Dreams of the Golden Aspen Ranch

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Jackson Cooper stroked his horse's muzzle with a surprising gentleness.

Jackson Cooper was a hand and a half and more taller than the Sheriff, and the Sheriff was a tall man: likewise, Jackson Cooper had an impressive breath of shoulder, such that not only did he have to duck a little to get through most doorways, he filled said doorway -- north to south, east to west, and not a bit of it fat.

It was said that if the blacksmith needed his anvil moved, Jackson Cooper would casually pick it up and set it here or set it there as easily as a housewife might set a vase of flowers on this table or that stand, though at the moment, the man was very definitely not thinking of vases or flowers.

As Jackson Cooper swung his outsized saddle aboard his outsized gelding, he felt a smile building behind his eyes, a feeling of gratitude back behind the interested audience watching through hazel orbs as he made sure the saddle was to his satisfaction: he'd had to heal saddle sores on poorly mounted horses in the past, and he had absolutely no wish to cause his chestnut Frisian any injury.

Sarah acquired her huge Snowflake mare -- a gleaming, all-black Frisian -- from a rancher whose impatience ran cross grained of the horse's spirits and playful nature: he was of a notion to shoot the horse as untrainable, until Sarah rode out with a poke of gold coin and a sharpened blade; when the rancher refused to consider her offer -- "I don't have time to listen to a silly girl" -- he found the honed tip of good German steel thrust up hard under his chin, and all of a sudden he had the time to listen.

Sarah paid the man a fair price and more for the horse, Sarah rode the horse home with absolutely no problem -- to the rancher's astonishment, for he fully expected this wee slip of a little girl to be tossed high in the air and ground under dishpan sized hooves.

Sarah's Snowflake grew to a fine (and massive) adulthood, proving a smooth, nimble, easily trained mount: Sarah more often than not rode with a bitless bridle and sometimes not even that, guiding her beloved Snowflake with knees and voice and a shift in the saddle.

That Sarah could ride without reins should have surprised no one; it did not surprise the Sheriff, who knee-trained all his saddle stock: he himself knew the usefulness of a knee-trained mount in wartime, and had charged into battle with saber in one hand and pistol in the other, and had full control of his chestnut mare when he did: the Frisian is descended from those great horses that bore armored knights into battle, and when Sarah invited Marshal Jackson Cooper to try her Snowflake, the man fell in love for the second time in his entire life.

It was not long after that, not long after he decided a man of his stature was better served with what Sarah called a "Greathorse," that he himself acquired Buckeye, a chestnut gelding with a white nose.

He'd gotten Buckeye for a good price: Frisians, according to the breeders, should be black, with at most a small white diamond between the eyes: a chestnut horse was not desirable for breeding, and so this one was gelded and sold, and Jackson Cooper could not be happier.

All this thought took about three-tenths of a second, long enough for him to fetch his long, hard-muscled leg up and get a boot in the stirrup.

Buckeye never shifted as Jackson Cooper boosted his mass into saddle leather, a delightfully great distance above the ground.

He'd seen the Sheriff's attention-getting flicker from his signal mirror, he'd read the Sheriff's signal flag, and though he was going to hold station as instructed, he was going to do it from the saddle.

Buckeye shook his head, stamped, blew loudly, clearly impatient.

Jackson Cooper patted his neck.

"I know, fella," he whispered, and Buckeye's ears snapped back, for the only time Jackson Cooper whispered was when most men would be little short of a full-voiced shout.

The big lawman felt his horse quiver happily under him.

 

Jacob, too, was saddled and mounted.

Apple-horse was a multicolored statue as saddle blanket and saddle descended on him, his slashing white tail the only sign of his impatience.

Jacob was tightly controlled, his hands had eyes of their own, his moves were economical, efficient, with the easy flow of long practice.

Part of his mind smiled as he considered the truth of his father's words:

"When a man is really good at something, he'll make it look easy, especially when it's not."

Jacob made saddling a horse in a hurry, look easy.

He, too, threw a leg over his mount's back bone and settled his backside into a good deep seat.

He looked into the distance, looked up at his Pa.

Only then did he realize he was quivering like a dog on a hot scent.

 

My mirror was back in my vest pocket.

I had the binoculars to my eyes again.

I thought I just saw a shine -- a badge, most likely, that looked like Tom's ugly dun ... yep, that's Tom's hat, all right -- at this distance I could not see as much as I wanted, but of a sudden two riders came charging Tom and he upped his rifle and it spoke twice.

It took several long seconds for the sound of two gunshots to roll across the distance to us.

I could not help but grin under the binoculars, for poor old Tom forgot his dun hates gunfire and he let loose of two rounds with his horse's head throwed sideways and then that horse throwed Tom and I saw his Winchester spin off into the air and poor old Tom spilt off the other way and I lost sight of him behind the intervening brush.

I looked off to my right.

Jacob was saddled up and ready to go.

I looked to my left.

Jackson Cooper was saddled up as well.

I looked down at Cannonball, waiting patiently below me, saddled, dozing; I raised a fist, turned one way, turned the other, made sure both the Marshal and my chief deputy could see the signal:

Hold here.

I climbed down from the rock, kissed at Cannonball, and she walked over to me, head bobbing.

For about half a heartbeat I wondered if Angela was out on her beloved Rosebud-horse, the shining copper get of my Cannonball mare, but it was an irrational thought and I pushed it from me.

I thrust a boot in the doghouse and swung aboard.

I looked left, look right, raised my right hand, threw it forward.

We advanced at a walk across the high meadow.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

The old Irish sergeant's voice was quiet in Jacob's memory.

"Aye, lad," he said, "your father ne'er sent us out, he led us out."

He took a thoughtful pull on his beer, considered the mystery under the suds, frowning.

"He'd always start us at a walk.

"Ever' man Jack o' us wanted t' go screamin' across th' field just as hard as we could run an' the Colonel -- your father -- he'd ne'er let us.

"He always led, and he always threw his hand for'ard like he was swattin' a' somethin'.

"We'd walk -- he expected good order o' us an' I enforced his good order" -- Jacob remembered thinking the man's scarred knuckles were the big Irishman's favored method -- "an' i' due time we'd trot, an' we'd canter.

"We knew he was ready for a gallop when he drew his sabre.

"He'd no' draw steel until he was ready to stand up i' th' stirrups an' lean for'ard like he was a-whisperin' secrets t' tha' chestnut mare 'a' his, an' when he did, why, we did too, an' then we'd hear him yell 'Charge' an' th' cry was caught up fra' ev'ry throat an' th' earth i'self would shiver from th' hammerin' o' th' hooves."

Jacob remembered the Irish sergeant's words clearly as he walked his Appaloosa stallion, keeping station, keeping himself in a straight line with his father and the Marshal.

The Sheriff looked left, looked right, raised a fist, pumped it once.

Jacob leaned forward into a trot.

Apple-horse shook his head, impatient to be running, but Jacob's knees and Jacob's voice were enough, even when Jacob dropped his knotted reins over the saddle horn, freeing his hands to fetch out his '76 rifle.

He's remembering the charge, Jacob thought.

He's remembering how it was to lead a line of solid blue with ranks behind him, following.

It's all he can do to keep from leaning over Cannonball's neck with his hands full of steel thunder and screaming into a full blown charge.

Jacob could not have known that his speculation was accurate, frighteningly so.

His father looked across the high meadow and saw another meadow in another time, a meadow with men and with bayonets and with cannon, a meadow with shells bursting death overhead and scything through the advancing cavalry, he smelled torn guts and heard men and horses scream and he tasted copper, and in his periphery he saw a line of solid blue to his left and to his right, keeping station with him, guidons snapping in the wind of their passing.

The Sheriff stood up in his stirrups, looked down at his mare, sat down.

Cannonball, he thought, relief washing over him: Red Cannonball, not chestnut Jasmine.

He felt suddenly weak: he closed his eyes, shivered, took a long breath.

That damned war was twenty years ago and I can still taste blood and sulfur.

The Sheriff sat down and Cannonball slowed to a walk again, Jackson Cooper and Jacob slowing to match.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Daciana and Sarah watched Sarah's mama and sisters drive away.

The pair stood on Sarah's front porch, waving and smiling, and they watched the buggy until it was out of sight, in the distance and around the bend.

Daciana's hand found Sarah's and squeezed gently, and she turned to look at her old and dear friend with the shining face and the pale, ice-blue eyes.

"You can fool zem," Daciana said quietly, raising her other hand to caress Sarah's cheek, "putt you cannot fools me."

Sarah never changed expression, never shifted her posture, but Daciana felt her harden, felt a distinct chill, and she knew she was right.

"Vhat happendt?" she asked, turning to face Sarah squarely.

Sarah turned as well, her eyes growing cold, pale, the shade of a glacier's heart.

"Walk with me."

The two stepped off the porch; Sarah walked slowly across the yard, remembering.

She'd been in the barn that day, grooming Snowflake, wondering about the child she carried, wondering what kind of a mother she would become.

The Bear Killer drowsed in a shadowed corner, almost invisible, half-buried in straw: he'd wallowed in the bedding like a puppy and now lay, head on his paws, watching her, still as death itself: if she didn't know he was there, she would never have seen him.

Sarah turned, curry in hand, startled: knees bent a little, hands defensively raised, cursing that she'd left her rifle in the house.

She recognized the shadowed silhouette, standing in the doorway.

Her eyes flicked sideways, knowing The Bear Killer sensed her sudden alarm: she saw black lips draw back from shining white fangs and knew a rumble would be starting a mile below his great chest, and she gave him a quick hand-tilt: The Bear Killer's eyes narrowed, but he made no sound, made no move.

"You are lookin' fine today, Miz Sarah," the silhouette said.

"What are you doing here, Mr. Matthews?" Sarah asked, her voice cold.

"Now that's no way to greet a neighbor," Victor Matthews grinned, reaching for her.

Sarah knocked his grasping hand aside with the brush, snatched up the pitch fork.

He grabbed for it and Sarah spun the fork in a quick circle, shoving the tines against his chest, thrusting quickly, but shallow: Victor swore, loudly, staggered back a step.

"You shouldna done that," he snapped. "Me bein' nice to you an' all --"

"You stole my calves," Sarah snarled, "and you turned your cows into my crop --"
"This land should be mine," the man barked, "and by God! I'll have it and I'll have YOU --"

He tried to knock the pitchfork aside.

Sarah was a fencer, a swordswoman who trained under Esther Keller, the Sheriff's late wife, and afterward trained with German swordmasters who toured the American West, making their living by offering instruction.

Sarah spun the pitchfork in a tight circle, then thrust, the tines driving through the man's throat.

"You're right," Sarah said quietly. "I can't fool you."

She released Daciana's hand, drew a little to the side, laid both hands on her belly.

"What kind of a mother am I going to be?"

Daciana stepped up to her, took Sarah's face in both hands.

Daciana's hands were firm, warm, almost hot.

"You vill be a goot mother," she whispered. "I haff seen it."

Daciana's eyes danced with unspoken laughter, even as Sarah's widened when she heard her dear friend's next words.

"Eefen vhen you must youss a pitchfork."

[Calico Mary]

That hot spring pool of Grizz’s was just the thing my back needed, it was even better than the indoor water hole at the ranch. We just might have to figure out a way to visit Grizz more often, that is if we could talk him into it. I slept well that night, even if we did have to sleep in the stable. Dawn came all too early though, and it wasn’t long before we were on the move, trying to get around and in front of our quarry. As we rode along I just followed Grizz, he knew this area far better than the rest of us and we trusted his lead.

 

That gave me plenty of time to think about Eddie. I hadn’t had the chance to talk to him yet, as he was with the rest of the posse trailing behind us, but I knew I needed to do it soon. I understood that he was jealous of Ike and Sally right now, but he needed to realize that Little Flower just wasn’t ready to start a family just yet. It wasn’t like she didn’t want children, she was just in no hurry for it. Despite having been married a lot longer as far as we could determine she had just turned sixteen. For her sake Eddie needed to be patient and wait until she was a little more emotionally ready to take that step.

 

After we had found a good place to stop and wait for the bank robbers to catch up to us it seemed like Cheyenne wanted to try and expand our family a little more….that man just had a one track mind! Thankfully we were interrupted before things got too interesting, and I was glad to know that Sheriff Keller and his men were there to provide even more firepower. It wasn’t long before we needed it too, the outlaws hadn’t been that far behind us after all. Cheyenne gave them the chance to surrender, but they didn’t take it, and within seconds we heard the sound of a Sharps let loose somewhere above us.

 

In no time at all our side had taken down two of the outlaws, but the other two turned and headed back the way they had come. The rest of our posse didn’t hesitate to open fire at that point, but Cheyenne and I had to hold our fire. We had some pretty decent cover but the posse was out in the open, and we couldn’t keep shooting at the outlaws without risking hitting our own men. I saw Tom start shooting, he did manage to hit one of the outlaws before his horse decided that he didn’t like Tom’s rifle firing over his head, and Tom got thrown. With one outlaw still in the fight there wasn’t much we could do to help Tom at first. Then all of a sudden that one had an arrow sticking out of his back, followed in just a few seconds by another one. That caused him to topple out of his saddle, and I glanced in the direction that the arrows had come to see Lone Wolf standing there with a huge grin on his face. He had been in just the right spot to be able to use his bow and arrows to take down the last of our enemy without endangering anyone on our side. Cheyenne noticed it as well, and gave Lone Wolf a wave to say “good job”.

