Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

My wife was driving our little bitty Nissan pickup, coming home from work, just after midnight on a county road. A whitetail deer did much worse to that little Nissan that your Texas deer did to your much better built Jimmy. I went to scene with a .22 pistol in case a coup de gras was needed; it wasn't. State Trooper apologized for the delay in arriving; it seems four deer started at the northern edge of the county, headed south, running in a pack. Every time they crossed a roadway, one of them got hit. This was the fourth of four. Oh, here's the fun part: when she hit the deer, it was just rolled over into ... April Fool's Day. (The trooper was a hell of a nice fella. I was still six foot two and he was most of a full head taller than me, and when he climbed out of his cruiser I greeted him with, "Ain't this a terrible way for friends and neighbors to get together?" and got a chuckle out of the man, things were immediately relaxed and he was happy he didn't have to deal with upset folks yet again!)

TO BEAT THE MONSTER A shiny purple Jeep eased into the police range, parked close to the benches. There was just enough misty miserable rain to soak your shoulders if you were out in it for any length of time. A set of pale eyes stared bleakly through the windshield. Nobody else was there: Dana unlocked the gate and drove in, locked the gate behind her: she did not want company, and the only people who might show up, would have the key to the lock, and would therefore be authorized. Dana sat alone, listened to the wind gust against her Jeep, heard it singing as it caressed the antennas: the mist was fine enough it was inaudible as it hit the passenger window, eventually gathered enough to run down in hesitant, irregular streaks. Dana Keller climbed out of her Jeep, locked it, walked up to the little white painted shed with the corrugated tin roof: she unlocked the door, grabbed the nearest target, the one she wanted. It was a rather worse for wear, flesh colored human torso, armless, on a wheeled dolly. Dana wheeled it out , towed it behind her as she trudged through wet, packed gravel, set it at about ten feet. Just like he was that night. Dana Keller went back to her Jeep, unlocked the back door, swung the door open and the hatch up and pulled out her shotgun. She'd drawn the oldest shotgun in the Sheriff's armory, the one used for training, the one that saw the most rounds, the greatest wear, the one that had been used on raids, on the road, the one that was worn enough and loose enough the Sheriff didn't want it in a cruiser, and so the stock was painted yellow and the word TRAINING stenciled on either side. Dana knew the Sheriff planned to replace all the shotguns at once, and soon: she also knew that this old residenter, this experienced, pretty well worn out old scatter gun, was likely the one least valuable gun they had. Except for one they didn't have anymore, a High Standard with mechanical issues. That gun wouldn't work unless it was held upside down, which saved a rookie officer's life on dark night when he was distracted and the gun stripped from his hands: the first round went into the starry sky as his trigger finger reflexively tightened when the other guy grabbed the gun and jerked, and as he backed up and his assailant tried without success to jack the action, the greenhorn drew his sidearm and put six rounds of issue Parabellum into the attacker's wishbone, just like that pale eyed old Sheriff taught him. Dana set the box of 00 buck on the bench beside her, worked the cardboard flap loose, swung it up. She looked at the plastic simulacrum facing her, mindlessly thumbing round after round into the extended magazine. That's about the distance they were, she thought, and she remembered that night of horror, that night of violation, that night of violence -- her cheekbone was still sore where she'd been slugged, but nowhere near as tender as those areas inside -- those bruises on her eternal soul -- those injuries of the spirit, hidden, unseen. For a moment, for one bare moment, she felt again that horrible realization that she'd hesitated. She hesitated, and that's when they grabbed her, when they beat her, when they did more, much more, much worse. Dana felt her chest tighten, she felt short of breath -- And then she just plainly came unglued. Deputy Sheriff Dana Keller, the pretty young daughter of that pale eyed Linn Keller, saw her attacker, the first one, the one that surprised her and frightened her, and Dana drove four fast charges of military issue Double-Ought into the punished plastic: she did not retreat, she did not look for cover, she advanced, firing as she went, round after round driving into her memory, until the gun was empty: Dana drove the gun's muzzle into what was left of the mannikin's face, swung the butt up for a butt stroke, drove the butt of the gun down onto the collar bone: she was a raging, raving machine, dead silent, the screaming she heard in her ears was locked deep in her throat, but the absolutely deadly nature of her assault could not be denied. Sheriff Willamina Keller, her grandmother, arranged to train with the French Foreign Legion while she was in Afghanistan: Dana didn't quite know how the Legion Etrangere figured into that campaign, but she accepted that her Gammaw sought out the best instructors when she wanted to know something. Her Gammaw learned the Legion's method of close-in fighting, using the rifle as a weapon: she was compact, she was wiry, she was fast, and when she came home, she taught this system to her pale eyed son (her husband disdained to learn anything of the kind ... he was, after all, FBI, and the Bureau taught him everything he could possibly need!) -- Linn, in turn, taught each of his children, with turned-hickory riot batons at first, then with surplus military rifles, built for abuse. Now Dana turned her badger loose. She saw her attackers, she saw the monsters who did things to her that should never be done to any girl, any woman: she emptied the shotgun into their memory, into the dummy, as she advanced, she laid into it with muzzle and butt, until her vision was hazy and she was straddling the knocked-over mannikin, holding what was left of the barreled action across its throat, snarling as she choked the life out of it, until a feminine hand gripped her shoulder and a gentle voice murmured, "I think he's dead now." Dana was a woman of Keller blood. Dana was a pale eyed warrior who'd bled, and who'd drawn blood. Dana was wounded, deeply wounded, but a wound too soon enclosed is a wound that festers, and has to be lanced, has to be drained. Dana staggered to her feet, fell to her knees: she bent, blindly reaching for the broken, yellow painted buttstock: she gasped and choked her way back to her Jeep, she threw what used to be a worn out old riot gun into the back of her Jeep, closed hatch and back door and got as far as the driver's door before she collapsed on the wet ground. It took her a half hour of crying like a lost child, of screaming into her steering wheel, before she felt steady enough to drive. Angela was waiting for her when she pulled up into the space at the Sheriff's office. She went out into the misting wind, waited while Dana staggered to the back of her Jeep, looking like she'd been dragged backwards through Hell and a McCormick Reaper: Dana pulled out the broken shotgun, stared at splintered wood with wide, shocked eyes, looked at her sister. "Did you face the monster?" Angela asked. Dana looked at her, nodded, shivering. "Come on inside where it's warm. We'll donate these in the parts bin." Angela ran a hand under her little sister's near arm, her other arm across Dana's shoulders, steadying her. "I wondered how long it would take you to beat it." They were inside, sipping coffee: Angela had a blanket around her little sis's wet shoulders, waited patiently as Dana sat there with her head hanging over the steaming mug. "Thank you for being there," Dana gasped. "Your ... hand on my shoulder ... I needed that." Angela frowned, tilted her head. "Come again?" "At the range. When you told me you thought he was dead enough." Angela's eyebrow twitched up and she looked curiously at her stil-shivering sister. "Dana, I've been here all day. I haven't set foot outside until you pulled up." Dana's head came up, her eyes wide, and then they both saw something that hadn't been on the conference room table a moment earlier. A single, fresh-cut rose, a bright-scarlet rose with drops of misty-wet on its soft, fragrant petals. Two pale eyed sisters looked at one another, and suddenly they realized who it was that brought a troubled girl, a moment's comfort.

FOOT PATROL It was a rare day, it was a pleasant day, it was a sunny day with little wind: Chief of Police Will Keller took a deep, appreciative breath, paced off on the left, spit-shined boondockers silent on rubber soles and heels. Will chuckled as he remembered himself as a green-as-spring-grass rookie, trying to spin his baton on its lanyard, trying to bump its end hard enough on the sidewalk to bounce it up into his hand: he'd seen that on TV once, and hard as he'd try, he never could get it to work right, so he gave it up for a bad job. The few times he did try, his enthusiasm was greater than his precision, and he'd succeeded in driving the end of his turned-hickory baton into the side of his foot. Nowadays Will didn't try for anything showy: winter had washed much of the color from his close-cropped hair, leaving the stains of many snows behind -- either that, or his body was recycling again. His twin sister Willamina once told him about how well the body recycles resources, and Will wryly suggested maybe the grey hairs he was starting to sprout, were brain cells that got kicked out because they didn't work anymore so his body was recycling them as grey hairs, and he and his pale eyed twin sis laughed quietly. Will did not walk with the disciplined, precise stride of the military man; his carriage was erect, he carried his years very well, and he lacked the "Equatorial Bulge" he'd once confided to Willamina that he dreaded -- he worked hard enough to keep it off! -- his uniform trousers and uniform blouse were sharply creased, and he looked almost like someone's kindly old grandfather out for a morning stroll. Grandfatherly, that is, if you disregarded such things as the badge, the whistle-hook and whistle, the blued-steel, engraved Smith & Wesson on his belt, and the snugly cinched duty belt it rode on. Two little boys were crouched on the corner, looking curiously at an anomaly in the sidewalk. It had been there for years; the town industriously put a redwood planter in the middle of where the glass-and-aluminum phone booth used to stand. One boy turned his head, squinted one eye shut: "Hi, Chief," he piped, "what's this for?" Will stopped, hunkered, regarded the concrete phenomenon dirty young fingers were exploring. "That's a rain guard," he said. "Huh?" Two little boys looked at him, noses wrinkled with confusion, the way little boys will. "Do you ... no, you probably don't remember when we had a phone booth here." Two little boys looked at one another, confused at the unfamiliar term. "There's one in the museum," Will offered. "Oh, yeah!" one said. "You can get inside an' ... an' ... but the phone don't work." "It doesn't?" Will asked, his voice gentle, encouraging as he laid a warm hand on the lad's hunched-over back. "Nah. I tried it. I pushed all the numbers around that rounder thing an' all I got was a dial tone!" Will chuckled, patted the lad in a fatherly manner: "I'll show you how that rounder thing works one of these days," he said, rising; his knees crackled their cartilaginous protest as he did. Will saw the drugstore's proprietor watching. The drugstore's front door was recessed in from the sidewalk, with glass walls on either side of the foyer it formed: Will stepped inside. "Morning, Bob." "Morning, Will." Bob Parsons thrust a chiseled chin at the two still-hunkered boys, a moment before the rose and ran, laughing and yelling, up the sidewalk. "I wish I had their energy," he chuckled, shaking his head. "Willa once said if you'd put parabolic collectors around the schoolhouse playground, you could catch enough childish energy to power the town's electrical needs for a year!" "Don't doubt it one bit," Bob sighed. "What were they lookin' at?" "Do you remember when Old Blue used to live in the phone booth?" Bob smiled -- he had a broad, natural, contagious smile, he was a good-natured man, probably because he'd seen enough hell during the War in Europe. "Blue pretty much lived in here during the winter," Bob said softly, his eyes going to a place by the baseboard: the window seat was a display now, but back when, high school kids would sit in it and soak up as much of the thin winter sun as they could, eat ice cream, and watch snow falling outside. "I remember Old Blue used to sleep there." Bob nodded, smiled, just a little, the way a man will when he remembers. "In good weather he'd sleep in that phone booth. The door never closed more than halfway unless you helped it." "I remember." "I laid up that cement dam to keep runoff water from runnin' into the ... from ..." Bob swallowed, looked away. "Didn't want old Blue gettin' wet, y'understand." "I understand." Will's voice was gentle. "The boys were lookin' at your hand laid dam." Bob nodded. "I'm glad they set a planter in the middle of it. Lookin' at that dam kind of reminds me of Blue, y'know?" Will nodded, thinking of the several dogs he'd known and loved in his own lifetime. "Yeah, Bob," he agreed. "I know." Will resumed what appeared to be a casual meander up the street. Will preferred foot patrol whenever possible. It wasn't possible out in the county, of course, but the county was someone else's jurisdiction: he had the town, he had his white Crown Vic cruiser if need be, but on a lovely morning like this, he preferred Shank's Mares for his transportation. His morning pass included the Mercantile, his quiet observation of two retirees frowning over a game of checkers on the nail keg, with another nail keg on either side for seats: Will's quick eye noted the tassel on one, and he knew both men were seated on the thick cushions he'd had Crystal sew up for him, back when ... back when his beautiful bride was just that, before the brain tumor that took her from him: he blinked to dispel the memory, turned, walked silently into the Mercantile. The proprietor turned as the door's spring-mounted bell tinkled cheerfully: "Will, you'll want to look at this," he called happily, turning. "I just got in my new shipment of fly rods!" "Myyyyy goodness," Will said admiringly, running his eyes from the shining-new reel, the length of the flexible, responsive rod. "You'd have to know what you're doin' to run such a fine machine, Gary, and that leaves me out!" Gary gave the rod an experimental flip, his expression that of a man who knows what it is to stand in waders, in a cold mountain stream, trying to land a Royal Coachman in just the right spot to drift past a hungry trout. "Everything goin' all right?" Will asked, looking around. "Right as rain," Gary replied, carefully setting the rod on the display rack. "You?" Will rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Gary," he admitted, "I laid awake all night tryin' to think of a big lie to tell you and just absolutely nothing came to mind." Gary laughed, shook his head: "You're not supposed to imitate my bad examples!" Will chuckled his way out of the Mercantile: he saw a familiar truck coming down the street, he stepped out, waved it to a stop. "Jim," he said as the window cranked down, "Gary just got a new shipment of fly rods in. You might want to take a look at 'em." Will winked, stepped away, knowing Gary was going to make a sale, and within the next few minutes, if he was any judge. Will's arrival in the town library was greeted with a God's honest juvenile mobbing: he went down on one knee, opened his arms and had more grade-school kids hugging into him than he could encompass with both arms wide: his arrival was not at all by accident, for he knew Ezra Shaver, the third grade teacher, walked her class down to the local library every week to pick out books, and sometimes to hold lessons in the back room: she believed active young minds benefitted from a change of surroundings while still being taught, and Will believed it delighted his fatherly old widower's heart to receive the happy greeting of clean-scrubbed, shining young faces. The Mayor discussed this with him, once, and Will said such things as "community relations" and "open lines of communication" and "building a trust and a rapport," and the Mayor nodded: this appealed to his politician's sense of re-election, and he reasoned that if the Chief were well liked, he would, by extension, be well-thought-of for keeping such a man on payroll. Will's first loop ended here: he directed his steps back toward the Municipal Building, but not before stopping in the Silver Jewel Saloon. Like other pale eyed lawmen through the ages, he came in silently, took a step to the side: the wall was to his back, stairs to his left, the hotel desk and then the bar ahead of him: Tilly (her name was actually Tina, but whoever worked behind the hotel desk was automatically "Tilly," just as whoever was tending bar, male or female, was "Mr. Baxter) -- Tilly smiled up at him, her body language was relaxed, without any sign of tension. Will winked at her -- he'd dated her mother, back when -- he went on into the saloon proper, laid a dollar bill on the counter, looked around. Mr. Baxter (who was one of the new barkeeps, a cute girl who hadn't gotten her McKenna gown sewn up yet) smiled and poured Will a steaming mug of coffee. She leaned against the bar, looked at him with big, inviting eyes: "Go on, say it," she murmured. "A priest, a rabbi and a preacher walk into a bar," Will grinned. "And they all yelled OUCH!" Will spread his hands in mock dismay. "You've heard it!" "Chief," the lovely young woman with long, curled eyelashes asked as Will sipped his coffee, "you are the only man in this place who has never made a pass at me!" Will looked at her, surprised, then smiled gently, leaned against the bar, spoke in a quiet, confidential voice. "Darlin'," he said, "I did give it some thought." "Really?" she asked, lowering her lashes seductively and settling her chin on her wrist-bent knuckles. "Oh, yes," Will murmured, "but I had to consider ... at my age, a hot woman and a cold glass of water and I'd die of a heart attack!" They both smiled -- they did not quite laugh -- she gave him a speculative look and said, "Don't sell yourself short." Will continued on down the street, warmed by hot coffee and chuckling at how he'd actually felt his pulse pick up when she told him not to sell himself short. "You'll not go there," he said to himself. A Shepherd dog looked at him from deeper in the alley -- ears up, head up, tail swinging hopefully. Will extended a hand and the black-and-brown canine came bouncing happily down the alley, stopped, dancing a little on his forepaws, the expression of canine delight. "Why hello there," Will said softly, squatting and rubbing this new acquaintance's ears and neck. No collar, he thought, no sign one's been worn. That's odd. "You hungry, fella?" The Shepherd licked his chops hopefully. "Let's get you something, hey?" The Shepherd's hind quarters swung with his thick tail as he expressed his approval. Bob Parsons looked out the window. One of the little boys that had been examining his rain dam, was running across the street. Across the street, at the mouth of the alley, the Chief of Police was standing, suddenly, his arm out-thrust, mouth open, obviously in a shout, a command. Bob felt his stomach shrink. Something brown streaked across the street, something fast moving with lots of teeth: Bob stood, shocked, as a big German Shepherd seized a little boy's backside at full charge, twisted, spun: child and canine both rolled, just as a car came to a tire-screaming stop, most of a car-length through where the boy had been a moment before. Chief of Police Will Keller came over, picked up the lad, dusted him off, then turned and rubbed the grinning, tongue-hanging, tail-swinging Shepherd dog. "Good boy," he murmured. "Goooood booooy!" Young fingers explored the seat of his blue jeans. "Any holes?" Will asked. "Nah," the boy said, grinning. "That was fun!" Will laughed, shook his head: a memory, faint with time, of saying something similar after an event that left adults paled and shaking. Bob Parsons came out: "Will, is he okay?" Will's arm was draped over the Shepherd-dog's shoulders, a warm tongue happily laundered the lawman's jaw, knocked his eight point milkman's hat askew: Will removed his uniform cap, grinned at the storekeeper. "Everything's fine!"

