Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

ANOTHER MAN'S SON Jacob Keller gathered himself and launched at the other young man. Jacob had something the other did not: absolute, raw, blazing fury, a raw, animal, unforgiving, deadly aura that crackled around him, that shot ahead of him, that seized his opponent's heart and turned it to water. Each had a knife: Jacob was publicly backhanded and accused of tryin' to take his accuser's girl: Jacob's reply was instant -- he backhanded in reply, hard, snapping his challenger's head around and bringing blood from lips mashed against yellowed teeth. His challenger did not wear a gun, but he did wear a knife: honed steel slipped from hand-sewn sheath, Jacob crouched slightly, drew his own: he held the knife up, spun it in his fingers, stopped: the blade was held like an icepick, laid back against his wrist, edge out. The world held its breath, until Jacob detonated into a flat-out charge. The challenger was about his age, blond haired, taller by half a head, lean as were most young men of the era: he'd have Jacob by maybe a hand's-breadth in reach, but the advantage was negated by Jacob's charge: he stiff-armed the out-thrust blade, drove his fist hard into the exposed gut: as was his habit, his knuckles rotated to the vertical, his honed blade pressed through belt leather: Jacob whirled, a move he'd practiced ten thousand times -- fast, like a short, squatty top -- he spun, hooked his heel behind the other's knee. Jacob was on top of him, his boot on the other's wrist: he stood a-straddle of the flaxen-haired accuser, and Jacob still had his knife. "Now," Jacob said quietly. "Suppose you tell me about this girl I'm supposed to be stealin'." A woman's voice quavered, "Alan?" -- then, louder, "Allen!" -- Jacob turned as a young woman ran toward him. He let her see his blade. "Is that her?" he asked. Allen was trying hard to get some wind into his shocked lungs: his face was twisted, it felt like the noon freight just drove him barely south of his ribs -- he reached fearfully for his middle, as if exploring to see if his guts were hangin' out yet. The young woman ran at Jacob, screaming, her claws out, and he thrust at her, hard, caught her in the belly. She folded with a wide-eyed grunt, fell back, clutching her middle. Jacob raised his blade: it was still laid back against his wrist, clean, unbloodied. "You could be dead now," he said quietly. "Now suppose you tell this fellow who's been shinin' up to you." Jacob stepped back, removed his boot from the entrapped wrist: he bent, snatched up the other blade, stepped back. "I reckon you two ought to do some talkin'," he said quietly, as the bent-over, gasping girl removed her hands, looked at them with wide and wondering eyes, as if astonished there was no blood. Jacob slid his knife back into its hidden sheath, casually tossed the other blade in the nearby horse trough. "Free advice, mister," he said quietly. "Dig your own grave first before you challenge another man to a duel." That evening, after supper, Linn and Jacob withdrew to Linn's study. Linn closed the door, went to the sideboard, poured two brandies, handed one to his son. "You could've killed him, you know," Linn said without preamble. "I know that, sir." "The law would have sided with you." "It might not, sir. His Honor has an antipathy toward dueling, especially on a public street." Linn raised an eyebrow; Jacob grinned. "Like that fancy word?" he asked. "Got it off Sarah. Cost me sixbits and a paper of pins." Jacob saw amusement tighten the corners of his father's eyes. Jacob swirled his brandy, untasted, frowned into its amber depths. "Sir," he said slowly, "I saw how you grieved when Joseph died." He looked up at his father. "That fellow was younger than me." Linn nodded slowly, a single incline of his head: I hear you, the movement said, say on. "Sir, he's young and he was stupid to do that, but he's another man's son. Likely I shamed him there on the street, but he's alive to complain about it, and his Pa won't have to bury his own boy." Jacob looked closely at his father, at the older man's discomfiture: Linn turned, walked slowly to the window, his brandy forgotten in his hand. Jacob waited. He'd seen this before. His Pa carried ghosts, he knew, and one of 'em just walked up and said howdy to the man. Jacob waited. Linn finally took a long breath, spoke without turning. "I made that same choice, once," he said. Jacob nodded. "I've no idea what the offense was. Some fellow backhanded me and I belted him right back. He fetched out a set of dueling pistols and allowed as we'd settle it. "There were witnesses and he had a head of steam up and I knew if I tried to back out he'd cry me a coward and then I'd have to kill him, so we had the witnesses come up close and watch as the two pistols were both loaded, as they were both primed, as they were set on the table and we tossed a coin to see who picked first. "He did. "We paced by the count, we turned, we both fired, and we both missed." Jacob nodded: he, too, had forgotten the brandy he held. "We each fetched out our knives. "I reckon he expected the two of us to walk up to one another and cut each other to gentlemanly ribbons, but when it comes to knives, ain't no such thing." Jacob remembered the feel of his own knife's checkered rock-maple handle as he crouched and prepared to charge his obviously inexperienced opponent. "I let out a roar and I charged him, I drove into him and laid into him with my fists. "Whatever he'd accused me of was not worth a man's life and I didn't want to kill him, I hit into him hard enough he lost his knife so I threw mine and I give him just the worst beatin' he'd ever had in his entire life, and when I was done I picked him up off the ground and swung him overhead and threw him down face first into the dirt. "Everyone was drawed back and big-eyed and I glared round about and then I taken up them dueling pistols, I set 'em back in their box and closed the lid and allowed as I was not going to kill a man over something that petty, and I left." Jacob remembered his brandy: he tilted it up and took a swig, and so did his father. Linn looked out the window again, then he turned and set down his brandy snifter. He opened his desk, took out a key, opened a hidden door on the side of his desk and pulled out a wooden case. He set it on the table beside his brandy snifter, swung the latch and opened the lid. Jacob paced slowly over and regarded the matched pair of flintlock dueling pistols. Father and son looked at one another. "A man decides, sometimes, who lives and who dies," Linn said quietly. "The choice he makes is not to be questioned." Linn tilted the snifter, drank, set the empty brandy balloon on a hand crocheted doily. "I've watched men grieve their sons, too," he said quietly. "If I can give a father back his son, I'd rather do that."

INSURANCE Jacob Keller kicked loose of the stirrups, came out of the saddle, hit the ground: he seized his wild rag, pulled viciously -- horsemen tied an insurance knot so if their silk neckerchief was caught by a stay branch or seized from behind by hostile hands, it would slip through the knot and not strangle them, or break their neck -- he spun it, wrapped it around a tall boy's arm, high up. "Reach me that kindlin' stick yonder," he said, thrusting with his chin, and a smaller boy, big-eyed and scared, did what came natural: he did what an elder told him. "Hold really still, now," Jacob said softly. "Do not so much as wiggle your fingers." He wrapped the wild rag, making sure the band was broad across the inside of the upper arm, he inserted the kindling stick and twisted, once, not enough to shut anything off. "What's that for?" the smaller boy asked -- he was scared, but he was curious, and Jacob counted that a good thing, for if he was curious, his mind was not froze up with fear, and he could learn. "Insurance," Jacob grunted. He looked at the long slender glass shard sticking out of the inside of the arm, he slipped exploring fingers under the arm -- it hadn't come clear through -- he thought for a moment. The shard was long, slim, curved a little, as if from a broken bottle: there was some bleeding and it only just happened as Jacob rode up, and 'twas happen-stance that Jacob showed up when he did. The little brother reached, quickly, seized the shining glassy dagger impaled into the inside of his big brother's forearm -- "DON'T --" Blood squirted, bright and spectacular, and Jacob twisted the kindling stick: the blood shut off and Jacob tied off the stick. "This'll hold til I get you in to Doc," he muttered. "I'm leavin' that uncovered. I don't know if there's more glass in there and I don't want to press down with a bandage and cut you up inside." Jacob looked at the smaller boy. "Where's your folks?" "Ma's off tendin' the neighbor woman, she's havin' a baby an' Pa he's helpin' the neighbor get in his cows." "We're headin' for Doc Greenlees in town. I'll fetch your brother back oncet he's done." "But Pa ain't got no money!" the little boy protested. "Your lucky day," Jacob grunted, picking up the injured child as Apple-horse came head-bobbing over. "Today's payday and I'm buyin'." It was awkward but Jacob got into the saddle with a long legged, shivering child in his arms: he turned Apple-horse toward town and set out at a spanking trot. Orrin McVey looked up at the thin, distant sound of a child's quavering shout. They'd just got the cattle into the new graze and set the fence shut, he was about wore out and personally he'd have liked to taken a singletree to a few of them-there stubborn hard headed contrary don't listen to him a'tall cattle, but by God! they got 'em in there, and them only two men and a herdin' dog that was worth any two men itself! He straightened, leaned against a fencepost, shaded his eyes, just as his wife called from the porch of his neighbor's solid-built cabin. "Orrin," she called, looking around: Orrin raised an arm to show he saw her, he heard her. Mrs. McVey looked around, searching for something, or someone -- Orrin's stomach tightened down some -- but his wife didn't look distressed -- he looked over to his neighbor, waved his hat, whistled. His neighbor raised an arm, started crossing the field toward him with long, powerful strides, the vigorous gait of a man used to hard work, a man who reveled in the strength of the body God Almighty give him. Orrin raised his arm again, lowered it to point to the cabin. His neighbor leaned forward into a run. Orrin turned, grinning, then turned a little more and his grin fell away. His youngest boy -- he was no more'n five -- was running toward him, stumbling a little, and Orrin knew something was wrong, bad wrong. Orrin swung a leg over the fence, then the other leg, he took off a-runnin' toward his youngest boy. Mrs. McVey was smiling as a running man charged the back porch, as he stopped, as he leaned over a little to catch his wind: he straightened, his expression anxious. Mrs. McVey stepped off the porch, took his arm and patted his chest like his Mama used to: she tilted her head a little, smiling. "Hello, Father," she said gently. "Your son would like to make your acquaintance." The man blinked, grinned. "My ... son?" He took a few more long breaths. "My wife?" "Is fine. We're getting her presentable now." She steered him to a handy keg, set on the porch for that purpose earlier that day: he eased down, staring sightlessly at the far mountains, the expression of a man who'd just been clobbered with a happy stick. "I have a son," he said, his voice quiet, wondering. "I think your wife may have had something to do with it," Mrs. McVey smiled. He rose as another neighbor woman came to the door, motioned: Mrs. McVey slipped a hand under his arm, pulled. "Up with you now," she said, "wash your face and comb your hair before you go in. You want to make a good first impression on your firstborn!" Jacob tugged at the bell-pull, twice: he swung down, carefully, the boy still in his arms. He shoved open the door, strode across the waiting room, used the side of his boot-sole to drum a summons on the inner door. Nurse Susan pulled the door open, frowning, until she saw Jacob held a child with a bloodied arm and a tourniquet around his upper arm. Orrin McVey hugged his youngest, a five year old towhead, who was panting, shaking, about done in: he'd run just over a mile and a half in a blind panic and he just honestly collapsed as his Pa knelt and opened his arms to him. Orrin picked his boy up, carried him back to the neighbor's cabin, letting his son get his wind, let his son get the comfort he needed: something scared the boy bad and Orrin remembered being scared like that, and how his Pa caught him up and held him until he'd soaked up enough reassurance from being held and knowing he was safe, to string two words together so they made sense. Orrin's wife looked up as he husband opened the cabin door: she frowned, then shot a look to the other women, turned, walked quickly to her husband. "It's Luke," Orrin said. That evening, over a simple supper, a pale eyed Deputy and a boy with a bandaged arm and the rest of his family, bowed their heads as the father talked to his plate: after the meal, he and the young Deputy stepped out on the front porch and spoke quietly, as men will in such times. "Doc probed the wound," Jacob said, "to make sure there was no more glass in it. There was and he got it out. He said to keep it clean and watch for infection and if it swells up or gets hot and red and especially if it starts leakin' corruption, fetch him back and he'll take care of it so it don't get the gangrene." The father nodded; he considered, then asked quietly, "How much do I owe Doc?" Jacob smiled, just a little, looked frankly at the man. "Sir, your youngest son was distressed that he had not a cent to pay toward the bill, and I have a younger brother that gets distressed like that, so I told him today's payday, I'd take care of the bill." "It's you I owe, then." "Wellsir, let me sharpen my pencil and figure this'n out," Jacob said, raising his eyes to the underside of the porch roof and rubbing his beardless chin thoughtfully. "If we add Doc's fee, transportation and three or four other long words, why, I reckon a good square meal will take care of it." Jacob stuck out his hand and they shook. "I was taken care of when I was hurt, and that's the best meal I've had in quite some time."