 

The rest of us rushed to see if Tom was okay, but unfortunately when I got to him I could tell he was unconscious, and with one of his lower legs sticking out at an unnatural angle. It almost made me sick to my stomach to see it, it was obviously badly broken. Padre was already at Tom’s side, taking a good long look at his leg. “Good thing he’s out cold, that leg is gonna need settin’, and it ain’t gonna be pleasant. Somebody cut me some branches, when I git it straight I’m gonna hafta splint it.” Eddie and one of the other men that had come with Tom hurried to do as he had asked, but I turned and walked a few feet away, I had the feeling I wasn’t going to want to watch this. I was thankful that Padre seemed to know what he was doing, I had no idea if there were any doctors within miles of here and we were at least a day’s hard ride from the ranch and Doc. It would take even longer to get Tom back there with him injured, and I doubted he could ride without some sort of treatment first.

 

Cheyenne came over and wrapped his arms around me, until that point I hadn’t realized I was shaking like a leaf. Sheriff Keller and his men arrived shortly, and we were introduced to his son and another friend named Jackson Cooper. We did make sure to thank them for their assistance, but all three men just shook their heads and muttered comments about how they were just doing their duty. All the same, I was glad they had been there, and the Sheriff went to assist Padre in tending to Tom. By the time they had his leg splinted, Tom was coming around, he was in a lot of pain but seemed to have no other serious injury besides the broken bones. We decided to stay put until the morning, both to let Tom rest a little and for the fact that we didn’t have more than a couple of hours of daylight left anyway. Jacob Keller volunteered to cook dinner, to the relief of just about everyone from the ranch. Well, that was fine with me, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out the man really could cook. Maybe with luck I’d be able to talk him into doing it the next morning as well.

 

As we ate, Padre told Tom, “Yu need that leg checked by Doc as soon as we kin git ya to tha ranch, but ifn’ ya ask me I have a feelin’ yer gonna be off of it for at least two months if not longer, it’s a pretty bad break.” Tom nodded, he knew he was hurt bad, but we were still kind of surprised when he brought up the fact that this would effectively leave Fort Collins without a lawman for the duration of his recovery. “Culpepper, you know as well as I do that when word gets out that I’m laid up while this leg heals, that could cause a lot of troublemakers to decide that the town’s an easy target. Can I count on you to help me come up with a substitute that can keep order until I’m back on my feet?” Tom may have sounded like he was asking Cheyenne to suggest someone else, but I could tell by the way he looked at Cheyenne that Tom was hoping my husband would volunteer for the job himself. I certainly couldn’t answer for Cheyenne, but I couldn’t help but hope we could come up with an alternate candidate. I hadn’t totally given up on the idea of that visit to Virginia….

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I give Tom another tilt from my flask.

Tom took only a small swallow, for the Daine boys' distilled grain was potent, to put it mildly, and Tom and I both knew that an injured man needed enough to take the edge off but no more.

Tom was no stranger to pain.

I hunkered beside him, screwed the cap back on the flask, slid it back in my coat pocket, looked at his leg, pale and furry and splinted and looking just plain ugly.

I reckon that's why men wear long pants.

Ugly pale legs.

Padre had split Tom's trouser leg carefully, one long, steady stroke, right up the side seam, parting it precisely so it could be sewed back up and worn again.

I'd done the same thing, a time or three.

"Tom," I said, "I reckon I'll run ye that foot race now," and Tom glared up at me and then laughed a little in spite of his pain.

He looked sadly down at his immobilized limb.

I knew he was cussing himself inside, and I knew why: that horse of his --

I turned my head, looking around.

Tom's leg was broken, it twisted around some after the break but the bone didn't punch out through the skin.

He'd run a risk of infectin' but not near so bad as if it had compounded.

"Tom," I said, "you got your choice of doctors?"

I was thinking fast, calculating distance from here to Firelands, from here to Tom's bailiwick, thinking of the terrain involved with each, thinking how best to move an injured man the distance necessary --

A gentle hand laid on my shoulder and a voice like a mother's touch to a fussy infant.

"Have some biscuits," Calico said. "I'll get Tom a plate."

Tom looked up at me and he was relaxin' a little, likely that constant pain hammerin' at him and the two slugs of Two Hit John were combining to wear him out some.

"We'll figger it out," he said quietly and my ear twitched a little to hear the rough edge to his voice, and I knew the man was still a-hurtin', and it troubled me to know I could not fix it.

I rose and turned and opened my mouth to say something and Calico stuffed a biscuit in my mouth just neat as you please and I remember that ornery look in her eyes and I looked up at Cheyenne and he was a-grinnin' and I remember thinkin', You know, them two are meant for one another, and it felt good to know there was a couple so well matched up.

Like Esther and me --

And then the realization hit me, again, that Esther was dead, and of a sudden that biscuit lost its good flavor and all the pleasure run out of me like you'd pulled a cork out of my boot heel and drained it out on the ground.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Jacob and I talked quietly, off to ourselves, once he got everyone fed.

Jacob was like that.

Likely his own belly was calling him unkind names so he fired up the fryin' pan and set biscuits to bakin' and fried up some back strap and such like.

He had more in his saddle bags than he'd let on, and right glad I was for it.

I don't eat like I did when I was his age -- hell, I was a walkin' appetite on two hollow legs! -- but I was a-hungerin' for somethin' to fill my growlin' gut.

It looked like Jacob found his calling, at least for a little bit, for once he got the cookin' a-goin', why, there was a steady stream of tin plates held out and not a one left that wasn't plumb full if not a little more and drippin' at the edges.

Grey Wolf fetched in some meat, I reckon Jacob made good use of that, and we all ate our fill, every one of us.

I did not wonder that the one outlaw left this earth prickled up with a couple arrows.

Grey Wolf's work, I reckoned it was: I never met the man but he was much as he'd been described, and I would have given much to satisfy my curiosity, for there was always just the barest hint of a smile behind those obsidian eyes, as if he knew a great joke was about to be played and he was there to see it.

Anyway, Jacob and I set ourselves down, once we got most everyone fed, and we et our own selves, talking quiet so as not to draw anyone's attention and especially not Tom's.

He did not appear to be awake -- he'd et a little and drank some weak coffee, he asked who made it and Jacob said he had, and Tom allowed as he would drink it then, and I am not sure what to make of it, other than Jacob looked up at me and winked.

"I am worried about that leg," I said quietly.

"Yes, sir," Jacob replied.

"God's blessing that the bone didn't rip through his hide."

"Yes, sir." Jacob chased a smear of gravy with a still-warm biscuit, took a bite, chewed.

"We ain't got what it would take to saw that leg off if 'twas needful."

Jacob nodded, took a noisy slurp of coffee.

"That's swole up somethin' terrible. I've known a leg like that t' swell til the hide split open, then how would we stop the infection?"

Jacob considered this, set his tin plate down.

"Sir, I am considerin' the trail back to Firelands."

I'd been considering that same route of march myself.

"Sir, if we rigged a sling between our two horses, two places in the trail would not allow us to pass, and a detour would add two days' ride."

I nodded, wishing I had my maps with me.

"A travois ... if we crossed the poles in back and we were careful, we could ..."

Jacob's voice trailed off and I could almost hear the gears chuckling against one another between his ears.

"No, sir, that would not work." Jacob shook his head. "Too narrow with that bad leg."

"It might be our only choice," I pointed out.

"It would be faster than headin' the other direction," he agreed.

"It would." I stood, ignoring the squishy-crunching sounds my knees made when I stood. "I reckon that kettle of hot water must be for the dishes."

"Yes, sir."

It was a rhetorical question; it had been used steadily for that purpose right along, and Calico dumped another, smaller kettle of fresh creek water into it as I rose.

"I wisht Daciana were here," I muttered, thinking of the Romanian circus rider's skill with herbs.

"Sir?"

I turned, smiling a little.

"Nothing, Jacob. Wishin' never got a man anywhere."

"No, sir."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Two women rode the black sands.

The sand was black as a sinner's heart but beneath, it glowed, it glowed red ... an infernal red.

One of the horses was just as black and its hide rippled with the same hellish red shade, its eyes were red, its nostrils were red, and when it blew, it blew little gouts of flame.

Beside it, coursing easily beside, a hell-dog, great and black and the size of a young bear, a dog with shining white fangs and glowing red eyes and the look of a creature that could not just tear a man's throat out, but could rip his body open and tear the living soul from his beating heart.

The other woman rode a pony, a diminutive little thing, with gilt hooves and gaudy harness, a jeweled and silver mounted trick saddle.

The first woman, astride the great black horse, rode an unadorned black saddle, but her costume did not match her mount: she wore a flowing robe of purest white silk, silk shot through with streaks and forks of red, as if her life's blood shot through it like forks of lightning: she rode with a long, silver lance couched in a socket in her right stirrup, and the other woman, on the little white pony, wore a gaudy, tight-fitting body stocking, and her face was painted and almost garish in its cosmetics.

Sheriff Tom groaned, or tried to: he felt sweat pop out on his forehead and he tried to move, but he could not, could not, could not ... he could see above him, he could see red fire-gouts running along the ceiling overhead, he could feel heat from above and beside and only the table he lay on was not hot.

His leg pounded and ached and throbbed and he could not move.

 

"Sir," Jacob said quietly, his hand on his father's shoulder: Sheriff Keller was awake instantly, pale eyes boring into his son's equally pallid orbs.

"It's Tom, sir," Jacob said, his voice serious. "He's fevered and that leg is swelled pretty bad."

The Sheriff threw his blanket aside, grabbed a boot, turned it upside down and thumped it briskly: he did the same with the other -- he'd spent enough time in desert country not to want to share boot leather with something that bit, or stung, or both -- and pulled good boot leather onto sock feet.

Jacob ran quickly to the creek, dipped up a bucket of cold, clean water, strode back.

The Sheriff jerked his wild rag free, balled it up, thrust it into the bucket.

 

A muscled executioner in leather breeches and a leather half-mask lurched into view, towing a bronze brazier, a charcoal brazier that glowed a little with its inner fire: he stopped, grinning unpleasantly, opened the metallic lid, stirred about in the coals with a long handled rod.

"My, my," he chuckled, "what have we here? And a bad leg, no?"

He wrapped his hair-knuckled hand around a leather-wrapped handle, drew out a pointed, hooked fireplace poker.

It glowed a bright cherry.

The executioner delicately wet thumb and forefinger on his tongue, then caressed the blazing metal: he drew it, shaped it, and it was now a blade, still glowing bright cherry for all its being out of the fire.

"I think we'll start with that leg," the executioner grinned.

Tom tried to scream, but try as he might, not a sound came out his throat.

The executioner's hand clamped down on the swollen, broken leg and squeezed.

Hard.

 

Sheriff Keller carefully, gently sponged the swollen leg.

"We've got to get that fever down," he nearly whispered, and Jacob nodded: the two men stripped the third down to his Union suit, then carefully parted the long seams and brought this off as well.

They laid what was left of the front half, across the injured man's parts, out of respect for a comrade's modesty, then they took turns bathing him down, using the cool water to pull the fire from his blood.

 

The executioner chuckled, bringing the hot-glowing blade closer, then with a quick thrust and a twist, he sliced a long chunk of living meat out of Tom's broken leg.

Tom tried again to scream.

 

The woman in the flowing white robe pulled the ash lance free of its socket, dropped knotted reins onto the big horse's red-glowing mane and leaned forward in her saddle, her weight on the stirrups.

The lance swung down to level as the horse picked up speed, leaning out into a flat-out gallop.

The woman's white silk gown flowed and rippled in the slipstream, less like cloth in a wind and more like maiden's-hair in a stream of crystal water: for all her grace and beauty, her eyes were pale and cold, as hard and as welcoming as a glacier's heart, and the lance came level and locked into couch under her arm and she willed her massive mount to a greater speed and the silver lance-head shone in the reddening hell-glow and the dog beside her threw back his great head and bayed and the executioner turned just in time to take the silver lance-head and half its seven foot shaft right through the wish bone.

The circus rider, on her gilt-hooved pony, somersaulted gracefully in her trick-rider's saddle, rolling over backwards, landing spraddle-legged over her pony's hinder: she did a hand stand, turned, bent double and dropped her bottom back in the saddle, flowing upright, arms upraised as if acknowledging a cheering crowd.

The executioner staggered two steps back, at least until the bear-sized dog seized him around the chest, seized him in an impossibly large set of jaws and crushed and ripped and threw his great head and the chest fell open and the lance fell free and the dog ripped something glowing and gauzy free and shook it like a terrier shakes a rat, and faintly, very faintly, came the agonized screams of a damned creature, just before a glowing ring opened beside the dog and the gauzy mass got slung through the portal.

Tom lay flat on his back, staring straight up, yet he could see everything clearly, clearly.

 

Grey Wolf lay careful fingertips across Sheriff Tom's brow ridge, then looked at Sheriff Keller.

"He is not there," he said carefully, precisely.

"Where is he, then?"

Grey Wolf said something that sounded frighteningly familiar, and Sheriff Keller's blood ran cold in his veins, for Grey Wolf's voice was that of a man who knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Sir?" Jacob asked, and the Sheriff heard the tightness in his son's voice.