LEAVES Chief of Police Will Keller knew the woman. Chief of Police knew her little boy. The woman's husband taught at the high school. Will knew him too. The man had a gift for reaching troubled boys: he could connect with any of them, and that, Will knew, was a gift, and a rare gift at that! The woman was on her knees and she was swallowing hard and reaching into her purse, the way a woman will when she's about to start crying and she wants to hide behind a handkerchief. The boy was standing on the sidewalk, looking up at the leafed-out tree in front of the drugstore. His hands were to his face, he wore a brand-new pair of glasses, and he was just standing there. Chief of Police Will Keller walked up to the woman, went down on one knee: she was pressing a lace-edged kerchief to one closed eye, then the other, before lowering her own glasses back into place. "Eleanor," he whispered, "are you okay?" Eleanor looked at her five year old son, and Will followed her gaze. Will nodded with understanding a moment later, when the little boy spoke, but at the moment his attention was on Eleanor. "We knew Bobby ... had problems," she said, "balance and always running into things, and ... we thought... we didn't know he was almost blind." Will nodded, his eyes on her knuckles as she crushed the damp kerchief in her grip. "We're just ... he ... his first pair of glasses." Will looked over to young Bobby. He was standing dead still, looking up at the tree, hands gripping the glasses he wore, a look of absolute wonder on his young face. "The optometrist said his eyes were so bad ... it was like he was underwater all the time." She looked at Will and started crying again. "I never knew it was that bad, Will. I never realized it!" Chief of Police Will Keller gathered Eleanor into him, held her while she sorrowed her guilt into his shoulder. He looked up at little Bobby. He saw Bobby's wondering expression split into a grin, and Will heard this child's voice, full of marvel, full of discovery. Bobby looked up into the tree, his hands still gripping these magical glasses that let him see clearly for the very first time in all his entire young life, and Will had to swallow hard as he heard a six year old boy's words. "So that's what leaves look like!"

Still standing up on my knees for you and Schoolmarm! Delighted and just plainly pickled tink at your good report on her restored kidney function! Now let's get your hind hoof fixed and will be interested to see if the don't-leave-it-open-this-time approach is helpful! (Imis, haven't forgotten you, pard, you are still included!)

My wife loves the Butter Lovers variety. Me, I'll dump the bag of popped corn into a big stainless bowl, give it a few shakes of soy sauce, lime pepper and powdered Parmesan cheese, stir or shake until mixed ... one of my few guilty pleasures!

Me dear Pappy hand built me a flint rifle when I was yet a beardless youth. Still have it, still shoot it. Always used leather to hold the flint. Reading this and considering how well lead would likely work ... I am feeling like smacking myself on the forehead and exclaiming "Why didn't I think of that!"