STUPID RIDER Morning briefing, and Sheriff Linn Keller stood up, coffee in his off hand, his other hooked in his gunbelt. “Criminals,” he said, “are generally not the brightest knife in the chandelier.” He frowned, looked at his mug of coffee, took a long drink. “Like I was saying, they’re not the brightest bulb in the kitchen drawer.” He frowned again, drank the rest of the mug, looked into its empty depths. “Empty,” he grunted. “Must be a hole in it.” He set his mug down, looked at the off-going shift and the on-coming shift, all seated in the conference room for shift-change briefing. “Back when Old Pale Eyes was Sheriff, a fellow named Cooperrider held up the general store over in Carbon Hill. The proprietor’s wife took a shot at him with a two-barrel Derringer and that spooked him, so he ran out of the store and saw he hadn’t tied his green-broke horse off well enough and it was pulled loose and gone. “She’d already shot at him once and he wanted to get the hell out of town before she got that little pistol cocked again, so he committed Grand Theft Horseback and stole the next horse at the hitch rail and lit out at a full panic gallop. "Damn fool didn't realize the horse was wallin' his eyes and pullin' away from the gunshot and not from a stranger grabbin' his reins. He was stealin' a gunshy horse and didn't know it. “Telegraph was coming into use about then, and since he was headed this-a-way, why, good old Law and Order Harry Macfarland fired a telegram to Firelands, and about the time Cooperrider came over the rise into town, Old Pale Eyes was standin’ there in the middle of the road with a two pipe shoot gun acrost his elbow. “Cooperrider fetched out his pistol and took a shot. “Now you’ll recall I said the criminal element isn’t hittin’ on all cylinders and he surely wasn’t. “Not only did he steal a horse – a hangin’ offense right there -- he cut loose with a .38-40 right over top that gunshy horse’s ears and it just plain come unglued without losin’ any speed a’tall, and Cooperrider found himself sailin’ through the air with the greatest of class, and once he quit a-rollin’, why, he saw them twin bores lookin’ very seriously at the end of his schnozz and he allowed as he’d ought to give up, which Old Pale Eyes allowed was a fine idea, he’d let him. “Old Pale Eyes walked him into town and locked him up and I don’t know if anyone ever did find that gunshy horse, but I do know by the time His Honor swung the gavel and allowed as the man would spend some time enjoyin’ prison cookin’, he’d already gotten his prison nickname.” Linn looked at his coffee mug as if hoping it had magically refilled itself; it hadn’t, so he looked up and concluded. “Stupidrider.” He picked up his empty mug, turned it over, smacked its bottom: pale eyes followed something nonexistent as it fell from the cup, floated to the floor and was stepped on: the Sheriff replaced the offending implement on the table. “Spontaneous utterance is admissible in a court of law, so if the criminal wants to talk, we let ‘em. If they’re stupid enough to dig their grave with their words, be smart enough to hand ‘em the shovel.” He looked around. “Off-going shift, good work last night. Oncoming shift, you’ve got new rubber and new brakes on your cruisers. Questions?” Linn looked around, waited, nodded. “Dismissed.”

"STAND AT ATTENTION, SOLDIER!" It was one week to the day since a pale eyed woman in three-inch heels and a tailored blue suit dress, swivel-hipped into the Firelands council meeting, took the Mayor by his Italian-silk tie, dragged him across the table and decked him, cuffed him, dragged him across the floor and shoved him into the Police Chief's startled arms and recited a litany of charges against the man, then slapped two warrants into the Chief's chest: she turned, took three steps back toward the Council table, stopped, spun -- spun like a dancer, graceful, on the balls of her feet -- turned over her lapel to expose a six point star. "Name's Keller," she snapped. "Sheriff, Firelands County." It was a week to the day from the night Willamina Keller, for her very first act as Sheriff, hauled open the bottle-and-chair-leg-scarred door of the Spring Inn, strode in with a double handful of riot gun, and drove a charge of 00 buck through the ceiling, which instantly froze a barfight in mid-air: a week to the day since she strode through the middle of astonished, staring battlers, shoving one and another aside as she did -- a week to the day that she laid unkind hands on the root cause of the barfight, slamming one woman face-first into the wall and giving the other (who was foolish enough to break a beer bottle and invite this interloper to take a taste) a good look at the muzzle of a laser sighted .45 automatic. Sheriff Willamina Keller came into town like a Texas twister and established her authority quickly and unmistakably, and for their yearly parade, she chose not to ride in an open convertible, waving to the constituency as had done her predecessors. She marched in the parade in her Marine Corps uniform, as part of the veteran's group. Their Commander invited her to inspect the troops. Colonel Willamina Keller, her uniform immaculate, stepped very close to the commander and said very quietly, "Are you sure you want me to do this?" He nodded. She nodded, stepped back, saluted: she stepped to the parade-ready ranks: they came to attention, and she walked silently along the first rank, then the second, then the third: she nodded, came up before them, started with the last man on the end. She gave him a very cold, very frank assessment, slowly, head to foot: she stopped, squared off with him, her face serious, then she reached up and very gently worked his necktie a little, tugged at his collar and said quietly, "My late husband could not tie a necktie to save his sorry backside. Thank you for caring enough to present a proper uniform appearance." She spoke just loud enough so her words could be heard by the man beside him, the man behind. Another: again, the cold-eyed inspection, the frank appraisal, the quiet words: "I've not seen that good a shine on a pair of boots in my years in the Corps. Well done." She stopped at the next to last man in the front rank, took his rifle, opened the bolt: here she showed her experience: her moves were precise, exact, as if she'd done this many times before: she ran caressing fingertips down the length of the stock, turned her fingertips and looked very directly at them, as if she'd just white-gloved the rifle: she spun the rifle, looked at the veteran, down at the rifle: she executed a flawless right-face while bringing the rifle up, she looked down the bore -- only then did anyone realize, the rifle's bolt was held by the handle between two fingers of her right hand -- the stock wobbled in a tiny little circle as she cast the long shaft of reflected light around the bore's circumference -- she brought the rifle down, reinserted the bolt without looking, held the trigger as she closed the bolt, handed it back. "Damn fine rifle," she said, her voice hard, her face unsmiling: she backed up a step, turned, marched to the center of the formation, stopped, turned, rejoined their waiting Commander. Her about-face was flawless. She raised her chin, she took a breath, her voice carried the ring and crack of command: "JAY-SUS KEE-RIST, TWO LEFT HANDED SAINTS AND A BROKEN MIRROR! WHY COULDN'T I HAVE HAD SUCH MEN UNDER MY COMMAND! YOU LOOK DAMNED GOOD, EVERY ONE OF YOU!" She turned to face the Commander, saluted. "SIR! THE MEN ARE YOURS!" The Commander returned her salute: at his quiet command, he and Willamina turned, faced the parade route. "RIGHT SHOULDER, HAHMS! FO-WARRR' MAHCH!" "Mom, I look stupid," a six year old boy whined, restless in hand-sewn fatigues. "You look fine," his mother murmured, tugging unnecessarily at his shoulders, the way a mother will: she kissed his cheek, which he rubbed off with the back of his hand and an "Awww, Maaaw!" "Now remember how your Daddy taught you to handle your rifle. Just stand right here, now, here they come!" A little boy with a wooden rifle and an impatient look sniffed, rubbed his nose, then came to attention like his Daddy taught him and held his little wooden rifle up in front of him. "Mom, there's a woman with 'em!" he said, surprised. He was more surprised at the woman's surprisingly loud command, "DETAAAAIL, HALT!" The woman -- in a really good looking uniform -- turned, her face stern: she marched over to the six year old boy in hand sewn fatigues and a little bitty pair of shined-up boots, holding a wooden rifle up in front of him. His expression was uncertain -- something Willamina had seen on the faces of new recruits. She looked him up, looked him down, stepped to the side, made it very clear with an exaggerated move of her head that YES I AM INSPECTING THIS SOLDIER. She returned to her position in front of the little boy. His mother stood behind him, biting her lip: "I made ... his father was killed ..." "MADAM ARE YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?" Willamina demanded loudly. "I HAVE NOT SEEN SUCH A PROPERLY PRESENTED SOLDIER IN A VERY LONG TIME!" She squatted quickly, went carefully to one knee, took off her aviator sunglasses and hunkered just a little, to get on the little boy's eye level. "Well done, soldier," she murmured: she ran gentle fingertips across the name tape over his pocket. "Is this your Daddy's name?" she asked softly. The six year old boy nodded, his eyes big. Willamina caressed his cheek with the backs of motherly fingers, smiled just a little. "He'd be pretty damned proud of you, son. I know I am." Willamina carefully, gently, slid her sunglasses onto his face, then she rose. "DETAIL!" she called. "RIIIIGHT FACE!" The veterans behind her executed a proper right-face. "PRESEENT HAHMS!" A little boy in a hand sewn set of fatigues, a little boy with his dead Daddy's name tape sewn over his own fatigue pocket, received his first salute as he stood stiffly behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses. "AAWDUHHH HAHMS!" Willamina lowered her hand, turned, marched back to her position beside the Commander. "DEEETAIL! FOWARRRD MAHCH!" That night, a tired little boy never stirred as his bedroom door opened. His Mama came in, picked up the fatigues she'd sewn for him: she ran gentle fingertips over the name tape, bit her bottom lip as she did, then she draped it over the back of a chair, turned to smile at her sleeping son. She carefully, gently, gripped the sunglasses, eased them off his sleeping face, placed them on his bedside desk. Someone told her the woman in the parade was their new Sheriff. The young mother didn't care who she was. She'd gone out of her way to speak to her child, and after the parade, she'd gone to the graveyard and stood at the foot of a new grave for several minutes, silent, unmoving, then she'd raised her hand in salute before leaving. Years after this, a tall, lean young Marine came into the Sheriff's office and spoke quietly to the pale eyed man in charge. He'd looked at the portraits on the wall and he thrust his chin at one, and spoke of a pale eyed woman who stopped a parade so she could come over and talk to him, and him just a little boy, and she's the reason he became a Marine -- her, and that one moment, when she took the sunglasses off her face and put them on his. Sheriff Linn Keller grinned and shook the young man's hand and said yes, that sounds just like my Mama, and the two of them adjourned to the Silver Jewel Saloon, where an old man with pale eyes shared breakfast with a young man due to be shipped overseas, a handsome young Marine who'd come into town a day before his family expected him, a young man who remembered what it was to be a child, restless and impatient before the yearly parade.

YER DAMNED RIGHT!!!!!