"Tsvingo," his father whispered, then looked at his son, and for once in his son's life, he saw fear in his father's eyes.

"Hell," Grey Wolf translated.

 

The trick rider stood in her saddle as the trick pony made three sunwise circles around the unmoving lawman.

She more floated from her trick saddle than leaped; her grace was that of a ballerina, her landing was soft, and silent, and she walked a-tiptoe up to the table, waving her hands slowly above the unmoving man with a feminine curve to her wrists.

She drew back one hand, passed it across her face: the garish circus paints were gone, and she was herself, with rich lips and a glowing complexion: she placed her hands flat on the man's breath, and the warrior princess on the great black horse snapped her fingers: the lance flew to her hand and she couched the hilt in its socket and watched as her boon companion, as the Healer reached into a belt pouch and brought out a philtre of crushed herbs.

She rubbed them between flat palms, whispered something -- the injured man could not quite catch the words, but they sounded reverent -- a prayer? -- a puff of breath, and the herbs floated out over him in a cloud, a sparkling, glittering cloud, and she breathed into the cloud and it stretched and hovered over the length of his body, and then descended.

The healer drew forth another philtre, rubbed this pinch slowly, carefully between her palms: the Warrior could see the Healer's eyes glitter and she knew that tears gathered, but were forbidden: she passed her hands lightly, so lightly, over the swollen, red, unbearably hot leg.

There was a hiss and a vapor and the swelling left the leg.

The Warrior watched the leg shrink and return to its normal size, she smelled infection and corruption and saw the stinking cloud rise from the open wound cut by the executioner, and the wound itself closed: the Healer passed her hand over it, and the skin was healthy and unbroken once more.

The warrior drew her lance again, and lay it gently across the helpless man's chest.

There was a flare of light, almost a sizzling sound, and he was gone.

The three turned and rode away from the torturer's table: a golden ring opened like an iris before them, and they paced through it, and it closed, and the Inferno was suddenly far emptier than it had just been.

 

"You've been up all night," Calico murmured.

Jacob looked up from the frying pan, sizzling with eggs and with bacon: a Dutch oven beside sat with its lid hung on a handy fork, fresh browned and fragrant biscuits peeping happily out over the edge.

"Let me," she said.

Jacob grinned. "Now ma'am," he said, "my Mama worked awful hard to beat some manners into m -- I mean --" he cleared his throat and tried again -- "I mean she worked hard to teach me good manners, and it wouldn't be mannerly to let you do all that work. B'sides, I've got to shovel out this batch and fry up another dozen or so, these fellows will wake up hungry!"

"Where did you get all those eggs?" she marveled.

Jacob winked at her.

"I'm a lawman, ma'am," he said. "I get things done."

Calico shook her head.

"You two were up all night with him, weren't you?"

"He was a-fever, ma'am. We had to cool him down some."

"Smells good," Sheriff Tom said in a faint voice.

"Well, there's a good sign," Calico acknowledged, getting up to go over to her old friend. "How do you feel?"

"Kind of stiff," Tom admitted. "I got a lumpy mattress."

He frowned a little as Calico chuckled.

"You know," he said thoughtfully, "I had just the daggone oddest dream I ever had in my life last night!"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Jacob fetched over the last of the biscuits for the laid up lawman.

"I ain't been this thirsty in a long time," he admitted, accepting a tin cup of water before chewing happily on another dutch-oven biscuit. "Damn, son, if you was a girl I'd marry you!"

Jacob laughed, squatting beside the happy badge packer, and laughed with him. "I'll take that as a complement, sir."

The Sheriff regarded Tom with knowing eyes.

"That leg is still broke, Tom," he said quietly. "It's splinted up good -- I threw a cloth harness around your foot and made a winch of sorts to keep the broke bone from grindin' together, that'll be a little less painful when we move you."

"Good of you," Tom mumbled through a mouthful of biscuit: he picked up another cup, sipped coffee, cleared his mouth. "You sure that thing's still broke? I had this damndest dream and I reckon it oughta be plumb healed by now!"

The Sheriff gave him a long look, then reached carefully for the leg, gently manipulated the fracture site.

"OW!" Tom yelped. "Dammit to blue hell, Linn, I hate it when you're right!"

"Infection went down," Linn said cautiously. "Last night it was swole up fit to bust open. I was thinking gas gangrene, I've seen it before and us with no doc to saw it off."

The color run out of Sheriff Tom's face like red ink out of an eyedropper.

"Don't you cut off my leg now," he whispered hoarsely. "Don't you cut off my leg!"

The Sheriff closed his eyes but he could not close his ears, and a thousand voices -- whispering, begging, screaming -- echoed up from a deep well he'd stuffed them into, voices from two decades agone, voices from that damned War, when he helped out at the field hospital because there was no one else to help.

He shook his head, half sick to his stomach.

"Tom, we got to get you home yet. I reckon Cheyenne's bunch can travois you back okay. Like I said, that infection went down and you're not fevered no more." He glared at the supine law dog. "You give us a hell of a scare last night, old son!"

Sheriff Tom's face went solemn and he swallowed hard.

"Hell was right," he whispered, his throat suddenly tight, then he looked at the long tall lawman with the iron grey mustache and asked, "What can you tell me about two women -- one in a white silk gown -- real light and floatey it was -- with a silver headed spear, mounted up on one of them unGodly big black horses like your daughter Sarah rides. T'other looked like she was maybe one o' them trick riders for a circus, she wore a tight costume, I think it's called a leotard. Bright colors. Make your eyes bleed. Painted up worse'n an old whore. Rides a little white pony with gilt hooves. Silver mounted saddle, jewels on it, funny looking thing."

The Sheriff and Jacob looked at one another, looked back at Tom.

"I know that look, you long tall drink of water," Tom grated. "Out with it, man! Who are they?"

"Why?" Linn and Jacob asked with one voice.

"Because I seen 'em," Tom said solemnly. "Because they was there."

"Where's there?" Linn asked, going slowly to one knee beside his brother lawman and looking intently into the stubbled man's troubled eyes.

"Hell." His voice was barely a whisper.

"What did they do?" Jacob asked, squatting again.

Tom's eyes were haunted as he looked over at the younger version of his father.

"They brought me back."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

"We'll be headed back," the Sheriff said quietly, down on one knee beside his old friend.

Tom extended his hand and Linn took it: their grip was firm, and Jacob saw a movement and his eyes tightened a little at the corners, for he recognized a grip between brother Masons.

"Jackson Cooper made you a travois. No sense in us haulin' you clear back to Firelands for doctorin' you can get close to home. Besides" -- he grinned -- "was you to come over our way you'd have to stay with me, and I don't make coffee worth a good damn!"

Jacob held his tongue; his father's coffee was notorious for its vile nature. As talented and capable as his father was, the one thing he just could not make fit for human consumption, was coffee.

The only use Jacob ever found for his father's coffee, to be perfectly honest, was to strip varnish of a rocking chair.

At this, it excelled.

"Obliged," Tom murmured.

LInn stood; Jacob squatted, took Tom's hand, his eyes smiling again at the strength in the older lawman's callused grip.

Sheriff Tom looked closely at the younger Keller, his face serious.

"I see a question in your eyes," he said slowly.

"It'll wait," Jacob said. "You get healed up. My Pa has a high opinion of you, and I have a high opinion of him."

Tom chuckled. "Your Pa has good taste."

"Yes, sir." Jacob stood, his grin spreading to the rest of his face.

"You-all got the bank robbers, you don't need us." Linn frowned and twisted his hips a little, easing the old ache in his lower back. "We'll head back to our own bailiwick."

"You talk to Culpepper yet?"

"He's next on the list," Sheriff Keller deadpanned, "but if I get in arm's reach of that good lookin' wife of his, she might stuff another biscuit in my yap!"

"You braggin' or complainin'?"

Sheriff Keller laughed.

"Yeah."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

The Blaze Boys were not really related.

Well, maybe they were, but nothing closer than a fairly distant cousin, despite their looking remarkably alike.

What marked them as a distinct pair was the streak of white in their otherwise nut-dark hair, thanks to a lightning strike when they were younger, more mischievous, and less circumspect about the degree and type of hell they raised.

Years ago -- when both were still young schoolboys -- one of them swiped to of his Pa's 4th of July skyrockets.

They knocked together two boards to form a V, stacked a skyrocket in the launch cradle, struck a Lucifer match and lit the fuse.

Never mind it was lowering to rain, never mind clouds were stacked thick and low overhead, never mind the light sprinkle ... where skyrockets are concerned, boys are anxious to set 'em off, and set 'em off they did.

Unfortunately, the cloud overhead was low and heavy with static, and just as they realized every hair on their arms was standing straight up and the hair on the other's head was frizzed out, lightning followed the rocket's smoke trail down and blasted a peck basket size crater in the ground between them.

When they woke, the shed they were hiding in, was afire -- well, more a-smolder, for the rain put out the shingle roof with little difficulty -- neither could hear much, save the screaming ringing in their ears, and each had a streak of white in their hair, a lifelong reminder of a boyhood stunt, when fire streaked from the heavens and caressed each of them ever so gently.

The Blaze Boys continued their high spirited entertainment, off and on, throughout their lives, and now that they were graduated from the whitewashed schoolhouse, they were meeting for a drink and a laugh, for whenever the pair of them got together, they got into something.

The month before, one was nearly buried when he hid in a coffin, intending to jump out and scare Digger, the undertaker ... only the other switched wreaths, the pall bearers picked up the box containing the hiding joker and started to screw the lid down.

Only Digger's quick intervention alerted them to their mistake: they turned to the correct box, carried the deceased to the hearse, and an hour later, returned to the funeral parlor.

Only then did one of them remember that empty coffin was unusually heavy, and unscrewed the lid, and Blaze woke up in their little quartz faced hospital with his compatriot sitting beside him, hunched over on a stool, crushed with the guilt of having almost killed his bosom chum and troublemaking companion.

Today, though, they stood at Mr. Baxter's bar, one foot up on the polished brass rail, each nursing a small beer and talking quietly.

"The Marshal's back field is about ripe," the one said thoughtfully. "One more day like today and she'll be ready to cut."

"Need a hand?"
"Oh good Lord yes I need a hand!" the other declared. "Swingin' that scythe gets old after a bit!"

Mr. Baxter, polishing the bar, smiled quietly: he'd cut wood and harvested crops all his life, he still did -- which explained hard muscles and calluses -- and it amused him to hear young men discuss work as young men always do.

"You wanta be keerful of that-there scythe," the other offered.

"Oh? How's that?"

"You ever take a close look at the Sheriff's right cheek bone?"

"His right ... why would I do that?"

"He's got a scar -- here -- and I know how he got it!" Blaze nodded, winked.

"How then?"

"Why he was tellin' me -- 'twas not but a week ago he did -- he was just a younker, not more'n belt buckle tall, and he went out t' help his Pa.

"He said his Pa didn't know he was anywhere near an' when he swung that hunky scythe back to take another swing, why, he felt somethin' go 'Tunk!' an' that square headed set screw on t' back, the one that holds the blade on the handle --"

His companion nodded to show that he understood.

"Why, his Pa thought 'I don't recall no stump back there, what did I hit?' and he turned to look just in time t' see the Shurf -- he was just a little feller -- go boom boom boom, just a-rollin' down the hill.

"He come a-carryin' him int' the house, he did, the old man's face was th' color of wheat paste and he said, 'Maw, I've kilt him.'"

Blaze drained the last of his beer, wiped his chin on his shirt sleeve.

"His Ma taken up a wet warsh rag and wiped the blood off his face, he woke up and went 'Wah!' an' she said 'Set him down, Pa, ya cain't kill a kid.'"

His companion laughed, shaking his head.

"I never noticed that scar," he admitted.

"You look next you see him."

"I'll do that."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

The Bear Killer's head came up, his ears throwing wide in the darkness.

Above him, curled up on her left side against her warm, strong husband, Sarah slept peacefully, warm and safe under the hand sewn quilt her Mama made for her.

Yellow eyes regarded the barn, yellowed fangs gleamed in the starlight, paws big as a dinner plate padded silent, cautious.

The Bear Killer padded with an equal stealth, nosing the bedroom door open, slipping through the gap, flowing downstairs with all the noise of a summertime cloud ghosting across the sky.

Sarah's eyes snapped open at the slight squeak of the door hinges: her hand slid under the pillow, wrapped around her bulldog .44.

Inside her, the seed of Daffyd Llewellyn stirred as well.

Sarah's grip tightened on the checkered walnut grip, her breath coming quick, quick.

That morning she'd tried on a fine hat and looked in the mirror and smiled, imagining how pleased her husband would be with her, for she took pains to look good for her "Mr. Llewellyn," as she called him.

He'd come home grinning and he'd taken his wife in his arms and he'd kissed her the way she needed to be kissed, the way she deserved, the way she so wanted, and she returned the favor with enthusiasm, and it was a little bit before either of them came up for air.

They'd laughed as he picked her up and spun her around and declared her his beautiful princess and she'd thrown her head back and laughed, delighted, giddy with the feeling that all was right with her world, that she was loved by a good and strong man, and she was indeed Queen of a fine stone castle.

Now, suddenly alone in the dark, she gripped the stubby Smith & Wesson and listened, breathing through her open mouth, listening with more than her ears.

 

The great cat could see clearly in the dark, could smell good horse flesh, padded quietly into the space between the stalls.

