he sounded ... hollow. He sounded lost. He'd had purpose for a year and he'd intended to kill the man that killed his kinfolk and now that was out the window, and I reckon he felt like a compass needle that lost its magnetic and just set there and wobbled." Harry waited. "I asked him if there was family he could go home to, and he allowed as there was, I asked him if he had a trade and he spoke of furniture making and his family's Mercantile back East, and I allowed as there was demand for such where the country was expandin', and he didn't say much after that. "I saw him back on the steam train and he headed east, but he ..." Linn looked at his old and trusted friend. "Harry, he just looked so ... lost." "Reckon so." Linn shook his head, straightened in the hardback chair, then leaned forward again, frowned. "Sometimes," he admitted, "it is troublin' to not be able to fix somethin'!" Harry nodded wisely. He didn't speak a word of agreement -- he didn't have to -- Harry did what Harry did best. He listened.

MAY I HAVE A WORD? Sarah Lynne McKenna sat, aloof, dignified, icy, alone in the Judge's private car. She'd gotten information the Judge wanted, and she would present to the Judge in her current attire -- a fashionable hat worn at a stylish angle, a properly fitted gown, with foundations and firmaments that made her look more ... ... mature ... ... than her relatively few years. She'd disported herself as a slattern, she'd strutted in stockings and a shockingly brief, fur-trimmed silk dress (why good Lord! it was halfway up her calves!) -- she'd draped herself over an influential man after sitting unbidden in his lap, after smiling and priming him with drink and with unspoken promises, she'd gotten inside his guard and inside his confidence, and before he passed out from the powders she'd introduced to his final drink, she'd even towed him by the hand like a steam tugboat might tow another, larger watercraft -- although it was neither through oceanic waters she towed him, nor did she guide him into any safe harbor. Now Sarah sat, a very proper young lady, reading: she heard the air set up under her feet, and she smiled, just a little. She'd paid attention when she'd ridden the train, she knew when the air set up after cresting the final grade that she was six minutes to Firelands. Sarah McKenna closed her book, replaced it in the Judge's desk: where most fashionable young ladies might be reading a work of poetry, or perhaps a religious tract, Sarah was reading from Blackstone's Law, a legal reference well known to the judiciary. Sarah was an Agent of the Court, and she had news for the Judge. The Sheriff looked up as a well-dressed young woman swept through his door. It took him a moment to realize it was Sarah. She stopped and overlapped gloved fingers before her flat stomach, looked coolly at the standing lawman. "May I have a word?" she asked, and -- like her appearance -- her voice was disguised: what he heard, held a chill, a maturity he didn't normally associate with this pale eyed get of his loins, this child who did not know her true paternity until her fourteenth birthday. "Of course," the Sheriff said courteously: he stepped to a chair, drew it out, gestured. She flowed across the floor, settled herself into the chair, frowned, then rose. The Sheriff was still on his feet. "Do you remember," she said quietly, her voice a little less frosty, "showing Jacob how to take a pistol from a man's hand?" Linn blinked, surprised. "I remember," he said carefully. Sarah lifted her chin and looked very directly at this tall, impressive figure of masculinity with those quiet, light-blue eyes. She swallowed -- she saw his brows draw together a little, saw him turn his head ever so slightly, she knew he realized her discomfiture. "Jacob and I practiced that," she said quietly. The Sheriff nodded, once, slowly. "We practiced it many times." Again that slow, measured nod. "We didn't just practice it -- we both worked on it, he's good, he's really good" -- her eyes were bright with the memory, but not with tears -- "we still practice it." "And you are telling me this ...?" He let the question dangle, a trick he used to keep information coming. Sarah reached up, pulled out a long hatpin, laid it on his desk: she reached up again, with the other gloved hand, pulled another long hatpin, laid this on the desk as well. She lifted the hat off, straight up, with both hands, and placed her fashionable, broad-brimmed hat on the desk over the hatpins. Sarah looked at the Sheriff, blinked a few times, her eyes swinging to the side, then she looked at him again, thrust herself forward: the Sheriff found himself in his daughter's embrace, he felt her shivering a little, and he did the only thing he could think of in that moment. He ran his arms gently around her and held her. "It kept me alive," Sarah almost whispered, her voice unsteady, then she looked up: "What you taught Jacob kept me alive!" The Sheriff brought one hand free, caressed her powdered cheek with the backs of his fingers: he dipped his knees, Sarah released her grip: he took her under the arms, picked her up like she was a little girl, he brought her up to eye level, and Sarah felt that peculiar thrill that comes of knowing she was in the presence of a truly strong man. "Darlin'," Linn said quietly, his nose almost touching hers, "you're the only one of you we've got." He hiked her up just a little, almost tossing her up by all of one inch, and he ran his arms around her again, this time holding her tight, a father's strong and protecting arms, uncaring that she'd chosen to present herself to the world as a woman grown. He held her like she was his little girl, and in that moment, that's exactly what she was. She held him just as tight, and he wrote in his Journal, after her death, when he remembered the moment, it was the only time she squeaked, "Oh, Daddy," like she was a little girl again. Sheriff Linn Keller looked up as his twins came out of an Iris, there in his study. They were holding hands, which meant they both wished to speak to him: he turned a little, his eyes smiling as Michael announced, "Permission to come aboard, sir!" "Granted," he nodded. Victoria's expression was troubled, her chin was determined, and she took a half step forward. "Daddy, may I have a word?" Linn's eyes went back to his desk, at the open Journal, at the account of a pale eyed father and his pale eyed daughter: he closed the reprinted book, rose, came over to his children. Something told him he just might know what they wished to tell him. He was right.