ENTRANCE, AND EXIT Victoria crouched just a little, hands open and bladed: what she faced was intimidating, her grade-school-sized soul shrank a little, a voice in the back of her mind screamed “ARE YOU INSANE? RUN! RUN, YOU IDIOT!” Victoria Keller stood, her jaw thrust out, crouched a little as pounding, steelshod hooves bore down upon her, as a hard-running horse promised to put footy-prints right up her middle if she stood there another two seconds – Victoria glared, her face as serious as a pretty little girl in a pleated skirt and saddle shoes can look, then she uncoiled, her legs thrust hard against the earth -- Her hand clamped around as much shirtsleeve as she was able to snatch up in a tenth of a second; something clamped around her arm like a circumferential vice, she was hauled off her feet, wrenched mercilessly from the earth – she fell, upwards and back – she spread her legs, landed, seized a double handful of fleece lined denim vest – Victoria Keller straddled the back of a fast moving stallion, her hands clutched up and locked into the rider’s vest. Her face felt funny. Victoria Keller, the youngest daughter of that pale eyed Sheriff with the iron grey mustache, realized her eyes were big and round, and her face was split into a grin, and that her stomach was only just catching up with being snatched off the earth from a dead-gallop pickup. Victoria clung to her long tall Daddy, laughed as she pressed the side of her face against Linn’s back, delighting in the feel of a good horse under her, of a big strong Daddy in front of her, in the wind whistling past her bare knees, just before her just-returned stomach fell away on the mountain wind as they soared over a board fence and kept on a-goin’. It was not at all unusual for the Keller young to arrive at school, horseback. Victoria had some unavoidable interruptions that morning that caused her to miss the school bus – Michael told the driver she wouldn’t be coming, and the yellow people hauler rumbled on its way – when the Sheriff cantered up to the schoolhouse on a prancing, strutting, head-bobbing stallion, envious eyes watched as the long legged lawman kicked free of his stirrups, slid off, then reached up and brought his darlin’ daughter down: he went down on one knee, hugged his little girl and kissed her on the cheek, rose as the bus she’d missed hissed to an air-braked stop and the doors swung open to release a stream of laughing, yelling, chattering children. Victoria hadn’t been dressed for riding, she was dressed for school; that did not prevent her from thoroughly enjoying having made an Entrance. Angela turned, smiling, handed her Daddy a tall, sleeved, paper cup of sippy-lidded coffee. The two turned so their backs were to the coffee island out of a lifelong lawman’s habit: Linn learned it as a child from his pale eyed Mama, Angela learned it from her pale eyed Daddy: Linn sipped, swallowed, nodded. “That was a good pickup with Victoria.” “She enjoyed it.” “I know. I saw her preening before she went into the schoolhouse.” “Figured you were watching.” “Didn’t see any sign of Dottie.” “She’ll turn up sometime. When she does, we’ll nail her.” Two uniformed officers raised their coffee, took a speculative swallow, lowered. “Marnie used to ride to school. She preferred it.” “I know. She still pays stable rent.” Linn chuckled: Jacob and Marnie commonly rode to school, both grade school and high school. “She used to,” Linn said quietly. “When old man Kyle died, I bought his properties. His stable and the ground it sits on belongs to me now.” “Good.” Two uniformed officers raised their coffee, swallowed, lowered. Traffic was brisk into and out of the All-Night: Linn and Angela slid out of the way so the rest of the general public could get coffee, Angela gave a new arrival, directions to the local bakery, Linn listened carefully to a young father who was somewhere between mad as hell and about to cry, because he’d been cheated out of a thousand dollars by some fellow who’d promised to build him a wheelchair ramp for his handicapped son, and hadn’t. Angela knew something was serious when Linn turned and set down his coffee, when he pulled half a steno book from his hip pocket, flipped it open and quietly asked questions while his pen busied itself on the long, narrow page, and when Linn nodded, satisfied, shoved the split-longways notebook back into his back pocket and spoke quietly to the distressed young father, Angela was more than satisfied the Sheriff would have a hand in fixing the problem. Angela went over to a peck basket, angled up invitingly on the counter, pulled out an apple: Linn reached in the basket beside it and selected a glowing-ripe tomato. They each laid a dollar on the counter, Linn winked at the cashier, picked up a couple salt packets from the basket by the plastic-wrapped deli sandwiches, tore the packets open by biting one end and tearing with pinched thumb-and-forefinger: he licked the tomato, sprinkled, took a bite, chewed happily: Angela reached up with a napkin, caught the dribble threatening to run off his chin, laughed a little as she did – partly at the fact that she was wiping the Sheriff’s chin, and partly because of Linn’s mumbled “Moom funkle,” which roughly translated to “Thank you very much” when translated from the original Mastication. Marnie bit into her apple as they walked toward the front door: Linn wiped his hands on a napkin, dunked the wadded-up napkin in the can by the front door as Angela split the rest of her apple with a folding lockback: a quick wipe of the blade on her trousers, a click, the knife disappeared and two horses thrust their noses hopefully toward Angela’s approaching hands. “You’re spoiling them, you know that,” Linn grinned, and Angela smiled: “Getting in practice for my husband!” “Got anyone in mind?” Angela stopped, gathered her mare’s reins, looked very frankly at her long tall Daddy. “You really like to cause me problems, don’t you?” “How’s that?” Angela was trying hard to look aggravated; Linn was trying just as hard to look innocent. Neither one succeeded. They both laughed, mounted. “You,” Angela finally continued, “have set the bar so high I may never find a husband!” “Whoa now,” Linn said, looking at his daughter, his deputy, his designated wing: “Could you run that a-past me at half speed?” Angela glared at her father, then gave up, shook her head, smiled. “Child Rearing 101,” she said. “Children learn far more by observation and by imitation than by didactic education.” Linn nodded, slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. “You did not teach your sons how to treat women, Daddy.” Linn generally had a poker face: Angela saw the walls come up, the veils drop behind his eyes. “No?” “No,” Angela declared firmly, raising her hand and gesturing like she’d seen done in Tony’s barbershop, an Italian gesture of emphasis: “You did not teach them how to treat a woman, you taught them how to treat” – the palm-up, curled-finger gesture again – “a Lady!” “I … see,” Linn said slowly. “And what did you teach me?” Linn turned his head a little, as if to shake his head slightly, stopped. “You’ll have to tell me, darlin’.” Angela planted her knuckles on her thigh, sat very straight in the saddle. “Daddy” – Linn knew this comment was very personal: they were in the public eye as law enforcement, yet Angela was not calling him “Sheriff”, she was calling him “Daddy” – “Daddy, you’ve taught me what to look for in a husband.” Angela sidestepped her mare closer, until their stirrups nearly touched: she reached over, gripped her Daddy’s hand the way a little girl will, even when she’s a grown woman. “Daddy,” Angela said softly, “you have set the bar so high, showing me what a husband and father should be, I may never find a husband that measures up!” “Sooo … if you become an old maid, it’s all my fault!” “No, Daddy,” Angela sighed, fluttering her eyelashes dramatically, “if I become an old maid” – her voice became reedy, peevish – “I’ll wear my hair up in a walnut with a pencil stuck through it, I’ll wear mousy-grey dresses and I’ll be an old-maid schoolmarm, fit only to teach other people’s children!” Linn had all he could take. He’d genuinely reached his absolute limit. His laugh started about his belt buckle, it rumbled around his gut, echoed in his chest, gathered steam as it roiled up his neck: Sheriff Linn Keller, his hand gentle around his daughter’s grip, laughed, shook his head, chuckled, threw his head back, took a quick, deep breath, laughed again and looked at her with genuine affection. “You look so much like your Mama,” he said quietly, “and thank you. I think that’s the nicest thing any daughter has ever said to me!” Linn’s talkie chirped as the repeater kicked the frequency. “Firelands Actual, Firelands.” “Firelands Actual, go.” “Seven minute warning, county meeting.” “In route,” he replied. Two mounted badge packers turned their mounts, clattered noisily across the cement pavement of the All-Night: they dropped off the edge, climbed the trail on the other side of the little stream, disappeared into the woods. Two women’s eyes followed the Sheriff’s shoulders as they disappeared into the brush; at least three young men’s gaze followed the attractive female deputy that rode with him, until she too disappeared, and four children with big eyes just admired the hell out of the fact that the pair was riding horses and that really looked like fun! Two riders came off the mountain that afternoon, following a path that was ancient before the first red-bearded Vikings made landfall far to the East. Two riders followed the natural contours of the land, along a thoroughfare chosen for ease of travel, the curve and grade working in harmony with the easiest route to walk. They came out in the field above the schoolhouse, watched, waited: cars waited in file, school buses idled, doors open: Linn slid the pocket watch from his vest pocket, pressed the stem, flipped the hunter case open, smiled as he looked at his wife’s portrait skillfully painted on its inside. Railroad watches were made without a case; Esther Keller, back when she’d been given the Z&W Railroad as a wedding present, had a special run of railroad watches made, with the hunter case: each one was engraved with Z&W RR in an ornate arc on the upper curve of the cover, a hand engraved rose at its center, and on the bottom arc, the name of the employee to whom the watch was presented. Esther’s husband, that pale eyed old lawman with the iron grey mustache, had Esther’s portrait painted inside his watch’s spring loaded cover. Angela saw the soft expression come across her Daddy’s face as he looked at his own wife’s portrait: he watched the hand swing around, looked toward the schoolhouse, pressed the stem and eased the watch case closed, thumbed the watch back into his vest as the doors opened, as yelling, running, celebrating schoolchildren just plainly exploded out the doors toward the buses, toward the cars. The explosion was short lived: the children, having expended this happy surge of emotion, fell into their assigned lines. All but one. A little girl in a pleated skirt and saddle shoes turned very deliberately away from her teacher’s summons, started running. Linn leaned forward a little, his stallion lowering his head, swinging his ears forward. Angela had the momentary impression of a cat, crouched, haunches rippling as it wound its springs up for the pounce – “YAAAA!” Linn leaned forward, heels locked in his stallion’s barrel: somewhere in the Appaloosa’s bloodline was the fiery blood of the legendary Cannonball, and Angela knew that the moment felt like being driven from the brazen throat of a field-gun like a cannonball, for she’d ridden her Daddy’s stallion and she’d reveled at the strength and the fire contained in his spotty hide. Angela did not take long to consider this, because when her Daddy started to lean forward in the saddle, her mare started to quiver, because she felt Angela lean forward in her own hurricane deck, felt her rider’s legs tighten, then she, too, launched down the grassy hillside toward the running child and the Sheriff, on an intercept course. Linn and Angela turned, a hard 180, two horses leaning hard as they did, cutting chunks out of the springtime sod, swinging around to follow a pursuit course after the swift-running child. The little girl turned, crouched a little, then jumped. Movement was stopped in front of the school; young eyes were envious as they saw Angela jump, saw her Daddy seize her, swing her up, heard her squeal of delight as she came up and back and down, as she landed and seized her Daddy’s vest, as two horses and their riders ran flat-out for the ancient mountain path once again. Angela Keller followed her Daddy’s stallion as they charged uphill and around the knob, then took the left hand fork and headed for the back road that would come down and cross the highway, the path on the other side that would curl around and come in the back of their little ranch. Angela smiled as her long tall Daddy reached up, pulled his little girl from her high seat, swung her down, but not before he tickled her nose with his muts-tache, which of course brought another freshet of happy giggles from the wiggly little girl-child. That night, as the Keller young were bedding down, as Angela was discussing her day with Dana, Victoria came running barefoot from her bedroom to hug one, then the other, before running back in and rolling up in her blankets for the night: Dana watched as Victoria turned herself into a blanket burrito, then turned to Angela and murmured, “She’ll be asleep in ten seconds!” “She should,” Angela agreed. “She made a grand entrance and a grander exit!”

I'm reading your last and there's encouragement: such signs as eating -- speaks to coordination, mentation, motor control -- drinking on her own -- again, as just stated -- when you say she sounds much better, you know her better than anyone and would be the best judge of that parameter: same with your observation of her increased strength. I'm also seeing your self care, such things as your entry, "Waiting for my clothes to dry so I can get dressed ...." -- please, my friend, continue take care of YOU as well, and a blessing on the local cowboys you mentioned that are there for you!

AND THE PREACHER'S FACE TURNED RED Sarah Lynne McKenna spoke quietly: she addressed her co-conspirators in groups of no more than three, she spoke in low voice and most persuasively: ladies young and old pressed flat fingers to their lips, their eyes shining with contained amusement; the conspiracy was spread with whispers, with knowing looks, and not entirely without sympathy. When the ladies fanned out and drew the men aside, agreement was instant and universal: low voices murmured in the quiet of their little whitewashed Church, and plans were firmed, duties delegated: select members of their Choir were recruited, sorted according to their musical range, and the church emptied out quietly, with each heading for their respective residences, to tend the necessary chores of the day, and to prepare for the thickening plot to be performed on the morrow. The Parson had been holding forth with a focus on the Last Days, and the idea of being Raptured, as often happens, gripped the common imagination. The Parson was a good speaker, a better scholar, but the man was running on short sleep, and it showed: he'd been pushing himself too hard for too long, doing his best to care for his flock; he'd run himself right next to personal bankruptcy too many times, caring for those who'd run into ill fortune, and the community knew there were times when he'd depleted his larder to care for others -- most recently, two house fires and a house lost to a runaway boulder, loosened with rainfall and with time: it was God's mercy alone that nobody was killed, though both husband-and-wife, and their three children, sat bolt upright at the sound of a God's-honest explosion, sat bolt upright in bed to see something fast moving and grey sail through, just missing the foot of their bed and taking the biggest part of their house with it. Charity was part and parcel of Firelands, for all had known privation and loss: quietly caring for one another was practiced, though not universally -- there is good and bad in each living soul, that good and that bad is seen in the living body of a community, and yes, there were those tight fisted residents who grudgingly added a miserly coin to the plate on Sundays. And as usual, it was those who'd lost the most in their lifetimes, that were freest with their sharing. One other thing they shared, and that was the joy of laughter, and this was not manifest with public smiles or audible sounds of entertainment, save in rare moments: no, a rough people will have a rough humor, and when Sarah Lynne McKenna had an idea, and began to whisper her thought to her compatriots, the idea spread like fire in dry grass-stubble. The choir assembled at a given hour, in the big round barn where Daciana, the circus trick rider who'd jumped ship from a failed circus passing through town, still rode Buttercup, her trick pony: the barn was far bigger than she needed, thanks to the Sheriff and his purse, and the choir gathered in ranks and in rows, as if they were standing in the three-pew choir loft behind the Altar and the Parson's podium. Sarah stood before them: she was younger than most, but a natural leader: she coached each individual singer, tilting her head a little and listening, coaxing a single, pure, sustained note -- only one note -- then at signal, with an encouraging smile -- "Now everyone, on my signal. We'll have only one chance to get this right." She raised both hands, touching her fingertips together as if she held an invisible conductor's baton.. "Ready?" She nodded, her hands swept down, back up, as if offering a pair of timid bird, their freedom to fly from her open palms: a single, harmonized note, beautiful to hear: Sarah's palms raised a fraction, a fraction more, the volume increased a step, a step again -- She spun her hands, as if pulling a thread taught between her left thumb-and-forefinger, and her right -- The music stopped, suddenly, cleanly -- "Perfect!" Sarah declared, clapping with delight, her eyes shining with approval: "again, please!" Sarah was bouncing on her toes, her face was alight with happiness: with this encouragement, with her raised hands, the choir performed, again, a single note, and this time, Sarah thrust a finger to her right, where one of the Irish Brigade raised a trumpet and blew two summoning notes, held them as the choir held its single note: the musical moment ended as cleanly as broken glass. "Once more, please, I think this will work fine!" Sarah exclaimed: once more the raised hands, the beautifully harmonized sound of voices raised in glory, then the sharp, two-note summons, silence. The next day, the choir filed into their pews behind the Altar and behind the Parson: their expressions were subdued, knowing: the Irish Brigade sat in the main pews, in a group as they usually did, positioned to make a quick exit if need be, but attentive, listening, as the Parson welcomed them, as they continued their study of Scripture. The Parson stood through the Sunday service, but he sat for this study; he had a little table he'd set beside his handmade pulpit. The rest of the community had been given to understand there was a plot afoot, and the rest of the community came in with bundles concealed as best they could, bundles they secreted on the pew beside them, or behind them, or on their laps: the Parson, probably due to his overwhelming fatigue, nodded off partway through his presentation, his head sagging, then dropping. Sarah slipped out of the choir pew, raised her hands for attention: she swung left, swung right, guaranteeing she had the eyes of the entire Church. She stepped down, silent on felt-soled slippers she'd worn for the occasion. She turned, signaled to the Choir, who began singing, very softly as they did before the Parson began his Bible study, a song chosen for its gentleness, its soothing nature, a song to help cover the sound of the evacuation. Sarah catfooted to the first two rows of pews, held up a bundle of folded clothing: she motioned for them to rise, then turned and bent as if placing a folded stack of garments where they'd just been sitting: she then motioned them out, finger to her lips. The grinning townsfolk placed these donations on the pews, filed out, silently, some chewing on their knuckles or pressing coat-sleeves or dress-sleeves to their lips to prevent any sounds of mirth or merriment from spoiling the surprise. They walked carefully down the steps to ground level, then quickly swarmed to the sides of the church, looking in the windows, watching for what they suspected was about to happen: children were shushed, hoist on men's shoulders: there were whispered admonitions not to step on Esther's roses, but no other sounds were heard, save the stray "Ssh!" directed at the incautious. The last row was just without the doors; the choir rose, carefully, slowly, moved with an exaggerated care from their station behind the rough-timber Altar, and down the aisle, still singing very softly: they drew back into strategic, hidden locations, where they would be out of the Parson's direct line of sight. A grinning Irishman watched Sarah, in the center of the church, as she sidestepped between two pews: she looked around, saw the many eyes were upon her. She raised her hands, brought them down. A single not filled their little whitewashed Church, the sound of a heavenly choir in praise: Sarah raised her hands, bringing up the volume, then she punched a hand at the Irishman. At the sound of a trumpet, the Parson jumped like he'd been stung: startled, he failed to see Sarah duck down out of sight, failed to see the Choir members pull or twist or quickly kneel: is eyes found the Scripture that described the Rapture, his ears still held the summoning note of the Trumpet shivering in the still air, and he looked around, trying to come to full awake, realizing that he was the only living soul there. He was absolutely the only one left in the Church, with neatly folded bundles of clothing where he last remembered seeing his seated congregation. Humor was a way of life, humor was a survival mechanism: the Parson found himself red-faced with embarrassment as the congregation charged back into the Church, as they came laughing up to him and surrounded him, found himself suddenly buried in donations of clothing and other supplies for the families who'd been burned out and bouldered out of their homes; he found himself glad-handed, back-pounded, and surrounded by a laughing, delighted community, and he could not but laugh as well, for he'd just been gotten, and gotten good.