One horse was to big -- another was just right.

The horses were restless, but a quick rush and a bite through the back of the horse's head and the second of the two would go from prey to meal.

Snowflake, her ears laid back, came fully awake and snapped her ears back, her nostrils flared at the scent of the predator.

The gelding in the next stall drowsed, unaware, relaxed.

 

The Bear Killer snarled as he scratched at the door knob.

Sarah's bare feet were silent on the stairs as she gripped the polished rail, making her best speed down.

The Bear Killer looked over his shoulder, fangs bared, his growl deep and menacing: Sarah Lynne Llewellyn's lips peeled back, her young and pretty face suddenly pale, tight, almost cadaverously so in the pale light.

Sarah slipped across the floor, reached for the doorknob, the abbreviated Bulldog Smith snarling to full cock in her tight grip.

She felt The Bear Killer push against her, felt his great muscles quivering: the Tibetan mountain dog was belt line tall on her and if she'd wanted to hold him back, the net effect would be that of a butterfly holding back a plow horse.

Sarah had absolutely no intent of holding him back.

She pulled the door open, stepped quickly back as The Bear Killer launched through it, swung her revolver's muzzle left, then right, then ran into the night's chill just as Snowflake screamed and started to tear her stall apart.

 

"Sir?"

Jackson Cooper frowned at his saddle blanket, listening as Jacob addressed his father.

"Yes, Jacob?"

Jackson Cooper dropped his near stirrup over his saddle horn, took a grip on his hurricane seat.

"Sir, did they recover the money?"

Jackson Cooper swung the saddle up, flipped it neatly aboard his tall, heavy horse.

As usual, the stirrup fell free and dropped precisely on the spur of his holstered revolver, and as usual, Jackson Cooper offered a silent thanks to his Maker that he had sense enough not to load six beans in the wheel.

Sarah yanked her nightdress up with one hand, running with the .44 thrust out before her; she hauled the barn door open and the screams of her black Snowflake-horse hit her like a slap in the face.

The Bear Killer's screaming bay roared in the darkness, blunted by the sound of his great jaws seizing something.

There was the sound of something crunching, the wet sound of torn flesh.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Llewellyn started sweating again.

He looked through a wall of flame at his twin brother Daffyd, grinning, his leather fire helmet cocked a little to the side the way he wore it, and he drew back a blanket wrapped bundle and yelled "Catch!"

Oh my Gawd oh my Gawd oh my Gawd the inner man thought as the infant sailed in a low ballistic arc across the collapsing floor.

He saw little fire-devils chase one another like a subminiature prairie fire across the child's blanket, burning off the fuzz the way a man will rub a pair of new cloth work gloves together and then deliberately burn it off with a small flame.

His eyes widened and his mouth was open and he heard his throat scream "DAFFYYYYYDDDD!" and the outer man squatted and leaned forward and caught the thrown baby, felt it land solid and real in his arms, and he looked up just as his brother -- not his brother the fireman, but his brother the way they were as boys, barefoot and overalls and a shock of unruly hair, laughing and running toward the blazing gulf and he fell back on his backside with the baby in his arms and he pushed away from the floor and the gout of flame that seared up between him and Daffyd disappeared into the incinerating shaft of living, liquid fire --

Llewellyn's eyes snapped open and he gasped a great breath and he heard a scream, a terrible, agonized, shivering scream and the sound of a monster busting out of a confining prison and his arm threw wide and found only a warm depression where his wife had been and panic seized his belly, real genuine God-awful panic -- the nightmare was but a nightmare, part of his mind reasoned, but this was real, his wife was gone and now she was screaming and he had to get to her --

Llewellyn slung the covers away and hit the floor running, seized the door and tore it open, collided with the top post of the bannister -- his hip exploded with pain and he heard tortured wood crack and he was running, running down the stairs, a voice not his own bellowing "SARAH! SARAH, WHERE'D YE GO!" -- at least until the stairs twisted out from under bare feet, he missed a step and threw himself, twisting, jaw clamped against the pain of hitting the leading edge of every stair tread for a third of its length and finally banging both shins and his forehead on a hard wood chair leg.

A hell-bellow, some monster from the Pit itself, outside in the dark, but loud, loud.

A door must be open!

Sarah!

Llewellyn felt his stomach fall about a mile and a half as he realized something was happening and something terrible was happening!!-- and his wife, his beautiful wife, his warm and laughing and wonderful wife, was being ripped and rent by claws infernal, some monster with steel jaws was tearing the living flesh from his bride's bones and eating her as she lay screaming and helpless --

Weapon, he thought.

My wife is murdered and I will have blood!

A thousand years of fighting Welsh warriors sang steel in his veins: his vision cleared, his hearing sharpened, his fingers found a familiar tool: he stepped through the Welsh longbow, drew the string into its notch, seized a handful of arrows -- all without looking -- he took three long strides to the open door.

The arrow-shaft whispered dark promises to the bow as Llewellyn brought the arrow's nock back to the corner of his jaw, his muscles reveling in this old and familiar task.

 

The Lucifer match flared into a blinding corona; greedy flame rushed across the woven wick.

Sarah lowered the red-enamel barn lamp's spring loaded globe with its little squeak it always gave, turned the wick down a little, picked up her bulldog revolver.

She held the lamp up, high overhead, looked into the barn's shadowed dark.

 

"Do you reckon anything's gone on whilst we were away?" Jacob asked, smiling a little.

The Sheriff looked at his son.

"Naw," he finally drawled. "Don't reckon it has."

Jackson Cooper grunted and held his counsel: he'd long ago concluded there were Evil Demons of the Air that listened to every word a man said, and used 'em against him.

He'd reached that conclusion when he asked his own wife to picnic with him and they'd ended up with red ants and a thunder storm.

 

"My God," Llewellyn breathed, lowering the still-drawn bow so the arrow pointed to the barn floor. "What happened here?"

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Sir, what was it they called their spread?"

"The Golden Aspen Ranch."

Jacob considered this for a few minutes, then finally nodded.

"I do love a good stand of aspen," he said quietly.

The Sheriff looked over at is son and Jacob looked back.

Both men had a little tightening at the corners of their eyes, a shared smile, quiet, known to but they two.

The Sheriff looked forward again, his eyes busy.

"You'd like the place, Jacob," he said. "It is absolutely beautiful."

Jacob looked back across the clearing, frowned a little.

"I wonder," he said, his voice quiet as it usually was, "how they're going to write up ... arrows."

The Sheriff laughed, his teeth white and regular beneath his iron-grey mustache: "Jacob," he replied, "I think we two are the only lawmen since Macneil retired, that fill out a formal report." He chuckled, then continued, "It would make an interesting entry!"

"Who will serve as Sheriff with Tom laid up?" Jacob asked, his voice suddenly serious, and the Sheriff could see the gears turning behind his long, tall son's pale eyes.

"I don't know, Jacob," Linn admitted, "but I understand it's ... under discussion."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I stood in the sun, considering.

I'd been watching Cheyenne Culpepper, marveling at this young, strong, tall, slender, handsome get of the man I'd known and respected for many years.

His father's study was a refuge, a shelter in difficult times; he and I had counseled there, he asking my opinion, and I asking his; we solved many difficult problems there, we laughed and yarned and remembered old times there, and --

I closed my eyes, shook my head.

Wishing would not bring back the dead.

I reckon that's the result of being in that damned War ... once you've seen so very much, you wish for times before, you wish for the past, you wish for those you've known, who now wait for you in the Valley.

At least I do.

I took a long breath, rubbed my eyes, turned and looked the other way, just in time to see Jackson Cooper's long, tall and broad shouldered form disappear in the distance.

He'd allowed as we had things well in hand, he'd go back to Firelands and make sure nobody pried the place up and packed it off, and I thanked him for it.

I'd known Jackson Cooper from just after the War, from back in Ohio, and I remembered that dark night in Sedalia when I went with a warrant and a shotgun to bring him back on a charge of murder.

Jackson Cooper was my friend and I was not going to treat him unfairly, but Jackson Cooper was a man with enemies, and when Jackson Cooper and a Henry rifle allowed as they were not going back with me -- despite my entreaties, despite my assurances he'd be safe under my protection -- well, a bullet drove into the seasoned white oak siding the barn beside us and we both returned fire: Jackson Cooper looked at me and I said "Go," and he did, and my heart died a little inside me that night, for my good and trusted friend was now an outlaw, with a price on his head.

I managed to clear his name and bring those to the bar of justice who swore falsely against him, and I made sure the wanted dodgers that were sent out, were followed with due notice that he was indeed an innocent man.

It wasn't for years after that damned War that I saw him again.

I remembered talking in a quiet voice with the elder Culpepper, telling him about Jackson Cooper and that dark night, of times we'd shared before he fled ahead of those false charges.

I do not make friends easy and it's a wise man who observed that no man is so rich he can afford to throw away a friend: Culpepper listened carefully to my words, and he heard the hurt behind them, and I don't recall he replied with words.

Sometimes the best reply a man can make is to just listen.

 

Jackson Cooper arrived in Firelands just in time to see the red-shirted Irish Brigade charge Digger's funeral home with a half-raised ladder, driving its butt into the ground where boardwalk met street, raising it at battle speed, the compact form of the German Irishman swarming up the ladder before it crossed plumb: by the time the ladder smacked into the painted front of the clap boards, the climber was two-thirds of the way up: he seized the cloth dummy hanging limp out the open window, slung it over his shoulder, kicked his feet free of the rungs and slid down the ladder, his insteps pressed against the sides of the ladder, one hand providing guidance and brake, and he hit the ground flat-footed and yelled "TIME!"

Jackson Cooper grinned and shook his head.

The Irish Brigade -- the Firelands fire department -- was ever competing against itself, seeing how fast they could raise a ladder, how fast they could raise steam in their fine Ahrens steam fire engine, how fast they could buckle the three matched mares into harness -- if they could turn it into a competition they did, and they sought mightily each to beat the other, and generally with a wager attached: in one day's time, each man made and lost a small fortune, and only the agreement they'd made before starting kept one man from being wealthy and his fellows, beggars.

Jackson Cooper knew the saloon was the nerve center for the territory, and if a thing were to be known, it would be known there: consequently, he tied his Buckeye-horse at the hitch rail, chuckling with the knowledge that if his Frisian gelding spooked, not only would it tear the hitch rail out of the ground, it would probably tear out a couple cubic yards of dirt with it, and maybe a chunk of boardwalk: he ducked unconsciously as he crossed the threshold, for he'd banged his head on low doorways before, and though this was not low, his duck was now an ingrained habit.

The Brigade came swarming into the Silver Jewel not a minute after, crowding the bar on either side of him: arguing, laughing, joking, jostling, they greeted the Marshal with rough good-fellowship, ordered beer for themselves and the lawman and had a loud and unanimous toast to the lawman's beautiful bride, the virtuous and apple-cheeked schoolmarm Emma Cooper! -- to which the Marshal solemnly raised his own tankard, and not a heavy glass mug was lowered until all were emptied.

Mr. Baxter had quietly drawn refills; he went down the line, replacing empty with full, moving with a smooth efficiency: he was a man who saw much and said little, who fished and panned a little gold on his claims, a man with a perpetual smile in his eyes that generally tugged up the corners of his mouth under his carefully curled handlebar mustache: he saw that the entire Brigade, and the Marshal with them, had a fresh mug, confident that more toasts would be offered, along with oaths, insults and jokes: it was generally a lively time when the Brigade came in.

Of all the Brigade -- of Sean, their red-headed Chieftain and leader, of the German Irishman who engineered their fine, polished, lovingly burnished "Steam Masheen," of the Welsh Irishman and the New York Irishman and the English Irishman, Jackson Cooper noted that Llewellyn alone seemed somewhat subdued.

As the Welshman was beside him, Jackson Cooper was able to inquire as to his health and well-being, and did his lovely wife well, and she with child?

The Welsh Irishman looked across the bar at his own reflection; Jackson Cooper studied the man's expression, and he knew the eyes he saw were not seeing what the mirror's silver showed him.

"My wife?" he said with a half smile, then he turned, one elbow on the bar, and looked up at the tall Marshal.

"Let me tell you about my wife."

Jackson Cooper nodded, set his beer down and gave the man his undivided.

"Right now she is at home, sewing up a cat skin."

Jackson Cooper frowned a little, turning his head slightly as if to bring a good ear to bear.

"Eh? A cat?"

Llewellyn nodded, his eyes haunted.

"A great mountain cat that killed her gelding and tore into that bear killin' dog o' hers. She sewed him up too, an' her black horse as well, an' she's right now sewin' on that skin before she tans it an' makes a pelt cape for th' son she carries."

He took a long swallow of beer, passed his hand over his eyes, shook his head.

"And she's made a necklace for hersel' wi' th' claws, an' a smaller for th' lad."

He looked up at the Marshal.

"God help me, Marshal," he husked, "wha' hae I married into?"

 

I closed my eyes, took a long breath.

Standing here in the sun wishing for what used to be, would get no work done.

I whistled up my Cannonball mare.

They stopped the bank robbers, their work was done here and so was ours: they had homes to return to, and so did we.

I looked at Cheyenne and I saw the way he and Calico looked at one another, and even across the clearing I could feel the warmth between them.