HOW TO GET IN TROUBLE WITHOUT REALLY TRYING Michael Keller grinned as he leaned over Cyclone's neck. The Fanghorn was nowhere near grown, but sufficiently matured to tolerate his saddled weight. Victoria, for her part, stood, feet shoulder width apart, knees flexed: her pupils dilated as Cyclone lowered her head, advanced into a fast walk. This alone was ... intimidating. Part of Victoria's mind knew Cyclone was just walking quickly. Part of Victoria's mind knew those steel-hard, unshod hooves could crush anything living underfoot and turn it into bloody paste. She didn't care. Cyclone stretched out into a mild trot, circled the pretty girl with long, blond curls and a ribboned dress, Cyclone orbited Victoria, then ran straight away from her. I'm ready, she thought, leaned forward, eyes wide, pupils dilated, rich red lips peeled back from even white teeth. Michael's expression combined delight and recklessness as he brought Cyclone around, fast. Cyclone was a predator, and Cyclone was fast, and Cyclone swapped ends like a cutting horse, and Cyclone knew what Michael wanted, and that was to run! She bore down on Victoria, who crouched slightly, young muscles toned and tensed and ready -- Destruction and death, a bony boss that could bust a brick wall, fangs that routinely rended living flesh as she ate bloody, quivering meat to supplement her her herbivorous diet -- Michael leaned a little to his right, one hand death gripped on the saddlehorn, the other reaching -- Victoria's hand seized Michael's arm like a clawed trap snapping shut around prey, and Michael's ranch-tempered grip was hard around his sister's upper arm -- Victoria didn't so much lift from the earth as she was BLASTED off the earth -- She rose, she spread her legs, petticoats white in the sun -- Michael's triumphant yell, Victoria's delighted shriek and Cyclone's whistling scream combined, pounding hooves joined by Thunder, swinging alongside, and Lightning, her own joyful blast shivering the quiet afternoon air: a mother Fanghorn and her foals thundered across the treeless expanse, Victoria happily hugging her brother, her legs wrapped around as much broad Fanghorn barrel as she could arrange. The reports came in soon after. It seems their happy exercise, something they'd practiced back home with their Daddy's horses, this running pickup, was caught by one of the Inter-System stealth cameras. On those planets where Appaloosa horses were being introduced, riders tried this same running pickup. There were falls, bruises, a few broken bones: one luckless individual's nose was laid across their face after a failed grip, after a swift-swinging hoof came perilously close to causing a catastrophic injury, and through channels that were both swift and not entirely official, Michael and Victoria -- who by now were taking turns, jumping Thunder and Cyclone over obstacles, across gullies, onto stationary and then moving railroad flatcars as they passed through a shallow gap -- two pale eyed riders were given to understand that their fine examples were resulting in injuries by those who sought to emulate their energetic examples. Demand for Earth horses increased on the Confederate worlds. At diplomatic functions, at cultural exchanges, at formal and dignified meetings, careful suggestions were made -- except where the suggestions were quite overt, these generally from children who'd seen Michael and Victoria on the Inter-System -- and a lucky few, unofficially, ended up riding double with one or the other of the twins. Back on Earth, the Sheriff's steady old mare was recruited, spirited away courtesy of tobacco-shaving bribes and Iris technology: this patient old dapple-grey gave a surprising number of folk their first introduction to the terrifying, delightful magic of their first horseback ride. Few of those who rode this patient old mare were children. Michael and Victoria met with those adventurous young who'd tried a running pickup, such as they'd seen on the Inter-System, and failed: Michael arranged for a boy half his age to have his broken arm repaired at a facility that would have been quite out of reach otherwise, Victoria sat with a young woman whose face bore the startling colors of severe bruising, but a physically repaired nasal septum: they shared girlish observations, they giggled, the girl with the hoof-broken nose confided that she felt like a princess with a thousand courtiers vying for her hand, then she touched her still-tender beak and admitted, "Just not quite the way it happened!" Michael and Victoria did not abandon their beloved Appaloosa saddle horses. Their System-wide trademark was still to ride side by side on near-identical spotty horses, Michael in his suit, and Victoria in a proper, divided-skirt gown ... but now that Thunder and Cyclone were big enough to ride, they were seen more often mounted on a creature known to most of the System as fast, dangerous, unpredictable, carnivorous, short-tempered and just plain dangerous. Marnie asked the twins to appear on a particular world at a particular time, where she would be involved with a delicate negotiation: she asked Michael to ride Buck, one of her Daddy's stallions, and she gave her younger brother a look that he recognized. Victoria rode Cyclone. The twins appeared -- no one saw where they came from -- but Buck's steelshod hooves, sharp in the noontime air, and Cyclone's rocky hooves, her cadence slower, somehow more menacing, seized attention, stares and shocked expressions: traffic came to a fast standstill as brother and sister cantered down the centerline of the main street, in the capitol city, and set their course for the imposing, turreted structure a quarter mile away. Their arrival was timed with the noon recess. Marnie, smiling, gracious, flowed out the front door, delegates coming with her, bees following a lovely, fragrant flower: Michael and Victoria drew up, dismounted. Cyclone was not yet tall enough to require a belly-down to allow Victoria's dismount; Michael's long legs made dismount from his Pa's stallion look easy. Michael went around to Buck's head, rubbed his jaw, pulled his hand away as yellow teeth snapped at his hand: he shook a fist at the stallion's face and whispered, "You'll get your chance," and dropped his reins. He turned, offered Victoria his arm: they walked, dignified as two teen-age pretenders could manage, toward their older sister. Marnie looked over their heads, looked at Michael, her eyes smiling. Michael smiled in reply as he heard Buck grunt. Marnie turned, raised a hand: Michael turned and saw one of the delegates just departing Buck's saddle, at both a high angle, and at a high velocity: the delegate hit the ground, rolled, grimaced: he scowled, came up on all fours, came back at the stallion. He grabbed the saddlehorn, got a foot in the stirrup. Buck circled, fast: the delegate made a desperate grab for the cantle -- for a miracle, he made it -- he hopped on one foot as Buck spun again, slung the delegate for a surprising distance. The delegate fell, rolled, came back up, face scarlet. Marnie hid her smile behind a glove. Michael was busy investigating the refreshments laid out for the delegates. He handed Victoria a delicate, lily-shaped glass off something chilled, red and smelling of some kind of fruit: he made himself a sandwich, turned, took a happy bite. The delegate managed to get into the saddle. Buck just stood there. The delegate looked confused. He looked ahead and down, then leaned down to try and reach one of the reins. Buck folded his legs and rolled over, trapping the delegate's leg beneath his barrel. The delegate yelled, tried hitting at the stallion's neck, at least until strong yellow teeth closed around his wrist like a vise. Michael sauntered up to the stallion, rubbed his nose, looked at the delegate. "I'd not try that again," he said quietly. "Buck here likes breakin' arms. Someone beat him and he's been mean ever since. Was I you I'd asked him politely to let go." Michael took a casual bite of sandwich. Cyclone came over, nose thrust out, snuffing at the sandwich: Michael offered her a bite, let her take the sandwich: the Fanghorn's canines were bright, pure-white ivory-looking as she threw her head back, tossing the sandwich deeper into her mouth. "Now Cyclone here," Michael said conversationally, "would rather rip off yer arm and eat it. Buck here, he just likes to break 'em. Someone beat him and hurt him and he has not forgotten it." "Make him let go," the delegate wheezed. "Please!" "Don't tell me," Michael shrugged. "Tell him." "Please let go," the delegate whispered hoarsely, eyes swinging to the stallion. Michael unwrapped a peppermint, held it out on a flat palm. The stallion released the wrist and drove his muzzle down on Michael's palm -- it looked like he was going to take the hand off clear up to the elbow -- but it was a game Buck played: he drove his nose down hard on Michael's palm, but the only thing yellowed equine teeth claimed was the red-and-white swirly peppermint. "Yup, Buck," Michael said quietly, and rubbed the stallion under the jaw. The stallion rolled over on his hooves, stood, shook himself: the delegate's foot, thanks to a doghouse stirrup, was not trapped, and fell free. "Mister," Michael said as the man got up, blustering, threatening, "you tried to steal my horse." Michael pulled the piggin string's knot, dropped the lariat from the saddle into his hand, shook out a loop. "Horse thievin' is a hangin' offense." "You wouldn't," the delegate gasped. Michael opened the loop, gave it a flip, began to spin it: he'd read where Old Pale Eyes could not play poker to save his sorry backside, but he could deal with the best of 'em; he read where Old Pale Eyes could not spin a lariat, and he determined to acquire the skill. Victoria skipped happily over to Cyclone, her gait that of a little girl on a sunny afternoon, and she came away from her mount with a lariat as well. Two pale eyed twins spun their loops in perfect synchronization, skipped through the loops, spun them overhead, down over themselves and back up: they coiled the plaited reatas, looked around. "You think that branch will hold a man's weight?" Michael asked, and Victoria pretended to study the particular structure. "Naw, he's kind of heavy. We need a stouter branch." They looked at the delegate, who was backing away, wide-eyed: he scrambled for the safety of his fellow delegates, to the derisive laughter of most of them. Pale eyed twins looked at one another and shook their heads. "Just can't have any fun these days!" they complained in unison. Buck dropped his head, snapped at Michael's backside, came away with a kerchief: he danced back, bobbing his head and waving the captured kerchief like a prize. This, of course, made the local newspaper, which Marnie shared with them the next day: two well dressed, teen age twins, each holding a coiled reata, each looking at the stallion throwing his head and waving a flag of triumph, and beneath, the caption: How to Get Into Trouble Without Even Trying! "The delegate," Marnie said, and neither Michael nor Victoria had to ask just who this delegate was, "needed taken down a peg. Thank you for helping." "Buck gets the credit," Michael said innocently. Marnie gave him a knowing look. "The threat of getting his neck stretched as a horse thief was just the right added touch." She playfully brushed the tip of Michael's nose with a gloved forefinger, her eyes bright and merry: "he didn't know whether that was fact or invention, and he was afraid Diplomatic Offense would make it a very real possibility!" She blinked, looked at Michael. "Why did Papa name that particular stallion Buck?" Michael grinned. "Ever try to ride him, Sis?" "Nnnnooo," Marnie replied slowly, her expression a little less certain than she'd been. "If you ever try it, eat your Cheerios and pack a lunch," Michael grinned, " 'cause before you can do squat with him, you've got to buck him out, and let me tell you, he'll do his best!"

Well done and proud of you both!

We've only got one of YOU! As far as good sound free advice ... Blackwater already gave you more, better, and more actually useful, than I possibly could!

A MAN'S NOTION Father and son sheltered beneath a tin roof. The Sheriff built it out from the side of the barn, partly to shelter horses, partly to shelter equipment, partly to shelter whoever might need to duck under to get out of bright sun or rain. Right now he and Jacob sat on a plank bench, side by side, leaning back against sawmill cut planks that made up the leeward wall. Silence grew long between them. Inside, a horse stamped, restless: Jacob's young ears caught the swish of horsehair against timber as a tail swung: something warm and furry jumped up on the bench beside him, and his hand caressed the barn cat as it purred up against him, chewing companionably on his thumb, not enough to draw blood, but enough to let Jacob know who was boss. Jacob's eyes tightened a little at the corners as he fearlessly caressed their chief mouse killer. Father and son sat unmoving, not speaking: rain rattled steadily on the tin roof overhead: the Sheriff flashed the joint where corrugated tin butted up against siding; the gap between boards on this side of the barn were filled with oakum, driven in between vertical planks with a caulking iron -- though there was precious little caulking needed after careful fitting of planks, one against another: still, he'd done a careful job, making his barn proof against winter's winds, so far as he was able. The occasional, unusually-fat drop hit the tin roof, a sharper, louder note; there was a light rattle of hail earlier, but hailstones were half the size of Jacob's little fingernail, and disappeared after less than a minute. He recalled his Pa said if hail lasted, especially if hail stones got sizable, he'd be watching for the sky to turn green. "Sir, why would the sky turn green?" Jacob asked, honestly puzzled: he'd known it to turn amber, but never green. "If she turns green, Jacob," his pale eyed Pa said quietly, "duck into the nearest groundhog hole and pull it in after you, tornado's a-comin'." Jacob had never seen a groundhog -- he'd asked his scholarly sister about the creature, and she'd called it an Eastern marmot, described it as something like a prairie dog, only the size of a Beagle dog that excavated holes in a pasture that could break the leg of an unsuspecting beef, or a horse. Jacob considered all this, but never questioned his Pa about finding a nice friendly groundhog hole if there were no groundhogs: he'd have to make do with the root cellar, he reckoned. "Somethin' is on your mind," Linn said quietly, his pale eyes busy. "Yes, sir," Jacob admitted. Silence, again, while Jacob arranged his thoughts, sorted through them, put them into words before speaking. "Sir ... there's been wars." Silence again. His Pa took off his Stetson, laid it in his lap, leaned his head back against the plank behind him. "There have been wars," Linn agreed, his voice soft, the way it got when he was halfway between remembering with his mind, and remembering with his gut. "Sir, I can ... I can use a rifle to keep a section safe." Linn nodded, just a little. "I was considerin', sir ... we've gone up ag'in numbers of men, but they were bunched, like they intended to run us over." Linn nodded again, remembering. "Sir ... if they'd spread out in a line ..." "Squad tactics," Linn said quietly. "Sir?" "If they'd planned ahead and formed a wide line, we'd have had a harder time stoppin' all of them, especially if they all advanced at the same time, at the same speed." "Yes, sir." "They didn't plan, Jacob. They bunched up and charged all together. That's how we were able to stop 'em." "Yes, sir." "You're thinking ahead." "Yes, sir." "You're wise." "Sir?" Linn looked over at his son, approval in his eyes. "When a man thinks ahead like that, when he considers what could happen and how would he handle it, why, if somethin' like that happens to him, he's already figured out what to do and he'll be that much faster figurin' on what to do." Jacob blinked, absorbed his father's words. "One man with a rifle has to be sneaky and hid," Linn continued. "If you've a company, a squad, a number of men and they're drilled in infantry or cavalry or squad tactics, and if they're practiced and drilled, you can tell 'em to advance on such-and-such a position and they can take it, but if they're not ... if all they've got is a rifle and good intentions, a man with a plan can sprag their plans." "I see, sir." "You recall how we practice hand signals." "Yes, sir." "You recall how Sarah learned mirror-talk." "Yes, sir." "We used bugles in that damned War." "Yes, sir." "We drilled and drilled and drilled again, learnin' the calls. First part of the bugle call let us know who it was meant for, then the last part said what to do." "Yes, sir." "I one time got two outlaws to surrender, that-a-way." "Sir?" "I had two men ride back and forth on our side of a ridge, raisin' dust. One of 'em had a bugle and I had him sound advance for a nonexistent company. The outlaws were watchin' that little short ridge line, waitin' for the cavalry itself to come a-boilin' over at 'em and I rode in behind 'em and allowed as they could give up and be taken in, or the Cavalry could come and turn 'em into a pair of sieves. "Turns out neither one particularly wanted to sort flour in some woman's kitchen, we took 'em in to stand trial an' nobody got killed." Jacob's eyes smiled at their corners. Rain was steady, light; the wind was still -- the wind normally carried from behind them to ahead of them, they were seated in the lee of the barn; silence between them again, filled by the steady patter of rainfall. "Sir?" "Yes, Jacob?" "Sir, do you reckon there will be another Lincoln's War?" Linn was quiet for several long moments. Jacob felt as much as saw his Pa take a long breath in, let it out slow. "I hope not, Jacob," Linn said softly. "I've seen things ... terrible things ... that damned war ..." His voice softened, faded: Jacob risked a look at his father, fearful of what he would see. As he feared, his father's expression was haunted. Linn closed his eyes, took another long breath, pushed the memories from him. His hand closed about the crown of his Stetson: he stood, abruptly. "Jacob," he said, "it's damp and chilly out here, and I've a notion for some coffee." "Yes, sir."