THE PREACHER, PART TWO Ambassador Marnie Keller crossed her legs, standing, then went down, gracefully, Indian-legged beneath her long skirt: Michael cuddled up on one side of her, Victoria on the other. Dr. John Greenlees Jr. sat more conventionally, in a chair, their blanket wrapped infant in his arms: the medicine man was grinning like a big-eared kid as he looked down at the arm-waving, blinking, well-fed little boy: young John Jr. gave a truly huge yawn, closed his eyes and was asleep, just that fast. Sheriff Linn Keller picked up the Journal, opened it, set the Eight of Diamonds bookmark on his desk. "Where were we," he said thoughtfully as Angela Keller came in, gripped her sister's shoulders, bent and whispered "Thank you for coming, it means so much to Daddy!" -- and Dana slipped in with her, coming around the other side of Linn's desk and parking herself on the floor after the fashion of both her big sisters. Linn looked around -- from his left, around, to well to his right, nodded. "Jacob is settling a dispute," Marnie offered, "otherwise he'd be here!" Linn nodded. "I understand," he said, a note of sadness in his voice: he too had missed events and occasions, because of the demands of his job. He looked back to the Journal, traced nail-trimmed fingers across the page, found his place, read. Jacob Keller knew his Pa had a soft spot for stray dogs and lost kids. Jacob stopped and grinned when he came into his Pa's study. Two pale eyed men in black suits, two men with iron grey mustaches, sat with a child on his lap, grinning -- their walls were down, their defenses, asleep: they were two men, each with a happy little child, and the sight took Jacob very much by surprise. He'd known his Pa in such moments. He and his Pa had shared quiet moments, sitting side by side on a log or a fence rail, talking quietly in voices gentle. Here, Jacob saw two men who looked enough alike to be twins, quietly delighted in the company of a wee child, laughing on their lap. Jacob stopped, drew the door to behind him: he stood, ribbon-tied papers in hand, his hands crossed before him. He had business from Mr. Moulton, his father's attorney, but it could wait. Jacob was not about to interrupt the moment's happiness, for he well knew the times in his father's life when happiness had been far from him indeed. Two pale eyed men looked at him, looked at one another: they rose, an apple-cheeked child in their careful grip: each man brought the child's face close to his own, twiddled his mustache against the giggling little face, then set them down: the maid discreetly opened the door, received the happy, laughing little boy and the equally delighted little girl, closed the door behind, leaving the men to their business. One of the men stood; the other raised a summoning hand. Jacob could tell which was his father, but he also realized the resemblance was so striking that a stranger would have difficulty indeed telling this Stone Creek parson from the Sheriff. Jacob crossed the room, his back straight, his step confident, his chin up: he presented his father with the papers without comment. "Join us," Linn said quietly: a small round table had been moved into the room, and the three brought chairs around it for their council of war. Linn carefully untied the red ribbon, tossed it over the back of another chair, where it slithered out of sight, probably coiled and piled on the velvet seat: the Sheriff's attention was on the paper work, fresh from the legal office of Moulton & Son. He smiled a little as he did, a smile that didn't extend beyond the corners of his eyes: Mr. Moulton and Tillie had become an item, and word has it Tillie was with child, and Moulton told the Sheriff in confidence that his first child would be a son, he would countenance nothing else! -- Linn looked over at Tillie, who looked at her husband with a wife's patient and understanding eyes, and Linn grinned, openly this time: he'd said the same with his own wife, knowing full well he'd be just as delighted in a little girl he could spoil outrageously as a son he could raise in his own image. Preacher Keller waited silently: the man could have been a carved statue. Linn looked over one paper, another: he nodded, ran pale eyes down a third page: he handed the three pages to his cousin. Jacob watched the two men carefully. His father, as usual, was as wooden faced as a cigar store Indian. The Parson was almost as expressionless, at least until he got to the third page: a slow smile spread across the man's face, he looked at Jacob, handed him the three pages, accepted two more from the Sheriff. "Jacob," he said, satisfaction richening his quiet-voiced words, "we've got 'em!" Jacob's jaw slid out and he nodded, once. A red-faced man's angry fist slammed into his desktop. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY SOLD OUT!" "Just that, Mr. Shaw. They sold all interest in both businesses before their death." "I DON'T BELIEVE IT! WHERE'S THAT KID OF THEIRS!" "We sent three men to get him, sir, but they haven't returned." "FIND 'EM AND FIND THAT KID! I WANT THAT MINE AND I WANT THAT BRICK WORKS!" A knock on the door: the hired girl held up a folded note with a red-wax seal, held it before her like a shield against the angry blast that was sure to follow. "A message, sir," she said with a dip of her knees: she closed her eyes against the angry wave of harsh words, she crossed the room, started to place the note on his desktop: he snatched it from her, she dipped her knees again, turned, snatched at her skirts and almost ran out of the room. "Damned bog-Irish," the red-faced man muttered. He opened the note, read it, anger plowing deep furrows into his puffy forehead: he read it again, one finger across his upper lip like a tobacco-stained mustache. He lowered his hand, his eyes hard. "What is it?" his son asked. "The stupid --" The man bit off his angry words, thrust from his chair, knocking the wooden seat over behind him: he stomped over to the wavy-glass window, thumping the heel of his fist against the window frame in a steady, angry, glass-rattling rhythm. "I don't understand," his son protested. "So his boy is in an orphanage. We adopt him out --" "What do you think I was doing?" came the snarled riposte. "Adopt him and get his inheritance! Damn that meddlin' preacher --" "It says here he's gone to Firelands with the boy." "Get your hat. Train leaves right shortly." "Should I get someone to come with us?" "Bring Hoghead. He'll be enough." "You sent the man a note?" "I had Mr. Moulton send one." "What said the good lawyer?" "I explained the situation to the man. He agreed with me that Charles has lost too much already, and when I told Moulton I was sawed off and damned if I'd see him in a sham adoption so some shyster could get what his parents honestly earned, Moulton said he knew how to head him off. He's already filed the papers at the State level. It's official. His parents died ... intestate, I think the word is ... by our reckoning, when they died they were so poor they couldn't afford to pay attention." "What about the payment you gave them to buy their business interests?" "I hadn't taken the cash money to them yet. It's here, and Charles is here to accept it." "A little boy will have little use for that kind of cash, Sheriff." "We'll figure something out," Linn said: Jacob heard a note of satisfaction in his voice. "Sssooo ..." Preacher Keller said slowly, "you had an attorney draw up false papers to falsely show the deceased sold their businesses to you, when that didn't actually happen." "That's right." "The Devil is the father of lies," the Parson said carefully, "and this smells like a lie." Linn looked very directly at his cousin. "You weren't in the War." "No." "Count yourself lucky," the lawman grunted, then his face hardened: "When necessary, you use the enemy's own weapons against them. You use their tactics against them, you turn their violence back on them. Same goes for some slickering scoundrel that would adopt a little boy, take his inheritance and cast him aside. I know this Shaw. He's crooked enough he planted a grove of corkscrews for shade and they'll have to screw him into the ground when he dies. If he wants to pull a fast one for ill gotten gain, I'll pull a fast one so he doesn't' get it!" Preacher Keller nodded, slowly. "There is justice in that," he said thoughtfully. "Moulton sent him word that we were here and if he wanted to talk things over we'd meet him at the depot." Linn looked at the clock. "That gives us three hours." He stepped over to the bell-pull, gave a gentle tug: the door popped open as if by magic and the hired girl glided in as smoothly as if she were a carven character on a cuckoo clock. "Yes, Mr. Keller?" she asked, her blue eyes big and innocent and sparkling with mischief, as they often did. "Mary, when will dinner be ready?" "It is ready now, sir. I was just coming to get you." Linn put a dramatic hand to his breast, leaned back and thrust a theatrical hand toward the hired girl, palm up: "When you're good, you're good," he declared: his sudden departure from solemnity was surprising enough, and entertaining enough, that preacher, Sheriff, firstborn son and maid all laughed. "You heard the lady," Linn said. "Parson, last time you were here, you gave us a good Baptist blessing. Reckon you can give us a good Presbyterian blessing this time?" The Reverend Linn Keller regarded his badge packing cousin with a straight face and said, "I'll have you know, sir, I speak fluent Presbyterian." The Keller men chuckled their way to the noontime table. The train sighed her way into station, her stack's exhaust pure white, her stop was gentle: Bill was the engineer and he took pride in his work: when the cars stopped, they were in exactly the right position for a comfortable disembark, for the freight to be offloaded. A solitary figure in a black suit waited on the depot. Shaw and his son came down the cast-iron steps of the passenger car, stomped up the white oak steps at the end of the depot platform, glaring left, glaring right. "Mr. Shaw, I presume," a youthful voice challenged. Jacob Keller's voice was not near changed yet, he had not the least trace of a mustache, but he had the unmistakable stamp of his sire upon him: Shaw glared at the boy. "My father the Sheriff was unavoidably detained." "Unavoidably detained," Hoghead sneered. "Ain't that fancy." Shaw stomped toward Jacob. "MY BUSINESS IS NOT WITH A CHILD! I WANT MY SON AND I WANT HIIM NOW!!" "You'll keep a civil tongue in your head," Jacob said coldly: Shaw, a man with an inflated opinion of his own importance, chose to notice nothing more than Jacob's lack of stature: he intentionally noticed nothing more about him, elsewise he might've seen Jacob's eyes grow ice-white, shining like the polished heart of a winter glacier. Jacob's hand moved to his belly; his coat was unbuttoned, his boots were shoulder width apart. Duffy, watching from behind his boss, frowned, surprised. The boy was ready -- too ready! -- but he was a boy, he was just a boy -- Shaw snatched at a saddle laying against the Depot's clapboard wall, seized up a horsewhip. "DAMN YOU!" he roared, shaking the coils free, "I'LL TEACH YOU MANNERS!" Jacob's weight shifted slightly, just enough to swing his hips to one side while his coat remained still. Jacob's Mama sewed a few buckshot into the coat's seam for this very reason. When Jacob's hips shifted, his bladed hand knifed under the coat. Shaw took a step forward, brought his arm back, fully intending to bloody this arrogant whelp -- Sheriff Linn Keller's head came up at the sound of a pistol-shot. "No," he groaned: two pale-eyed men leaned forward, their mounts surging into a gallop. Jacob Keller stood with a cocked pistol in hand. Duffy started to move but stopped when he realized that pale eyed boy didn't look like a boy anymore, he looked like a cannon muzzle pointed at him, and he realized that -- although he'd been looking at his boss's arm, swinging braided leather back with full intent of horsewhipping a mouthy kid, and the kid beyond him in plain sight -- Duffy realized he had honestly not seen the boy's draw. Duffy saw movement beyond the boy, a man with a rifle -- Duffy raised his hands, spread his fingers as the rifle's bore looked very directly at him -- whoever was behind the boy, was using the corner of the Depot for cover, a tactic he'd seen before among men who knew what it was to fire shots, and to be shot at. Duffy heard horses gallop up, felt as much as heard boots pounding up the three steps to the depot platform. Two men in black suits -- one seized him, spun him around, drove him against the side of the depot -- The other went to Duffy's boss, ripped coat and vest open, looked at blood spreading below his breastbone, watched as the light went out of the man's eyes. Reverend Linn Keller looked over at the horsewhip in the man's relaxing grip. He looked up at the Sheriff. The Sheriff's eyes hardened and he turned his frosted glare to the shoulder-striker pinned against dusty clapboards. "Your boss is dead," he said flatly. "You're needed in court." At the other end of the depot, a man with a rifle drew back, went back inside the telegraph office, parked his musket where it normally lived. Lightning had been in the War, and Lightning was not about to let the Sheriff's son stand alone, and now that the Sheriff was here, why, the man could return to his normal duties. Michael frowned, then shivered. He'd seen his Pa swing a horsewhip, he'd seen his Pa cut branches thick as a man's finger off a tree with a horsewhip. He'd seen his Pa take a horsewhip to a hanging hog carcass, he'd seen his Pa cut slices into and ribbons out of the dangling pork. "Jacob was nearly horsewhipped to death, wasn't he?" Dana asked quietly. Linn nodded: his jaw was set and hard, and Angela saw the slightest tremor in the man's fingers. Angela knew her pale eyed Daddy, and Angela knew her Daddy still blamed himself for the hell and the hurt Dana survived when she was loaned as an undercover to a city police department. Angela knew her Daddy was remembering all this when he read about young Jacob, back when, and that's why she saw the slight shivers in his fingers. "He wasn't about to let anyone hurt him again," Dana persisted. "No," Linn whispered. "Good." Dana and Angela shared an understanding glance. "It's called disparity of force," Marnie explained as she hugged her two youngest siblings to her. "A grown man with a horsewhip can cause death or grievous bodily harm to a child, and Jacob was ... how old? Eleven?" "Eleven," Linn said quietly. "It was a year after he came to Firelands. He might've been fourteen, we don't know for sure, but I'm bettin' on eleven, from everything I've read." "Pa?" Michael asked. "What happened after that?" Marnie smiled. "I did some research on that," she offered, pulling a glowing reader from somewhere -- she was good about having unexpected things about her person -- "young Charles was raised by good parents, Charles started a business and was outrageously successful, and he died a rich old man in San Francisco with a fleet of sailing-ships, several sawmills and a fortune to his credit." "Yaaaaayyyy," Victoria cheered quietly, patting her little hands together, and Linn closed the book, slid the Ace of Spades under the corner of his desk blotter. He knew he'd need it again. Sheriff Linn Keller looked around again, looked at his several young gathered around as they'd all done when he read aloud. Linn couldn't help it: his grin was open, honest, unaffected. "Y'know," he said, "this is nice."

YOU AIN'T NO PREACHER? "Your name's Keller." Sheriff Linn Keller's eyes tightened at the corners. Linn's coat was unfastened: his hand was against his belly, ready to sweep the coat open. He stood, looked very directly at the individual that saw him, moved in on him, from the moment he came through the fancy frosted-glass-pane doors of the Silver Jewel Saloon. Linn's move was slow, planned, powerful, while looking perfectly innocent. "Who's askin'?" Linn's off hand caught the slap, his heel hooked the other's ankle: Linn's boot drove into the stranger's ribs, hard, and two Colt revolvers came to full cock, each unblinking black bore looking very directly at a proximate threat. One was on the floor, realizing he'd just been shamed at his own game. The other was backing him, had his hand almost wrapped around the handle of his own revolver. "Take it out, slow," Linn said quietly, and there was no trace of humor in his eyes. The backup's eyes uttered a thousand threats his lips dared not utter: he brought the Remington out, laid it on a table. "Turn around and put your hands flat against that wall and don't move or I'll bust a hole through your guts." Linn saw movement from below, his finger tightened slightly on the trigger: "Don't," he said warningly, then his Colt spoke and the man who'd braced him felt his soul yanked out of his miserable carcass. His dead hand fell open, a hideout gun falling from limp fingers. Tom Landers stepped out where he could be seen, short rifle in hand: he preferred the precision of a carbine over the to-whom-it-may-concern approach of a shotgun: Linn thought to demonstrate to him that a shotgun's spread would be minimal at across-the-saloon distances, but decided against it. If the ex-Sheriff and now chief peacekeeper of the Silver Jewel Saloon cared to work for him, Linn was not about to tell him his business. Another, at the bar, started to slide around the corner, as if he hoped to skulk away unseen. Mr. Baxter's invitation was too good to refuse. it involved a freshly drawn mug of beer. It also involved Mr. Baxter's two pipe shoot gun. Reasoning that living, and having a beer, beat being killed and never tasting beer again, was the better choice ... well, he made a sensible choice and returned to where he'd been standing at the bar. "You." Linn holstered his right hand Colt, kicked the empty from his left, reloaded: his holster-and-reload was quick, efficient, as he brought his right-hand revolver to capacity and holstered it as well. The man at the bar reluctantly set down his beer mug, came toward the pale eyed Sheriff with the reluctant step of a schoolboy about to be chastised. "Stop." He stopped. "You three come in together. Why?" "Ev?" "Don't you 'Ev' him, I'm doin' the askin' and you'll answer or I'll skin you slow." Linn's smile was just as slow and as precise as his words, and just as devoid of humor. "Only I'll skin you with the dull side of a spoon. Now what are you three up to?" "I, he, I'm not --" "Shut up," Ev snapped. Linn drove a hard fist into the man's soft ribs, spun, getting his weight behind the heel of his hand: he drove Ev in the back of the head and gave him a good close-up look at the wall. The entire wall boomed with the impact. "I am not a patient man," Linn said, his voice still quiet, just enough to be heard through the gunshot's echo still screaming in his ears. "This man's dead. I ain't above killin' you two." "He'll do it, too," Landers offered cheerfully. "Killed three so far this week, that makes him behind by two." Linn's eyes tightened at the corners, the way a man will when he's filled with pleasure, when the delight he's feeling hasn't spread to the rest of his face. "You're Linn Keller." "Yep." "You're that Stone Creek preacher." Linn's eyebrow raised a little and the slightest ghost of a smile pulled at one corner of his mouth. He reached up and turned over his lapel to reveal a six point star, a star that said SHERIFF in hand-chased engraving across its equator. "He's my cousin," Linn said. "I'm Sheriff Linn Keller and you two are under arrest." Reverend Linn Keller walked slowly through the Orphanage dormitory, looking left, looking right, nodding his satisfaction, his approval. It was not a big dormitory -- a half dozen beds, three on one side, three on the other -- the boys slept here, under the supervision of himself and a trusted adjutant, a man who'd recently lost his own wife and sons in a fire, a man Preacher Keller knew, a man in whom the Preacher had full faith and confidence. There was a sharp double-knock: "Parson?" Reverend Linn Keller stopped, smiled. Only one voice sounded like that, only one voice called him "Parson." "Hello, Jacob." "Sir, my father bade me ride the wind itself to bring you this." Reverend Linn Keller turned and looked at his cousin's son Jacob, and he realized this was no social call. Young Jacob Keller wore a revolver like he knew how to use it, and he had a rifle across his arm in the bend of his elbow. Reverend Keller accepted the folded note: he opened it, read it, read it again, raised an eyebrow, considered. "Jacob, I'll need your help." "You have it, sir." Reverend Keller thrust his chin at the open door: the two walked outside. The pale-eyed Reverend put two fingers to his lips, whistled, a single, wavering, high, compelling note: young feet began running, eager young faces charged him from several directions at once, boys and girls alike, and behind them, his wife, wringing her hands in his apron, which told him she was making bread when his summons interrupted. "Master Hall," Linn said. "Yes, sir?" "You will draw a traveler's pouch and you will pack smallclothes and stockings for an overnight." "Yes, sir." "I just took a look at the dormitory." He turned slowly, taking a fast head count -- all here -- and said, "Every bed is made and well made, the floor is clean, I find it satisfactory in all ways. Well done." Little boys grinned, shifted their weight from one leg to another. "Master Hall and I are required in Firelands for three days. In my absence, you will follow my wife's instructions." "Yes, sir," five young voices chorused; the girls were clustered around his wife, for all the world like a cloud of chicks surrounding a mother hen. Reverend Keller waited while his wife gathered what little he would need -- the same light loadout as he'd prescribed for young Master Hall, with the addition of a comb and a few other trifles. Not twenty minutes later they were mounted, the big-eyed little boy riding behind the pale eyed lad who felt like a fencepost in a tailored black suit. Esther Keller opened her arms, knelt. "Charles," she said, smiling: a happy little boy ran into her motherly embrace. Sheriff and Preacher shook hands, each one regarding the other with a carefully grave expression. "Jacob." "Sir." "Remain, if you please." "Yes, sir." Linn turned to the brandy-shelf, decanted three volumes, handed one to his cousin, one to his son. "God ride with us," he said, hoisting his libation: three glasses rose, three voices murmured "Amen," and three pale eyed Kellers drank. Linn eased the tapered glass stopper into the bottle's frosted neck, gathered the glasses and set them with the bottle. "A man came here to kill you," he said. Reverend Keller frowned. "Kill me?" "It seems the young fellow you brought with you is ... valuable." The Reverend's eyebrow raised quickly, descended slowly. Pa does that, Jacob thought: as usual, he was busy turning invisible and listening to every word. "We've two in the calaboose that confessed to being hired." "Confessed." The Reverend's voice was skeptical. "They had to be encouraged." "I see." "Your young charge was orphaned." "He was." "You never met his parents." "We buried his parents." "His parents were heirs to a young fortune. He is the last surviving heir. Whoever adopts him will gain that fortune." "I see." "There are men who want that fortune." The Reverend took a long breath, sighed it out. "That's why we had to get both of you here." "But what of my wife and the other children? Might they be targets? An unscrupulous man could capture them and threaten to burn down the barn around them." The Sheriff smiled, and his smile was not entirely pleasant. "I'll need the names of his dead parents. I know how to fix this." Michael sat cross-legged beside Victoria, both children listening to their pale-eyed Daddy, engrossed in the tale he was spinning from one of the many books on his shelf. "Sir," Michael asked, "do you have a cousin?" Linn slid an eight of diamonds into the book as a bookmark, leaned back, rubbed his closed eyes: it had been a long day, but part of his unwinding routine was to read to his children: it was something he'd done since his first child, and he saw no need to change now. "Oh, I've got several cousins, Michael. None of 'em look like me, though." "You don't have any named like you?" Michael asked, disappointed. "No, sorry." "Daddy, don't you have any sky pilots in your family?" Victoria asked in a disappointed-little-girl voice. Linn laughed, shook his head. "No, Princess," he said in a soft voice, "afraid not." "Oh." "Can you read some more?" Michael asked hopefully. "Pweeeeez?" Victoria asked. "Bedtime," Linn said. "We'll pick this up later." "Did the Sheriff go after the bad guys?" Michael asked. Victoria's eyes were big, anticipating, as much a question as her twin brother's words. "Tomorrow," Linn said. "Now up, you two. On your feet, let's go." Sheriff Linn Keller knelt, took his young behind their thighs, hugged, stood, looked from one happy set of pale eyes to the other happy set of pale eyes. "Pa?" "Hm?" "Pa, did Old Pale Eyes pack his kids off to bed too?" "Yes, Michael," Linn said softly as he set off for the broad, solid built staicase. "Yes, as a matter of fact, he did."