I closed my eyes again, gripping my saddle horn: I took off my hat, leaned my forehead against the polished leather of my saddle seat, and remembered when Esther and I looked at one another in that same manner.

Cannonball stood patiently as I gathered myself, then I slashed at damp eyes with my coat sleeve and settled the Stetson back on my scalp.

[Cheyenne Culpepper 32827]

The night after the fight with the outlaws Calico and I found a spot a little distance from the others and rolled out our bedrolls. We were too far from the fire to feel its' warmth, but we had each other. We both lay there searching the stars until we had seen our share of falling stars and then we drifted off into our dreams.

 

I was soaring as an eagle, following a lone rider that was leading a pack horse. A second eagle was circling overhead as if to protect me from another attack.

 

I awoke that morning with Calico nestled under my arm, but I was unsettled, I was missing my family. The aroma from Calico's hair put me in mind of the children and being so far from them caused my heart to ache. I was wanting to tie this mess up quickly and return to the ranch.

 

Grumpy had spent a great deal of the night counting the money we had recovered and found that it was short by one sixth. We had killed five outlaws, it stood to reason that one had separated from the others.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

"Are you sure you're all right, dear?" Bonnie asked, her eyes worried as she accepted the steaming china cup of fragrant tea from the maid.

"I'm fine, Mama," Sarah said quietly, her hand delicately on her great belly: within, her son was unhappy at the constriction of eight months in his cramped quarters.

Bonnie hesitated, debating only momentarily before pressing, "Sarah, I know ... there are times when the unexpected ... happens ..."

"But you don't think a pregnant mother should charge into a dark barn with a peashooter with the world's biggest mountain lion ripping horses apart, is that it?"

Sarah's eyes were somewhere between mischievous and challenging as she sipped her tea, regarding her mother over the fine china's rim.

"Yes," Bonnie said with unexpected bluntness. "I mean, no. I mean --"

Flustered, Sarah's mother clattered her teacup nervously onto its saucer, looking directly at her daughter. "Sarah, it's dangerous --"

Sarah drank her tea down, handed cup and saucer to the maid, dropped her hands in her lap and laughed.

"Mama," she giggled, "you have no idea what dangerous is!" She took a breath, rubbed her nose, still smiling.

"Mama, that cat slipped through a gap in the boards, as silent as a shadow and as fluid as water. It took one leap, balanced on the edge of the stall, jumped onto the gelding's back and reached one paw under its chin, twisted its head around -- I don't know which killed the gelding, really, was it the broken neck, or the bite through the back of the skull? Imagine, Mama" -- she leaned forward a little, her eyes big -- "imagine long ivory teeth, strong and sharp enough to penetrate a horse's skull!"

Sarah's voice was a dry hiss now, she leaned forward, nostrils flared, clawing at the air with crooked, splayed fingers, and the color drained from her mother's face like red ink out of an eyedropper.

"I went into that barn, Mama. I went in because something was hurting my horses and I did not care what it was." Sarah's eyes were pale now, ice pale, cold and hard and as welcoming as the frozen heart of an Alpine glacier. "I didn't care if it was Shaitan himself with the Legions of Hell."

"Don't say that, Sarah," Bonnie whispered, turning white to her lips.

"Why not, Mama," Sarah said, her voice low, her eyes burning-cold, blazing as she leaned forward: "You haven't been where I have, you haven't seen the things I have! I lived in hell, Mama, I grew up there, or part of me did!"

Sarah leaned back and she took a long breath, grimacing.

"There I go again," she muttered through clenched teeth, and her Mama gave a little worried noise and got up, leaning over and putting her spread-open hand on her daughter's belly.

"Not yet, Mama," Sarah whispered. "Not yet. Just ... false labor, Mama."

Bonnie knelt before her daughter, her fingertips caressing Sarah's suddenly-flushed cheek.

"Perhaps you should lie down," Bonnie suggested.

Sarah nodded, reaching for her Mama.

"Help me up," she whispered.

 

A pink-and-white streak shot across the kitchen, down the hall, out the front door and across the front porch: so great was her velocity that nine-year-old Angela cleared the steps and landed running, her skirts jerked up out of the way, and she ran down the packed stone driveway screaming "Daddeeeeee!"

The Sheriff turned Cannonball sideways and swarmed out of the saddle, going to one knee in time to receive his delighted daughter's headlong charge: he grunted with the force of the impact, then rolled back on his backside, laughing, and fell flat on his back, all hope of dignity and propriety willfully and most happily abandoned.

 

On the other side of the valley and up on the side of the mountain, Jacob sat down to his own table, with his own wife and his own son.

He'd been greatly relieved to see home again.

His son spoke the question his wife was wondering: Annette looked from father to son as Joseph asked, "Pa, will you have to go back?"
Jacob laid his fork very carefully, very precisely beside his plate: he considered for a long moment, then slid his chair back a little, and turned to face his son squarely.

"Joseph," he said quietly, "I would just as ruther stay here for a while." He took a long breath, considered, then grinned.

"I'm not bad with a fryin' pan but I like your Mama's cookin'."

"Oh, is that all I'm good for?" Annette teased, and Jacob's expression told her that he had an appetite, but not entirely for her comestibles.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

The Sheriff stared sightlessly at his bedroom ceiling.
As pleased as he'd been to get home, as good as it was to be king of his desmense, nighttime was still difficult.
It had been a few years since his wife died birthing their youngest daughter.
Even this long after, the bed was an incredibly lonely place.
He turned his thoughts to the recent action with the bank robbery.
He'd left before an accounting was made of the funds.
"Was there any missing," he speculated aloud, "it would mean someone got away."
The Sheriff considered his own words and smiled.
The elder Culpepper, he knew, could track a housecat across a glass floor, and he associated with men who could put that skill level to shame.
"If someone got away," he concluded, "they will find themselves visited."
The lawman stroked his iron grey mustache and added, "Very, very soon."

[Calico Mary]

I wasn’t real happy when Grumpy revealed that some of the money was still missing. Dang it, that meant we weren’t finished chasing people, and we couldn’t go home just yet. I was really missing the kids, and I wanted to get back and celebrate with Sally and Ike. We made the decision to split up, the whole posse didn’t need to chase after one man, and besides, someone had to get Tom back to the ranch and Doc Eells. Cheyenne, Lone Wolf, Eddie, and I would continue the hunt, the rest would go back to the ranch. Grizz agreed to help the others get Tom as far as his cabin, depending on how Tom was doing at that point if they still needed help then Grizz would continue on. Cheyenne also gave Grumpy instructions that after they got Tom to Doc, he was to go on to Fort Collins and send a telegram down to Sheriff Gibson, asking him to send his brother up to take over Tom’s duties until something else could be arranged for a more long term substitute.

 

At first I tried to convince Eddie to go back to the ranch (and Little Flower) with the others, but he refused. Lone Wolf caught my eye and gave a small shake of his head, and I took his warning to back off. I felt bad for Eddie, but the young couple would need to work things out for themselves. We got ready to ride, and Cheyenne came over to help me climb into Rascal’s saddle. Not that I really needed it, but he rarely passed up a chance to put his hand on my rear, and at least this gave him a halfway legitimate excuse. He also quietly told me that he’d asked Grizz if it was ok if we stopped by his place on the way back once we’d caught the remaining outlaw, so that we could spend a bit more time in that hot spring pool. Grizz wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but Cheyenne had managed to talk him into it.

 

Right now I was mostly concerned with just finding this guy and either bringing him back to face justice, or if he didn’t cooperate doing whatever necessary to make sure he wouldn’t rob anyone again. The outlaw had a good head start on us, but between the four of us tracking him shouldn’t be a problem. The worst part was that he seemed to be heading straight west, up into the high country. Down in the foothills the going wasn’t that rough, but the higher we climbed the harder it would be. We would have to move cautiously, this was no area to be taking unnecessary risks in. It was going to be hard enough on the posse to get Tom back to the ranch without making his condition any worse. If any of the four of us was wounded up in the higher elevations it could prove fatal.

 

As we rode on, I left most of the tracking to Lone Wolf and Cheyenne, although Cheyenne also insisted Eddie do his share of it, I think Cheyenne wanted Eddie to get some real practice at it. Eddie was good enough at tracking game, but humans were a different story, and it wasn’t as easy to find chances for practical experience at it. That would also force Eddie to concentrate on what we were doing, and give him less time to think about his problems. I had plenty of time to think though, and my thoughts kept drifting back to Sally and the babies. I knew Doc had insisted I wait a while before I had anymore, but lately I was wondering just how long I had to wait. I knew I wanted to give Cheyenne at least one more son, but if my “daughters” were going to start producing grandchildren already, did I really want to wait too long? It would be awfully strange if my grandchildren had uncles and/or aunts that were younger than them, but then again we were an unusual family in that I wasn’t really all that much older than four of our adopted kids. I had started thinking that an even dozen sounded like a good number…

 

All of a sudden I had a strong feeling that we were being followed. I knew it wasn’t the outlaw we were trailing, from the tracks he had to still be in front of us, and not far enough in front that he would have had the chance to circle around behind us. I tried to get Cheyenne’s attention, but the other three were far enough ahead of me that I couldn’t do it without shouting, and I didn’t know if that was such a great idea. I tried to get Rascal to pick up his speed a bit and catch up, but before I could I heard noises coming from behind me. I turned to see what it was, and was shocked to find that less than fifty feet behind me were about a dozen warriors…Ute from the looks of their clothing, and they didn’t look happy….

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Firelands District Court was a local source of entertainment.

It was kind of like the newspaper.

People attended not to see what was happening, but rather to see who got caught.

There were fewer than usual disputes asking adjudication; the Sheriff was a canny negotiator, and could generally get parties in disagreement to come to some accommodation.

On occasion he had to use less than gentle means, and within recent memory, when two fellows decided that only blood would decide the water rights for a particular section, the Sheriff politely knocked the stuffing out of both of them: one, then the other, discovered that the skinny old feller with the iron grey mustache was as quick with a fist or a boot heel as he was with his engraved Colts: once the Sheriff knocked the wind out of one, loosened the second fellow's teeth, kicked the first one upside the head, drove his knee into the other's gut, once both men were on the ground and retching, the Sheriff yanked each to his feet in turn and slammed him against the side of the barn, hard enough to knock tools off the inside wall, not to mention raise a shocking amount of chaff and dust.

When each was able to stand on his own, the Sheriff gut punched each man again, hard, dragged them into the corral: in the midst of nervous, dancing, eye-walling, head-tossing horse flesh, he handed each one a knife and told them to gut one another.

By this time each had enough of unpleasantness: they looked at one another, then as one, shook their heads and tossed the knives to the ground.

The three of them ended up having their formal powwow in the middle of the corral, neither being allowed to leave until they'd worked out an agreement that both could live with.

Neither one got all he wanted, both had to give up something, and the Sheriff said later it was the perfect example of diplomacy: everybody left unhappy and to the same degree.

The Firelands District Court, fortunately, was the scene of considerably more decorum.

There were a few matters of public drunkenness, or disorderly conduct, the usual offenses that happened near enough to court to be heard; the Marshal read a roll of offenders who'd paid their fine and moved on, as did the Sheriff; what piqued the interest of the spectators a-gathered was the account given by a foreigner who was of the opinion that he was the only civilized man in the midst of a howling wilderness, and the quiet voiced Sheriff, who told the Court what actually happened.

It seemed -- those who knew the Sheriff and his son already knew this -- that the Sheriff was in the habit of keeping up his skills with his cavalry saber, as it was his son's habit to maintain skill-at-arms with the schlager blades that were his mother's preference: the length of a fencing foil, the blade was more along the lines of a rapier: sharpened for its length, it was useful as a thrusting weapon, though it could cut, just as the curved saber was more an edge-fighting tool, though it too could be thrust.

The Sheriff discovered the visiting foreigner, an Englishman, claimed some skill with a blade, and as he and the Sheriff stripped to the waist, formally saluted each other with upraised steel and each eased into his preferred ready-stance, the Englishman sneered that he'd hoped to pair off against that slender little wench known as Agent Lynne Rosenthal, for she was a woman of loose character, and such women should be treated with harshness, and he was the man for the job.

He never saw the fist that drove into the side of his head, nor the second that drove up under his ribs, hard enough to bring the Brit's boots off the ground: Jacob waited until the man got some wind back into him and then backhanded him hard enough to spray blood for a couple yards.

"That," he spat, "is my sister you're talking about!"

The Sheriff sheathed his saber, put his shirt back on and tucked it into his trousers: the practice he'd hoped for, he knew, was not to be.

The Englishman was still sick from the force of Jacob's uproaring gut punch: the Sheriff helped him to a nearby water pump, helped him wash off, pumped a tin cup half full and bade the man sip a little.

It took a half hour for the Englishman to accumulate wind, wits and will enough to demand the Sheriff arrest "that man!" for this incredible affront to a decent Englishman, to which the Sheriff replied, his voice quiet and even, "Mister, not only will I not arrest him, if he wants to challenge you to a duel of honor I will stand as his second, for you have insulted my daughter."

The Englishman presented his case to the Judge.

Surprisingly, he gave his account factually, coldly, without the histrionics and accusations the Honorable Judge Donald Hostetler expected.

His Honor tapped his steepled fingertips together, frowning a little, then he looked at Jacob.

"Have you anything to add?" he asked mildly.

"I have, Your Honor," Jacob said formally.