TO THE LADIES The Sheriff's wife looked nothing like a sailing-ship. Jacob's wife Ruth was stout, motherly, buxom, apple-cheeked: her eyes shone with delight, pride, quiet and understated merriment: she was most comfortable in a matronly, floor-length gown, she preferred to present herself and to appear as had her own mother, as had her grandmothers, as had the ancestral women of her Line. She did not look at all like a sleek vessel with masts and sails, but in movement, as she advanced toward where the Iris would manifest, her movement was smooth, determined, and in her movement, perhaps, she did indeed appear to be a ship under sail: beautiful, smooth, and giving the distinct impression that I am going HERE! and NOTHING! will stop me. Ruth shared that smooth coordination that seems common to the female of the species, the ability to time her appearance, or her arrival, to optimize her particular goal: she crossed the room with that peculiar smoothness that led more than one observer to inquire whether, perhaps, she might actually be using wheels under her floor-length skirt. Their son Joseph was in school: Ruth glided to a stop, folded gloved hands in her apron, lifted her chin and looked at that particular spot where she determined the Iris should appear. As if on her command, it did, and exactly where she apparently intended it should. Whether its appearance, its timing, its location, coordinated because of her intent, or in spite of her intent, is quite immaterial: Ruth prided herself on being a dutiful and very proper wife, and her appearance at her husband's return, was the proper thing for a wife to do. The black ellipse opened: Jacob stepped through -- or, rather, he bounced: a man grown he was, but he walked with the energy of a schoolboy: his wife, dignified, proper, hands in her apron and chin lifted, watched with a schoolteacher's formal gravity as Jacob fairly bounced over to her, stopping just short of a crushing hug. Sheriff Jacob Keller stopped before his wife, a fine and striking example of masculinity: tall and broad shouldered, with a horseman's waist and strong legs, properly attired in a tailored black suit, in a linen shirt with an emerald-green necktie, broad and puffy and held with a single, rectangular, tastefully-small ruby stickpin. A husband regarded his wife with delight in his shining eyes: he lifted her gloved knuckles to his lips, held her hand carefully, as if it were a fragile little bird he was afraid of crushing. "My dear," he murmured. "My husband," Ruth replied, her cheeks coloring. "Pa!" A little boy's happy shout -- young feet charged across the smooth, sintered-stone floor -- Jacob dropped, turned, seized their energetic young son as he leaped: Jacob rose, stepped back to absorb the impact momentum of solid young muscle, and he swung his laughing son around, hoisting him up to arm's length before bringing him back down. Ruth tilted her head, smiling -- not indulgently, but with understanding: she saw the spontaneous, uninhibited delight of youth, and she saw the laughing strength of a father. Jacob set their son down, turned to his wife, took her hand again. "My dear," he said, "is all well?" Joseph was containing his excitement -- he wished to report to his Pa the progress on two particularly difficult school projects that turned out really well -- but he waited, giving the impression of a pressure-vessel confining the energies of a detonated explosive, while trying to appear outwardly unaffected by the hidden, inner stresses. "All is well," Ruth replied gently. "I would counsel with you, dearest," Jacob said gently, and Ruth smiled, that quiet, wise smile of a woman who took pride in being one of her husband's closest confidantes. Jacob was methodical, meticulous, attentive: nothing of importance or urgency transpired during his brief absence; he'd not announced his departure, nor his return; to the Martian colonies, it was as if he'd never been gone, and that suited him fine. He ran with Joseph through vacant halls to an experimental area excavated well underground, running easily in this low-gravity area: his son took pride and delight in explaining to his father the progress he and two schoolmates were making with their terraforming project. Jacob was honestly impressed. There were four words, discovered but not settled, in the so-called "Goldilocks zone" of their respective yellow stars -- terraforming them would make them habitable -- they would have some minerals, yes, but not the variety that came with a living world after eons: there would be no limestone, for instance, as this is made of skeletons of oceanic calcium accretors, compressed and changed into true rock strata with time and with pressure: there would be no coal, as these worlds never knew worldwide tropical conditions that laid down plant matter, thick rich, which was then buried, compressed, reduced to carbon rich strata: in like wise, these planets would have no oil deposits. Water there was, but trapped, scattered: it would take the terraforming, and recovery of water from the depths, to convert these barren, rocky spheres into habitable worlds. Joseph's work reverse engineered alien tech, something not even the best minds of the Confederacy managed to do: what this schoolboy in knee pants accomplished, in a square mile of underground experimentation chamber, would have to be scaled up: what he'd done in a month's time, converting imported strata to an inch of arable soil, was but a start, a proof of concept. He'd done it, though. A father's quiet approval, expressed in so many words, while looking his son in the eye, would later be described by the son as worth more to him than any riches he'd ever accumulated. Jacob rapped his knuckles on an olivewood rectangle. He'd given it to the Rabbi, a gift, and halfway a joke: he complained good naturedly that there was nothing to knock on in this modern underground colony, maybe he'd have to get the clergyman a plank to knock on, and so it was that this rectangle of olivewood -- "genuine Israeli timber!" Jacob described it -- was bolted to a standoff just inside the Rabbi's quarters. The two were old friends; Jacob, like many in the colonies, came to the Rabbi for wise counsel, for conversation, sometimes just to visit: the Rabbi was younger than Jacob, but he seemed to carry the wisdom -- and humor -- of the centuries with him. He was also an artist when it came to spinning his Fedora before putting it on. "I'm not good with a nightstick like Bumper Morgan," he'd told Jacob once, with a merry twinkle to his dark eyes, "but I can spin a Fedora!" Jacob handed the Rabbi two bottles of something dark, with a label printed in Hebrew: the clergyman's delight was evident -- "they're Kosher," Jacob said quietly, "and they one comes from my supplier in --" "I know where it comes from," the Rabbi interrupted with a chuckle. "He is my bother in law. Come in, sit, sit!" -- the two sat, Jacob shooting up like a cork when the Rabbi's wife glided in with two glasses: she smiled modestly, opened one of the two bottles, picked up the second to spirit it away to her stores when Jacob spoke. "Miz Miriam," he said, "thank you." The Rabbi's wife stopped, surprised, gave Jacob a wide-eyed look, then a smile: "For what, Sheriff?" "Ma'am," he said, his Stetson held across his belly, "you care enough to present a proper appearance. Thank you for caring enough about being a proper Lady to look like one." Miriam looked at her husband, then at Jacob, cheeks coloring as she smiled a little: she lowered her eyes modestly, turned, glided into the next room. The Rabbi was quiet for a long moment: Jacob settled his Stetson back on his head, sat. Normally Jacob would have removed his cover upon crossing the threshold, but the Rabbi wore his black Fedora, and although it was not Rome, Jacob chose to do as the Romans -- or in this case, the Rabbi -- and resumed his cover. "It means a great deal to her," the Rabbi said softly, "that ... you spoke." "Credit where credit is due," Jacob replied, looking at the dark purple liquid in the long stemmed wineglass. "I was recently offworld ..." He frowned a little, his jaw sliding out: the Rabbi waited, watching his old friend with a knowing expression. "I spoke to a mother and thanked her just as ..." His eyes went to the doorway through which the Rabbi's wife disappeared moments before. "She asked me why ... and I said her daughters both conducted themselves as Ladies, with a capital L." Jacob's smile was gentle, the look of a man remembering a particularly good memory. "I told her ... children learn by observation ... and by imitation," he said slowly, "and there is only one place they could have learned to conduct themselves in such a way." The Rabbi nodded thoughtfully. "Then I looked her right square in the eye because I wanted her to hear what I was about to tell her. "I said, 'Thank you for being the Lady that they have chosen to be." Jacob saw the Rabbi's eyes crinkle a little at the corners. Both men picked up their wineglasses. "To the ladies." They drank.