DIDN'T HAPPEN Marnie wore a flour sack apron over her cheerleader's uniform as she industriously scraped thawed hamburger meat off a still-frozen core. It wasn't a genuine flour sack apron -- there were genuine examples in the Firelands museum, but this wasn't one -- she and the ladies of the Tea Society fabricated simulacra, lookalikes, with washable lettering stenciled on the apron: they offered the choice of washable, or permanent, and one of their number took a perverse delight in wearing one of the reproduction flour sack aprons with the words "Self Rising" proudly stenciled across her very pregnant belly. Marnie was two months shy of her twelfth birthday; she was a cheerleader, and a good one; she was Daddy's girl, an accomplished equestrienne, and tonight she was the family's cook, a fact to which absolutely no one objected. She drafted from what her pale eyed Daddy called the "Unorganized Militia" to shred lettuce, dice fresh tomatoes (or as fresh as store bought in late February could be) and set out plates and napkins: ever the practical and pragmatic sort, Marnie asked Jacob to set two rolls of paper towels on the table as well. She'd baked hard taco shells, she'd stacked the fragile edibles with great care: some few still broke and were set aside: Marnie, like her Mama, laid a soft tortilla on a plate, then set the hard shell on this, and everyone added whatever they wished to it: the last of the frozen hamburger meat yielded to persistence and the sharp edge of her metal spatula, and she seasoned and fried the panful of fragrant meat, with her personal Secret Ingredients: diced crispy bacon and plenty of onion, with enough garlic to bring out the flavors without being noticeable itself. The smells of culinary industry were sufficient to assemble the family without the need of further announcement: even The Bear Killer looked on with happy anticipation, knowing there would be drips, drops, spills and catastrophic failures, not necessarily in that order, which is one reason their kitchen had a linoleum floor. Easy cleanup. Off-going day shift filed into the firehouse, grinning at the good smells trapped in fragrant layers in the still atmosphere. The on-going shift already had their turn: the Irish Brigade hosted a meal a couple times a month, feeding two shifts worth of the Sheriff's office and the police department, with care packages sent to midnight shift, and tonight the main course was chili and cornbread -- which smelled really, really good! The conversation of the combined emergency services was wide-ranging and cheerful, and involved absolutely nothing connected with firefighting, law enforcement or emergency medicine: there was laughter, discussion of a new baby, the cost of college, how the fellow who'd dug out and repaired the most recent water line break made it look easy -- even though he had to have been wet and freezing -- Linn dipped a slice of cornbread thick as his finger in chili soup and quietly slipped it to the waiting Malinois sitting hopefully beside him, looking steadily at him with dark and shining eyes. One of the Brigade looked over at him and looked at the Sheriff and said quietly, "One of these days I hope to find a girl that'll look at me like that." Linn nodded, reached for another chunk of cornbread. The troops fed, dishes washed and set to drain, what few leftovers were left over packaged and put away: Marnie made enough soft tacos to make peanut-butter-honey-and-cinnamon roll-ups for next day's lunches, not as a main course, but as part of the sack lunches the Keller young took to school: Marnie rode herd on her siblings, made sure homework was tended, showers were taken, dirty clothes thrown downstairs -- something they only did when their Mama wasn't home -- Marnie collected the cheerfully tossed dirty duds and hustled them back to the Maytag and set it thrashing. Marnie climbed the stairs quickly, silently on sock feet, made sure everyone was abed, brought up clean, dried and folded clothes while she was at it: this batch was dried the night before, and it was efficient to bring clean clothes up when she made her are-you-in-bed check. Marnie ran the mop (almost unnecessarily) in the kitchen floor, looked around, nodded once, emphatically, with satisfaction: she picked up her saddle shoes from the foot of the stairs, opened the front door and let The Bear Killer back in from his most recent trip out: together they ascended the ancient, solid stairs, slipped into Marnie's bedroom. Marnie looked at her reflection and smiled. She'd honestly forgotten she was still wearing an apron, and she'd forgotten she'd been so busy she hadn't changed out of her cheerleader's uniform. The Bear Killer yawned, wide, curling his tongue as he stretched: when Marnie came back in from her shower, she looked over at her sister's bed and smiled at the sight of a great black bearlike mass cuddled up with a sleeping child, a little pink arm draped over the curly black furred shoulder. Linn carried his bowl to the sink, slipped it into the waiting pool of soapy water, stood aside as his wife did as well: Linn reached up, gripped Shelly's shoulders gently, squeezed, just a little, their private way of saying "I love you" while in the public eye. Shelly turned, leaned back against the sink, sighed tiredly. "You've had a busy day." "I know." "You even sound tired." "Tonight's taco night at home." Linn nodded. "I can only imagine what kind of a mess I'll have in the morning." Linn looked down at Tank, smiled. "I reckon The Bear Killer helped with cleanup." "He helped with cleaning babies' faces when we were feeding them." Linn chuckled. "Worked, didn't it?" Shelly thrust her hands in the soapy water, found the submerged dishrag, began washing dishes. "Is there very much left over?" Fitz asked, to which the rest of the Irish Brigade laughed. When there was chili at the firehouse, leftovers were something that very definitely did not happen.

My wife and I looked at one another when it happened. I said "Looks like we're on our own," and my wife said "What else is new?" Checked with the neighbors on either side, they were fine: checked in on the local 2-meter ham radio repeater, not everyone was out, so knew I had that commo if we had to summon the cavalry. Read on the news this morning where AT&T is giving its customers five bucks apiece for their troubles.

A WEEK Jacob Keller looked at his wife. Jacob was lean, like his father; he had pale eyes, like his father; his voice was quiet, reassuring, at least when he spoke to his wife, or to his children, or to his horses. Just like his father. Jacob did not, however, have a wife like his father. Esther Keller, daughter of culture and gentility, was of a more genteel upbringing than Jacob's wife Annette: in fairness, though, Annette did not see her father murdered by Yankee raiders, nor did she listen to her mother's and her sisters' screams as they were dragged away and despoiled by those same damned Yankees. Esther did as her Papa told her -- she hid -- she hid with her Papa's prize racer, cowering in thick brush behind the rearmost tobacco-shed. Esther was shivering with rage: her Papa was defiant, even when gut shot: he swung a hard-knuckled fist at the murderers who clubbed him down, snapped a noose taut about his neck and hoist him in his own front yard, to strangle and kick his last. Esther had her Papa's dueling-pistols, one in each hand, and when a pair of raiders spotted her, she raised them both and fired them both simultaneously, and she sent two damned bluecoat Yankees to the hell they most richly deserved, then she dropped the empty pistols, snatched up her skirts and ran, ran as if the Devil himself was after her, ran with the full knowledge that Old Cloven Hoof was very real and lived in the hearts of every last one of these damned Yankee bluecoat ravening monsters. Esther waited for the right moment, then she swung up on her Papa's racer, settled into the saddle her Papa surreptitiously had made for her, walked him down the creek, moving slowly, steadily, into deeper brush, deeper shadow. Annette had been disowned by her father: he'd mistakenly thought her romantically involved with a common sailor, when in truth it was a girl from the waterfront who bore a resemblance to Annette who was enamored with the man of the sea: not fifteen minutes after her father turned her out of her own house, her home where she'd grown up, she was snatched by opportunistic slavers -- gut punched, gagged, wrist-bound behind her back and stuffed in an enclosed hack with three other kidnap victims. Jacob himself knew his own version of the Infernal that walked the earth; his back was a war map of whip scars, mute testament to the thieving drunk who took his Mama whether she wanted it or not, who beat his Mama and beat Jacob, who went into an absolute rage when he found Jacob's Mama was with child, and took a whip to her, and to Jacob when he tried to intervene. Jacob was barely able to crawl back into the house when the monster passed out with a nearly empty bottle on the bed beside him. He never heard the .44 revolver come to full cock. He barely felt it as Jacob thrust it hard into his one ear and blew his eternal soul out the other side of his head. Jacob blinked, considered how incredibly fast the human mind ran, for all this seared through his forebrain between the blinks of his pale eyes, as he looked at his beautiful bride, as he considered he'd seen that look on her face before. "Jacob," she said quietly, crossing her arms as she spoke, "I don't want you hurt again." Jacob walked slowly across the front porch, cupped his hands, warm and reassuring, under her elbows. "Don't much care for the idea myself," he said in that gentle, reassuring voice. Annette uncoiled her arms, gripped his muscled arm with one hand, laid her hand, cool and caressing, against the side of his face. "No, Jacob," she whispered, "I'm scared." Jacob frowned and looked very deeply into his wife's troubled eyes. "Darlin', what have you seen?" Annette looked away, turned away. "I'm not a witch-woman," she said quickly -- too quickly -- Jacob came up behind her, gripped her shoulders, molded himself against her warm, womanly backside. "My mother is," Jacob whispered, bending his head down, laying his cheek against her hair behind her ear: "my mother knows things, Annette, it's a gift that only women have." Annette twisted out of his grip, spun around, seized his hands, her eyes wide ... ... scared ... "Jacob, you've been shot and men have tried to kill you." "He almost missed, darlin', and the blood all soaked out of the shirt." "That's not what I mean," Annette scolded, still whispering: "Jacob, I can mend a shirt and I can soak a shirt but I can't ... you're not a shirt, Jacob. I can't just make another one of you like I can a shirt!" "I like the shirts you make me," Jacob smiled: he started to lower his face to kiss his wife when he realized her eyes were filling up. He pulled back, startled. "Darlin', what have I done to you?" "Jacob," Annette squeaked, "I don't want anything to happen to you" -- her face squinched up the way she did when she got all weepy, and she laid a hand on her belly. Jacob's eyes widened. His face split into a grin broad as two Texas townships, he snatched his wife up off her feet and stepped out away from the porch, he whirled her around: startled, Annette gave a surprised little squeak and a hiccup and crossed her arms tight over her bodice and leaned her head into her husband's chest. Jacob slowed his mad whirling spin, set Annette down on her feet, he took her face between his hands and kissed her, delicately, carefully, then looked down at her still-flat belly. "Broom straw," he said. "We need a broom straw." "I'm not far enough along, Jacob. I don't have any belly to balance the broomstraw on." Annette swallowed, patted her husband's chest the way she'd seen her Mama pat her Papa's chest in such moments. "I promise we'll run the broom straw, Jacob, but ... not yet." Jacob dipped his knees, ran his arms around his wife, hugged her tight, tight, and she could feel him laughing silently as he did. "Jacob," she whispered, her head tilted back, her chin propped on his shoulder as he crushed her to him, "promise me you'll be careful!" Jacob released his embrace, seized her under the arms, kissed her quickly, carefully, held her at arm's length, his face shining with absolute and utter delight. "Darlin'," he grinned, "you bet your bottom dollar I'll be careful!" Jacob threw his head back and laughed, then looked down at his wife, his eyes shining. "Why, just think! I get to teach him how to whistle and whittle, how to cuss and spit and sharpen a knife, I got to teach him all kind of man stuff --" Annette gave him a patient look. "And if it's a little girl?" she asked. "Then I'll have to spoil her seven ways from Sunday and make sure she grows up every inch the Lady that her Mama is!" Jacob hoisted Annette off her feet again, and a young husband and his pretty young wife laughed in front of their great stone house, up on the mountainside, halfway between the settlement below and God Almighty in the heavens. "My dear," Esther murmured, "I have news." Linn wiped the nib on his pen, laid it very precisely beside the note-paper he was writing on: if his wife thought a matter important enough to interrupt his crafting a letter, it was important enough for him to devote her his full attention. "I am very much at your disposal," he said gravely. Esther glided over to her pale eyed husband, smiling, her hands folded very properly in her apron. "My dear ... you are to be a grandfather." Linn's grin was quick, broad, boyish: he surged from his chair, caught his wife under her arms, hoist her easily from the floor and spun round about, a dancer's step, and Esther laid her hands on his forearms, threw her head back and laughed, one leg bent up behind her. Linn brought his green-eyed, red-headed bride down, kissed her carefully, delicately, then hoist her back up to arm's length, and brought her down again, setting her gently, easily, down on her feet. Esther tilted her head, looked at her husband with wise and amused eyes. "My dear, a boon, if I may." "Name it." "Please, my dear ... I know you are Sheriff, and I know it is yours to keep the peace, but I would see you grow old and die in your own bed." Linn raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like a good idea to me," he agreed. "Liiinnnnn," Esther said, a warning note in her voice. "My dear, I am serious when I say this." Linn raised Esther's knuckles to his lips, held her cool, feminine hand warm and secure between his own warm and callused palms. "I must be circumspect indeed," he murmured, his voice and his eyes suddenly thoughtful: "it would not be seemly for you to teach my grandson those things which are the right and proper purview of the grandfather!" Esther gave her husband a knowing look. "And just how soon, Mr. Keller, are you taking your grandson to houses of ill repute, to pool halls and saloons, and to all sorts of salacious entertainment?" "Fear not, my dear," Linn said reassuringly, "I shall teach him those things of which a well-born young man must be both conversant, and experienced!" "You scoundrelly old poop," Esther murmured. Linn hugged his wife again, nibbled her neck with his lips, which caused this well-born daughter of Suth'n gentility to wiggle with delight. "Mr. Keller," she whispered, "I'll give you all week to stop that!"