"The plaintiff chose to insult my sister. I felt it incumbent upon my office to educate the ignorant, that they may learn the folly of their way.

"Should he insult another man's wife or mother, sister or daughter, he might be simply killed out of hand.

"He will not forget this lesson, nor that which brought it about -- and that was his own tongue."

His Honor thought a few moments more.

"You are aware," he said to the plaintiff, "that Agent Lynne Rosenthal is one of this court's hand picked agents?"

The Englishman's face fell about three feet as the last card in his hand turned out to be a deuce.

"And that her performance as an Agent of the Court has been absolutely exemplary, not to mention quite effective?"

The Englishman's head dropped back, he stared at the ceiling and blew out his breath through pursed lips, his cheeks puffing out, defeated.

"I believe," His Honor said, picking up his gavel, "that your complaint bears no merit." The turned hardwood gavel cracked loudly on the tabletop.

The Bailiff rose.

"Is there any further business to come before this honorable Court?"

 

Outside, the Sheriff's eyes tightened as a familiar figure rode a paint gelding up toward him.

He raised a hand in greeting, and the old mountain main with the Sharps rifle across the saddle in front of him raised his in reply.

"Hiram, how ye be?" the Sheriff greeted him.

The old man's hazel eyes showed amusement, though the rest of his face was solemn.

"I," he replied, "am dry enough to sneeze and blow dust."

"I just happen to have the cure for that," the Sheriff grinned. "For medicinal purposes only."

Hiram shook his head.

"Sheriff, I just rode wide around Sopris Mountain like I always do."

The Sheriff looked closely at the old Mountain Man.

"There's Ute sign and I don't read it as friendly."

"Whither away, Hiram?"

"Not half a day past your back trail."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Sarah's maid glared and muttered darkly at the tall, slender deputy.

Jacob grinned at her and laughed, "Ta-ra, Floss!" and the maid wished sincerely she had something like a measuring cup to heave at the man's retreating back -- twin brother to her Mistress Sarah or not!

Jacob's boots were loud as he ran up the stairs, The Bear Killer's happy scamper a syncopated counterpoint to Jacob's swift cadence, and Jacob rubbed the great, black, curly-furred dog roughly around the ears as they reached the landing.

"You rudder," Jacob murmured, "I oughta thump you!"

The Bear Killer grinned, his great brush of a tail swinging enthusiastically as Jacob raised a hard-knuckled fist and waved it menacingly.

"I oughta raise knots on your head!"

The Bear Killer surged up on his hind legs, draped his massive forepaws over Jacob's shoulders and enthusiastically gave the long, tall, lean-waisted deputy a good face-washing.

Sarah opened the door and was almost bowled over by an avalanche of laughter as Jacob rubbed The Bear Killer's ribs in return.

The Bear Killer dropped to all fours, flowed easily around Jacob and happily nudged Sarah's hand, ow-wow-wowing quietly as his tail alternately punished the door frame and Jacob's backside.

"Now what's this I hear about you killing a wildcat barehand?" Jacob demanded, knuckles on his belt and a grin on his face.

"I did no such thing," Sarah said tartly, planting her own knuckles on her waistline and thrusting her gravid belly against his flat gut: "I reached down its throat, grabbed it by the tail and jerked it inside out!"

Jacob raised his hands to the ceiling, shaking his head sadly and intoned, "Showing off again, I'll tell ya, she's my baby sis and forever showing AAAAHHHHHH!!!"

Sarah clawed her fingers into Jacob's ribs, tickling him mercilessly: he dropped his forearms against his ribs, trying to protect himself from her digital attack, but to no avail: she persisted in her advance and Jacob fell back against the wall, slid into the corner, laughing and twisting and howling "Uncle! Uncle, dammit to hell, I said UNCLE!"

"I'm not your uncle," Sarah snapped, her bright eyes and broad smile belying her tone of voice.

She relented, dropping her hand without looking, knowing it would find The Bear Killer's head: her fingers, gentle now, massaged the great, black canine's ears, and The Bear Killer closed his eyes and groaned with pleasure.

Jacob kind of coasted to a stop, or his giggles did, and he had to take a moment to wipe his eyes, then he grinned at his twin sister and nodded, then he looked down at her great belly.

"Dear Lord," he murmured, "you look like an olive on a toothpick!"

Sarah raised curved claws, opening and closing them menacingly, and Jacob shreiked and fell back against the wall again, twisting in mock agony: "No! Not that! Not the Dreaded Remote Tickle!" -- and he began to laugh again as if her trimmed nails were actually dancing about amongst his ribs.

Sarah relented once more, raising her chin in mock hauteur.

Sarah stepped forward and slapped Jacob's flat belly. "You," she declared tartly, "need a good square meal! If you'd turn sideways you would not throw a decent shadow!"

"Yes, dear," Jacob grinned mockingly, and once again Sarah's claws writhed in the empty air, sending her twin brother into paroxysms of laughter.

 

"Sis," Jacob mumbled through a mouthful of cherry pie, spraying fine little flakes of pie crust across his plate, "please tell me you didn't go in that barn after a mountain cat like I heard!"

"I have no idea what you heard," Sarah said primly, pouring a little cream in her tea.

"That'll give ye kidney stones," Jacob warned.

"It hasn't yet."

"You don't want to find out, Sis," Jacob's voice was serious. "I had one of those and it was about ten too many!"

"I remember Annette describing it," Sarah said quietly, her voice suddenly serious.

"Boiled beet juice, Sis," Jacob winked. That's the ticket. Boil yourself up some beets and keep the juice and drink a little right along reg'lar, and plenty of water. Keeps 'em flushed out."

"And I suppose yooou are an expert on the subject."

"I am now," he said quietly, and Sarah saw his eyes change, and she knew it was time to quit teasing him, for he was remembering agony on a very deep level.

Sarah's face became serious and she looked almost like a chastised little girl.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Jacob took a noisy slurp of coffee, dashed the droplets off his auburn handlebar.

"And I did go into the barn," Sarah said, raising her chin and speaking in a firm voice.

Jacob raised one eyebrow and lowered his head a little, trying hard to look stern and not quite succeeding. It would have worked with anyone else, but this was his twin sister, she who he called his Baby Sis, and who generally made him admit anytime she wanted that she wasn't a baby -- more often than not, by that dreaded Remote Tickle method.

"Snowflake is near term. She should deliver about the end of next month. I was not about to let any cat bring harm to my mare!"

Jacob nodded.

He, too, had strode boldly into situations that sane and rational men would have fled from, and not a few times.

"Was she hurt?"

"She was," Sarah said, nodding slowly. "So was The Bear Killer."

The Bear Killer opened his eyes, his tail waving a little, then he drowsed again, stretched out like a great, lumpy rug in front of the kitchen stove's warmth.

"I sewed them both up."

"You weren't hurt," Jacob said, not as a question, but as a statement.

"No," Sarah agreed. "I got them both sewed up."

Jacob's eyebrow tented up again and he whistled.

"How'd she take it?"

"She didn't like it," Sarah admitted, "but I talked to her and persisted and I finally got her stitched."

"That sounds like you dug the Erie Canal with a tablespoon," Jacob said skeptically.

"Something like that," Sarah admitted. "If I came at her with a needle again I'm quite sure she'd kick a hole in the wall to get away from me!"

"What about a mountain cat?"

"Oh, that," Sarah said with a dismissive wave. "She kicked it through the back wall."

They talked for a while longer, until Sarah grew tired, and Jacob surprised her by seizing her around the back and around the legs and picking her up: The Bear Killer watched closely and followed more closely as Jacob packed his giggling sister back upstairs, and he parked her gently on her bed, and he slowly went down on his prayer bones before her, taking both her hands in his.

"Little Sis," he said quietly, his voice serious, "please take care of you."

His expression was haunted and she thought she saw a little quiver between his chin and his bottom lip.

"You're the only one of you I've got!"

Sarah blinked her eyes, surprised at how they stung all of a sudden: she bowed her head and Jacob released her hands, and she listened to his hurried footfalls as he descended the stairs in a hurry.

Men! she thought.

They're so afraid to show their feelings --

Sarah's eyebrows quirked together as she heard Jacob come back into the house and charge back up the stairs, and she heard The Bear Killer's happy gallop right with him.

Jacob stepped through the still-open door with a cloth-wrapped package.

He sat down beside his twin sister, on the edge of the bed, and placed the calico wrapped, string tied bundle in her lap.

"Daciana sent you a package," he said, "and a note."

He laid a hand folded envelope, sealed with dark blue wax, atop the bundle: he ran his arm around her shoulder and hugged her to him, leaning his cheek down into her hair as she leaned her head over onto his shoulder.

Sarah's arm went around her brother's tight, lean, horseman's waist and she sighed a long breath out.

"Help me now with one thing," she whispered.

"Name it," he whispered back.

"Help me pull the bed out a little."

Jacob released his sis and leaned back, puzzled, but at her instruction, he pulled at the foot of the bed, drawing the head away from the wall as Sarah opened the package.

She took out a salt sack and loosened the string a little, the carefully, delicately poured a line of salt between the wall and the bed, drew a surrounding circle of crystal around the bed as she chanted,

"I draw this circle

Round about,

Good within,

All else without."
She tied the poke shut again, carefully, for salt was valuable: placing it on a side table, she placed a hand at the small of her back and groaned, straightening slowly and with an effort.

Alarmed, Jacob stepped over to her and took her by the shoulders.

"I'll be all right," Sarah whispered, her voice tight. "Help me into bed."

 

Not far away, up the mountain from the fine stone house, the white wolf prowled restlessly, seeking a warm place in the sun to rest.

She, too, bore new life within her: she, too, had her den ready for birthing.

She'd killed and eaten earlier and her belly was full; now she was laid up in a safe, sheltered place, and she relaxed a little, but only a little, for she was a creature of the wild, and watchfulness was in her nature.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

It would be easy -- and rather incorrect -- to say the two stallions were led off the stock car.

One stallion screamed and snorted, pawed the board floor loudly, stomped, blew and snapped at the vaquero who reached for the silver-mounted bridle.

Let us save much time and print space by saying the great stallion was finally dismounted from the car, though by the time the dust settled, a considerable amount of chaff was thrown into the air, at least three different languages were invested in profaning the horse, his antecedents and his descendants yet unborn.

The other horse was as placid as his sire was afire: the nine year old son of Manuel Lopez Corona Vega y Vega led his yearling stallion from the stock car like a little boy leading a helium balloon at a circus or a county fair.

He and his father each saddled their mounts, each swung into their fancy Mexican saddles, and each was as gaudily dressed as their fine palominos.

It is a serious misconception, brought about by line drawings, copper plate engravings and the primitive photography of the day, to believe that folk in this Age of Expansion were drab in nature and in attire.

The opposite was quite true.

Men's suits were often black, but their neckties bore colorful testimony to their individual taste, as did their vests, shirts and sleeve-garters, but this pair of Mexicans carried "colorful" rather to an extreme: each wore an outfit of screaming canary yellow, with scarlet trim: the older Vega y Vega wore a scarlet sash in addition to a black, carved, silver-and-turquoise gunbelt and holster, and his Colt revolver was heavily engraved and inlaid with silver wire: the grips were silver and relief carved, resembling a coiled snake, and it bore turquoise eyes: the long, heavy knife, carried on his opposite hip, was gripped in an even more fanciful manner, resembling an actual striking snake's head, complete with wide jaws, and fangs gleaming in the sunlight.

His son was dressed in an almost identical manner, save that the grips on his Lightning Colt were of polished agate, with an ornate V inlaid in each, the inlay of turquoise banded across with silver scrollwork declaring in almost feminine script, Raimundito: he would grow into his given name of Raimundo when he came of age: until then, he was Raimundito, Little Raymond, his father's delight and his mother's treasure.

Boots and eyes gleaming and bright in the high-altitude chill, the pair set off at a dancing gait, the stallions clearly wishing to claim the territory beneath their hooves as theirs alone, the king-stallion's whistling neigh a shrill challenge that he, and he alone, ruled the world, and any who wished to dispute that unshakable fact, could step right up and try him!

The Sheriff's head came up at the sound of the stallion's challenge: he'd heard that particular song sung before, and he recognized the throat that sang, and he rose from his chair, his eyes pale, and he strode for the door to the Sheriff's office.

 

"I'm fine," Sarah waved her maid away with a dismissive hand, "I'm just so very tired ..."

She passed a hand over her eyes with a patient and long-suffering sigh.

I'm so tired of having to lay down," she said slowly, "I'm tired of having to be a proper lady, I'm tired of being PREGNANT!"

The maid jumped a little at the snap in Sarah's shouted syllables.

"Ye don't mean that now," she blurted, her native Irish accent surprised out of her reserve and into her voice.

Sarah glared up at her, laid a gentle hand on her belly.

"Oh yes I do," she said menacingly. "I will do anything I must to keep my son safe, I will carry him to term and I will birth him in blood and in pain as women have done since Eve, but I don't have to LIKE it!"

She sagged back onto the bed with a groan, leaning her head into the maid's shoulder as Mary sat down beside her, putting an arm around Sarah's shoulders and laying her warm hand on her mistress's.

"I'm sorry," Sarah whispered.

Mary hugged her, kissed her quickly on top of the head. "There, now, ducks," she whispered, "wha' ye're feelin' is normal, I've seen i' before."