MAKE SURE HE'S DEAD FIRST It only took a moment to die. He'd ridden the vengeance trail for ... well, as long as he could remember, ever since terrible things were done to him as a child. He did like many brutalized children do. He'd shoved the memories back into a dark room, he'd laid up block and stone and mortar and cement and he'd braced it with rock cribbing and coal mine bratticework, he'd learned how to imitate a normal human and how to appear ordinary and unremarkable. This worked well until the monsters finally bored through the rock and flowed out into his consciousness and immobilized him. One moment he was in his mid-twenties, a medic who'd just backed the rig into the bay after a long day's work: he was reading the mileage off to his copilot, he'd turned off the ignition and reached down for the rotary battery isolation switch on the side of the driver's seat mount. He'd turned it one click, two clicks, and he flashed back. His partner had no idea what happened. She knew he was a young man, a strong man, she'd watched him lift impossible weights when lives depended on it, she'd seen him move with unnatural speed to snatch a child out of the roadway when a confused, trauma-shocked grade-schooler wandered away from a wrecked car into Interstate traffic, and only her fast moving partner kept another young soul from shaking hands with the Eternal. She knew him to be damned good at what he did, she knew he wore the Expert Combat Medic's badge on his uniform blouse pocket, and she knew he never talked about what he'd done when he wore Uncle Sam's baggy fatigues. All she knew was he froze, eyes wide and staring; he collapsed over the steering wheel, crying like a frightened child, and she did the best thing she could. She held him, and let him cry himself out. That night he resurrected black resolve and hung a .44 revolver in a shoulder rig, he pulled out a black-leather badge wallet, and with it, the badge and commission card he carried when he wore a uniform of another color, and he started making inquiries. It may have been his mother's death, grief might have been his trigger; maybe it was the monsters that finally broke through the walls he'd laid up as a child. He called his boss and arranged personal time off for the next week -- he'd accumulated more than enough, he'd never taken a day off nor vacation in his years behind the wheel for the company -- and he began to hunt, starting on his laptop. The trail was cold, but he knew where to look, and who to look for. He searched for the monster who did those unspeakable things to him as a child. He intended to find this monster, and he intended to kill this monster. It would not be murder. Not in his mind. It would not be murder if he walked up behind him and clove an ax from crown to teeth in the middle of downtown at twelve noon. He made a phone call to a man he knew. He arranged a meeting. He drove to the state's capital to meet with a police detective of his acquaintance. A flicker of movement -- to his right -- his eyes swung right -- Deer? he thought -- he was in the passing lane, he came off the throttle -- He never saw the out-of-control vehicle that came screaming sideways across the median, and he did not remember the collision. Somewhere over an Interstate highway, invisible overhead, a police helicopter, returning from a search, but now watching traffic, saw two vehicles, collide: following vehicles braked hard, evaded. It was a genuine miracle no one was rammed, that no one rammed into the stopped, steaming vehicles, broken and unmoving in the passing lane. He smelled antifreeze and his own blood, he smelled hot oil. He tried to reach for his .44. I need backup, he thought, intending to put a hard-cast bullet between the eyes of ... whatever caused his current state of agony. I'm dead, he thought. It was hard to breathe. He tried to reach the .44, he tried to move -- The last thing he remembered was something screaming -- Demons sound just like a fire siren -- Red lights, men's voices. He thought he saw an angel, looking at him with pale eyes. She folded her wings, smiled. Pressure on his neck, fingers, searching for a pulse -- Voices, loud, confused -- "PULSE IS WEAK -- " Hands, movement, pain -- "I'VE LOST HIS PULSE!" Something, crushing his chest, then something slammed him like a thunderbolt. A hand on his shoulder, a voice. He opened his eyes. "Do you know where you are?" a man asked him -- professional voice, serious face, a little penlight in his fingers -- A doctor? I'm not dead? He remembered the blast of searing agony a moment before -- He took a fast inventory. "Not in Heaven," he rasped. "What else?" "Feet ..." He paused to take another breath. It hurt to breathe. "Feet cold," he managed. "Not in Hell, then," another voice offered. The Doctor looked up, annoyed, then looked back down. "You must be alive, then." "Yeah." "What's the last thing you remember?" He considered for a long moment, looked around, eyes only, afraid to move his neck. "Hospital?" he croaked. The doctor nodded. "Yes." "I remember ..." A straw touched his lips: he drank, gratefully. Lukewarm water never tasted so good. "A deer," he gasped. "I thought ... a deer, coming from my right." "Rest now. You're in good hands." It hurt too much to nod. He felt a warm, strong hand grip his, and he opened his eyes. It was the police detective he'd called. "I secured your weapon," he said quietly. "It's safe." "Thanks." The detective leaned over, forearms on the siderail, carefully guided the straw back to his lips. "We found the guy you were looking for." "Where?" he managed in a hoarse whisper. "I found him assuming room temperature on a coroner's slab." He closed his eyes for a long moment, looked back up. "Where now?" "They'll hold the body three days, then it'll be cremated and planted in Potter's Field." "Never asked a badge for a favor," he croaked. The detective nodded. "Go ahead and ask." "Make damned sure he's dead first." A pale eyed man in an old-fashioned Western-cut suit smiled at the nurse, typing at the nurse's station. He turned his lapel over, displayed a six point star. She smiled, pointed diagonally across the hall, held up four fingers. She received a wink and a quiet smile: more eyes than hers followed him as he paced silently to the room, knocked, stepped inside. Someone sighed: a feminine voice said sadly, "Why can't I find one like that?" Jacob Keller walked over to the hospital bed, shook hands with two police officers -- one in uniform, one in a suit -- who were there, hopefully, just to say hello: he turned to the patient, sitting up a little, thanks to the bed's motorized positioner. "We heard you'd been T-boned," Jacob said quietly. "Not my idea," his old friend said quietly, carefully: he held unnaturally still, as if the simple act of breathing, of talking, was painful. "Ribs?" "Yeah." Jacob looked from one city officer to the other. "Gentlemen, a word, if you please?" They withdrew to the hallway for a quick conference, ignoring feminine glances that tried hard not to be noticed surreptitiously ogling what they apparently considered desirable masculinity. "I was told he was hit on the Interstate," Jacob said quietly. "Is there more to the story?" "Should there be?" the detective asked. "I've been away on special assignment," Jacob said, turning his lapel over: "Firelands County, Colorado. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and I want to make sure I don't know enough to make a donkey out of myself." The detective was quiet for a long moment, then he said, "Nothing more than he was in a wreck, he's a long way from home and we didn't want him to feel forgotten." Jacob nodded. "Thank you for that," he said quietly, handed the detective and the uniform each a business card. "My direct number," he explained. They went back inside. "How long before you're back to oilfield tooldressing?" Jacob asked. "Be a while," came the wheezed answer. Two nurses came in with a cart and supplies: "Excuse us, gentlemen," one said briskly, "time for dressing changes!" Jacob saw his friend's lips frame Thank you: three lawmen turned and left. Reverend John Burnett turned, delighted at the familiar voice. "Jacob!" he exclaimed, thrusting his hand out: "Where in the world have you been?" "Parson," Jacob declared, throwing his hands wide in an exaggerated gesture of sincerity, which the Parson recognized as the signal Jacob was about to stuff his boots full, "would you believe my particular talents are so much in demand, I'm passed around like a box of Cracker Jacks?" The Parson laughed, and those of the Irish Brigade in earshot grinned, and more than one thought, Same old Jacob! "Actually, Parson, I came to see you in particular, can we talk somewhere?" "Of course." The Parson gestured to the kitchen deck: both men drew coffee, added a little milk, stepped out the back door, onto the concrete patio with benches and tables and the little low stone wall that held the hillside back. Jacob frowned, considered his coffee, sampled it, savored it: no matter who made it, firehouse coffee was universally good. "Did something ... happen, Jacob?" the Chaplain asked carefully. "Not to me, Parson. I've got a buddy that might be needful of your wise counsel." "Fill me in." The Parson eased himself down on a sun-warmed stone bench, leaning forward a little to put his weight on the meat of the backs of his thighs, instead of on the bones of his backside. "He'd ..." Jacob frowned, considered, lifted his head, looked off into the distance. "Parson, a buddy of mine rode the vengeance trail. He'd spent some years trackin' down a man who'd done something terrible. He rode out fully intendin' to send him to hell and he got there a half hour too late." He turned his head, looked at the Chaplain. "He's been in a wreck -- totally unrelated -- but he might need wise counsel now that he's had a come-to-Jesus moment." "Is he a deputy?" Jacob nodded. "Local?" "Anything but. He'll be a while rehabbin' from his injuries. I think I can talk him into comin' out here to heal up." "I'd be happy to help." "Obliged."

Microwelding ... another example of (smacks self in forehead, exclaims loudly "Why didn't I think of that!")