... that clickity clickity sound is the ratchet mechanism on a heavy duty jack ... ... I just set your father up on a pedestal and I'm raising it to nosebleed height ... (insert image of greying old grandfather air-punching and yelling "ALL RIIIIIGHT!!!")

Mama used to play this album for us. Went to sleep many a night soothed by Marty Robbins!

Can't argue with Eyesa's incisive logic!

HOSPITALITY A curious young woman frowned as she looked down the main street of a Colorado town, trying to imagine how it had been when … well, when horsepower was under the saddle, or in harness, when the citizens’ world was lighted only by fire. Back when a schoolhouse still had only one room, when there was only one church and everyone went there, when things were slower, less stressful. She felt someone come up beside her, but she did not feel a threat: she was a woman who paid attention to her feelings, and her feelings on such matters were rarely wrong. She still looked to her right. A pair of amused, pale eyes looked at her from beneath an ornate coiffure, a fashionable little hat: her visitor tilted her head, the way a woman will when she is welcoming, interested. “There is a question in your eyes,” she smiled. “I, um, yes, that is –” “You’re wondering what Firelands was like back when.” “Um, yes.” She blinked, surprised. “How did --?” “How did I know?” She nodded to the saloon across the street, and the visitor’s eyes followed. “That,” she said, “is the Silver Jewel Saloon. It’s been here just forever, and it has a history, and the original tin ceiling.” She turned back, smiled again. “But no bullet holes.” “Oh.” “You sound disappointed.” “I was expecting … I don’t know …” “Saloon fights, gunfights in the street, cattle being driven through town?” “Yes,” she admitted. “That.” “The Silver Jewel,” her fashionably gowned companion explained, with a directing nod of her head, “was then, and still is, a center of … well, everything. If you wished to know anything about anyone, that’s where you went. Lawmen looking for a criminal, someone looking for family, if it was to be known, it would be known there. We have an historical society that meets in the meeting-room of the Silver Jewel – we only just adjourned – the Ladies’ Tea Society has some very informative presentations, almost always historical in nature.” “Tell me,” the modern visitor asked, half-uncomfortably, half-hopefully, “are there … ghosts?” “These mountains are beyond ancient,” the pleasant, pale eyed woman in a truly gorgeous gown explained, “and that means that – to answer your question – yes, there are ghosts here.” “Have you seen any?” the Eastern visitor asked eagerly. Her guide laughed quietly. “I have been asked that,” she smiled, “and a little girl asked me once if I was a ghostie.” She lifted her chin. “Let’s walk.” The Easterner stopped, turned, startled: her eyes widened as a horseman approached, a tall man in a black suit and Stetson, a man with remarkably pale eyes, an iron grey mustache, a man who reached up and touched his hat-brim as he passed the pair: he turned, clattered up the alley: it wasn’t until after she blinked a couple of times that she realized she’d just walked past the Sheriff’s office. “The Sheriff,” her gowned guide explained, “likes to transact certain business from horseback.” “I see,” came the faint answer. “We do have a haunted fire engine, though.” Her guide smiled. “My name’s Sarah and I’ve been here a very long time. Are you hungry?” Two ladies sat at an intimate little table in the back of the Silver Jewel. The ladies of their Tea Society were just finishing their lunches, several came over: the conversation was brisk, charming, spontaneous, and the curious visitor from back East was soon charmed, delighted, made to feel very welcome: after the third mention of the haunted fire engine, the visitor realized there must be something to this, and so a clutch of ladies in hand-sewn gowns of a more romantic period, flowed down the boardwalk, down the few steps and onto the modern, poured-concrete sidewalk. Sunlight and femininity flowed into the firehouse, pastel gowns and lilting voices advanced toward the kitchen deck. Chief Charles Fitzgerald turned, surprised: “Hello there!” he exclaimed, grinning. “What brings you to my humble abode?” “Humble my Aunt Fanny’s billy goat,” Shelly muttered, shooting the Chief a look. “I’m told you have a haunted fire engine…?” the woman in blue jeans and a puffy jacket hazarded. “You must’ve heard about that bad one we had.” “Well, no, I, ah, that is …” Shelly draped her polishing rag over the back of a convenient chair, came over, thrust out a hand: “Shelly Keller, fire paramedic. If we’re going to have a bad one, you’ll see our steam fire engine coming through town, or into town, or out of town – it’s always moving toward where the fire will be.” She thrust a bladed hand at their horse-drawn Ahrens fire engine. “We have three white mares that pull this one, and yes, she does work. She’s been restored and we keep her in working order.” “Oh, my,” came the wide-eyed murmur. “If you see this hell-a-tearin’ up the street pulled by three mares and an Irishman standing in the driver’s box swinging that blacksnake whip, sound General Quarters and make it no drill, there’s going to be a bad one!” “And she’s dead silent,” Fitz added from his position by the shining-stainless coffeepot. Shelly nodded. “He’s right.” They watched as an Eastern woman walked up to the shining, restored, pinstriped, buffed, gleaming, Ahrens steam engine. “The engine would be drawn by three mares,” Shelly explained, “and either a ladder wagon would be hitched on behind, or the ladder and hose wagons would come with their own teams. Generally they combined both ladder and hoses in one wagon, hitched on the back of the pumper here and” – she giggled – “I’ll bet they made a grand sight, Irishmen hanging on, laughing like schoolboys!” Speculative fingers caressed the big, iron-rimmed wheels, gazed with wonder at the upholstered driver’s seat. “She’s haunted?” she asked. “Mm-hmm. I’ve never seen any ghosts on her, but the living soul of every Irishman loves his Lady with a passion unknown to mere mortals. Some of that energy has to stick around, wouldn’t you think?” That evening, as Linn sat down for supper with his family, after receiving his daily briefing on how school was going and how one of the mares was quickened, they saw the colt move in her belly, how a stretch of fence would want attention right here directly, after Linn and his son discussed the right boards to use for the fence repair and talk turned to having only just heard a U-joint in the old orange Dodge power wagon start to squeak, after Linn decided he’d just take it to Emmett’s garage and have Uncle Emmett change it out for them – only after all this did the Sheriff look at his wife and say, “We had the same visitor today, I believe.” “The ghost hunter?” “Is that what she was?” Linn leaned back as his plate was removed, as fresh coffee was poured, as pie replaced the empty plate. “She was fascinated by Sean’s Legend.” “The Firetruck Fetch.” “I wouldn’t call it that.” “You’ve never seen it.” “And you have?” Shelly forked up still-warm blueberry pie with a thick layer of whipped cream on top, looked at her husband, half-challenging, half-amused. “Twice,” Linn said quietly, lowering his fork without cutting into the pie: “once was when we lost three kids on that mutual aid call, and once was the Widow Spencer fatal.” Shelly saw a look come into her husband’s eyes, one that meant he was seeing something he’d tried hard to bury – but like he’d told her a number of times, no matter how deep you bury some ghosts, they still come philtering up out of the grave to say howdy, no matter how many rocks you pile on top to try and hold ‘em in. “Every time the Steam Masheen rolls,” Linn said quietly, “it’s a bad one, and I’ve seen it twice now. The three-mare hitch, a big blacksmith of an Irishman standing up in the driver’s box, swinging that whip and they’re running like Hell itself is on their heels – the mares’ noses are punched out into the wind and she’s dead silent, Shelly.” Linn looked very directly at his wife, his voice quiet. “Dead silent.” He blinked, remembering. “I can see the whistle blowing a cloud of steam into the air and I know she’s screaming like a damned soul, but she’s silent!” Linn’s words were nearly a whisper, the words of a man haunted by things he’d seen: he stopped, closed his eyes, took a breath. It took several moments for the man to slip all this from his shoulders: he shivered, like he was shimmying an unwanted cloak off his back, then he opened his eyes and looked at his wife. His voice was quiet, controlled, factual. “The woman that was asking about the haunted engine – she went to the Silver Jewel afterward and looked at the pictures hung behind the bar. “She saw a portrait of Sarah McKenna and smiled and said something about how nice it was that one of the Ladies’ Tea Society had her picture hung up behind the bar, and how she’d been just the nicest soul to show her around, and how she and the Ladies had taken her into the firehouse to show her that haunted engine.” Shelly frowned, looked curiously at her husband. “Took her,” she said slowly, “into the firehouse?” Linn nodded, happily chewing good fresh homemade blueberry pie and whipped cream: it took him a few chews to swallow and take a sip of coffee to answer his wife. “She said she had no idea where to go, but this pale eyed woman in a long gown took her right to the firehouse, her and the other ladies, and she specifically mentioned how colorful their gowns were. “They took her inside like they owned the place, and she’d never have just gone in by herself, but since it was the Tea Society ladies–” “She came in alone,” Shelly interrupted, and it was her turn to speak in a solemn voice. “She was alone, Linn. There was nobody with her.”

Standing up on my knees for the both of you!

A LITTLE CHILD The Sheriff and his family traditionally sat in the very front pew. At least one of the Sheriff’s daughters sat in the choir, both because the ladies of his line all have truly lovely voices, and because they were the Sheriff’s eyes on Sunday, in case something was not as it should be, behind him. Church was always a solemn and reverent occasion, except when it wasn’t: the Parson was given to a dry and understated humor, except when he wasn’t, like the Sunday he began his sermon with, “Chuck Norris can make an onion cry,” and though nobody remembered the gist of his message, nobody forgot that he got a laugh out of them to start with. The Sheriff was a man who collected guns, tall tales and children, and given his druthers, he’d druther have a dozen young or more: fortunately, he and his wife mutually agreed that after the twins, she would bear no more young, and so when the Sheriff’s family filled a good percentage of the front pew on the left hand side, nobody was really surprised when a little boy scampered away from where his Mama parked him, happily pattered up the center aisle, made a turn and stopped to look, surprised and solemn-eyed, at the silent, pale, serious-faced Sheriff. Little boy and pale eyed grandfather looked at one another for a long moment, at least until the Sheriff twiddled his mustache – wiggled it like a bunny rabbit wiggles its nose – a little boy in knee pants and a bow tie giggled, Linn closed one eye s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y and wiggled his mustache again, and the little boy laughed – he was not yet to see his second birthday, if Linn was any judge – and by the time a young mother got her infant clean, powdered, diapered and returned to her pew, when she found her child missing, when she looked up, panicked, and saw Angela in the choir wave at her, put a finger to her lips and point at the front pew – well, as the Parson was holding forth on the benefits of patience and longsuffering, a young mother clutching a blanket-wrapped infant ran on the balls of her feet to the front of the aisle, turned, stopped, cupped her hand over her mouth. Shelly scooted just a little bit, patted the bare pew beside her: the mother sat, or more accurately, collapsed: Shelly laid gentle fingertips on the young mother’s arm, whispered to her as the young mother leaned over to take a long look at her adventurous little boy, sound asleep on the Sheriff’s lap, curly haired head laid against the grinning lawman’s chest. Later that day, as Linn and his family guested the young mother, Michael and Victoria took the boy out to see their horses, while Linn and Shelly plied the young mother with tea and little cream filled finger desserts after Sunday dinner: when they went out to take a look at the horses, the mother’s face changed, she looked at her infant and started carrying it a little awkwardly. “Her, let me,” Linn said, taking the bundled child: he strode over to his aging, mud-spattered orange Dodge and lowered the tailgate, set the diaper bag and the child on the cleanest part of his workbench, and proceeded to change a little child’s diaper with the swift and sure experience of a father who’d changed a great many of them – a significant number on this very tailgate. Shelly and the young mother watched as a laughing little boy straddled a saddle, as Linn’s twins rode hard up close on either side, leaning over and gripping his belt: they walked their horses over to their parents, grinning, for children and horses have a natural affinity, and this was not the first time their patient old grey carried an active, impatiently shifting, young cargo. A little boy in knee pants and a bow tie laughed happily, his cheeks pink in the afternoon sun, as the Sheriff took the freshly changed infant and hoist the flannel-bundled payload up to arm’s length, suddenly, then spun around, laughing, and the baby’s laughter scattering all around him: when he brought the adventurous little boy off the mare, he flipped him, took him by his ankles and lowered him until the child could just touch the grass underfoot, then swung him around in a big circle, scattering more happy laughter as he did. Shelly and the young mother stood close, their heads inclined toward one another: as the baby fed with a good appetite, they two mothers looked at the pale eyed old Granddad, then looked at one another. Linn hauled the boy up, hipped him, dunked his Stetson on the lad’s head, then hoist him onto his shoulders: he galloped happily around the yard, laughing, as a just-shy-of-two-year-old boy picked up a brushed black Stetson by its brim and squealed in absolute delight. “There is nothing to make a damned fool out of a grown man,” Shelly sighed, “like a little child.”