LORD SAVE US FROM THE CURSE "Sir?" "Yes, Jacob?" Jacob drove his post hole diggers into the hole he'd made, brought out the last of the dirt, set the diggers to the side and looked at his father. "Sir, I do believe this is the first I've ever known someone to've bought dirt!" Linn smiled quietly, nodded. They'd gone to the depot and loaded the crate into the wagon, they'd brought the wagon around behind the house and dropped the tail gate, they'd opened the crate and shoveled dirt into a wheelbarrow half full of year old horse manure. Jacob had no question as to the ancient manure: he well knew it takes a year to burn the fire out, so when it's used as fertilizer, it won't burn up your plants: he knew his father spent good money to buy fruit tree saplings, and he was paying close attention as to how the man installed them. He and Linn laid out where the trees would go. Linn had them well spaced, not exactly in straight lines, but rather in lines that followed the gentle slope's contour: Jacob imagined fruit trees, grown and matured, and he realized a man could ride a horse between them -- riding to the left of one, the right of the next, at a wide open gallop: Jacob's pale eyes smiled a little at the thought of a controlled gallop, weaving in between the trees just as hard as a good horse can run. Jacob and his father patiently packed water and dumped into the holes before adding the half-and-half of Northern Ohio dirt and well aged horse manure: the sprouted saplings were rooted in the exact center of each hole, water added. "Sir, you do nothing without reason." Linn considered this as he added a sapling to a hole, scraped dirt in around it. "Sir ... there's dirt to be had closer than Ohio." Linn nodded, slowly: he went down on his other knee, carefully added dirt to the hole. "Jacob," he said, "this dirt comes from the farm I had, back East." "Sir?" They moved on to the next hole. "I was married, Jacob." "Yes, sir?" "I got slick talked into that damned War, and may God Almighty forgive my corroded soul for that." "For the War, sir?" "No. No, Jacob, I left my wife and my farm to go off to that damned War." Jacob didn't quite understand, so he held his counsel and waited. "My wife and our little girl died of the small pox while I was gone." Jacob stopped, looked very directly at his father, his face grave. "I wish I'd died instead," Linn said softly. "Connie was ... she was my anchor, Jacob, she was my lighthouse. She was the only bright spot of sanity in a world gone insane." "Yes, sir." "She ... I got home a week to the day that she died, and our little girl died in my arms that night." "I see, sir." Linn struggled to his feet, as if he were suddenly old: he leaned against the wagon's tailgate, stared off at the far horizon. "This dirt," he said softly, "is from that farm." Linn looked down the curving row of freshly planted apple trees. "I'll forever have something ... I loved her, Jacob. I loved that woman." Linn's voice was quiet, his guard was down: Jacob knew his father was vulnerable, and he was thinking hard, trying to come up with something -- something that wouldn't bruise a man whose heart was hanging out on his sleeve. Linn closed his eyes, took a long breath, looked at the row of freshly planted saplings. "A man plants trees as an investment in the future," he said softly, then looked at his son and smiled, just a little. "Drive the wagon up behind the house, Jacob. I'm going to spade up Esther's table garden and this dirt will do it good." Linn gripped the time-smoothed handles of the wheelbarrow. Jacob swarmed into the wagon, picked up the reins, clucked to the dapple: horse and wagon and a crate and a half of good black northern Ohio dirt, rumbled the short distance up the hill toward the house. Father and son laid out the table garden, based on Esther's preference: they dug steadily, spaded up space enough and more, dumped in dirt and burnt out horse manure and worked this in: by the time they were done, they could smell supper, and their stomachs reminded them they were about starved plumb to death. Father and son turned the mare into the back field, stacked their garden tools and washed up: they were just pumping fresh water for their ablutions when Parson Belden came around the house, grinning. "If I'd known you two were at labor, I'd have helped you out!" he declared. "Water enough for me to wash my dirty cotton pickers?" Linn laughed, nodded. "Pull up some dishpan, Parson, been looking forward to your comin' around!" That evening, as they sat down to supper, Linn asked the Parson to speak the blessing. Jacob honestly never remembered how the Parson's blessing started, nor did he recall the most of what he said. His memory was too amused by the Parson's final words: "... and Lord, spare us the curse of the long winded preacher, AAA-men!"

Worked for me! Delightful, many thanks!

TRAIN LEAVES IN FIFTEEN MINUTES Jacob didn't care for the man even before he opened his mouth. He cared less when this dandified stranger with the fancy stick-pin in his puffy silk necktie said "You there! You're what's-his-name's boy!" Jacob Keller, in many eyes, his own included, was a man grown: he was fifteen, he was doing a man's work, and he didn't see himself as anyone's "boy." He turned so he was almost squared-off to this dandy when he said mildly, "Don't know anyone by either of those names, mister." Jacob's moves and Jacob's words had been deceptively slow. His knife wasn't. The stranger's jaw came out, his nose came up and he uncorked a backhand at Jacob's face. Jacob's knife was in his grip, the blade was laid back along his forearm and he raised the blade to block. The stranger's hand was laid open and bleeding: shocked, he grabbed at it, then held it from him, gripped his wrist, looked around, wide-eyed. "You might want to get outside before you bleed all over Mr. Baxter's clean floor," Jacob said: Mr. Baxter tossed him a wet bar towel and Jacob wiped his blade, slowly, deliberately, dried it with the dry end of the towel, slid it back into its sheath and tossed the towel back. The stranger gasped, squeezing his wrist, shocked at how badly he was bleeding, staggred at the sight of his hand laid open, almost split in two. Jacob grabbed the dandy's coatsleeve, pulled. Hard. "Let's get you to the Doc," he said unsympathetically. They left a plainly marked, very red trail from the saloon to the still-under-construction, quartz-front hospital. The next day, an Eastern dandy with a diamond stickpin in his puffy silk necktie presented himself officiously at the Sheriff's office: his hand was well and tightly bandaged, he'd gotten a clean suit from his traveling trunk while the blood was being saltwater soaked out of what he'd been wearing. A pale eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache rose as the man came in. He did not rise out of respect. He rose because he wanted a good like at this spalpeen who thought it proper to backhand someone who didn't kiss his royal backside. The stranger removed his immaculate low-topper. "Sheriff Keller, I presume." Linn nodded, once. "J. Foster Franklinton," the man declared, as if that meant something. The Sheriff waited. "I wish to file charges." Again the slow, silent nod. "I was set upon by a local villain and my hand nearly cut off my arm!" "Your hand was split because you tried to backhand my son," Linn said quietly. "I -- you -- your son?" -- his voice went from bluster to stammer and back: only then did he realize the absolute lack of welcome, the utter absence of any sympathy in the man's stance, his face, the depth of icy frost in his polished-glacier eyes. "I can see I'll find no justice here --" Linn was across the room in two strides. He seized the stranger by the front of his coat, hoist him off the floor, brought his nose within a half inch of the other's pencil-thin mustache. "Major Jackass Franklinton," Linn grated. "Oh dear God," Franklinton whispered, the words slipping out before he could stop them. "You!" "You're damned right, me," Linn said. "You threatened to have me hanged. When you got stepped on by three separate officers and you were told to pull in your horns and shut your mouth, you allowed as you'd ruin me." Linn set the man down, his face pale, the skin stretched taut over his high cheekbones. Linn fell back a half step and backhanded the dandy: the impact snapped the man's head around and blood sprayed from pulped lips. Linn peeled out of his coat, tossed it behind him, onto the desk. "You arrogant jackass," Linn grated. "You tried walking with hard heels over everyone you could during that damned War. You got laughed at to your face and nobody followed your orders. You were transferred because higher-up knew if they didn't, the enlisted would pull your drawers down and bend you over a log, they'd take a belt to your backside and run you out of camp nekked and they didn't want an officer humiliated to that degree, so they just transferred you." Franklinton dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a kerchief. "You try that out here, it'll get you killed. Your hand will never be the same. Doc said it will heal -- eventually." "You can't do this," he gasped in a husky voice, looking at the bloodied kerchief, touching bruised and swelling lips, his eyes wide, shocked. "You can't do this!" Linn's jaw slid out. "I just backhanded you, you damned coward," he spat. "That is an honorable man's challenge to a duel of honor. You will choose the time, the place and the weapons, or by God Almighty, I will!" "The Code Duello," the other protested. "A second -- and at dawn --" Linn drew his left hand Colt, with his left hand, he drew his knife with his right, spun the blade easily between his fingers. "Knives or guns," he said. "Unless you'd prefer a broad ax?" Franklinton shuddered. He'd been watching as Linn fought, roaring defiance as their position was overrun, as he launched his last round from his musket and lay about with the butt and the bayonet, and there at the end, when the bayonet stuck in a man's ribs and the broken rifle twisted from his hands, he'd snatched up an ax from a nearby wood-pile and lay about, a madman in a blue uniform and bloodied face, slaying absolutely at the top of his lungs. Franklinton remembered seeing this, shook his head: he raised his good hand, palm toward the silently-snarling Sheriff, cowered away from the man: he took a step back, another, then turned and ran, snatched for the door, yanked it open in a blind panic and ran, ran without looking, ran from Death itself that remembered his crimes and wished a reckoning. Something caught him hard in the gut, something that doubled him over and knocked every bit of wind out of him: a leg hooked behind his ankle, he went down on his backside, a foot stomped on his chest, flattened him to the boardwalk. A set of pale eyes looked down on him from a face without a mustache, a face that bore a remarkable resemblance to the man within. Jacob Keller bent, shoved something into Franklinton's vest pocket. "That," he said, "is a train ticket. It's good today. After that" -- he smiled, and the smile was not pleasant -- "I might think you want to cause some more trouble." Fifteen year old Jacob Keller's smile was utterly without humor. "Your trunk is already in yonder carriage. Train leaves in fifteen minutes. Don't miss it."