YOU WERE RIGHT Sheriff Linn Keller was met by their hired girl. She gave him a concerned look as he handed her his Stetson. She hadn't missed a new hole in his coat -- low, shredded outward, as if he'd fired a revolver from inside his coat's pocket. He saw her eyes drop, saw them raise, saw her raise one eyebrow. "Let me fix that," she whispered, then turned and looked quickly behind her, then back -- "before Herself finds out." The Sheriff smiled quietly, nodded: he unbuttoned his coat, handed it to the maid, who offered no comment as to its unexpected weight. Linn walked back to the kitchen. Esther was waiting, dignified, beautiful -- she was always beautiful in Linn's eyes, whether just wakened from a night's rest, whether frowning over ledger-sheets, whether carefully composed while discussing business matters with subordinates, clients or bankers, whether wiping a child's tears or cleaning a bloodied little knee. She smiled up at her husband, placed her delicate, eggshell-china teacup back on its saucer, rose to meet him. Linn came into the kitchen wearing the silver-and-black-front brocaded vest she'd made for him a year before: beneath it, a white-linen shirt, vertical pleats down its front: he wore a ribbon tie today, and Esther's quick eye saw neither hole, blood, slice nor smudge. Linn took her hands, raised them to his lips, kissed her knuckles, gently, carefully. "My dear," he murmured, "have I told you today how lovely you are?" "Not in the past six hours, no," Esther smiled, tilting her head and giving him a knowing look. "Mr. Keller, I know that look. What ever have you been doing, you charming scoundrel?" Linn lifted his head and laughed quietly -- that easy, relaxed laugh nobody ever saw, save only when he was at home, with his wife, and not under stress. He caressed the angle of her jaw with careful, gentle fingertips. "Your advice was sound, dearest," he said gently. "Of course it was sound," Esther said tartly, lifting her chin a degree, mischief in her expression: "I would give you no other!" Linn leaned forward, ran his arms around his wife, drew her warmth, her curves, her scent to him, laid his cheek carefully over atop her elaborate, auburn hair. "I benefit often from listening to my beautiful bride." "Mr. Keller?" "Yes, Mrs. Keller?" "If you don't stop shilly-shallying around and tell me what you've been up to, I'm going to punch you right in the liver!" She felt her husband's silent laughter: she did not have to look to know his face would be coloring, his ears reddening with suppressed mirth. Linn released his bride from his gentle envelopment, took a half-step back -- he knew the hired girl was just coming into the kitchen, and did not want to bump into her -- "Mary, is there coffee?" he asked hopefully, knowing full well there was, as he walked into a fragrant cloud of coffee when he set foot across the threshold. Linn waited until the maid was past him, then he backed a step, took two steps to the side: he waited until Esther was seated, before lowering himself into a chair. "Shall I serve the meal?" the maid asked quietly, and Esther did not miss the hopeful look on her husband's face. "Yes, Mary, thank you," Esther said gently: in an era where meals were properly consumed in the Dining Room, it was not uncommon for the Sheriff and his family to eat in the kitchen. Esther looked at her husband, waited: Linn spread his hands like a schoolboy about to spin a genuine whopper. "Well, ya see, it's like this ..." A well dressed man was not a rare sight in Carbon Hill. There were mine owners, men of business and commerce, men who rode in on the steam-train and came over to the Carbon Hill Saloon for a drink or a meal, and so when a man known to the Sheriff came in, he looked around. The place was smoky, run-down, the bar was three planks laid over two big wooden barrels, upturned: the piano was out of tune and badly played, men laughed and swore and slapped down hands of worn pasteboards, coin exchanging across frayed felt table tops. The well dressed man at the bar was in earnest conversation with the barkeep: "I say it's so!" "And I say," the barkeep riposted, "it ain't! Now let's see the color of your money!" The man that came in, came in searching: he didn't find who he was looking for, at least not right away. He looked in the mirror behind the bar -- any bar worth a damn had a mirror -- this one did, but it was about as big across as a man can span with two hands, and he did not see the man arguing with the barkeep looking in it. He didn't see this because the front door opened, and the town Marshal stepped through, took a sidestep to get his back to the wall -- a lawman's habit, formed early and proven useful. The man took a step away from the bar, his hand slicing under his open coat -- Sheriff Linn Keller was already moving: he was a long pace closer when his finger hauled back on the hideout revolver's trigger, when the .38 he carried in his off coat pocket spoke, loud and decisively, when he blew a ragged hole in the coat's pocket and drove a lead slug into the ambusher's kidneys. A work-hardened arm came down, knocking the drawn pistol from the would-be murderer's hand: Sheriff Linn Keller seized the evildoer, introduced him face first to the sawdust floor. Law and Order Harry Macfarland, to his credit, did not flinch at the sound of gunshot: he came over, his pace unhurried, regarded the Sheriff, considered smoke drifting out of his coat pocket, looked at the figure breathing its last on the floor. Harry was always a long winded sort, prone to lengthy speeches and flowery words, and, having considered what appeared to be the totality of circumstances, gave one of his lengthy, flower speeches. "Shot your coat," he grunted. The Sheriff gave an equally lengthy speech: he turned to the barkeep, laid a coin on the plank and said, "You win the bet." Linn sat at his kitchen table, under his own roof, looked at his beautiful, green-eyed bride, considered that she was as genuinely lovely as the first day he laid eyes on her. "My dear," he said, "you told me I should consort with a better grade of criminal." Esther nibbled delicately at the dainty little finger-sandwich and regarded her husband with knowing eyes. "I served a summons on a crooked businessman," he said quietly, "and he'll appear in court this week." Esther's expression went from knowing to quietly skeptical. "Is that why you shot a hole in your coat?" Linn's eyes were wide, innocent. "Me?" he protested, fingertips dramatically to his pleated shirtfront. Esther lowered her head, looked at him through long, curled lashes: "Mister Keller," she said quietly, "you never take off your coat at the door unless there's been damage. You smelled of sulfur, sir, when you embraced me." Linn gave an exaggerated sigh, shook his head, looked helplessly at the maid -- who was trying hard not to smile -- he spread his hands again like a schoolboy about to spin a genuine whopper and complained in a nasal, exaggerated voice, "Does ya knows me or what!"

SEND IT! Fire runs fast and deadly in a wood frame house. A young mother sobbed, crouching against the wall, terrified, blanketed infant in her arms. She had no idea where the fire started, or how: their children at school, her husband at work, her baby, fed, changed, sleepy: she laid down on the big double bed, curled up on her side, closed her eyes … just for a minute, just a short nap … She woke, confused, her throat starting to get sore – What woke me? What’s that noise? It took a few moments of eye-watering blinking to realize – That’s the smoke alarm! Her eyes snapped wide, she released her arm from around her baby, rolled over – Her eyes went to the bedside table, the phone – “Firelands Sheriff’s Office, what is the nature –” “MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE AND WE’RE TRAPPED UPSTAIRS!” Sharon hit the howler, dropped stiff, curved fingers on the transmit bar. “Firelands Fire Department, house fire with victim trapped,” she said, her voice crisp, professional: she read the address off the screen, then turned back to the screaming woman. “Ma’am, ma’am, slow down now, are you –” The Irish Brigade heard the hysterical woman absolutely SCREAMING her address, the same location Sharon read off the enhanced-911 screen. The Irish Brigade emptied the house. Doors slammed, engines started, overhead doors clattered quickly open, and the Firelands Fire Department came boiling out into the sun. Fireboots were heavy on turbocharged Diesel throttles, gloved hands firm on steering wheels: the Chief’s boot came down on the floor button, searing thirteen volts of direct current into the brightly-polished mechanical siren as the driver reached up and hauled down on the air horn lanyard. It was a maxim that drivers might ignore a screaming siren, they might not yield for wail, yelp, or hi-lo, but if they thought an eighteen was about to eat them for breakfast, they got the hell out of the way. Fast. A hundred pounds’ air pressure through twin, roof mounted, chrome trumpets, blasted the roadway clear ahead of them, while the bumper mounted, air bearing mechanical siren, screamed like a soul damned and tortured in sulfurous fires. Pumper, tanker, rescue and ambulance, four fast-moving, shining-red vehicles, all speed and lights and screaming urgency, all with the same destination, the same thought: A woman was trapped, and her infant child. Fitz snatched the heavy, professional mic from the clip, voice tight: “Pump One on scene, she’s out the upper story windows. Engine Two, lay in from secondary supply. Tanker, set up drop tank, stand by water shuttle.” Jacob Keller watched on his office screen as the Irish Brigade hit the door, as they attacked the Dragon with water and with profanity, as they penetrated the fire structure to lay the wet stuff on the red stuff. Carbon Hill’s fire department was not long in arriving for Mutual Aid: monitor positions were set up, shining straight-tip nozzles blasting straight streams of pressurized water through heat-broken windows, shattering off ceilings and raining wet death on the fires within. A window opened, a woman leaned out, holding a bundle in her arms: she was terrified, red-faced, half screaming, half crying: what she was screaming was without words, but her meaning was clear. Two men ran up, unfolding the life-ring as they ran: Shelly and her father ran up, a doubled bedsheet between them. “WE’VE GOT THE BABY!” Shelly yelled, her voice high, sharp, penetrating: she and her father shouldered the firemen aside, set up under the woman, under the window. Smoke was banked down in the room behind her, rolling in thick clouds around her as she leaned out as far as she dared. Bruce Jones ran up, froze, looked left, looked right, decided he had the best angle right where he stood: he raised his camera, started to shoot, grateful for the digital chip’s image capacity. He’d shot fire scenes with film cameras, shooting 24, shooting 36 exposures, then changing film and missing shots while he hastily replaced exposed slide film: worst were the times the tongue of the film slipped out of the takeup spool, and he missed every last shot after that. Shelly and her father drew the sheet taut. “DROP THE BABY!” Shelly screamed. “WE’RE READY TO CATCH!” The mother, panicked, hugged the child, sobbing. “SEND IT!” Fitz bellowed. Bruce’s finger was heavy on the shutter button. He’d zoomed in on the mother, he saw her face clearly, twisted with fear, with grief: she lowered her child, grief plain on what would otherwise be a pretty face. The camera snapped time off in slim chunks. He caught her expression as she lowered the child. He caught her release, her hands an inch from the child as it fell. He caught the oblong, wrapped baby falling between Heaven and earth. He caught the bedsheet as the falling baby landed, the bedsheet distorted downward from impact. He kept shooting: the medics ran for the squad, their patient safely slung between them, he caught the Irishmen SLAM the steam-curved wooden rim of the life-ring against green siding, he raised the lens back to the mother, just in time to catch the room behind her ignite and blast fire and hell out around her. The mother’s fall was one of the images that made the weekly paper. She trailed smoke as she fell from the window, she fell absolutely at the top of her young lungs, the sound freezing the blood of everyone who was not actively in the fight. It was more accident than anything else she landed on her back on the life ring. The Irishmen lowered the apparatus, an anonymous set of fire-coated arms scooped her up, carried her at a clumsy run for the squad. One of the pictures Bruce took ended up framed, in the firehouse. A fireman – full turnout – bunker pants, big black fireboots, coat and gloves and helmet, visor thrown back, his eyes fixed on the squad as if he could winch himself there with the sheer power of his gaze: the woman, curled up in his arms, eyes squeezed shut, hands fisted, drawn protectively into a fetal curl. Just shy of twenty years later, a rookie firefighter stood and studied an old, framed photograph on the display wall. He wore the red bib front shirt that was traditional attire for the Irish Brigade. His boondockers were polished to a high shine, he’d graduated from the Fire Academy with honors, he’d proven himself in a more urban department, but when the opening presented, he transferred to the Firelands fire department. He stared at the image of a fireman, turnout coat stained with experience, a look on his face that said I AM GOING HERE, AND HELL ITSELF WILL NOT STOP ME!, and the new guy looked at his mother’s image – impossibly young, beautiful, curled up and terrified. A hand gripped his shoulder. “I’m glad you were there that day,” the young man said softly, without turning to look. He knew whose hand it was. The old veteran firefighter’s hand tightened a little. “I’m glad I was there, too,” he said gently. “HEY MURPHY!” came the demanding shout. “YOU GONNA CUT THIS RETIREMENT CAKE OR WHAT?” An old veteran of the craft, and a young man just starting, looked at one another and laughed. “When in doubt,” Murphy grinned, even white teeth gleaming under his manicured handlebar mustache, “cut the cake!”