Not ashamed to say I prefer YOUR version to OURS!

HIDE IN PLAIN VIEW A pale eyed nurse in a white uniform dress pulled the chair closer to a hospital bed. The man was dying, and he knew it, and he wanted to talk. The nurse lowered the siderail so she could hold his hand. His grip was weak – his strength was nearly spent, he could barely squeeze her hand, and she had to strain to hear his words. Her face was shining, angelic, beautiful: her expression was that of patience, of kindness, of rapt attention. Most nurses wore their hospital ID clipped to their scrubs; this Angel in White wore hers on a rectangular leather brace, custom fitted into her uniform dress’s bodice pocket: it was thicker, heavier than the hospital’s ID. At its center top was a small glass lens, and on either side, a microphone: one directional, one omnidirectional. Sheriff’s Deputy Angela Keller, RN, held a dying man’s hand and recorded the deathbed confession to which she was intently listening. Sheriff Linn Keller looked over at his shining-gold stallion, muscular and healthy, glowing in the long red rays of a mountain sunrise. Rey del Sol looked absolutely majestic: as if understanding he was being appreciated, the stallion almost posed, and the Sheriff remembered the words of an Arab he’d met, years before, describing their blooded mares: “A neck arched like the Crescent Moon, and a nose small enough to fit in a teacup.” You’d need a teacup the size of a water bucket, Linn thought, but the neck looks pretty good. He looked down at the Smith & Wesson he held, a gun fired three times and not reloaded. Its owner lay on his back, one bloodied hand on his belly. Linn considered the dying man, went down on one knee. “You’re done for, Karl,” he said quietly. “I know,” the dying man gasped, twisting a little, grimacing. “Damned townie, wisht he’d shot me right!” Linn nodded. “I had me a run, didn’t I?” Karl asked with a cough, with a sardonic grin that faded into a grimace. The pale eyed old lawman nodded. “Yep,” he said. “That you did.” Linn looked at the man, assessed his labored breathing, his pallor: he rose, pulled the bedroll off Karl’s horse, brought it back, lifted the dying man’s legs, ran the bedroll under his knees, pulled his own and set the man’s heels down on it. “Thanks,” Karl gasped. “Helps.” “Figured it would,” Linn nodded. “You wanta tell me what-all you did?” Linn asked mildly. “Be nice to get your death song right.” Karl gasped, tried to swallow, coughed weakly. “That townie shot me ‘cause he thought I was after his wife,” he wheezed. “Were you?” “Hell no!” The man rallied for a few seconds, then sagged again. “Don’t even know his wife. Or him.” “What did you do?” “I was gunna rob their bank.” Linn nodded. “I robbed three of ‘em, y’know. Back East. Hit ‘em hard and run like hell, that’s my motto. Went in dirty an’ in wore out clo’es, ride out on a stolen horse, turn it loose an’ get all cleaned up and in a new suit, shave off my whiskers” – he coughed again – “I was all nice and clean t’ ride th’ steam train.” “That’s how you got out here.” “Yep. I was gonna do th’ same thing til that townie gut shot me.” Linn took the man’s hand, bent closer. “Yer that damned old pale eyed lawman, ain’t’cha?” Linn nodded. “Ain’t no wonder you found me.” His words were weaker, his breathing more labored, his hand was cold, damp in Linn’s grip. “Least I got found by an honest man.” Linn saw him take a breath, then a shallower breath: after that second breath, it was like he sighed out his soul, and his body shrank a little when it did. Deputy Sheriff Angela Keller tapped a key to end the video chat, looked over the top of the computer monitor at her pale eyed Daddy. “That solves four murders,” she said, “and it’ll cause four families that much more grief.” “How’s that?” Linn asked, setting down a steaming mug of coffee, turning it so its glazed-ceramic handle was toward his uniformed daughter. Angela trickled a little milk into the hot black delicacy, took a sip, closed her eyes and tilted her head back as she swallowed. “I needed that,” she whispered. “Figured you did.” Angela looked at the darkened computer screen. “I sent my statement, but I knew the chief investigator would want to talk about it.” Linn nodded. “I also sent the contents of my body cam.” “The hospital doesn’t know you wear it.” “The hospital doesn’t have to know it,” she smiled. “Anything said in the presence of a law enforcement officer, in uniform or out, on duty or off, can be used as admissible evidence in a court of law. I was receiving a deathbed confession, and that’s admissible as well.” Linn nodded slowly. “You didn’t mention to the investigator,” he said slowly, “that you received this deathbed confession in the course of your nursing…?” Angela smiled, tilted her head a little like her Mama: she crossed her forearms, leaned forward a little. “This is ugly on my face, not stupid,” she said softly, and winked, and father and daughter both laughed. “No… no, I told him that the deceased said I was easy on the eyes and it was easy to talk to a pretty girl, and here I sit in my Deputy’s uniform and wearing my body cam …” She blinked innocently. “He can see I’m wearing my body cam, here I sit, a Sweet Young Thing in uniform, and a dying man wanted to unburden his soul.” Linn nodded. “What’s that about causing more heartache for the families?” Angela took a long breath, sighed it out. “Sometimes,” she said softly, “I wonder just how evil people can be, and then I find out.” Linn waited. “He had access to a crematorium, back when … regulations were looser in those days. He cremated the bodies, ground up the bones, packaged them in rice paper … he had access to a cement plant and he’d toss rice paper packages of bone dust into the cement as it was mixed. He said every one of them got poured as Interstate highway. He said he did it so even in death his victims would know no peace.” “That was after torturing them to death.” “That was after torturing every last one of them slowly and at length until they finally died.” Damn.” “That’s their case, their court. All I did was pass along my body cam recording and my account of what I heard.” Sheriff Linn Keller rose at Judge Hostetler’s summons. “Sheriff,” the Judge called, “do I understand the deceased confessed to multiple crimes?” “He did, Your Honor.” “Were any of these crimes committed in our jurisdiction?” “No, Your Honor.” “Have you notified those jurisdictions in which the offenses were committed?” “I have, Your Honor.” “Is there anything else you wish to bring before this Court?” “Your Honor, the deceased intended to commit further crimes in this area, but he was prevented by a jealous husband.” His Honor the Judge removed a hand-rolled Cuban from between yellow-stained teeth. “Come again?” Sheriff Linn Keller shook his head slowly. “Your Honor, he was all set to rob another bank when some fellow claimed he’d been fooling with his wife, and gut shot him.” “Damn,” His Honor frowned. “Did that offense occur in our jurisdiction?” “No, Your Honor.” “Have you spoken with the responsible jurisdiction?” “I have, Your Honor.” “Good,” the Judge grunted. “It’s their problem now.” “Yes, Your Honor.” Linn leaned forward, looked very directly at his daughter. “It is not wise,” he said carefully, “to play fast and loose with confidentiality.” Deputy Sheriff Angela Keller smiled, just a little, tapped the screen on her phone a few times, enlarged the picture, turned it so the Sheriff could see it. “This,” she said, “is my ID badge at the hospital. Look at the several pins across the bottom.” Linn frowned, studied the picture, smiled, nodded. “Right there in plain view,” he chuckled. “You’re covered.” Angela Keller smiled, swiped the screen, pressed the screen lock to prevent an unwanted dial. “If I have a stork pin and a CPR save pin and a pediatrics pin, why not a miniature badge pin to go with it?” She tilted her head, ran delicate fingertips around the rim of her still-hot coffee cup. “You’re the one who taught me to hide in plain sight!” Linn laughed, rose, looked at his deputy, his little girl, with open approval. “Remind me never to play poker with you!”