"Air," Sarah said abruptly. "I need air."

The maid came to her feet. "I'll just open a window then --"

Sarah stood, then walked purposefully toward the doorway.

"Why drink from the dipper when you can drink from the well?" she asked, and Mary saw that familiar smile, that ornery-about-the-eyes, little-girl-getting-away-with-something expression, and Sarah clattered happily down the stairs, the maid sputtering protests as she followed.

The Bear Killer waited outside the front door, coming to his feet, his great black brush of a tail thumping loud and hollow against the siding.

"We shall want tea, and a meal," Sarah said, shading her eyes.

"Yes mum, an' for how many?"

"Two grown men," Sarah replied, and the maid lifted a flat hand to her own brow.

"Grown men?" she asked.

Sarah laughed.

"I know the man from the way he sits his saddle," she laughed, "and if that is not his son I will eat him for breakfast. I'd say the boy is about nine, and if he can't east as much as a grown man I'm turning in my schoolmarm hat!"

The maid smiled, turned to go back inside.

"Mis senores Vega y Vega," Sarah greeted them, throwing her arms wide, "welcome to my ranchito!"

 

Los senores Vega y Vega spent but little time with their old friend the Sheriff, for there was a matter of considerable weight burdening the heart of the elder vaquero.

It was only after the pale eyed lawman, as the father of the woman in question, granted his permission for the pair to ride out, unescorted, that they continued: still, the elder Vega y Vega was seriously taken aback when he saw Sarah's great belly, for this meant that either she'd become a woman disgraced, and therefore untouchable and perhaps even shunned by decent society -- or he was trespassing on a married man's ranch, which was a matter of honor, and might require blood to satisfy, should the husband's outrage be great.

Manuel Lopez Corona Vega y Vega showed none of his trepidation: as one, he and his son rode their matched stallions up before Sarah: as one, with a twitch of the rein and pressure from a big-roweled heel, each horse tucked a foreleg and dropped his head, as father and son swept their gaudy sombreros from their heads and bowed as well.

Sarah curtsied with a surprising grace, despite her gravid stature: the men dismounted, the elder Vega y Vega whispering something to his stallion before the hired man gathered their reins and led the magnificent Mexican mounts off to the barn for a curry and grain.

"Su padre kindly permitted my coming," the elder Vega y Vega began formally.

"I am grateful for my father's wisdom," Sarah replied, inclining her head a little, then smiling at the younger image of the elder: "I do not believe we have been properly introduced," she continued, extending a hand.

The younger Vega y Vega had quite obviously been polished by, or at least was an extremely careful observer of, his father: he took Sarah's hand, bowed, then hand-kissed her, allowing his father to make the formal introduction.

"My son, Raimundo Sanchez de Oro de Vega y Vega, may I introduce Mrs. Sarah Llewellyn."

Sarah, in her turn, dipped her knees in another curtsy: she studied the younger Vega y Vega frankly, then nodded.

"Gentlemen, will you do me the honor of taking refreshment with me? I believe we have a meal."

Sarah turned, knowing that her request was actually instruction, and that she would be followed: they were seated, their sombreros carefully hung, and their mouths watered at the smell of good beef and gravy and fresh light rolls.

Conversation was light and polite through the meal; Sarah offered father and son each their pick from her husband's humidor, which amused both hostess and guests: the men declined, as they did her offer of brandy, and Sarah sat, composing herself as her guests, as well, selected a comfortably upholstered seat in her spacious parlor.

"Gentlemen," she said, "I am delighted that you chose to visit." She smiled at the elder Vega y Vega. "Senor, I know you to be a man of efficiency and of purpose; there is a purpose for your travel. Please speak freely."

Manuel Lopez Corona Vega y Vega stood and approached Sarah: he went gravely to one knee before her, took her hand and carefully kissed her knuckles.

"My lady," he said firmly, so that his son could hear, "years ago I committed an impropriety, and I wish to ask your forgiveness for this offense."

Sanchez de Oro de Vega y Vega saw Sarah's eyes widen slightly, then her eyes turned to one side: he watched her expressions carefully, for he knew truths often ran speedily across a face, and he practiced seeing what many missed.

"You speak of an evening in the Silver Jewel," she said, "when I was but ten."

"I do," he said gravely, inclining his head: she saw his sun-darkened ears darken further, and she knew that if her fair-skinned brother flushed in a like manner, his ears would be positively scarlet.

Sarah stood abruptly: she swept around the kneeling father, went to his son, held out her hands.

Surprised, young Raimundo placed his hands in hers: responding to her pull, he came to his feet.

Sarah bent a little bit and looked closely at the son's face, then she nodded: turning, she took his arm, and they walked across the room, to something not at all common in a Western home -- a mirror, some three feet tall and two feet wide, hung on the far wall.

Sarah positioned the young Vega y Vega before the mirror, stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders.

"I see something," she said, and his father came over, clearly curious.

"I see" -- she spun the boy around looked seriously at him -- "I see a gentleman. I see a man of honor, I see a man of goodness and of decency and of kindness."

She turned and extended a hand and the elder Vega y Vega approached at this feminine summons.

Sarah turned and took his face between her hands.

"You came to beg my pardon," she whispered, "but I cannot grant it."

She saw a moment's pain in his eyes, but she did not release his face: she held it, and she continued.

"I cannot grant what is not warranted, and it is not warranted because you, committed, no, offense!"

Sarah had a gift her pale-eyed father lacked: she could choose when her eyes changed color, and she chose to let them go pale, and winter-white, to emphasize her words.

"Raimundo, your father was a young man and full of fire, and he asked my hand for a dance one night.

"I was but a year older than you are now."

Raimundo's eyebrows puzzled together a little, for he didn't grasp quite the depth of her meaning.

"I was dressed like a woman, my hair was styled like a woman, and I wore the face paint of a woman, though truly I was yet a girl." She closed her eyes and remembered the moment, remembered the night after she'd been a model for her Mama's fashions, at a buyer's gathering in Denver that morning.

"Raimundo, I look at you and I see a gentleman, a man of honor and of goodness, and of kindness."

She turned and faced Raimundito's father.

"There is only one place you could have learned that," she said quietly, then bit her bottom lip, her eyes dropping to the floor: she looked up, slowly, and whispered, "Thank you for teaching him that. Only a man who is so, can give that gift to his son."

 

As father and son mounted, Raimundito looked around, as if hoping to see something, or someone.

"I see a question in your eyes," Sarah said knowingly.

Raimundito looked at his father, who nodded once, gravely, though his obsidian eyes were smiling.

"Senora Llewellyn," the younger Vega y Vega said seriously, "I hoped to see the woman who rides on her hands."

Sarah laughed, and both father and son smiled to hear it.

"You mean Daciana," she nodded. "Daciana has not been a circus trick rider for many years, and I do not know if she is still able to ride as she once did."

Raimunditio carefully hid his disappointment.

Sarah reached up, thumped his thigh with a gentle fist.

"Let me see what I can find out," she said. "I'm good at finding things out."

 

It was two weeks after their return to their grand rancho near the Rio, that a barefoot peasant boy scampered into the sanctuary, an envelope gripped in his dirty hand.

The padre turned to bring more light on its face and his eyebrows went up: he cracked the blue-wax seal, extracted the note, read it, read it again.

He re-folded the note, slipped it into the hand-folded envelope.

"Go to the lookout," he said quietly, "and watch for something ... unusual."

"What, Padre?"

"You'll know when you see it," the priest smiled.

The boy sprinted from the sanctuary, scampered across the dusty plaza, swarmed up the crude ladder, leaped onto the adobe catwalk and climbed the three steps to the lookout, the highest point above the gates.

He blinked, looked again.

We must forgive this simple child for the surprise that drove a delighted shout from his young throat.

He'd never seen an elephant before, let alone a circus parade.

 

The padre stared at the signature.

It was not a name, but a drawing, a simple but surprisingly lifelike line drawing of a nun ... a nun with a veil over her face, and holding a lance, a silver headed lance longer than she was tall.

He unfolded the envelope and carefully held it over the candle flame, coaxing the invisible ink into life.

 

Padre,

I promised someone they would see a circus trick rider.

I sent the whole circus.

The elephants will need much water, more than horses, but you have hay in plenty for them, and keep the boys away from the tiger.

Sister Mercurius

 

Sarah looked at the nun's habit, hanging in her closet, and remembered when she wore it, before her belly was swollen with new life, when she was of service not only to the Firelands District Court as its agent, its investigator and when necessary, its enforcer ... she also performed the very same services for the Holy Mother Church.

Few people knew her as Sister Mercurius: her father, the Judge, Brother William and the padre.

Not her mother, not her maid, and not her husband.

Sarah closed the closet door, leaned her head against the smooth, finished wood.

I wonder, she thought, if Daciana went to see the circus.

Daciana, for her part, had no time to wonder.

Buttercup, her trick pony with freshly-gilded hooves, galloped at a smooth pace around the circumscribed ring, and children young and old marveled as the lithe young lady on the plume-decked pony did handstands, back flips, somersaults and impossible poses, on the back of a galloping pony.

 

 

 

 

 

[Cheyenne Culpepper 32827]

The sound of hooves coming up from behind us caught us unawares. Our attention was on the tracks we had been following. I turned towards the sound of the hooves only to have my heart nearly jump out of my chest. A band of Ute warriors had surrounded Calico and in doing so prevented any of us from taking a shot at them.

 

That was a good thing, I had the feeling they were only counting coup with us. One of warriors managed to grab Calico and drag her onto his horse behind him. I almost chuckled when I saw that! He spurned his mount on and as he did Calico's legs came up and locked around his waist. One of her hands went for her knife and the other grabbed his long flowing hair.

 

I elbowed Lone Wolf and said "watch this". Calico yanked his head back with his hair and then poked the knife up under his jaw. The warrior's pony started a long turn that led them back to the group of us standing there laughing.

 

The warrior halted the pony just in front of us, "You have taught her well" he said with a slight smile, "maybe you could convince her to put her knife away now Soars with Eagles."

 

Calico had a strange look in her eyes as she withdrew her knife from the skin off Sings with Wolves. She almost hissed at him, "You don't know how close you came to being buzzard bait" as she slid off the warrior's pony.

[Calico Mary]

Those Ute had a lot of nerve, especially the one that grabbed me and tried to take off with me. It wasn’t hard to convince him that it was a bad idea, but I still didn’t appreciate it much. I appreciated it even less when the brave, Sings With Wolves, offered Cheyenne 6 ponies for me! I supposed I should have been flattered but I was more annoyed than anything. I knew that, since we were badly outnumbered, for our safety Cheyenne would be better off at least pretending to consider the offer before turning him down, in the meantime our quarry would be getting even farther away. Cheyenne and Lone Wolf were trying very hard not to laugh, but Eddie was talking quietly with another of the Ute braves and didn’t seem to be paying any attention.

 

It took a while, but Cheyenne finally managed to convince Sings With Wolves that he would be better off keeping his ponies, and that they would be a lot less trouble than I was. For some reason all the Utes seemed to find that rather amusing, but if Cheyenne knew what was good for him he would not be too much in a hurry to be alone with me any time soon! Lone Wolf had tears in his eyes he was trying so hard not to burst out laughing, but I didn’t see what was so funny. Eddie was still involved in his private conversation, I was trying to pick up on what was being said but they were both talking too fast in the Ute language for me to follow it. I’d learned a little of it from Little Flower, but Eddie had become fluent in that language and it was impossible for me to understand what was being said. From Cheyenne’s expression I didn’t think he understood it any better, and I knew that Lone Wolf only spoke a handful of Ute words.

 

The three of us were totally shocked then when Eddie finally switched back to English and told us, “The man we’re hunting is only a few miles ahead, you should be able to catch up to him in no time. I’m going to go with my Ute brothers back to their camp and stay with them for a while. I’ll make my own way back to the ranch when I’m ready.” With that he and the Ute all mounted their horses, and started to leave.

 

“Eddie, what the heck are you doing? You can’t just run off like this! What are we supposed to tell Little Flower when we get back to the ranch and you aren’t with us? How can you do that to her?” I called after him, getting ready to climb back up on Rascal and chase after him. Cheyenne grabbed Rascal’s bridle and shook his head at me. “Let him go, he needs some time to think about things, and if he feels the Ute can help him with that then we need to respect his decision,” Cheyenne told me, but he didn’t look any happier about the situation than I felt. Lone Wolf just stared after Eddie for a few seconds, then mounted his horse and turned the gelding in the direction of the man we were following.

 

Cheyenne quickly followed Lone Wolf, and I didn’t have much choice other than to follow them. I didn’t like the idea of Eddie going off with the Ute, he didn’t even know these braves, how could he think they would be more help to him than his family? All the same, Cheyenne and Lone Wolf were probably right, and we did have a mission to complete. That last bank robber needed to be brought to justice one way or another, Eddie and his problems would have to wait. All the same, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy about the whole thing, and I hoped Eddie would find his way back home before too long.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Jacob reined his stallion -- well, reined isn't the right word.

His Appaloosa was generally not bitted.

Few in the West rode without a full bit and reins, but Jacob followed his father's lead and trained his mount to respond without using reins.