ELEGANT EFFECTIVENESS Marnie Keller sat across the round table from her diplomatic counterpart. Negotiations -- at least the formal negotiations -- were done for the day: she and the Chief Ambassador were comparing notes, each referring to notes they'd taken -- he, on a data tablet, Marnie in an actual notebook. They'd observed quietly, carefully, attentively, while pretending borderline boredom during the several meetings: now, here, in the quiet of their assigned quarters, they reconstructed the power structure of the governments with which they were working: who held the titles, who actually made the decisions, who had the influence, who the yes-men were. One meeting does not a complete picture make: there would be other meetings, unofficial groupings, in which both the Chief Ambassador and Marnie would be participating. Marnie slipped her halved steno book into a stasis pocket in her immaculate gown. The Ambassador was convinced she could, and probably did, conceal two shotguns, a team of horses and a broadsword in that beautifully fitted gown, thanks to a combination of seamstress's skill and Confederate technology: Marnie rose, stretched, twisted, twisted again, grimacing and then giving a very satisfied sigh. "I heard that," the Chief Ambassador muttered. "You should hear my Daddy when he twists like that," Marnie smiled, "or Mama, when Daddy picks her up and gives her a little shake -- brrrrp!" -- she trilled a vocal illustration as her finger traced up an invisible spine. The Chief Ambassador rose, gave Marnie a calculating look. "And tonight?" "Tonight," Marnie smiled, tapping her cheek thoughtfully with a gloved finger, "we are to dinner for conversation and the subtle swordsmanship of those who wish to turn us to their advantage." She lowered her head and gave the Chief Diplomat a knowing look. "I intend to dance a truly scandalous tango with my husband, who is coming in for the event. This will make me less an incisive diplomat and more a delectable morsel to be conquered, at least in the eyes of three particular men who've been holding back information we can use. Once they see my husband and I smoldering our way across the floor, and he expresses his regret afterward that he must leave and return to his medical practice, I plan to smile and tease and get men to talk without realizing they are telling me things they wish they'd kept secret." Marnie put her hands on womanly hips and took a seductive step toward the Chief Ambassador, looking sultry, wicked and tempting: she turned, turned back, and she was once again the professional, polite, calculating Ambassador. "You intend to dance a truly scandalous tango," the Chief Diplomat smiled, picking up his pearl-grey cover: he smiled thoughtfully as he studied the hatband as if it were suddenly interesting. "Isn't that a rather elegant way of saying you intend to charm them out of their eye teeth?" Marnie laughed quietly, sighed. "You know me so well," she murmured as an Iris opened beside her. Dr. John Greenlees stepped through, immaculate in a tailored suit: he inclined his head politely. "Chief Ambassador, "he murmured, "has my wife been behaving?" "Do I ever, darling?" Marnie murmured, leaning back into her husband's front, leaning her head back against his collar bone and reaching up to caress the side of his face. The Chief Ambassador sat, after Marnie and her husband departed: the reception would be starting, and soon, and of course the dance, afterward. He considered the obvious chemistry he'd just seen between husband and wife, and he smiled a little as he recognized that yes, men would see Marnie as all the more desirable after seeing her dance what would be a deliberately provocative, absolutely scandalous, profoundly seductive tango with her husband. She'd done it before, and with good results. Elegance, he thought as he moved toward the door. Elegance, and effectiveness.

BACON FOR BREAKFAST The honed edge of Maxwell steel shone bright in the moonlight. The blood was almost as bright and shining. The cut was not deep, but the cut was on the throat. The hand that laid over the Sheriff's wrist was cool, gentle, a woman's hand: he could not move, he could not resist as the hand pushed his wrist away, his hand with it, and with his hand, the knife. The Sheriff looked up at the glowing, partly-silhouetted face of Sarah Lynne McKenna, wearing a white nightgown with ruffles at the throat, ruffles darkening with her life's blood. Her face either glowed or moonlight played tricks: the sky above her, behind her, was black, with sharp, accusing light-daggers for stars. The Sheriff could not move. He lay on his blanket roll. Sarah sat a-straddle of his belly, her head tilted a little to the side, almost smiling. He blinked, horrified at what he'd done: the cut on her neck was shallow, but it was bleeding steadily, darkening the ruffled collar of her flannel nightie. Sarah's expression was gentle as she released his wrist. She reached up, pulled down her ruffled collar, ran a fingertip very precisely the length of the three-fingers-long, shallow, steadily bleeding cut. At her fingertip's passage, both incision and exsanguination disappeared. She lowered her hand, leaned forward, caressed his lightly stubbled cheek, whispered "Rest now," then she leaned down and kissed his forehead, and his eyes closed, and he relaxed. Esther Keller was awake with the sun. She was usually an early riser, but she was up earlier than usual -- the maid was distressed to find Herself already in the kitchen, staring out the window at meadow and mountains and frolicking colts. Esther turned with a gentle smile and raised a calming hand: "My husband slept in the mountains last night," she said, her voice gentle, "and I know the nightmares that plague him." The maid muttered worriedly about men who'll sleep on a stone bed rather than a warm one, men who'll leave their wives alone to worry for their well-being and not get a wink o' sleep, all the while firing the big Monarch stove, shaking ashes, carefully laying the gradual fire so as not to shock the cast iron and cause a heat crack: her sister unwisely fired a stove with hard coal, back East, and it cracked with a gunshot, and only the fact that the Master of the House was well into his cups, and thought it a good joke and quite funny, only his drunken, good natured roar that he was tired of that stove and they should have a new one on the morrow, saved her from the sack, or worse. Mary had tea as quickly as she could possibly arrange; water in the kettle was warm from the banked stove, and it did not take terribly long to boil, and all the time Mary was preparing tea and laying out bread and butter and preparing to fry up bacon and eggs, diced ham meat and diced onions and Mexican peppers, Esther stood at the kitchen window, looking to the lightening horizon, worrying for her pale eyed husband. The Rosenthal household was a study in feminine decorum. Levi Rosenthal, who'd married Bonnie McKenna when his no-good brother was murdered in Denver (good riddance! Levi thought uncharitably when he'd heard the news), was the sole rooster in a henhouse populated with what he honestly had to admit were genuinely, absolutely, utterly, beautiful ladies. Bonnie Lynne McKenna made it her personal mission to emerge from her bedroom fully dressed, fresh-faced with her hair elaborately done up, in a properly-fitted McKenna gown and matching gloves. Her daughters, her children, were as children everywhere: they learned by observation and by imitation, and so they, unfailingly, did not emerge from their own bowers of slumber until they, too, were styled, fully dressed, and presentable as Very Proper Young Ladies. Levi had always been tidy about his person; he'd been a businessman all his life, and he well knew the value of a proper presentation, a proper first impression, and so, here at breakfast, a man in a tailored suit and a properly knotted tie sat down for breakfast with his beautiful wife and three genuinely beautiful daughters. Their younger children begged to be allowed to sleep at a classmate's house; they would be along later in the day, but neither Levi nor Bonnie doubted that they would be as well dressed and as decorous as Bonnie, Sarah, Polly and Opal were at this moment. Bonnie blinked big violet eyes and looked at Sarah with an interested tilt of her head. "Sarah," she asked, "I know you're a light sleeper. Did you hear anything ... unusual ... through the night?" Sarah Lynne McKenna smiled, her eyes wide, innocent, pale as the Sheriff's: Bonnie swallowed, for she knew those eyes, and she knew why Sarah had those pale eyes, and there was an active conspiracy to keep the truth from Sarah until her next birthday -- at fourteen, she'd be old enough to be told. Not until. Sarah blinked, long, curved eyelashes sweeping almost audibly as she did. "I heard nothing ... unusual, Mother," she said, her voice gentle. Bonnie puzzled a little at this. "I thought ... I may have been dreaming," she finally murmured, "but I thought I heard a door, and a horse." "I dreamed a cow was looking at me last night," Levi said, laying his hand carefully over his wife's smooth-skinned knuckles: he smiled a little and looked at his daughters and winked. "There are few things more terrible than to be judged by a cow in the middle of the night!" Feminine laughter, subdued, gentle, a father's smile, a maid turning away so the family could not see her indecorous stifling of her own laugh: such was breakfast with the day's dawn, there in the Rosenthal household. Sarah hadn't lied. She'd heard nothing unusual. She'd crept barefoot down the stairs in her ruffle-collared, white-flannel nightgown, carrying her flat-heeled slippers: she'd saddled, she'd mounted, she'd ridden, following a call, a trace, she followed the nocturnal summons of a man who was fighting ghosts, a man tortured by nightmares, a man who lacked the wife who would lay a hand on his breast and absorb the horrors so he could fall back, exhausted, sweat-drenched, and sleep the rest of the night. Sarah hadn't lied. She'd heard nothing unusual the night before. She spoke but the truth, there at the breakfast table: the sounds she heard as she left the house were perfectly appropriate for someone slipping away unnoticed, and then returning unnoticed. Sheriff Linn Keller was reading the most recent communications to the Sheriff's Office when a sharp double-rap at the closed door seized his attention. He lay the letter down, turned the four-wheel swivel chair, rose: the heavy door opened and an old woman labored in, hunched over and on a cane, unsteady for even the few steps she took: she stopped, her long sleeves covering her hands, both hands laid over the heavy wooden cane's crook head, her face hidden by the heavy shawl pulled over her head. The woman finally turned a little, and with what seemed to be the last of her strength, managed to close the heavy door. The Sheriff swarmed out from around his desk, seized a straight-back chair, strode for the old woman. His visitor straightened -- smooth, youthful hands emerged from long, thread-worn sleeves, threw back the shawl -- Sarah Lynne McKenna, eyes bright and delighted, seized the astonished Sheriff in a delighted hug. "Did I fool you?" she asked, and her voice was that of a happy schoolgirl, and the Sheriff released the chair and seized his visitor and hoist her from the floor, laughing quietly -- he was a man of strong feelings, and the laughter he felt would normally have been expressed loudly and powerfully, but his cheek was against hers and his lips but an inch from hers: she felt his breath, warm on her ear, and she felt the tickle of his iron-grey mustache as he hoist her from the ground. He set her down, carefully, then frowned, as if a memory returned: he raised a hand, loosed her collar, drew it down, examining her neck quickly, pale eyes serious, as if expecting to find something. Sarah waited while strong fingers drew down the collar on the left of her neck -- then the collar at the right side of her neck -- he blinked, clearly uncertain. Sarah gave him those big, innocent eyes. "Is everything the way you remember it?" she asked quietly, then she reached up, traced a fingertip along her neck. A fresh cut -- raw, bleeding -- appeared. The Sheriff was a strong man. The Sheriff was a man not easily startled. The Sheriff's eyes widened. His hands came together, he seized the bedsheet kerchief from where he carried it in his sleeve -- the telltale habit of a military man -- Sarah's smile never diminished as she ran her fingertip over the bleeding cut, and it -- and the blood from it -- disappeared. Her hand raised, caressed his cheek, then ran around the back of his neck and pulled. Her pull was gentle, but she drew his head down to hers as easily as a plow horse might draw a postage stamp along behind it. "You have such nightmares," she whispered, "and I did not want you to suffer as you slept." She kissed his forehead, the way she'd done the night before, then she stepped back, threw the shawl back up over her head, picked up the cane from where she'd hooked it over the hardback chair he'd brought. A crippled-up old woman labored unsteadily out the door to the Sheriff's office, and onto the boardwalk, and as the Sheriff stared at the open door, he heard her cane and her heavy breathing, until it gained the end of the boardwalk, and was gone.