DEAD WRINGER “Mama,” Marnie said impatiently, “sit!” Shelly Keller, wife of that pale eyed Sheriff and paramedic with the Firelands Fire Department, glared at her nine year old daughter: she glared, her lips pressed together, then sat with an exaggerated sigh. Marnie stomped up to her mother, gripper her Mama’s face in both hands, pulled her lower lids down with both thumbs, then laid the heel of her hand on Marnie’s forehead. “I thought so,” she muttered, then reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a wrapped candy bar. “You’re low on chocolate!” Shelly’s surprised hand closed automatically around the unexpected bounty. She looked at it, blinked; her fatigue lifted momentarily and she realized – as she looked toward the back porch, toward its adjacent laundry room, beside and behind the kitchen – the Maytag was humming, and Marnie was quickly, efficiently (if viciously) sorting clothes into piles on the floor, the way Shelly sorted them. Shelly took a bite of dark chocolate, realizing Marnie remembered Shelly’s preference – a half-remembered moment with her pale eyed mother in law Willamina, where the older woman confided quietly that “Dark is only real chocolate!” – Shelly relaxed a little, letting the past 24 hours drain away from her. Esther Keller, the green-eyed wife of that pale-eyed Sheriff, laughed as she turned the crank on the laundry mangle. She and the maid were tending laundry, which was little short of just plain hard work, and laundry enough for a family was quite a bit of just plain hard work: Esther insisted on helping with laundry – which at first distressed their hired girl, who took pride in her ability to keep the household clean, supplied with meals and with clean clothes – but Esther’s charm, her motherly approach, assuaged any misgivings, any feelings that she might be suggesting the hired girl wasn’t up for the task. Esther knew she was up to the task. Esther also knew how much just plain hard work it was, for she’d done without a hired girl before, and had all that work to do, in addition to her other activities: she had a lull in her business efforts, and so turned a hand toward helping with the family’s laundry. Not infrequently, with Esther’s example, the family’s young would turn out to help as well: the hired girl was very much taken aback by this, for she was used to working for Eastern families, where the hired help was treated like a rented mule, spoken down to, given impossible tasks and either beaten with a cane when they were unable to complete three days’ work in an hours’ time, or given such a tongue-lashing as to make them wish they’d been caned: no, here in the far West, the girl, as she was called, was more a part of the family than a rented hireling. Sarah Lynne McKenna lay, stiff, unmoving, eyes wide, staring at her bedroom ceiling. She did not dare move. Her limbs were rigid, her breath controlled, her heart was hammering, she knew her hair was wet – those damned nightmares again – but this time she’d charged into her nightmares, she’d seized up a policeman’s gun and laid about the monsters that chased her, she’d taken up a policeman’s billy and her nighttime screams were dreadful indeed, for all that they were locked in her sleeping body’s throat and echoed only in realms unseen as she twisted the turned-hickory head-knocker apart and released a living blade that hissed as it sliced through grasping, laughing monsters that sought to seize her, sought to despoil her yet again: Sarah Lynne McKenna, the nine year old daughter of Bonnie Lynne McKenna, had had enough of being terrorized by her nightmares, and went on the offensive. Sarah did not dare move as she lay flat on her back. Her bedclothes were twisted, damp, thrown aside: she’d been fighting monsters in her sleep, apparently; she hadn’t been screaming, at least not with her body, for her throat wasn’t sore. Sarah took a long breath, blew it out, then carefully, cautiously, she began to move. Her first move was simply to blink. Nothing happened. Reality did not shatter, she did not fall through a glass floor back into the black-sand inferno deep underground, where muttering monsters laughed and chased her, slowly enough so as not to catch her, fast enough to cause her panic, the panic and fear they fed on and feasted on and relished as a delightful treat. Evil like few things more than causing absolute, unreasoning, blind-panic terror in an innocent child’s soul. Sarah’s breathing was steady, controlled: she willed her young heart to slow, to stop hammering: she felt more than heard blood screaming through her ears, and disciplined her thoughts until this, too, diminished. Sarah Lynne McKenna moved a hand – one hand, then the other. Nothing happened, other than her fingertips whispered against cotton sheets. Sarah rolled over, swung her legs over the side of the bed. The floor looked slid enough, reality did not crack and shatter: she stood, looked up to the ceiling, whispered “Thank You.” Later that day, Sarah and her Mama went to the Firelands bank: Bonnie Lynne McKenna ran the McKenna Dress Works, and she had some business to transact; she and Sarah wore matching gowns – young girls usually wore shorter hemlines, but Sarah preferred a longer skirt – they were only just come up to the teller’s window, and Sarah’s Mama’s voice smiled as she spoke with the girl behind the grille, when Sarah’s hand thrust of its own volition through a pocket she herself had fashioned in her skirt. A rough and unwashed man shoved Bonnie aside, thrust a less-than-well-cared-for pistol barrel through the teller’s bars: Sarah did not hear what was said, only that she’d heard that voice before, and Sarah seized her nightmare, and Sarah ruled her nightmare. Nine year old Sarah Lynne McKenna eyes were dead white and cold as polished ice as she cocked the Derringer pistol in her hard and crushing grip, punched it hard into the holdup’s soft ribs and pulled the trigger. Shelly rose, walked across the kitchen and toward the kitchen door. Marnie drifted over toward the corner. Marnie had known absolute terror in her own young life; Marnie had known brutality, back in New York, when she lived there with her drug-addicted mother: Marnie learned to fear that demanding knock on the door, and when the door was shoved open and Shelly was knocked back, hard, when she hit the stairway’s end-post and fell with a little sound of pain, Marnie’s hand slipped into the narrow little cupboard she’d seen her Daddy use: she shrank back into the corner as someone dragged her choking, struggling Mama, by the throat, dragged her through the kitchen, clear out onto the screened-in back porch, bent her backwards over the unused, old-fashioned wringer Maytag they hadn’t gotten rid of yet, hands crushing-tight tight around her neck. Marnie’s eyes were dead pale, her face was the color of putty and drawn tight over her cheekbones as her young fingers pulled the bolt back on the .22 rifle she’d pulled from the narrow little cupboard where her long tall Daddy kept it. Marnie Keller, the nine year old daughter of Sheriff Linn Keller and Paramedic-Firefighter Shelly Keller, heard the rifle firing, saw strings of red float slowly through the air as the bad guy went limp, fell forward. Marnie Keller, her young hands bloodless with the crushing grip she had on the .22’s walnut stock, growled softly as she realized she’d just emptied the rifle’s magazine, that it wasn’t firing anymore, that she didn’t know what to do now. Marnie Keller stood, frozen, eyes wide: she blinked, her Mama was falling back, coughing, one hand to her throat. Marnie just stood there, staring at what she’d done. Shelly staggered into the kitchen, fumbled the wall phone off its hook; she steadied herself with an effort, punched 9-1-1. Marnie heard her Mama’s voice as if from a distance. She just stood there, staring at a dead man slumped over the old Maytag on their back porch. Marnie remembered hearing running feet, a confusion of voices, she remembered her Daddy, his face pale, the flesh stretched tight over his cheekbones: she remembered seeing his face in front of hers, she heard his voice from a distance, she felt his hands on her fingers: she blinked, looked down, let go of the rifle, looked up as Captain Crane looked closely at the dead man’s wounds, shook his head, reached out a hand: an anonymous hand gave him the corner of a sheet, and he draped it over the dead man still laying over the old Maytag wringer washer. Marnie stood there, numb; her Daddy came back into view and she felt his fingers, gentle on her cheek: the spell was broken, Marnie could move again, she threw her arms around her Daddy, held him as tightly as she possibly could. Dr. John Greenlees served not only as the hospital’s Chief Surgeon and their chief ER doc, but also as the county Coroner: he lifted the sheet away from the dead man, looked at the evidence markers indicating where Marnie stood when she emptied the .22 into the would-be murderer’s skull: he looked at blood spray, gloved fingers checked for a pulse as a mere formality – a magazine of rimfires through the skull had been far more than lethal – he looked at the appliance over which the deceased was draped, looked at the Sheriff. “Marnie did this?” Sheriff Linn Keller nodded wordlessly. Dr. John Greenlees looked at the deceased. “Shame about the washer.” “It hasn’t worked in years.” “So it’s a dead wringer in more ways than one.” Doc gripped his old friend’s shoulder. “I’ll leave you to your investigation.” Dr. Greenlees frowned, hesitated, looked at the Sheriff. “I know you’re not a drinkin’ man,” he said quietly, “but maybe a shot of medicinal alcohol wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Linn looked at the Maytag, watched as gloved hands brought the deceased off the appliance and onto the coroner’s cot. “Dead wringer,” he muttered.

AND WHAT OF MY FATHER? Dr. John Greenlees, Jr, looked at his wife with a diagnostic eyebrow raised, as if he were a piece of his own medical equipment, scanning his beautiful bride for some condition she didn’t even suspect. Marnie Keller, Sheriff Emeritus and Diplomat-at-Large from the planet Mars, looked at her husband with bubbling amusement. Beside her, a happy little boy in a high chair, learning the intricacies of using a spoon to get his meal into his mouth and not all over his face. “I know that look,” Marnie murmured, and Dr. John heard the smile in her voice. “You’ve changed,” he said quietly. “Changed,” Marnie said thoughtfully, pausing to look very directly at her husband. “We sleep for a year in zero gravity, we colonize a desert planet and we discover and reverse engineer alien technology. I’m the Sheriff for a Wild West colony that was attacked by aliens, I get recruited by a Confederacy we never knew existed, I’ve carried the flag in one hand and a shotgun in the other, I’ve borne children that were killed and I’ve given you two more, I’m married to one of the most gifted physician savants in the solar system and I’m related to some of the most high-demand fighter pilots in thirteen star systems, and I’ve changed?” Dr. John pointed at her with a half-eaten sweet roll, nodded. “You are more relaxed than I’ve ever seen you,” he said quietly. “You aren’t as … hair trigger as you were.” “Hair trigger?” Marnie laughed. “John, I turn that on and off like a switch. Here, I’m relaxed. We live in Fort Knox. Nobody can get through those doors with anything less than a rock cutter, we’ve got solid rock above, below and on most sides, we’re self-contained here. We’ve rippers to dispose of all waste, the Recyclos will fabricate anything at all from the waste we feed it, we could exist in this room, in comfort, for the rest of our lives! Of course I’m relaxed – here!” John took a speculative bite of sweet roll, considered as he masticated. “You are less … hair trigger … when we go to Church,” he said quietly. Marnie nodded. “Again … John, I know our people, and our people know me. They’ve seen me kill and they’ve seen me kill fast. Jacob the same. They know if someone tries to kill them, I’ll be nearby and if it’s at all possible I’ll stop their killer first.” John raised that diagnostic eyebrow again. “I remember what you were like back …” John blinked, looked away. “Do you remember when that yahoo ran us off the road on our way to Prom and you knocked the dog stuffing out of him?” “Dog stuffing,” a happy little boy in a high chair repeated. “That’s right,” John said to his son, then looked back at Marnie. “I was still seeing stars where he slugged me, and you genuinely pounded him into the ground.” Marnie shrugged. “He made me mad,” she said offhandedly. “It’s not wise to make the women of my line angry.” “So I gather.” “So what brought all this on?” Marnie asked, looking at her son’s plate and nodding with approval: she opened a round container of sliced apples – his favorite – dusted a little cinnamon on them, placed them on his tray. Chubby young fingers abandoned the spoon in favor of simply seizing a slice of apple and bringing it to his young mouth. “It’s good to see you can relax,” John said frankly. “You couldn’t, all the years you were – back there.” “I know,” Marnie said softly, remembering how she would arrange to sit in the choir, where she could watch the congregation: she watched the people and her father watched her, and there were moments when her vigilance prevented unpleasant things from happening. Like the time she signed to her father a quick message – they both trained and practiced AMESLAN, the system used by the deaf – Linn pulled a little stamped-steel clicker from his pocket, hit it twice, rose: there was always a medic in church, and at two clicks, the medic rose as well. That was the day Rose Cranwell had a heart attack right before the sermon, the day Shelly hauled her out of the pew and into the aisle, the day the Irish Brigade charged in with cot and oxygen and boxes in hand, the day the entire congregation turned to face them as they worked … the day the Irish Brigade learned what it was to be hit by an incoming wall of prayer. Two months to the day after, Rose Cranwell walked slowly into their little whitewashed church under her own power, a sweet little old lady who saw Marnie rise, saw her lift her hands and sing the opening words to the Doxology, and the entire congregation surged to its feet, and not for the first time, Old Hundred rang loud against the inside of the old Firelands church. Marnie never forgot Rose’s look of delight in that moment. “I never relaxed, even in church,” she admitted. “Not in school. Remember when that light plane went down at the far end of the field? I was out of my desk like a streak!” “I remember,” Dr. John nodded. “I also know how hard it is on the system to keep yourself under that kind of strain, that watchfulness, that tension, constantly.” John leaned forward, laid his fingers gently on the back of his wife’s hand. “I’m glad you can relax,” he murmured. Marnie’s expression was bleak as she remembered, as she nodded, then she looked at her husband and whispered, “But John … what of my father?” Her whispered question hung in the still air for a long moment, at least until a very young John Greenlees tossed his empty plastic apple container to the floor and crowed, “Dog stuffing!” Marnie’s cheeks pinked, she lowered her head: she looked up at her husband, shook her head, laughing quietly. “John,” she sighed, “he’s your son!”