A mother was sick in bed and her six year old daughter carefully walked to her bedside with a steaming cup of tea. As her Mommy sipped it, the solemn little tot said "Mommy, I didn't know what to do to help so I made tea." The mother thanked her daughter for this very thoughtful action and complimented her: "You even strained it!" The big-eyed child nodded and said "I couldn't find the tea strainer so I used the fly swatter." At the growing look of horror on her mother's face, she said reassuringly, "Don't worry, Mommy, I used the ooold one!"

When the doc says, "To clean up any remaining infection," that implies there is some. Don't let that stuff flare up again, my friend ... too many years as a medical professional, don't give it a chance to acclimatize to your antibiotics and eat any more of your honorable self! (Easy for me to say. My wife's not the one who's still laid up!)

To quote our pards from Down Under, "No worries, mate!" (Always wanted to say that!) Adding them to the Stand Up On My Knees List!

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE MALL Angela Keller was Woman of the House. She was the last of the retired Sheriff’s children still living at home. She was engaged to a fine young man, and she was worried about leaving her Daddy, because she knew the old lawman with the iron grey mustache was nearly blind now, and she’d gone to great lengths to preserve the illusion that he was still as strong and as capable as he’d ever been. She’d presented the fiction that perhaps arthritis made writing less than comfortable, and so she became his personal secretary: given this arrangement, it came as no surprise to her that her Daddy knocked the corner of his chair with the side of his boot, bent a little to plant his palm on the padded arm, then turned and seated himself. “Angela,” he said quietly, “if I may, I would make an entry.” “Of course,” she said: he heard the rolltop desk slide open, heard the drawer, and in his mind’s eye he saw his daughter, a woman now, brisk and efficient: his imagination populated the room with her image, opening the ink-bottle, dipping the quill and wiping it delicately on the inside of the faceted glass, her other hand’s fingertips slipping good rag foolscap under the ribbon that held it on the felt writing surface. “I thought most strongly of Joseph this day,” he dictated. “It was near to five-thirty, or so said the Parson when I asked him. “I had the sudden feeling that my grandson Joseph was in peril. “I felt as I had in battle, something I’ve not felt for some long time now. “I felt keen to join in the fight, as if it were possible to shed the scales from my eyes and stride with Tarquin’s boots across the salt water ocean and side with my kindred in battle.” Angela’s blue eyes looked quickly at the back of her Daddy’s head, just visible above the back of his comfortable old chair: she wrote steadily, catching up with his thoughts as he hesitated. “I fear that my grandson has come to some ill fortune in that damned French war. “His father forbade his going. “I knew the folly of forbidding him this thing, for I myself was gulled into war by the slick and silvered tongue of a German recruiter, back in the Ohio territory.” He hesitated again and added softly, “Back when I was a young man, back when I was but newly wed.” Dana dipped her pen quickly, resumed writing: her hand was quick, feminine, graceful, very legible: Old Pale Eyes paused, as if staring through the window at a memory only he could see. Marnie stepped through the Iris into her Daddy’s study, planted her knuckles on her belt. “Well!” she declared happily. “You two knew I was coming!” Two young heads nodded solemnly at her happy pronouncement. “Are you here to fight again?” Victoria asked almost sadly. Marnie folded her legs, knelt gracefully, opened her arms for a hug, gathered a double armful of apprehensive young humanity to her. “No, sweets,” she murmured, kissing one, then the other: “I am so very sorry for that. I should have put a damping-field around the barn so you couldn’t have heard us.” “We felt you,” Michael said accusingly, and Marnie sighed, nodded. “That’s why I’m here,” Marnie admitted. “You felt Dana too.” “Yes, I did.” “Will she take an Iris home?” Marnie smiled, shook her head. “No, sweets, I’m afraid she’ll come home the regular way.” “Why? You take the Iris.” “That’s because I’m a diplomat.” “Oh.” Michael frowned. “What did Dana do?” Victoria asked, hugging her rag doll to her like something precious, pressing her nose into its yellow yarn spray of hair. “I’m not really sure, sweets,” Marnie admitted. “We know she had a battle, but I don’t think she went to war.” Dana Keller held the dress up, looked at her Mama, held the dress against her front. “Well?” she asked. “Too summery?” “Mmm, you’re pushing the season a little,” Shelly replied. “How about … this one?” “Ugh, that looks like a couch cover!” Shelly held it out, looked at it again, hung it back up. “Yes it does. Uncle Will has a couch cover with that same print.” “I could wear it and become invisible.” Shelly dropped her head as if to glare over an invisible set of spectacles. A hand grabbed Dana’s upper arm, pulled. Shelly wasn’t sure quite what happened, only that someone was suddenly rolling over in mid-air, landed hard against a rack of dresses: Dana had this someone’s arm in a pain-compliance grip – arm twisted, wrist bent – someone out in the main part of the mall was yelling “SECURITY! SECURITY!” – Shelly stood, wide-eyed, shocked – One moment they were a mother and daughter, shopping at the mall, and the next, her daughter had some Jack Doe by the arm and was bringing a pained yell from him – Uniformed security came running in, reached for the yellow crossdraw Taser – Angela thrust her hand straight up, her badge holder displayed plainly, her other hand maintaining an iron grip on her attacker’s bent, groaning wrist: “SHERIFF’S OFFICE! ON THE JOB!” Sheriff Linn Keller’s head came up, as if he heard something, distantly, something that demanded his attention. Dana, he thought. He felt the sudden blast of passion subside to a smoldering level, knew that his daughter’s feelings were under control, that she had a situation controlled, that she herself was controlled. He knew that she was still mad as hell, but she was no longer ready to rip someone apart barehand. Capable of it, but not about to do it. His cell phone rang. He pulled it out, looked at the screen. Shelly, he thought: he swiped the screen, tapped it. “Yes, dear.” He listened to Shelly’s brief report, nodded: “I’ll send backup.” Sheriff Linn Keller reached for his desk phone, punched in a number from memory. “Sheriff Keller, Firelands County. Give me the Chief.” “Mar-nie?” “Yes, sweets?” Marnie by now was cross legged, her long skirt puddled out around her, the youngest of the Keller Brigade cross legged on her skirt material. “How come we felt you an’ Dana?” The Iris opened again and Angela stepped out, smiling as she usually did: she knelt beside her sister, tilted her head a little as she looked at the six year old twins. “Because they were impassioned,” Angela replied. “That means really mad,” Michael said with a knowing nod. “I know that,” Victoria protested. Angela held up her palms. “We all felt it,” she said, “even Jacob and Ruth’s baby felt it. Woke him up crying.” “Uh-oh,” Michael said, and he and his twin sister shared a look, and an understanding: strong emotion would be felt throughout this invisible network, and they didn’t want to wake the baby! “I’ll bet they’d make good Interceptor pilots,” Angela speculated. “You’re readin’ my mind?” Marnie said offhandedly. “If they grow up as a Brainship … they’ll have integrated more fully than anyone has to date.” “What about the energy demands? You know how flighty children are, they’ll want to pop from this galaxy to that without regard for the distance.” “Energy demand is nearly zero. It’s not like you’re using a reaction engine and burning tons of fuel to move pounds.” “You better talk to Pa ‘bout that,” Michael said, a warning note in his young voice. “I’m not old ‘nuff to drive yet. I don’t think Pa wants me flyin’ no In-ter-cep-tor until I can drive.” Dana Keller’s eyes were dead pale as she spoke with the prosecutor. “First, he assaulted a law enforcement officer. “Second, he had a lock back knife, a criminal record and he admitted he’d just made threats to cut his girlfriend’s face if she dared to see whoever he’d accused her of seeing. “Third, he grabbed me.” Dana folded her arms, gave the prosecutor the full benefit of her cold glare. “He already confessed that he thought I was his girlfriend.” She raised a hand, a finger with each point: “Motive, means, opportunity, if I hadn't thrown him over my shoulder and taken his wrist out of joint, he would've taken a knife to me and I'd had to've shot him and that would mean serious inconvenience and a bloody ton of paperwork." She separated her words and spoke quietly, which carried more weight than if she'd screamed the words in his face. "I, want, him, charged!” Deputy Sheriff Dana Keller, wearing a tailored suit dress, heels and an absolutely icy expression, leaned across the prosecutor’s desk, her blanched-white knuckles pressed into his desktop. Her voice was as hard and as cold as her eyes. She spoke quietly. There was no need to raise her voice. “Nobody – and I mean nobody – grabs a Sheriff’s deputy and gets away with it!” “You’ll have to sign the complaint.” “Sign it hell, I am preferring charges as a law enforcement officer!” Linn Keller sat at the head of the supper table, looked around at his family assembled. Everyone except Jacob was there – they had two leaves in the table so everyone would fit – the girls all worked their magic while Linn and Michael retreated to Linn’s study; both were willing to help, but both realized they’d just be in the way. Linn looked around the table, and the family looked back at him, and they saw his eyes tighten a little at the corners, the way they did before his smile spread to the rest of his face. “Now this is proper,” he said softly, then he bowed his head and talked to his plate. “Mar-nie?” Michael asked hesitantly as his big sis started toward the Iris. Marnie stopped, turned, tilted her head a little. “Yes?” “Marnie, did Old Pale Eyes feel stuff too? Like we did?” Marnie considered, then smiled: she and Angela looked at a particular shelf in their Daddy’s study, a shelf that contained the reprinted Journals. “Volume six?” Dana asked. “I’m betting seven.” Marnie reached up, pulled down volumes six and seven: Linn rose, offered his chair, stood back as Marnie settled into his desk chair, turned on the green-glass-shaded lamp, paged quickly from the back of the journal, toward the front. She was looking for a change in handwriting. The last volume, she knew, was finished out in a masculine hand – Jacob’s hand, after Old Pale Eyes passed away – but before that, the handwriting was delicate, feminine, quite lovely, actually. They felt her satisfaction when she found the entry she was looking for. She looked up at Angela, smiled. “You’re right. Volume Seven.” She pulled a dainty little set of slender, rectangular, wire rimmed spectacles from somewhere in her bodice, slipped them on her face and ran them halfway down her nose, and managed to look very proper as she did. “This entry,” she said, “mentions a previous entry, when the Old Sheriff felt his grandson’s charging into his final battle. He didn’t feel him killed, but he felt the warrior’s attack.” She looked up, looked at Michael. “That was in the very early days of the First World War, so yes. Yes, Michael, we’ve been able to feel… it … for a very long time, and probably further back than Old Pale Eyes.” “Cool,” Michael breathed. Victoria looked at Michael, distressed. “Butbutbut … I can’t get away with nothin’,” she wailed. Linn laughed quietly, bent down, hugged his darlin’ daughter from behind. “Do you remember,” he whispered in her ear, “how your Mama knows stuff?” Victoria nodded hesitantly. “Your Mama knew when Jacob fell off a horse and broke his arm, and him half a county away. Your Mama knew when you fell and scraped your knee. Your Mama knew when I was bringin’ her flowers on the sly and tryin’ to surprise her.” Victoria nodded, frowning the way a little girl will when faced with great and immutable truths. “Mamas always know. We can’t get away with nothin’. Never been able to, never will!” “Oh,” Victoria said, her bottom lip pooched out, disappointed. Angela and Dana shared a look with each other, then with Marnie: the three nodded, a silent understanding passing between them: That won’t stop her from trying. And it didn’t.