Alas, now that I've retired and entered what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle referred to as "a state of Genteel Poverty," my acquisitions have come to a fast, "I Hate Reality" halt! Otherwise I would be fulfilling my Great-Grandfather's incisive observation, when we were discussing guns we've had and guns we'd like to find: "I'm like a 'coon. If I sees it and it's shiny, I wants it!" 😁😁😁 As the wise man said, "I resemble that remark!"

HOW TO START A BEAR KILLER One man walked backwards, carefully, carrying the foot end of the ambulance cot. It was the funeral home's cot, the old Type 30 back breaker, the one every veteran medic detested. Modern ambulance cots had a powered lift, and had a hydraulic lift in the rig to bring the cot up and in, out and down, under power, without the need for the Olympic weightlifter's clean-and-jerk technique for raising or lowering a loaded cot. One man at its foot walked backwards, carefully: another of the Irish Brigade had him by the back of the belt, and was walking half-forward but mostly sideways, steadying his partner and acting as point man as they carried the unmoving, sheeted figure from the still-steaming wreck, across the ditch and up the bank, to the funeral home coach. The Bear Killer, all bright eyes and curious head tilt and curly black fur, watched with interest, managing to stay out of the way, but when the Sheriff received something small and scared, something that wrapped young arms around his neck and young legs around his waist, The Bear Killer's ears and tail came up. The Bear Killer danced along with the Sheriff, looking up at the little boy with a lost expression, a little boy whose cheek was laid over the Sheriff's shoulder, staring blankly, blinking occasionally, looking more lost than any child should ever feel. The Sheriff climbed into the back of the ambulance, sat on the squad bench. They made a few careful attempts to unwrap the child from around the Sheriff. Best they could do was get an arm free to take a blood pressure. The Bear Killer made three tries before he managed to boost himself into the back of the squad. The Sheriff rose, moved down a little, sat again, then patted the smooth tan upholstery: "Bear Killer, up," he said gently. The Bear Killer put two paws up on the squad bench, tilted his head, looked hopefully at the little boy holding onto the Sheriff as if his grip on the man was the only thing keeping him from falling off the face of the earth. Strong hands boosted the growing Mastiff up onto the bench. A whine, a nose, a lick: a scared little boy lifted his head from the Sheriff's left shoulder, looked across the lawman's front at something furry and black, with a busy tail and a hopeful expression. The child didn't make ER entry by being wheeled in on an ambulance cot. He was carried in by a long tall Sheriff who was not going to deny a child comfort after what had to be absolutely the worst day of the boy's young life so far. He'd been belted in, he'd been in the back seat: he had no obvious injuries and he hadn't said a word since the moment the Irish Brigade drove a pry bar into the gap by the door handle and made enough of a hole for a set of hydraulic jaws. He'd just set there and stared at what used to be his mother, fallen forward against the now-deflated air bag. The Sheriff lifted his chin, silently querying the ER nurse: she led the way to a treatment bay, tossed a pillow on the raised exam table. The Bear Killer stayed at heel, looking up. "I need your help," the Sheriff said gently -- almost whispering, the boy's ear was close to his lips, for he'd clung tightly again, sudden, desperate, as they pulled up to the ER dock. "This is The Bear Killer," the Sheriff almost-whispered, "and he's kind of scared. Do you think if I help him up and you down, that you can help him not be so scared? It would mean a lot to him!" The Sheriff bent, laid the boy down on the ER bed. "Okay, you're down. Let go and I'll get The Bear Killer up here with you." Young legs unwrapped, young arms released: a little boy's backside lowered to the flat sheet, a man's strong, reassuring hands carried his weight, warm and strong against the child's back: Linn bent, gripped The Bear Killer, swung him up in the bed with the boy. The Bear Killer cuddled up against the child's ribs, rested his cool, wet nose over the boy's shoulder, watching with button-bright eyes: his tail whap-whap-whapp'd against the bedsheet as a pink little hand spread over curly black fur. It was not quite proper medical protocol for a young mountain Mastiff to share an ER cart with a patient, but it was not quite proper protocol for a little boy to be in a crash that killed his mother: nobody there was about to object, as everyone there knew, or knew of, both The Bear Killer, and Snowdrift, the pure-white mountain Mastiff who was as well-trained (and effective) as her melanistic littermate. The Sheriff was there when the boy's father arrived. The Sheriff saw where the man wiped the wet from his eyes before coming in to see his son, to receive the doc's assessment. His son had not said the first word -- none of the Irish Brigade heard him speak, although he looked at doctors and nurses and technologists with bright and sometimes scared eyes, he never made the first sound. It wasn't until his father picked him up and said "The Doc says we can go home," that the boy twisted, reached an arm out toward the Sheriff. The Sheriff caught the young hand, pressed it carefully between his own, gave the boy a solemn wink. The Bear Killer had not abandoned his station on the ER cart. The Sheriff picked him up, brought him over and the little boy ran his hand awkwardly through The Bear Killer's curly fur. One of the nurses stood beside the Sheriff as they watched father and son leave, as they heard the slow, heavy steps of a man who'd just lost half of his living heart, but had to carry on for his son's sake, because that's what a father does. The Sheriff was still holding The Bear Killer, rubbing his ears as the restless pup reached up and licked his chin. "Is he a trained therapy dog?" the nurse asked, smiling a little as The Bear Killer gave her a happy doggy smile, his tail swinging happily through the air. "I'd say he's started," the Sheriff said quietly, as he considered that it wasn't just a grieving little boy that was benefitting from a warm and fuzzy Bear Killer's attentions.

(blush) (shoves hands in pockets) (ears turn red) (kicks dirt) ... thank'ee kindly ...