THAT AIN’T NO HAUNT His name was abbreviated from Kolascinski to Kohl, and right now his middle name could have been Aggravated. Kohl was a miner, and a good one. Kohl and his partner were following a vein that looked like it was going to peter out and disappear. They cut higher, lower, left, right, searching for the elusive trace: finally, aggravated, Kohl took his pick, made a mighty, sideways swing – there wasn’t enough room to stand up straight, a man had to hunch over and swing his pick sideways – the pick drove through what he didn’t realize was just a thin web of busted rock. He worked the pick, tore it out, drew back, hit it again. His partner grabbed his forearm as the pick drew free, bringing a peck basket of loose rock with it. “Listen.” Two men looked at one another, their eyes white, stark in the mine’s lamp-lit gloom. Kohl saw panic widen his partner’s eyes, then the man turned, ran, dropped his pick like a terrified sentry faced with an oncoming wave of screaming infantry, will drop his musket and run like a scared little girl. Kohl frowned, leaned closer to the hole he’d just made, listened. That ain’t no haunt, he thought. Kids, Fitz thought. No thought for anyone, they just go – He looked around, swinging his smoke-cutter flashlight slowly as he went. Radios were useless underground, save for line-of-sight only, and that a limited distance; minerals in the walls drank RF energy like a thirsty man drinks beer – still, he had a talkie in one hand, his light in the other. They were looking for a child, a high school kid who’d taken his trumpet (or his Fluglehorn or whateverthehell they played in Marching Band these days) and his Mama feared he’d gone into an old mineshaft to practice, since a cranky neighbor complained about noise when he practiced on his back steps. Fitz knew the kid, the boy was nice enough, but like most kids, his train of thought was really short and tended to leave station prematurely. His Mama speculated he’d gone down into the old mineshaft to practice alone and got lost, and he’d not come home, and she’d gotten worried and then panicked and called in the cavalry, and now he, his medics, his firefighters, were penetrating the gloom in a spaced-out file, each one with a talkie, each one a radio relay point. At least there’s air, he thought as the chilly breeze moved past him: he could see his breath, carried deeper into the mine: it was already cool underground, constantly cool but not terribly cold: they’d set up their ventilation fans, run by a portable generator, near the mineshaft’s opening, they were blowing an impressive number of cubic feet per second into the mineshaft, pushing cold, clean air in, shoving old, stale air ahead of them and out an opening God only knew where – there were old mining maps, but none reliable, and only a handful of locals knew where all the mine openings were: most were an uninviting hole in the ground, a very few – like this one – still had a timber framing, and a man, crouched over, could navigate it. His Mama thought he came down into the mine to practice, he thought. She thought he came down here. She said she didn’t know for sure. Now I’m in a hole in the ground that could drop a mountain on top of me. God save me from women that speak a fear as if it were a fact! His pique yanked itself away from him faster than the fog of his breath on cold, steadily moving air, was blown own the mineshaft. He heard a scrabbling ahead, then breathing – fast, panicked breathing – Something moved in the distance. Fitz raised his talkie, keyed up: “This is Fire One, I have movement ahead.” He crouched, shoved his light forward, damning its limited range: he’d meant to replace these with higher-intensity lights, there was a conversion available now – Something was headed toward him, he saw a pale oval, two more pale ovals, he realized this was the kid he was looking for, and then he realized the kid’s face was dead white, his eyes were wide with panic, and his mouth was open, as if he were trying to scream and nothing would come out. “FIRELANDS FIRE DEPARTMENT! WE’VE GOT YOU, LAD!” he shouted, just before a skinny high-school kid clutching a trumpet to his chest, barreled into him, knocked him over and continued in blind flight down the mineshaft. Kohl used the pick to rake loosened dirt and busted rock, he swung hard, shattering chunks that didn’t want to cooperate: he bent, looked through a hole the size of a bushel basket. “HELLO!” he called. “WHO’S THERE!” His voice did not quite echo, it was more like his voice shivered as it disappeared down the gloomy shaft. “I HEARD YOU. SING OUT, MAN! ARE YOU HURT!” ‘Twas a mouth organ I heard, he thought, frowning, wishing for a better light: the butter lamp on his miner’s cap cast a weak glow that didn’t push back much of the surrounding darkness. Kohl cut a bigger hole, thrust his pick through, then his head and shoulders, wiggled into a larger chamber. He came up on his worn trouser knees, looked around. His head came up, his stomach tightened: Kohl knew when the mountain started to mutter, a man was better off elsewhere: rarely it was that the overhead gave any warning before it failed, and the wise man fled at the first sound of the mine’s roof cracking, shifting or starting to trickle debris down the back of miner’s neck. He’d heard a muffled crack from overhead. He looked down, froze. Kohl sank to one knee, groaned. He knew the man: Eli, he’d said his name was: Kohl remembered he had neither family nor many friends, a morose and disagreeable sort, preferring to wrap his sorrows about him like a cloak: Kohl tried to draw him out on occasion, but without any luck a’tall, and now here the man lay, dead. Not just dead. His hands were nearly fleshless, bone showed through a tear in one trouser leg; he’d been killed when part of the overhead fell, swift, silent, crushing the soul from his body like a man would squeeze a seed from a ripe fruit. He lay face-up, what used to be a face, now a rotted mask of horror. “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” he whispered, “speak kindly to Your Son on behalf of Eli’s soul.” Something hit Kohl’s miner’s cap and he jumped back, looked up, caught a philter of dirt in the face: he turned, dove back through the hole he’d just made, legged it down the mineshaft as fast as a man can move, bent over double. His worn brogan just missed crushing a mostly skeletal hand, and the still-shiny harmonica in its fleshless fingers. Chief Charles Fitzgerald, in his class A uniform, ceremoniously placed an ancient but still-shiny mouth organ on a blue-velvet-covered tea saucer: the glass display case was closed as Fitz stepped back into the ranks of the Irish Brigade, formally assembled for this presentation. Angela Keller wore a handmade gown of unrelieved black, a sheer black veil misting down from her fashionable black hat, draping over her unrelieved black shoulders: she’d spoken the graveside elegy an hour before, when what was left of a mine-rat-chewed skeleton was retrieved from an old mine, from a chamber forgotten until a high-school kid wanted to find a solitary place to practice his trumpet, without disturbing a crotchety neighbor whose heart’s delight was to complain. Abbot William sent a delegation from the Rabbitville Monastery, tonsured Brethren and veiled White Sisters alike: the skeleton, in a handmade wooden coffin, was committed to the earth with due ceremony, and the White Sisters sang in a glorious a capella harmony, committing the eternal soul of this unknown miner to its reward. It might make for a good ghost story if we added that the high school kid would sneak into the Museum and play during the full moon, and as the echoes of his softly offered brassy notes faded, he would hear a mouth organ’s accompaniment following his notes into the darkness. That didn’t happen. Once, and once only, when the kid went to the graveyard and played his trumpet, very softly, at the foot of a recent grave. When he finished, when he lowered his trumpet, he heard the harmonica, as if from a great distance. He never knew that a woman in a long black gown, a woman with a sheer black veil misting down from her fashionable little hat, stood still and unmoving beside a graveyard fir, listening as he played, and he never knew that a woman's black-gloved hand noted in a handwritten journal that the unknown miner's music was heard by perhaps the only living soul that knew his name.

TERROR, AND DELIGHT! Jacob Keller looked down-slope, at the long, natural ski slope that stretched before him. He’d found it two years before. Summer saw him cutting deadfalls, swinging them out of the way: those close enough to a trail, and not too badly rotted, got hauled out by the Daine boys – those skinny Kentucky mountaineers favored mules for their timber harvest, which periodically got them in some newspaper or another – it amused these skinny, hard-muscled mountain folk that Flatlanders, as they sneeringly referred to anyone without the good sense to live in God’s mountains – as these staring, gawping strangers allowed as haulin’ timber out with a team of mules was “quaint” or “charming.” Timbering is neither: it is just plain hard work. A couple of the Kentucky clan went back East and showed relatives and kinfolk back in Kentucky how to timber with a team, and they laughed at their blood relatives’ amazement, and how they themselves sweated in the hot and humid hollers of the Appalachians: back home in the Shining Mountains, sweat evaporated nearly as fast as it squeezed out of a man’s hide. Here in the humid East – among these little bitty mountains -- having sweat run down into their eyes, was at once annoying, and a source of amusement. Jacob located boulders that did not suit him, here on this natural downhill run: the boulders were few, as years before, this same run had been cleared of rocky impediments by hard rock miners, hired for the purpose. Jacob labored alone, a very young man, obsessed: that was the year he’d scavenged a 1930s-era car hood from a local junkyard, how he’d turned it from a sheetmetal engine bonnet into a tapered, streamlined toboggan: he’d sanded off rust and corrosion, dismounted (and saved) the hood ornament. He’d painted, repainted, then waxed and waxed again: board seats bolted in place, he’d screwed floor flanges into the two inch thick seates, made pipe handles to grab onto: he painted his homemade toboggan a dark enamel blue, simply because it’s what he had on hand: multiple coats of paint, well cured in the Colorado sun, and before the several coats of wax, he’d painted a crude daisy-on-a-stem, bent as if blown by the passing wind, and beneath, the words, Bloomin’ Idiot. Marnie, Dana and Angela all had the gift of drawing, his pale eyed Pa had that same gift, though he was best at diagrams, and pretty good at map making: Jacob was lucky to squiggle out a recognizable stick figure with a #2 lead pencil, though he’d proven surprisingly skilled with an airbrush, the only time he’d given an airbrush a try. Sarah Lynne McKenna glared at the mountain slope. It was a natural sled run: the Daine boys, at her request, came through here the summer before and harvested out the deadfalls, and turned the seasoned, downed wood into profit: this was McKenna land, and the Daine boys had asked about timbering it, and Sarah – young though she was – went as the family’s representative, and carefully selected trees to be cut. The Daine boys were, for all their carefully cultivated poor-dumb-hillbilly appearance, shrewd businessmen: they’d seen other lumbermen clearcut a mountain and then bewail their ill fortune when their sons, without work, left for the more prosperous East, or the far West: the family Daine chose instead to harvest out select trees, and leave others for seed, so that their sons’ sons would have timber to harvest. Sarah McKenna surveyed this long strip from a distance, with field-glasses; she arranged to hire miners – her youth was offset by her mature appearance, her use of the feminine subterfuges of paint, powder and foundations, enhanced with a mature and well spoken presentation – plus cash in hand: young and pretty though she was, the gold coin she offered spoke perhaps louder than her words, and hard rock miners drilled and shot the offending projections and boulders from the slope. Winter arrived, as it always did, and with frost on the ground and plans in mind, Sarah McKenna rode her big black Snowflake-mare to strategic points, surveyed her slope again, and felt a quiet satisfaction. No mineral wealth was discovered when boulders were busted and rolled safely downhill, where the grade carried them naturally to the left and to the right; harvested timber was given, not sold, to the Daine boys, which guaranteed their future business: Sarah returned to the slope after a few snows, and when the time was right, she and her sisters and her shining black mare, hauled a carefully-crafted, lovingly-runner-waxed, New England sled to the top of the grade. Jacob Keller stood at the top of the slope, his car-hood sled beside him. He looked down the long slope, snow covered and smooth: pale eyes paused where he’d brought the few boulders from their nests, made one last-minute check for new deadfalls. Sarah Lynne McKenna wrapped her knit scarf three times around her lower face, worked her artist’s fingers in their rabbit-fur-lined leather gloves: she pulled up her skirt, planted her feet on the heavy wood foot-rests. Her stomach contracted as her twin sisters piled on behind her, bundled and gloved and scarved as well as she: they’d insisted on coming, having never ridden a sled before, and Sarah, big sister though she was, realized in the bright moment before they started to move, that she was indeed young enough to be foolish, and looking at the length of that long, straight, white, steep grade before her, she indeed felt the veriest of fools! It has been speculated that ghosts are the vibrations, the energies, perhaps the emotions, of those who went before; it has been postulated that strong emotion leaves a psychic echo in a location. However it was, when Jacob leaned forward, when his homemade car-hood sled began to hiss and slide and fall down the snowy slope, when Jacob’s eyes slitted against the cold wind of his passing, when snow falling from branches detonated in a frosty spray against what little flesh wasn’t wrapped in a knit scarf, when his stomach dropped ten stories and the rest of him hissed downhill so fast his Guardian Angel was hanging onto the back of his belt with a desperate, one-hand grip, while the rest of the streaming seraph looked like a ghostly bedsheet stretched out in his slipstream – Three of the daughters McKenna expressed their terror, and their delight, in a long, shrill, sustained, shared, shivering screaming laugh that hung on the cold mountain wind, and Jacob Keller, his own jaw clamped shut against his own wild wahoo of utter delight, heard a distant, delighted screaming, shivering on the cold mountain wind, that sounded just like what his stomach was feeling. Ambassador Marnie Keller stepped into her skis, pressed her heels down to lock them in place. The hang glider she wore felt awkward and top heavy. She reached up, settled tempered-glass goggles in place, reached down, laid a gloved hand on her belt-box, smiled grimly. If things went catastrophically wrong, she’d have life support and heat, thanks to that waist-worn marvel of Confederate technology: its enveloping force-field should spare her broken bones, were she to have a disastrous loss of control and hit something other than open air. Marnie wore her white Sheriff’s skinsuit and gunbelt: this would offer far less wind resistance than the McKenna gown she favored for ambassadorial duties, and when she’d explained that her credentials as Sheriff were still valid on her home planet, the representatives of a planet called Nawlins not only offered no objection to her coming armed and armored, so to speak, but sparked a very interested and surprisingly productive discussion with their own law enforcement community about the advantages of a uniform slippery enough to make it more difficult for an opponent to grab the officer – or the officer’s sidearm. Now, though, Marnie shuffled forward just a little, her eyes following the long, straight finger of disaster as it fell away from her, steeply, down the side of the mountain. She remembered a mountain slope back home, a natural ski run that ended in a jump across a stream, a broad flat area where the sisters McKenna parted company with their New England sled, landing and rolling through deep, powdery snow, blowing like frosty whales as they wallowed happily upright, giggling and beating snow from their sleeves, their coats, from one another: the same slope, the same landing zone her brother Jacob knew as he fell through space on a recycled Pontiac hood, ending up headfirst in a drift half again deeper than he was tall, and Marnie looked to her right, nodded to the ski-jump’s operator, then leaned forward and started down a long, natural slope on a planet she’d only just arrived at two days before. Ambassador Marnie Keller sailed on waxed wooden skis, leaned forward, crouched, settling deeply into a coiled-spring readiness, glanced at her wrist-dial, glanced again as her windspeed approached go-no-go velocity, thought, Three, two, one, LAUNCH! Marnie was a dancer, Marnie was a horsewoman, Marnie was a daughter of the high Colorado mountains: Marnie used to run with Willamina’s Warriors, singing their obscene cadences as happily as they, building muscle and endurance in the thin mountain air: Marnie was a warrior in her own right, and her regular and vigorous attendance in high-grav gymnasia guaranteed that she remained muscular and well-toned. Marnie Keller, crouched, coiled and ready to explode, thrust suddenly upright: the wind ran cold fingers under the taut, lightweight fabric of her bright-orange hang glider, hauled her into the sky. There were granite mountains on this Confederate world: lightly populated they were, known to a very few lean-waisted folk who knew hard work and asked little of anyone else: these mountains had heard human voices, yes, but this was the first time a scream of terrified delight, a girlish scream that became high-pitched, happy, girlish laughter, a distant voice that echoed from its cold, high reaches. It wasn’t the first time Marnie flew from a hang glider, it wasn’t the first time she soared the skies of this particular planet, but she would happily admit in the years that followed, this had to be one of the very best launches she’d ever made!