McKENNA INVESTIGATION AND APPREHENSION An orange mist enveloped a stranger wearing a ghillie suit. What was left of a can of bear spray spun off to the side, clattered to the ground: the camo-wrapped, long-lensed camera fell on its neckstrap, forgotten. His hand stung, he squinted his eyes, then shut them, stumbling blindly uphill, away from the choking cloud: it was suddenly very hard to breathe, he was instantly nauseated, the skin around his eyes felt on fire. A silent guardian with a rifle drew back, motioned: something bearlike, something very black, with feral-yellow eyes, obediently joined the rifleman. The two descended the hillside, silent, as the morning’s updraft carried the yellowish cloud away from them, away from an unsuccessful attempt to get photographs of certain residents of the Sheriff’s ranch. Later that day, two drones fell from the sky above the same ranch, their electronics confused, scrambled by a focused, high energy pulse: these were collected, sent to a certain Federal agency, and charges preferred against those who wished to get aerial photos of the home of two of the Sheriff’s deputies, both of whom were recently involved in line of duty shootings. When two strangers in a rented sedan tried to turn up the Sheriff’s driveway, they were met by a grinning boy on a shining-red Farmall tractor sitting crosswise of the roadway, a post hole digger swinging from the three-point hitch and fresh dirt on its auger: when one blew the car’s horn impatiently, the boy raised a talkie, lowered it, smiled, and shut the tractor’s engine off. Within one minute, a Sheriff’s cruiser arrived and the pair, after a brief discussion, decided it would be better to depart, rather than be arrested for harassment and trespass. Deputy Sheriff Angela Keller testified. She was as collected, as parsimonious in her replies, as her pale eyed father. When challenged as to the need for use of deadly force, Angela asked for a particular exhibit: a photograph was projected on the courtroom’s big screen, showing a pistol in close proximity to a limp, finger-curled hand. A second photograph, showing evidence markers, little yellow plastic tents with big black numbers, placed over fired shell casings, so the empty hulls could be seen by the camera. “Deadly force was directed at me,” she said. “Your testimony,” the prosecutor said, referring unnecessarily to handwritten notes on a yellow pad, “was – and I quote here – “It was completely dark.” Is that still your testimony, Deputy? I remind you, you are under oath. How could you possibly have seen anything?” Angela turned her head, addressed the Judge. “If the Bailiff will pass me my shotgun.” “I’ll allow it.” The bailiff picked up the shotgun, looked at the uniformed, pale eyed deputy on the witness stand. “Confirm empty.” “Confirmed empty.” “Confirm the evidence strap is run through the action and loading gate and that this renders the weapon inoperable.” “Inoperability confirmed.” Angela stood, stepped down from the witness stand, raised her chin to someone in back. There was the brittle *click* of a circuit breaker being thrown; the courtroom went dark, then a bright circle of pure-white light shone on the ceiling. Angela could be seen in its reflected light, holding the shotgun, muzzle-up. “I have a light on my shotgun,” she said. “Very useful in dark places.” Angela pursed her lips, whistled a gentle, three-note whip-por-will, and the courtroom lights came back on. Angela handed the shotgun back to the bailiff and resumed her seat. The inquest continued; Angela was professional, Angela was polite, Angela was uniformed as a Sheriff’s deputy, and the only crack in her impenetrable personal shield was when she was asked about her other professions and how this line-of-duty shooting affected her. “I am a nurse,” she said, “and as a result of the media declaring me an ‘Angel of Mercy, Angel of Death’” – the screen lit up again, a screenshot of an evening news broadcast, bearing that title in high-contrast letters – “I’ve been fired from my nursing position in the City.” Her lip curled into a sneer as she added, “It seems their administration doesn’t want nurses who can keep people safe.” “Wouldn’t you say that’s a fair statement, though?” “Objection!” “I’ll answer,” Angela snapped, her jaw hardening: her eyes were pale, her glare challenged the prosecutor. “My job,” she said, her voice cold enough to frost the air as she spoke, “is to keep people alive. I do that however I must. As a nurse, I use medical procedures. As a Sheriff’s deputy, I have a variety of tools. As a human, I recognize I cannot keep anyone alive if I’m dead!” She looked at the screenshot, still glowing on the screen, thrust her chin at it. “I didn’t ask for that. All I wanted was to retrieve the hostage, alive and unharmed.” She glared at the prosecutor, her final words an open challenge. “We did that.” When the jury returned, it was with a no-bill. Dana’s inquest was that afternoon; she, too, was no-billed. Two pale eyed sisters walked out of the courthouse, two uniformed deputies with pale eyes, side by side. The ladies of the Tea Society filed out with them, flowing around them, flanking them, preceding them as they descended the marble courthouse stairs, a pastel cloud of feminine support and encouragement: that same day, the Tea Society discreetly communicated to the Sheriff that they would like to continue their use-of-force lessons, especially those geared to the feminine use of the defensive shotgun – at a time that would not attract unwanted, negative attention: the Sheriff bundled the inquiring mother in his arms, hugged her carefully, tilted his head so as not to disturb the fashionable hat pinned to her elaborate coiffure, then whispered, “Thank you for your discretion,” and then released his hug, stopped at arm’s length, his fingertips gently on the upper arms of her McKenna gown. “We’ll arrange that.” Angela Keller, in her white uniform, held up sterile-gloved hands: she had six student nurses from three different worlds, in their blue-and-white-striped uniform dresses and pastel-blue, winged caps: outside, the sky glowed a soft green, as it did when one of the planet’s two suns was only just slid below the horizon. Angela stood on one side of the post-operative patient's bed, a student on either side of her; the others stood on the other side of the bed, silent, attentive. “I had an instructor,” she said in her gentle voice, “who could not teach her way out of a wet paper bag. I learned absolutely nothing from her words, but my Daddy taught me to watch the hands. “Her hands knew the work. Her hands taught me more than any word she ever uttered.” Angela looked around, laughed a little. “I hope I’m not that bad!” Student nurses from three worlds laughed a little, relaxed: Angela was their favorite instructor. “Now here’s how I want to see you change this surgical dressing One hand clean, one hand not, like this.” A City detective laughed quietly as he read the report on his computer screen. His partner slouched over, sleeves rolled up partway, necktie askew, a coffee in each hand: he set one tall paper cup down on his partner’s desk, dropped his hip indolently on the corner of the desk. “So are you reading the report or a comedy routine?” His partner laughed again, grinned at his partner. “You recall that harassment case we got handed?” “Yeah, sexual harassment instead of going after real criminals. Waste of time. Why?” “It’s solved.” “What?” He came around, read over his partner’s shoulder: the two were silent, scrolling slowly through statements, photographs, more statements. “Whoa. Back that up.” Secretary said a candidate for a job opening went into subject’s office. Secretary opened intercom as instructed by investigator and began recording as instructed by investigator. Secretary heard subject discuss proper attire and actions required, recording attached. Candidate stated she was not going to dress like a schoolgirl for him or for anyone else and she was not going to perform sexual favors for him or anyone else. Sounds of scuffle ensued. Candidate said in loud voice “Let go of me!” Subject replied “I like it when they fight.” Subject was observed exiting office without benefit of opening door first, photograph of broken door attached. Candidate is reported to have landed on subject like proverbial ton of bricks, secretary’s words, recording attached. Candidate is said to have handcuffed subject and informed subject that he would behave himself or he would be thrown through another door. Subject behaved. One detective laughed, the other patted his partner on the shoulder. “Who in the hell did you get?” he asked. “Is that her picture?” “That’s her, pretending to be the candidate. She looks like a high-school girl, doesn’t she?” “SHE put a man through a closed door?” “Yyyep.” “Dayum!” – then, “Who is she? Can we get her hired on?” “No, she’s taken. She’s got a side gig – I’ve got her card. Here.” His partner took the card, read it aloud. “McKenna Investigation and Apprehension,” he read, “Home of the Black Agent.” He looked at the candidate’s image, still on his partner’s screen. “She’s not black,” he protested. “She said black is her favorite color,” her partner shrugged. “Especially for night ops.” “Cute girl, though.” “Cute?” his partner snorted. “Look at those eyes.” He touched the screen, pinched his fingers open, enlarged the candidate’s image. “Look at those eyes, Buddy Joe.” His partner leaned closer, swore. “Those are the eyes of a polished marble statue, amigo,” the detective said quietly. “I don’t know what hell that pretty little girl saw in her lifetime, but with those eyes? She could kill you three times before you hit the floor and go home and sleep with a clean conscience.”

I grew up watching my father treat my Mama like a Lady. This taught me how to treat my wife. We'll get the menu and go through it and we'll make wit' da smart remarks and laugh, and when the waitress arrives ... well, laughter is contagious, and they seem to like it when their customers are in a good mood and greet her with a smile. I'll nod to my wife and say "You go first, Sweet Pea," and we take it from there. Besides, my wife has more than earned the right to be treated like the Lady she is!

My first thought was the Soviet Night Witches.

"IS THAT WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO DO?" I went down on one knee. My left arm was around Michael's waist. My right arm was around Victoria's waist. They were both looking with big and concerned eyes toward our barn. I caught them before they could go running to the barn, before they could interfere with what I knew was necessary. Victoria turned to me, hugged me, allowing herself to go from concerned-I-wanna-help-my-sister, to scared-Daddy-I-don't-know-what's-going on. Michael was trembling, but only slightly: he looked at me with big scared eyes and said "Pa, how come they're fightin'? "Your sisters ... Dana ..." I bit my bottom lip, then I dropped my arms under their backsides, stood, carried them back toward the house. "We need to talk." Dana's face was darkening: she'd gone from pale to near-purple, and gone there fast: Marnie was cool, dignified, outwardly calm. Outwardly. Dana was in a full-on, rip-it-apart RAGE. "DAMN YOU, DON'T YOU DARE JUDGE ME! YOU WEREN'T THERE!" "No," Marnie said quietly. "I wasn't." "HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE!" "I simply suggested I could've helped --" Angela SLAMMED her hand down on the old workbench, rattling tools and cans of parts, screws, nails: she yanked her hand away, exposed a six point star. "YOU SEE THAT? DO YOU SEE IT? THAT MEANS I AM RESPONSIBLE! "ME! "I HAVE TO HANDLE IT!" "Yes, I know that --" "THEN WHERE DO YOU GET OFF, MISS HIGH AND MIGHTY " -- she spat the word -- "DIPLOMAT!" -- she paused for breath -- "WITH A CONFEDERATE WAR FLEET AT THE SNAP OF YOUR FINGERS, WHERE IN THE BLUE HAYIL!! DO YOU GET OFF TELLING ME WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE?" Marnie blinked, touched her gloved fingertips delicately together in front of her: she blinked, calmly, considered for several moments. "Perhaps if we had some tea --" "THERE WAS NO TIME TO GO RUNNING HOME LIKE A SCARED LITTLE GIRL, THERE WAS NO TIME TO CALL YOU AND SAY I'M SCARED, I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS, SEND ME SOME MAGICAL TECHNOLOGY SO I CAN USE A SCANNER TO FIND THE BAD GUYS AND THE VICTIMS! THERE WAS ME, THERE WAS ANGELA, THERE WAS TANK AND THAT WAS IT!" Dana Keller's eyes lost the last trace of any color at all: her fingers were not fisted, they were clawed, her teeth bared, she crouched slightly, and Marnie heard a distinct, deep, animal snarl. It was a beautiful snarl, really: Marnie was as musically inclined as all the women of her line, Marnie had perfect pitch, and Marnie, in a detached moment, recognized a harmony when she heard it. She heard the harmony from beside her left leg, as something solid and furry leaned against her skirt, and Dana heard it from beside her, as something solid and furry leaned against her denim-covered leg. Each of the pale eyed Keller ladies reached down, laid a gentling hand on the white-furred head of a yellow-eyed wolf. Linn set Michael and Victoria down: he was already in a squat, he went the rest of the way onto his bony backside and crossed his legs like Big Chief Mug Wump. His two six year old children did the same. "Michael." "Yes, sir?" "Michael, what are actuarial tables?" Michael blinked, frowned, looked up, puzzled. "I don't know, sir." Linn smiled, just a little, and two childrens' hearts relaxed, just a little: here in the house, they could not hear what was (or was not) transpiring in the barn. "Actuarial tables are something the insurance firms use to determine their rates, according to the risk of paying out money." Michael frowned, clearly not understanding. "Insurance companies keep track of every profession and every avocation and they adjust their insurance premium payments accordingly. "Oh." "The actuarial tables show us that men die earlier than women, in most cases." "How come?" Michael went from distressed to curious like the turning of a card. Linn steepled his fingers. "Michael, if I bang my thumb with a hammer when I'm trying to drive a nail, what do I do?" Michael grinned -- he frowned, glared at his thumb, shook it and then shoved his bottom jaw out with a scowl. "What would your Mama do if she banged her thumb just as hard?" Michael slung his hand vigorously, gripped it with the other hand, clutched it to his breast, rocked a little and howled in a juvenile exaggeration of what he'd seen his Mama do in the past. Linn snapped his fingers -- which ended Michael's performance -- "Exactly," he said. "Now. Let's take this further. Why do men die of heart attacks more often then women?" "Women have silent heart attack," Victoria protested. "Yes they do," Linn nodded, looking directly at her with a wink: "women often don't realize that's what's happening, but we're learning better, aren't we?" Angela nodded solemnly. "Mommy said so too!" "Yes she did. Unfortunately what do men do when they're having a heart attack?" Michael frowned, then looked at his Pa, concerned: "They die?" "Too often they do," Linn agreed. "Y'see, Michael, men are taught from birth" -- he straightened his spine, threw back his shoulders, struck a Heroic Pose of a Greek God, which brought giggles from his youngest -- "Men hide when they're hurt. Remember last time we ate at the Silver Jewel, your Mama came out of her seat and grabbed that fella?" Michael and Victoria were big-eyed and solemn again, remembering the scene. "The fellow was choking. He didn't want to make a scene at the table so he headed for the men's room. He got three steps and started to collapse and your Mama ran her knee under his backside, bear hugged him and Heimliched him three times, hard." "Mama saved his life," Victoria said with an emphatic nod, and her pale eyed Daddy grinned. "Yes she did," he agreed, "but if that fellow had fell down and nobody cleared his airway ...?" "He'd have died," two young voices said softly. "Exactly. Women have sense enough to go to the doctor when something is wrong. Men -- too often -- will say it's just gas, or something I ate, or it'll go away on its own, and men die." "Oh." Two children sat, cross-legged and blinking, taking all this in. "Now -- about Dana and Marnie." "Daddy, howcomewhyizzit --" Michael blurted, and Victoria blurted "Daddy, howcum they're fightin --" Linn raised his hands, smiled gently. "Dana had a really bad day at work," he explained. "She shot seven guys that tried to kidnap her," Michael said with the positive knowledge of a little child. "They said so at school." "Wasn't quite like that," Linn corrected in a gentle voice, "but we can't say a word about it, not to anybody." Two children nodded solemnly. "Yes she did have to kill someone. It's hard on a good man when it's a righteous shoot. She had to kill the bad guys to keep them from killing her. She did the right thing and her conscience is clear, but it's still hard on a good clean conscience to know they've sent someone to hell. Dana has kept it inside too long. She has to make a statement tomorrow and Marnie came home to help her." "But how come they're fightin', Daddy?" Victoria asked, distressed. "They're not," Linn smiled. "They're clearing the air, Dana is discharging all that held-back stress all at once, and Marnie is the lightning rod." "Ouch," Michael whispered. Linn nodded. "It's not easy," he agreed. "I overstepped myself," Marnie said quietly. "I'm sorry." Dana glared at her, one hand on a White Wolf's shoulder, caressing its silky, snowy fur. "You're right. You had to handle it, you were responsible for it and you did your job." Marnie's gloved hand was busy in another White Wolf's silky fur. "I only wish --" "Don't," Dana warned. Marnie stopped, closed her eyes: she nodded. "You're right," she said quietly. "I came across as judgmental. I'm sorry." "Maybe it's a good thing," Dana said, willing herself to calm: the White Wolf helped -- somehow she was not surprised at the she-wolf's presence, somehow she wasn't surprised that she knew this was a female, lending her quiet reassurance in a difficult moment. "Oh?" Dana smiled with half her face. "I have to give my official statement tomorrow." "You have a lawyer" -- it was a statement, not a question. Dana nodded. "I have." "A specialist?" "The best." "A lawyer who specializes in defending the innocent, not the guilty." "Damn right," Dana muttered. "Good. A defense attorney who's used to defending the guilty will pleabargain you straight into a prison sentence." "Don't I know it," Dana spat. "Saw that too many times." Marnie tilted her head a little. "There's more to you than meets the eye." "How's that?" Dana looked at the workbench, picked up her badgeholder and its six point star, slid them back into a pocket. "When you realized you had to break the shot, I was just finishing some sensitive negotiations. I was standing at the head table. On my right, running away from me, negotiators from one hard-headed, hard-bargaining group. On my left, opposite the first, negotiators from another hard-headed, hard-bargaining group. They'd just come to accord, we'd just finalized the signatures, and my friend here" -- she looked down at the white wolf, who was leaning companionably against her leg, ears laid back with pleasure at the attention she was getting -- "appeared at the far end of the tables. "She came trotting up between them, straight toward me, and I felt -- for the moment, I became you, and I felt your realization that you had to take the shot, and I felt the sear break as you pulled the trigger. "I stepped back and said 'Gentlemen, forgive me, I must go prevent a war,' and I triggered the Iris. "In that moment, the entire fleet of Starfighters, every last one of them, woke up and laid in a course for Earth. "I stepped out of my Iris into the mothership just in time to hear General Quarters sound." Marnie smiled, shook her head. "Helen of Troy started a war," she sighed. "You had thirteen star systems of hell-raising Confederates ready to mobilize on your behalf." "Sir?" Michael asked, frowning a little. "Yes, Michael?" "Sir ... Dana was yelling, real loud ..." Linn nodded. Michael was uncertain, processing everything he'd been told. "Sir, is that what I'm supposed to do?"