GLASS SACK Jacob Keller was not yet a Sheriff's deputy. Neither was his sister Marnie. Jacob and Marnie were, however, the oldest children of that pale eyed Sheriff who kept the county peaceable, or did his best to keep it that-a-way. Both pale eyed young had their chores taken care of; both saddled up, both rode off, confident in their safety, secure in the knowledge that -- if need arose -- they could disappear into the mountains and provide for themselves for however long that need might be. Today, though, Jacob had an idea, and he wished to explore it. Marnie saw Jacob ride off in the past, saw him come back with plastic trash bags partly filled, generally with a scowl and with quietly profane opinions about litter bugs and trashy sorts that ought to have their refuse dumped in the middle of their living room floor -- generally he'd look at his solemn faced sister and say something like "On the other hand they probably live like pigs and they'd never know the difference!" Once Jacob came back with a barely filled sack, one he was carrying very carefully: the sack was knotted, worse for wear, carried like it contained live rattlesnakes or maybe nitroglycerin: Marnie heard the crystal rasp of broken glass as Jacob carefully placed the ragged trash sack and its contents in a trash can. "Sis," he said, looking at Marnie with a carefully neutral expression, "if I keep findin' broken glass, I'll have to get me a glass sack!" Marnie raised an eyebrow, crossed her arms, gave her brother a skeptical look. Jacob could not help but grin and thrust his chin at her: "You look just like Mama when you do that!" Brother and sister laughed, and their laughter in clear air and sunshine was the magical charm that dispelled Jacob's clouded-brow pique. "I'll see what I can come up with," Marnie smiled. "I take it you were cleaning up broken glass and it cut through the sack." Jacob nodded, frowned, went around and rubbed his Apple-horse's jaw, whispered to him: Jacob's hands caressed their way down the stallion's neck, his ribs, back to his hind quarters: Jacob picked up the right hind hoof, pulled a little tool out of his pocket, scraped carefully at the horseshoe, tapped it a couple times before setting the hoof down, satisfied. "Did he step on glass?" Marnie asked in a worried voice -- she unfolded her arms, her eyes wide and concerned as she stepped up and caressed Apple-horse's long nose. The stallion pressed his forehead into her bodice, closing his eyes with pleasure: he'd done this as long as Marnie could remember, from his youngest days as a wobbly legged colt, first wandering away from his dam. "No," Jacob said quickly. "God be praised, no he didn't, but I swung his backside around and jumped down to check real quick!" -- he looked at the GI can -- "I threw a fast knot in that trash sack to close the hole and loaded it all back up again." "You're not the paid trash hauler, Jacob." "No," he agreed, "but broken glass doesn't break down and if I just leave it, someone's likely gonna get cut on it." Marnie nodded. "That's so." "I'll figure out somethin', sis," he said, his voice softer now. "Did you find anything interesting?" "You mean like that rusted to hell Remington under the trestle? No," he grimaced. "I don't know if the museum can use electrolysis to strip the rust or if it'll make a better exhibit as a fused red lump." Marnie nodded thoughtfully. "Where was that glass?" "Downstream from the trestle. It's heavy glass, most of it's kind of sun burnt purple. I guess it got washed out of the sand after a good rain." "All in one place?" "No. No, it was kind of strung out over a hundred yards of creek bed, and you know how boys like to run the creek bed!" Marnie smiled a little. When she and Jacob were much younger, they ran, laughing, fearless, barefoot up and down that same creekbed, looking for pirate treasures or whatever else young imaginations could come up with. "Pa said he checks under bridges right along regular with a big magnet. He said folks throw stolen goods off bridges to get rid of it." "Find anything good under the trestle?" "Nah. Just that rusted up Remington." Jacob Keller leaned over the plank railing of a bridge not far from town. The grass was a different shade of green, and the grass looked vaguely diffferent from what Jacob was used to seeing. He didn't pay it much attention. When Sheriff Jacob Keller was asked to help investigate a murder-and-theft near his father in law's ranch, he went and listened to what the local law knew, had found out, he listened to their suspicions, he nodded carefully, and he asked what was missing. "His daughter said a small safe was gone from the murder scene." "A safe," Jacob repeated. "About how big and how heavy?" He'd asked around, found another businessman with the same kind of safe: he asked to see it, tried it with a magnet, straightened, turned to his brother lawman. "I'll leave sound advice to the business owner, to your good sense," Jacob said quietly. "I want to try something." He strode from behind the counter, headed for the front door, long legs striding quickly toward his tethered stallion: he bent his wrist to his lips, spoke quietly, his words bringing a puzzled frown to the local constable's forehead. "Sis, do you know where Pa keeps that big fishing magnet of his?" Jacob Keller tossed the big square magnet upstream, line slipping from between leather-gloved fingers: he drew it back, slowly, carefully. So far he'd gathered a furry covering of natural ferrite, he'd recovered a cinder looking rock he thought might be a meteor, and he'd brought up almost a handful of square cut nails. He worked patiently, methodically: a safe was heavy and likely it would have gone over from dead center of the bridge, right where the stream pooled beneath. It wasn't there. It was actually about twenty feet down stream. Jacob worked his way downstream until he hit whatever this heavy object was, then he brought in a hover and used it to winch whatever-this-was, straight up out of the water. It was the safe. It took some forensics, but fingerprints were actually raised from the water-immersed safe: Jacob heard later they'd gotten a confession, the murderer was overheard talking about the job with his partner: Jacob returned to help with the interrogation, and as he told Marnie later, "When I came in that interrogation room and just stood there and looked at the two of 'em, they kind of give up and spilled the beans." Marnie gave her pale eyed brother a gentle look. "Jacob," she said, her voice soft, "Angela can persuade a paving brick to recite the Gettysburg Address. She charms her way through an interrogation." Marnie tilted her head, smiled a little, then laughed. "All you have to do is go in there and give them those cold eyes of yours and they're convinced you're going to fillet them on the spot if they don't sing like a mine canary!"

"Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!"

THE LADY'S FACIAL Sheriff Linn Keller twisted his head to the side. A thick-bladed knife drove into the packed dirt where his left eye had been a tenth of a second earlier. The Sheriff brought his knees up -- hard -- hooked a heel around his attacker's throat, just as something landed on the man's back -- something with pale eyes, bared teeth, something sizzling like a she-cat, attacking with all the ferocity of a mother panther protecting one of her pride. Sarah Lynne McKenna, the pretty young daughter of Bonnie Lynne McKenna, came out of the Mercantile with her Mama and her twin sisters, Polly and Opal: three lovely ladies, fashionably dressed, their purchases stacked in an orderly fashion in the back of their shining-clean buggy. Bonnie took a long step from the boardwalk into the carriage, then turned and started to reach for a daughter. Sarah waited for no such convention. As a matter of fact, she abandoned the family unit altogether. Sarah Lynne McKenna launched off the boardwalk and hit the packed dirt street running. She'd witnessed something she never thought she'd see in her lifetime. A man slipped up behind the Sheriff, punched him hard in the back of the head, drew a knife. Something in Sarah ignited. She went from a demure, ladylike, soft-spoken, very proper Young Lady, the daughter of a woman of business and culture, to a pastel streak, blazing diagonally across the street. She did not just run. Her mind was screaming like a steam locomotive at full throttle, lifted from the tracks by a giant's hand. She ran a fast inventory of her entire on-board armory. She was a schoolgirl. She did not have so much as a hatpin to fight with. She had something better. She had a brain. She did not slow as she came past the horse trough: she dropped a clawed hand, scraped up a handful of fresh, cold mud, she ran up the attacker's back as he leaned over the Sheriff, knife upraised. Sarah seized him around the neck, drove a handful of mud into the attacker's wide-open eyes, into his nose, between his teeth: she threw herself to the side, then released, hit the ground, rolled. It was all the opening the Sheriff needed. It took Sarah a moment to get her hands pressed against the street, to come up on fingertips and toes and jump into the air like a startled housecat, and by then the Sheriff was facing his attacker and performing what would be politely known as the "Laying On of Hands." Sarah heard the phrase in church, and she'd read of it in Scripture, though she doubted mightily if the Sheriff's version of "Laying On of Hands," was the kind the Parson referred to. Sarah circled warily, making her way back to the horse trough, washed her hands carefully, delicately, careful not to immerse her ruffled cuffs in cold water, nor to drag them across its algae-slimed rim: she backed up, slinging the cold from her fingertips, as the Sheriff just honestly pounded the dog-stuffing out of his would-be murderer -- he got in close and beat the living hell out of the mud-blinded attacker with elbows, knees, then boot heels. The Sheriff's personal philosophy was to not start a fight, but to never lose one; he long maintained there are no rules in a fight, beyond win: anything was fair, and if someone was foolish enough to pick a fight with the man, he made it his personal business to beat them so badly that -- next they saw him on the street -- they'd cross the street to avoid coming close to him. It wasn't until after the Sheriff wound down, not until after he was done stomping on the man's hands and kicking in a few ribs, not until he was satisfied this attacker would not be getting up anytime soon, that he saw the knife. It took a while for his attacker to heal up enough to appear in court on a charge of attempted murder. Witnesses were called, Bonnie McKenna among them, and -- to the general surprise of the onlookers -- Bonnie's daughter Sarah. Sarah rose and crossed the small space in front of the Judge's desk and was sworn in as formally as if she were adult: she sat in the witness chair as if she were the Queen, and her hardwood chair was a padded throne: dignified and not at all intimidated, despite wearing the short skirts of a schoolgirl, she added her sworn testimony. "I saw that man" -- she lifted an accusing finger to the visibly-worse-for-the-encounter defendant -- "hit the Sheriff in the back of the head with his fist, and I saw that man" -- again the accusing finger rose, steady, accusing as a gunbarrel -- "pull a knife and stand over the Sheriff." "What happened then?" "I ran to help him." "You ran ... to help, or you ran for help?" Sarah's glare was as frosty as anything a grown woman might've given: she lifted her chin a degree and said coldly, "I believe I spoke clearly." "Yes, of course," the attorney harrumphed. "Please continue." "I carried no weapons. I could not stab nor shoot, so I did what I could." "Which was ...?" "I scraped up a handful of mud from beside the horse trough, I ran up his back and I gave him a good face full!" Sarah declared, raising her voice, her hands closing tight with the memory. "You .. gave him a face full ... of mud?" The attorney stopped, stared at this unexpected, loudly stated declaration. "Right in the eyes, up his nose and in his mouth," Sarah snapped. "If he can't see, he can't fight well. I had him around the neck, I jumped off sideways and that pulled him off balance and then I let go so the Sheriff could finish the job." "I ... yes." The attorney looked at His Honor the Judge, who was hiding a smile behind a cupped hand. "Nothing further, Your Honor." It wasn't until after the trial's conclusion, after His Honor pronounced sentence and swung the gavel, not until court was adjourned, that His Honor had the Bailiff bring Sarah back over to the bench. His Honor stepped down from the small elevated platform his bench was built on: he regarded Sarah with calculating eyes, then squatted, his knees audibly protesting the move. "Sarah," he asked quietly, "I don't believe I ever knew of a young lady using mud as a weapon!" he said gently. "Why ever did you use that approach?" Sarah blinked innocently, raised her eyebrows, lowered her head a little and said in a confident whisper, "That bad man is kind of ugly, Your Honor. We women use facials to improve our complexion. I knew the Sheriff would take his measure but I felt sorry for him so I decided to give him a mud facial and improve his looks a little!" Sarah Lynne McKenna, whispering in the fabricated voice tones of a little girl, winked at the Judge, backed up a step and curtsied, pirouetted on her toes and skipped across the courtroom to where her Mama waited.

When Sheriff Willamina Keller exercised in her living room, this is the music she had BLASTING out of a BIG set of speakers. She drove herself mercilessly, for reasons of her own, perhaps she was punishing herself. God knows she'd seen hell enough, personally and professionally. Anyway -- here's the music she chose! Apocalyptica - Hall of The Mountain King (Official Video) (Apparently You Tube won't allow me to imbed the vid, so this is the link, my apologies!)