DECOY The teen-ager lay back in the reclined beautician’s chair. A cosmetician worked her magic on the unmoving face: what had been a clear, pale, but healthy complexion, was altered to look like someone else. A fine brush was dipped in something that smelled strongly of ether, a short line painted along the jaw at midline: it was cold, it drew as the ether evaporated, pulling the skin into a short, puckered scar. There are tricks to cosmetics that can enhance a feature, or de-emphasize a feature; these were employed, with frequent consultations with four portrait views of a young woman’s face: a frontal shot, left profile, right profile. The teen-ager in the beautician’s chair was fitted with a carefully-brushed wig, the wig anchored in place, styled to match the photographs. Long, stockinged legs ended in pretty, low-heeled pumps; nails were shaped, filed, given a light pastel coat. The teen-ager heard the crackle of paper, looked to the side, saw sterile surgical gloves being laid out: a woman in scrubs worked her hands into the gloves, a sterile sponge wiped off the powder: professional fingers held the teen’s eyes open, one, then the other; drops were administered, the teen warned not to touch – “You could scour your eyes with a wire brush and you would not feel it!” the woman behind the surgical mask admonished. It would not have been possible for the teen to have reached up, whether to try to rub away an imagined itch, or to swat aside the sterile-gloved hands that held one eyelid, then the other, wide open, in order to install a set of scleral contacts. A set of high-security handcuffs held young wrists to a locked waist chain; a set of shackles confined the crossed, stockinged ankles, and a uniformed Sheriff watched silently as a recruited decoy in a silky pastel dress was transformed into the blond-haired, blue-eyed, absolute twin for a high-value prisoner. There were hostile eyes in the courtroom. The Sheriff’s office engaged the cell phone jammer when the jury went to deliberate; there were secure communications available through hard lines, should there be need to summon assistance, and the jammer did not work on the lower wavelengths used by the Sheriff’s officers’ talkies: the court came to its feet as the Judge came in, as the Judge remained standing, watching the jury file in and resume their seats. The Judge rapped his gavel, sat; so did everyone else. At the verdict – guilty, and remanded to the women’s prison – pale eyes noted which spectators tried to surreptitiously employ their cell phones. This information was quietly communicated to waiting officers. Sheriff Willamina Keller rose and accompanied the bailiff as the young woman was removed from the courtroom: Willamina fitted the bulky black flak vest over her silky, pastel dress, ran the waist chain around her, secured her wrists, ran the box over the cuffs, secured this through the waist chain and locked it: a chain dangled behind, and was communicated with a set of leg shackles, which were closed over stockinged ankles, over a pastel set of low heeled pumps. A camouflaged door opened, the prisoner was escorted into a chamber few knew about, helped down two flights of stairs into a tunnel, walked to a waiting windowless van, and secured within. Her last words before the van’s sliding door closed behind her were, “What about my sunglasses?” – then the sound of the heavy steel door closing and locking into place, silenced her protest. The sudden realization that she was actually going to prison – for real! -- became frighteningly, absolutely, unmistakably clear. Above them, a teen-ager in an identical dress, with identical hair, an identical scar cosmetically painted on the right jaw, was fitted with a bulky black flak vest, was cuffed and shackled and looking so much like the convicted prisoner as to draw honest surprise from staff who’d just come in. A set of oversized, mirrored, monogrammed sunglasses were slipped over the tastefully made-up face and an officer’s voice murmured, “Showtime, sweetheart!” – hard hands gripped the chained prisoner’s upper arms, and the doors were opened to the flashing glare of cameras, to shouted questions: “Miss Mapes! Miss Mapes, over here! Miss Mapes, what do you say to your conviction?” – an attorney, an annoyed frown on his face, raised a hand: “Miss Mapes will of course challenge the verdict. Give us room, please!” The crowd parted reluctantly as the shackled prisoner was brought out, led down the marble hallway, down the stairs and perp-walked out the front doors of the courthouse: a waiting van with PRISON TRANSPORT stenciled on its side, a windowless white van with guards standing at the ready, received the prisoner: news cameras captured the scene, the lovely, deadly prisoner who was spared the death penalty by agreeing to testify against certain elements of the criminal world, was helped into the van, secured in a locked cell for transport, all captured by the unblinking, ground-glass eyes of shoulder-carried news cameras. While the media and the watching cameras howled for attention at the front of the courthouse, a windowless ton-and-a-half van with JACK’S HEATING AND COOLING on the side rolled quietly down the alley behind the courthouse, turned onto an outbound street, and disappeared into city traffic. The prisoner felt the van slow, turn, stop: the confined, isolated prisoner heard doors open, doors close, heard the sound of high-pressure water, as if the van were being run through a carwash. Doors again, a little rocking as if someone got back behind the wheel, or maybe two someones, then they began driving again. When a white, windowless van pulled out of the carwash bay, a second white, windowless van pulled out behind it, followed for two blocks, then turned off: the two now-unremarkable vehicles each headed their separate way. A windowless white van disappeared through the heavy, old-fashioned prison gates: cameras followed it in, watching as stone-mounted portals closed behind it, then a solid steel wall rolled across, blocking all view through the barred gates. Talking heads commented solemnly to their hand-held microphones that a dangerous murderess was now arrived at the private prison to which she’d been remanded, and where she would remain under high security, for the remainder of her natural life, with no chance of parole. About that same moment, an unmarked white van drove slowly up a rural driveway very near the county seat, followed by a Jeep driven by a pale eyed woman in a tailored blue suit dress and heels. Willamina Keller backed her Jeep into her usual space. She strode briskly across gravel and grass and up her front porch steps: she unlocked the front door, watched as a pair of mirrored sunglasses were carefully removed from a shackled, manacled, blue-eyed, blond-haired prisoner with really nice legs, stood aside as two prison guards took the prisoner’s upper arms in a control grip. “Bring her in,” Willamina said. “Thank you, gentlemen, that will be all.” Willamina took the prisoner’s arm. “Hold still. I’m going to get these off you.” The disguised decoy held very still as Willamina thrust her long key into keyholes, opened and removed cuffs, padlocks, shackles, set them aside. “Turn around and have a seat.” The designated decoy swallowed nervously, shot an uncertain glance at the door as it closed behind the departing guards. “Sit,” Willamina said. “Tilt your head back and hold very still.” Willamina opened a sterile package, slipped her hands into a pair of sterile gloves, wiped them off with a sterile sponge. Sheriff she was, but nurse she was as well: she carefully, expertly, extracted the blue scleral contacts from the prisoner’s eyes, dropped them in a sterile solution. She drew up a chair, sat, looked very directly at this apprehensive soul in a stylish pastel dress, flowing blond hair, sculpted legs, nylons. “You pulled it off,” she said softly. “You were convincing. Well done.” Pale eyes blinked. “By the way, there were two people in the gallery who tried to send a heads-up.” The decoy’s voice was quiet, a hesitant whisper. “You were right.” Willamina nodded. “Because of you, we kept a high value witness alive, and because of you, we caught the assassin before he could put a round between your eyes.” Sixteen year old Linn Keller watched as his mother gathered manacles, shackles, waist chain: she opened a cupboard, stowed them away as casually as if she were putting away a pair of winter gloves. Willamina turned. “Feel like going out for dinner?” she teased. “You’re dressed well enough.” In all of her entire life, Sheriff Willamina Keller honestly never remembered Linn’s face becoming so red, so fast.

A LETTER, UNSENT “Sharon said you’d be here.” The Sheriff looked up: he sat at the same desk in the same back room that had hosted his pale eyed Mama, when she was compiling her extensive ancestry research, when she was studying documents, when she was cross referencing their place in the timeline. Linn looked at his daughter, nodded, looked back at the open book under his fingertips. “I never read this one before,” he said, his voice soft. “Come and take a look.” Dana, curious, came breezing into the room, flowed up the three steps, swung around and laid herself over her Daddy’s upper back, her chin over his right shoulder, her soft cheek against her Daddy’s cheekbone. They read together in silence: Dana’s mouth opened a little, then closed: her pale eyes tracked the lines of regular script, written with a steel nib dip quill on good rag paper: she read words placed there by her pale eyed Gammaw Willamina, and her hands tightened on her Daddy’s muscled upper arms as she did. Dana sat heavily, looking like an absolutely astonished little girl more than she did a woman grown and a deputy Sheriff. The fact that she wore a silky pastel dress and matching heels did nothing to dispel the appearance. Linn picked up a single, tri-folded sheet, handed to her. “She wrote this,” he said, “and never gave it to me.” “Why not?” Dana asked, surprised, as she extended feminine fingers to accept the document. Linn looked away, looked through the doorway, at a gown worn by their hell-raising ancestress, Sarah Lynne McKenna, a gown his Mama faithfully copied, and wore, many times. Dana looked up, her eyes big. “Daddy …?” “Your Grandma used me as bait,” Linn said bluntly. “I didn’t know how close I came to being killed until now.” “Wow,” Dana whispered. “She says here that … the … assassin knew … he thought he knew you were not a decoy, because you had that little scar on your jaw that was never released to the newspapers.” Linn nodded. “She was crushed when he told her the detectives stopped his shot just as his crosshairs settled on my left eye.” “And you never knew?” “Not until just now.” Linn swallowed, tilted his head back, took a long breath, blew it out. Dana read deeper into a letter Sheriff Willamina Keller wrote to her son, a letter that explained her unwillingness to assume the liability of recruiting someone else for something dangerous, and her regret that she’d put her own child in harm’s way. Dana nodded slowly, re-read the letter, set it on her Daddy’s desktop, scooted her chair closer. “Daddy,” she said softly, “you thought you were doing the right thing.” “I did,” Linn said, “and my decision caused you harm I can’t undo.” Dana squeezed her Daddy’s hand. “You,” she said firmly, squeezing again for emphasis, “did not cause me harm.” Linn closed his eyes. Dana released her Daddy’s hand, cupped her fingers under his chin, turned his face toward her: she leaned her head forward, as if to look at him over a set of spectacles. “You self-righteous old poop,” she whispered, “you can forgive anyone, anything, except the Man in the Mirror!” Linn’s lips pressed together and he nodded. “Daddy,” Dana whispered, “do you remember telling me about the bullet that just tickled the hairs on your ear? You were overdue for a haircut and you said you had ear hairs like a kitty cat, and when that nine-millimeter freight train screamed past your ear and just clipped your ear hairs, you realized how close you’d come.” Linn nodded. “Do you know what you taught me?” He shook his head. “Daddy, you taught me that you are still alive!” Dana’s voice was quiet, insistent, the voice of someone who not just wished, but needed to teach a lesson, to convey an idea. “Daddy, you said in your young life you’ve been shot, stabbed, cut, run into, run over” – she leaned back, raised a pontificating finger while laying the other fingers dramatically spread on her bodice – “and a street evangelist tried to save your corroded soul-a!” Her voice was so exaggerated, such a marvelous caricature of the pale eyed lawman’s own words, that he couldn’t help it. His guilt receded; he shook his head, then nodded, laughing quietly as he did. “Daddy.” Dana seized her father’s hands. “Yes what happened to me was terrible. Yes I was hurt. Yes it’ll haunt me for the rest of my entire life, it’ll screw me up inside and I’ll never be able to have any kind of relationship with anyone ever again, I’ll live and die an old maid in a drafty cabin in the mountains, I’ll wear burlap and sack cloth and adopt a hundred cats.” Dana stared steadily into the pain and the self accusation that filled her big strong Daddy’s eyes, and watched as her words pushed them away, as just a little bit of a smile tightened the corners of those same pale eyes. “Now Daddy,” Dana said, “suppose you tell me about what happened here” – she tapped the handwritten sheet on the desktop – “that caused Gammaw so much guilt!” Linn took a long breath, considered, rose. “You might be too young to remember,” he said thoughtfully, “but years ago there was a moll with a price on her head who came in from the cold. She agreed to plead no contest to murder in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table, if she agreed to testify against some people we’d been – that is, every police agency in three states and my Mama wanted to take down, for a very long time.” “I see.” “Mama had the … let me look that up …” Linn turned to the computer, worked some magic with the mouse, typed in a word, another: he frowned, leaned forward, grunted. At his grunt Dana looked at the screen, for the man did not grunt at a computer screen unless he was happy with what it showed. “There.” Linn picked up a pencil, tapped its eraser against the screen. “Perp walk?” “Yep. Right out the front door of the court house and into a prison van, with God and everybody watching.” Another plastic patter of experienced fingers on the keyboard, another picture. “This is from a later trial. This fellow, at his conviction. The detectives grabbed before he could kill the convicted prisoner.” “That close?” “That close.” Linn looked at his daughter, considered, backed up to the first picture. “Dana,” he said, “do you remember reading about Sarah Lynne McKenna and how her Mama used her as a model for the dresses she made, parading her ten year old daughter on stage?” Dana nodded. “And how Sarah would slip into the theatre next door and became a favorite of the players, how they taught her quick-change, how they taught her to change her appearance with paints and powders and foundations?” “I remember she was still painted up from such an evening,” Dana said slowly, studying the image of the prisoner – a pretty young woman with oversized, mirrored sunglasses, a black flak vest over her pastel dress, transport irons shortening her steps and securing her wrists to her chained waist. She looked back at her Daddy. “I remember she was ten years old when the son of a Spanish grandee proposed to her. He thought her a woman grown and he turned the color of wheat paste when Charlie Macneil growled in Spanish that she had only ten years.” Linn nodded, considering that his daughter still remembered her proper Spanish sentence structure, even when she was not speaking Spanish. “So what does that have to do with a perp-walk almost being killed?” “That,” Linn said, tapping the screen again with the eraser, “is the decoy. That’s the one the assassin had a sight picture on. The real prisoner was smuggled out through an underground tunnel.” He looked at the picture, looked at the letter, looked at his daughter, watched as Dana’s mouth fell open in absolute and utterly sincere, astonishment. “Darlin’, it’s possible to work magic with face paint and powder and foundations.” “No,” Dana whispered. “Yep,” Linn nodded, his expression solemn. “Dana, I was the decoy.”