A friend of mine discussed a local city's follies. He said the Chief brought a little glass vial of used engine oil (black as your hat) to Council meeting and said "If we send this much oil for testing, we can find out how much metal is in it. We're running Diesel engines. Once we get a certain threshold of metal in the oil, it's time to rebuild the engine." Council wouldn't go the expense of testing. They'd rather wait until the engine fails. Another time -- a rust spall the size of man's hand, laid down on the Council table -- "This came from the frame of one of our pumpers. We need to have them taken out of service and the frame repaired or replaced, otherwise it'll break and it'll break right at the worst possible time." Again -- no. Guess what. A pumper broke in two responding to a run. Made the front page of the local paper, broke in two and belly down on the ground. There is great folly in laymen telling professionals how to do their job.

BLOODY SHIRT Michael and Victoria were still quite young, and the young are flexible in their mindset. The world was still filled with magic; it was not at all unusual, in their worldview, for a black cat's-eye to appear, to widen, for their big sister Marnie to step out and hug them and laugh and sometimes she brought people with her, and sometimes she took their hands and stepped through the black cat's-eye with them and they were suddenly in another place. They accepted this as usual, as normal, but as magical as well: magic can be fragile, and this magic, they knew, must never be spoken of, lest it disappear entirely. Michael was as fidgety and as spontaneous and with just as fast-moving a mind as any normal little boy, and as usual, his twin sister Victoria -- within minutes of the same age -- was more disciplined, more likely to sit still, to listen. In other words, they were perfectly normal. Victoria knew she was a girl and she knew she was expected to be a girl, and Victoria delighted in being a girl: her Mama delighted in dressing her in pastels and frilly girl clothes, in fussing over her hair and sharing womanly tasks, and Michael ... well, Michael was just as rip-roarin' happy to be his Pa's boy, especially when he wore blue jeans like his Pa, and boots like his Pa, and a Stetson like his Pa, and he dearly loved it when he and his Pa got into stuff. Michael may've had the short attention span of a preschooler, but he was absolutely fascinated with anything that his Pa did. When Linn dismounted the front wheel assembly from that faded orange Dodge Power Wagon, when his Pa laid out the wheel bearing on spread out sheets of newspaper, when his Pa had a socket set ready to hand with shining chrome sockets in symmetrical rows, when his combination wrenches were neatly ranked in their holder, Michael paid attention: Michael sat on a rolling shop stool, hunched forward, absolutely fascinated as his Pa's hands tore down the old wheel bearing assembly and sloshed it around in an old dishpan of gasoline, as he cleaned it off and inspected it closely and then came over under good light and said "Michael, take a look at this," and the two solemnly inspected the worn part, with his Pa pointing out this and pointing out that, and so each of the youngest Kellers learned their place in the world, and learned how to conduct themselves in the world, and learned about their duties in this world. When Marnie showed up, though, all bets were off, and both Michael and Victoria wiped their mental slates clean and prepared to receive entirely new lessons. Michael and Victoria sat cross-legged on a red-and-white tablecloth, their big sister Marnie sitting cross-legged in front of them: Marnie wore a McKenna gown -- again, something perfectly normal in their young worldview: they were used to their Mama joining the Ladies of the Tea Society, and on occasion she'd dressed the two of them for the occasion (they had to sit very still and not fidget). Sarah was reading to them, something in which they delighted: their pale eyed Pa read to them, with one twin on each thigh, with them sitting up and paying attention, and generally ending up slouched over against their Pa's chest, sound asleep, and being packed off to bed: their Mama read to them, sometimes she read to them as they sat on the back porch steps and she sat on an upturned five gallon bucket with a hair pillow for padding. Wherever it was, the youngest of the Keller young, learned to love reading by being read to. Today they sat cross-legged on a world far from Earth, listening to Marnie read an account written by a Navajo physician, an account called Bloody Shirt. Jacob Keller sat on the schoolhouse bench, eyes on the lesson, ears listening to Mrs. Cooper, the schoolmarm. Jacob was quiet and focused, solemn and unsmiling: unlike the other schoolboys his age, he had no time for the usual games and juvenile-masculine jousting that was part and parcel of growing up. He'd survived horrors and genuine hell that burned away his childhood, scarring him internally almost as badly as his back, and his back was a hell-map of whip-scars from the beatings he'd been given by the murdering son of Perdition that beat his pregnant Mama to death and tried to horse whip him to death. Jacob buried his Mama, in spite of his injuries, then he'd used the mule to drag the murderer's body out of the cabin -- he left a trail of gore as he was dragged out the door, as Jacob used the monster's own .44 revolver to blow a straight channel to Hell in one ear and out the other, as the monster lay drunk on the bed he'd shared with Jacob's Mama. And so Jacob sat, still, unmoving, focused. He honestly did not feel the pencil jab him in the back. Scar tissue is often tougher than the original, and scar tissue is often not enervated like the original, and when Jacob did not respond to being jabbed in the back, his bullying tormentor tried using a knife -- just a light little poke. Jacob still did not react. His tormentor, frustrated, knowing if he were discovered he'd likely be punished, nevertheless persisted: he poked Jacob in the back several more times, hesitating when Jacob shifted. Finally he poked a spot that wasn't scarred. He honestly did not see Jacob move. He did feel his wrist crackle. Jacob spun, seized the wrist, twisted and pulled: he dove, his eyes dead white and his face like a sheet of stretched parchment, bloodless and ghastly: teeth bared, his other hand driving forward, he had his tormentor by the throat, the two of them went over backwards, the knife fell to the floor between the rows of benches. Emma Cooper stopped, shocked, her hand drawing back slowly from the slate board in front: her hand faded downward until it touched the chalk trough, and she released the lump of genuine English chalk, her mouth open at the sight of her best and quietest student, Jacob Keller, bent over someone -- it was a someone, she saw legs kicking, waving in protest. Emma Cooper snatched her skirts, ran down the aisle between the benches -- she heard her voice shouting "JACOB! JACOB KELLER, YOU STOP THAT!" -- horrified, she realized Jacob had another student by the throat, pinned to the floor, the student's face was a ghastly purple, his tongue out, Jacob's white-knuckled grip around both throat and an outflung wrist -- Emma Cooper saw the knife -- Emma Cooper bent, seized the back of Jacob's coat, and with the strength given to women in moments of need, she hauled the pale eyed son of the pale eyed Sheriff off the floor, at least until Jacob swung his arms and slipped out of the coat and landed on the student again -- this time seizing his tormentor's lapels and hauling him clear off the deck, shaking him like a terrier shakes a rat. Emma Cooper stared, shocked. The back of Jacob's shirt was streaked and shining with blood. Later that day, the Sheriff rose as a father came into the Sheriff's office with his schoolboy son. The Sheriff heard the man out, listened calmly while the man blustered, as he shouted, as he demanded, as his son stood there, pale, subdued. "You done?" Linn asked -- then without waiting for a reply, he surged forward, seized the man, spun him and slammed him into the wall: a blade pressed against the man's neck. "If you move," Linn said quietly, "I will get blood all over that nice white linen shirt. Would you like me to do that?" Linn's pale eyes bored into the man's soul. "I asked you a question, mister. Answer me." "No," the father managed. Linn drew the knife back, held it up. "You see the blood on the tip?" His hand released the man's shirt front seized his throat, slammed his head against the wall. "I don't like to repeat myself." "I see it." "That's my son's blood and your son put it there." Linn released his grip on the man's throat, backed up, laid the knife on his desk top. He reached down, picked up a boy's shirt, held it up. "This is my son's white linen shirt," he said, "and this is my son's blood." Linn's voice was quiet. He knew there was no need to speak loudly. He very definitely had the other man's undivided. "Your boy tried poking my boy in the back with a pencil and that wasn't enough, he had to use a knife." The man was suddenly off his mental balance: this was not going at all like he'd planned, and he realized he was on the defensive -- not just that, he apparently had not a leg to stand on, thanks to his son. He looked at his boy, looked at the knife. "I gave you that knife," he said to his boy. "Yes, sir." "Sheriff, how bad is your boy hurt?" Linn's eyes were hard, cold. "He'll live." Dr. George Flint wiped the wounds carefully with a clean rag dipped in boiled water: his face was without expression as he worked: Nurse Susan watched, silent, ready to assist. Dr. Greenlees would be working with a frown, almost a scowl, even if things were going really well; Dr. Flint ... well, Dr. Flint would probably play one hell of a hand of poker, she thought, for his expression did not change from the moment Jacob came in and handed his Pa his bloodied shirt. "I'm sorry, sir," he'd said, "this wasn't my idea." Dr. Flint inspected the several punctures: a few were deep enough he probed them, satisfying himself they did not get as far as the ribs: painful though this was, Jacob did not so much as flinch, not even when Dr. Flint gauged the depth on the one puncture that wasn't on an irregular ridge of scar tissue. Jacob waited, expressionless, as the physician placed blunt, browned fingers on his ribs, under his armpits, bade him breathe in, deeply -- as the Doctor asked if there was any pain when he breathed -- he looked very directly into the Navajo's polished obsidian eyes as the Doctor spoke quietly, told him to let his Pa know immediately if there was a sudden pain when he breathed, and if he did, he should immediately lay down on the side where the pain was, and stay there until either the Doctor could get to him, or he could be brought to the Doctor. Jacob indicated that he understood. Marnie looked up, smiled. "Dr. Flint wrote about it, and that's how Jacob got his Navajo name. Now who's for ice cream?"