His father still practiced a flat-out charge, a full-on gallop, his cavalry sabre in one hand and a cap-and-ball revolver in the other: Jacob remembered seeing the Grand Old Man swinging that gleaming, curved blade left, right, left, right, slicing melons atop fence posts: he practiced with a yard of sharpened steel, every day, left handed and right handed, and as a result, his father the Sheriff had wrists like iron.

Jacob was no lightweight.

He had a small ranch, he worked that ranch, he cut hay and winter wheat, he roped and rode and branded, he swung a setting maul and a rig builder's hatchet, swung and ax and cut wood with sledge and wedge and cross cut saw: his father did as much, and the only time Jacob ever thought he might take the Old Man -- for every boy at some time figures he can whip the old man -- he watched his father take a man by the throat and pick him off the ground, one handed, and held him against a building until the individual decided the cold eyed Sheriff was right and public misbehavior was really not what he wanted to do.

All this streaked through Jacob's mind like a freight locomotive on a down grade.

His Apple-horse was content to graze; the grass was good here, they were in a brush screen, out of the wind, and Jacob could see his father, laughing, as he reached up and plucked his little girl from the saddle.

Dana, Jacob thought, smiling, nodding a little as her rich auburn hair glowed in the sun, and for a moment it was almost red, almost a rich, living, Irish red, and Jacob remembered his stepmother Esther ... for a moment he thought he could smell her scent, the lilac she loved, and there was the suggestion of a brush against his cheek .. .light, ethereal, like a mother's touch from Beyond.

Jacob closed his eyes and took a long breath, dismissed any such fanciful speculation.

He opened his eyes again and his smile returned, for his father was whirling little Dana about in a great circle, Dana's head was thrown back, her mouth open a little as she gazed into the blue zenith above, and the velocity of her tight orbit spilled happy-little-girl giggles all over the ground.

Jacob knew he could not be easily seen, and his father was busy, so he eased a little pressure with his right knee and Apple-horse turned, and they paced back around the brushy screen and headed back to Firelands.

Jacob had a question, and perhaps his father wasn't the right one to ask, after all.

 

The cave was deep and dry and had not been occupied for some long time.

The white wolf was satisfied; she curled up, her head facing the entrance, and allowed herself to relax.

She licked at her belly when unseen paws kicked at their confinement.

 

Sarah walked very carefully, one hand on her belly, the other holding her husband's big, warm, strong hand.

Llewellyn hand to remind himself not to stare at his wife as they walked.

The bigger she got in her pregnancy, the more he treated her like delicate china.

At one time Sarah might have snapped at him that she wasn't going to break, but now she was grateful for his solicitude.

They walked every evening, those evenings when he was home and not bunking with his fellows at the firehouse, and they often stopped at the edge of their yard, where the ground fell away abruptly, affording them an absolutely glorious view of the mountains, of the world, fallen away at their feet: there was a bench, and on that bench they paused, and sat, still holding hands.

Sarah leaned against her husband and he ran his arm around her shoulder, and her young stirred within her, and Sarah smiled.

True friendship runs deep, and the truest friends often don't have to speak a single word: so it was tonight, for husband and wife were bestest friends, and each was content with the other's company, and words were unnecessary.

As a matter of fact, it was not until the sun had shot its final rays in salute as it dropped over the horizon, not until the air grew chill and they stood to make their way back into the welcoming warmth of their fine stone house, not until Sarah walked with a deliberate care, one hand on her belly and the other gripping her husband's callused paw, that she said her first words of the evening.

"Mr. Llewellyn?"

"Yes, Mrs. Llewellyn?"

"Mr. Llewelly, I give thanks to God Almighty that I am a strong woman."

"And why is that, Mrs. Llewellyn?"

Sarah stopped to catch her breath; her husband stopped as well, squatting suddenly, looking up at Sarah, his face concerned.

Sarah's fingertips were gentle as she caressed his cheek.

"Mr. Llewellyn, carrying a child for the biggest part of a year, is most certainly not for the faint of heart!"

Her husband took her hand in both of his and kissed her fingertips.

"No, Mrs. Llewellyn," he agreed quietly, his voice rich, deep, reassuring. "No, it is not."

 

Jacob looked up at the swaying, knotted rope.

His father built this round barn, this rather large round barn, for this one unique woman, this special friend of his sister, this circus performer with the knowing eyes and an almost magical skill with herbals and healing.

This woman who wore skin tight circus tights and climbed the knotted rope, hand over hand, her legs level and her toes pointed, hauling herself to the rafters smoothly, steadily, then stopping at the very top and holding her full weight with one hand and reaching up to slap the smoothed chestnut beam, flat handed: she swarmed back down, just as smoothly, stopped when her hips reached Jacob's head height: she turned upside down on the rope, came down a little until she was eye to eye with him -- the rest of her body vertical, her toes pointed to the ceiling -- she blinked and smiled and said, "Hallo, Chakob!"

She flipped, did a complete somersault and landed very neatly on her feet, arms straight out and she did a little theatrical bow, then straightened, mischief and merriment bright in her eyes.

She cocked her head and frowned a little, then seized the tall deputy's hand.

"Komm. You too skinny. I feex."

 

Daciana waited until Jacob finished his second slice of pie.

She refilled his coffee mug and sat down across the table from him, her face neutral, giving the impression that she was listening with far more than her ears.

"Tell me your dream," she said quietly, shuffling a deck of cards with her long, delicate artist's fingers.

Jacob blinked, leaned back a little.

Daciana smiled. "I know vhy you komm. Now speak. Vass ist mit der dream?"

Jacob blinked again; he picked up his coffee, took a noisy slurp to cover his confusion.

He hadn't said a thing about the dream that brought him here.

"I thought to go to Dr. Flint," he began.

"He voot be a goot choice."

"But I thought of you instead."

"I am a goot choice."

"It was an eagle."

Daciana looked directly into his eyes ... it was as if she was looking through his eyes, looking through him, taking a close look at his back bone to judge its color.

"I saw an eagle. It was ... perfectly detailed ... as if I were flying with it.

"It screamed across the sky, all beak and claws and fierceness and I felt ..."
He hesitated.

It was one thing to recount an observation, a quantified fact; it was another to describe a feeling, which was entirely subjective.

"Then it was an owl and we were still in the sky but ... not moving."

Daciana never moved, never blinked, just those eyes, those dark eyes searing into his.

"The eagle ... I felt it laugh."

Daciana's fingers cut the deck, shuffled the deck one handed, cut the deck again, her eyes never leaving his.

"The eagle was screaming in ready for a young war and of a sudden it stopped and it was an owl and it looked at me."

He looked away from the mesmerizing cards and looked at Daciana.

"I got the notion it wasn't just a dream."

Daciana's free hand caressed the deck, shuffled it quickly, delicately, the pasteboards whispering their secrets as she blinked and her eyes became thoughtful.

"Eagle," she murmured. "A great and powerful totem of your native people." She tilted her head, smiling. "Did you know there isss a vhite volf here?"

Jacob's eyes hardened and he leaned forward.

"You've seen it?"

She laughed, suddenly human again, and pretty, Jacob realized.

"Eagle. Strength. Speed. Fierce at war, ruthless with enemies, strong and loyal and fiercely protective of its own." Her fingers resumed shuffling the cards, slowly now, her eyes never leaving his.

"Undt it became der owl. Vizdom. Silence, Also a varrior, a qviet varrior, killing in silence, but deep ... very deep in vizdom." She blinked a few times. "You vere seeink t'rough anodder vun's eyes."

"How's that?"

Daciana placed the deck carefully on the table.

"You mother had Second Sight."

Jacob turned the color of wheat paste.

His mother had been murdered by a drunken lout who horsewhipped both mother and son for the slightest offense: Jacob carried a back full of scars to this day, and as a boy he'd used his father's own pistol to blow the drunken murderer's brains out his opposite ear as he slept, the day he whipped Jacob's mother to death, and Jacob bloodied, whipped to a standstill and unable to do any but lay there and watch her die.

"Your mother couldt not pass her gift to you, Chacob. You do not haff the Sight but iss in your bloodt, your loints. It vill come outdt in yearss to komm undt it vill komm back hier to Firelandts.

"Now der eagle undt der owl."

Daciana sat up very straight, slapped both hands down on the tabletop.

"Vhat you zaw vass zumtink your vather zaw: he zaw zumvun stronk undt deadly like der eagle undt just as fast, zumvun mit der vizdom undt zilents uff der owl."

Jacob considered this and nodded slowly, smiling a little.

"I think I saw him too," he murmured.

"You zaw ze man. Your vatter zaw hiss soul."

Jacob nodded again.

"I'd been wondering about that," he said softly. "I'd wondered ... how it'll turn out."

"Ziss man," Daciana asked, slowly, choosing her words carefully. "Hiss bloodt ... iss oldt, iss uff zis earth."

Jacob considered the name of the man he was thinking of, and nodded, slowly.

"Yes," he whispered. "Yes. It is. Very old, and ..."

He looked up.

Daciana saw the light of realization in his eyes, and a smile of understanding light his face from within as he spoke the man's name.

"Cheyenne."

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

double tap

Mechanical problem, something to do with the loose nut operating the keyboard.

My apologies.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled tale.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

The Sheriff was leaned back in his office chair.

His hat was tilted down over his eyes, his fingers laced together over his lean belly, his boots up on the corner of his desk, and in a rare moment, he was relaxed.

Perhaps it was because he was in his own sanctum, behind the pine topped desk in the little log fortress that was the Sheriff's office.

Hard heels approached the Sheriff's door,distinct and clear on the board walk -- quick, light steps with hard heels, a woman's step, a woman's quick step, the step of a woman in distress, or in upset, or in want.

The Sheriff never stirred at the woman's abrupt entrance, nor at her agitated pacing back and forth before his desk.

"I know you'll think me a silly girl," she blurted, waving a lacy kerchief from between gloved fingers, "and perhaps I am -- oh, I don't know! -- but my Papa -- ohh!"

Her voice trailed off and she pressed the kerchief to her eyes, taking a moment to compose herself.

"I miss my Papa," she whispered, pressing the balled, damp cloth to her nose, then she sniffed and took a long breath.

"My Papa," she said in a little, quivery voice, "told me if I was ever in trouble, I should find the local Sheriff and lay my case before him, because the Sheriff is usually a wise man."

She very carefully did not look at the relaxed lawman: taking his silence to be his undivided attention, she continued.

"I am betrothed," she said suddenly, as if finally deciding to dive into a deep, quiet mountain pool from a great height.

"I am promised to a fine young man. He is a responsible man, he ... his firm is an old and established ... he is a good choice --"

She turned suddenly, her skirts flaring a little as she pressed the worried ball of damp linen against her upper lip again.

"I was scared, Sheriff. I was scared and I ran. I ran and I bought a ticket and I rode the train and ..."

She looked, half fearful, at the Sheriff: she saw what appeared to be a man listening patiently to her words.

"If I don't go back it will break his heart and I don't know if I will ever do better and he is a good man and --"

Her words trailed off and she looked up at the ceiling, then to the floor.

"I'm going back," she said firmly.

"I'm going back and I'm going to accept his proposal of marriage. Oh, Sheriff, thank you so much, I just knew that you were the right man to come to!"

She whirled again and swung out the door, drawing it shut behind her, and her hard-heeled footsteps retreated quickly up the boardwalk, fading quickly.

From beneath the tilted down brim of his low crowned Stetson, the Sheriff gave a single, quiet snore.

 

Some years later, the Sheriff was tacking a wanted poster on the outer wall of his office when a man's boot heels sounded their approach.

The Sheriff hung the tack hammer on its accustomed nail up by the overhang and turned to size up the stranger.

A well-dressed young man with an immaculate suit and equally immaculate Derby hat thrust out a hand in greeting.

An attractive young woman, behind him, followed, a little boy in two, and an infant straddling her hip.

"Sheriff," the young man greeted, gripping the Sheriff's calluses with a surprisingly strong hand, "my name is Carruthers Strathmore."

The Sheriff returned his grip, nodding: "Afternoon, Mr. Strathmore, how can I help you?"

"Sheriff, I came to thank you," the well-dressed young man grinned: he turned, extended an arm toward the approaching family. "May I introduce my wife, Anna Mae, my son Winston, and this is our youngest son Atlas -- we named him for Anna Mae's grandfather."

The Sheriff removed his hat, gave a courteous half-bow.

"Sheriff, my wife tells me that she counseled with you in a difficult moment," Carruthers gushed, running an arm around his wife's waist, to which she blushed most furiously: "your sound advice led her back to me, and we were wed" -- he grinned at the uptilted, smiling face of his sailor-suited son -- "and as you can see, we are just as happy as if we had good sense!"

"Carruthers!"

Mrs. Strathmore's face turned even more red as she looked down and away, but the Sheriff could see that she was smiling a little.

"And we wanted to thank you, sir, for without your sound advice we might not have known the happiness of our union!"

The Sheriff nodded, looking from one to another, and finally he bent a little at the waist, his hands on his knees, and he looked at the little boy in the sailor suit.

"Winston," he said gently, "can you wink?"

Winston looked uncertainly at his father, then looked back at the Sheriff.

The Sheriff screwed one eye shut.

Winston tried to shut just one eye but both of them went closed.

"Now that's not bad," the Sheriff nodded approvingly. "Two for the price of one!"

He straightened and shook Carruther's hand again.

"Mr. Strathmore," he said, "the man with a loving wife and fine sons is a man wealthy beyond measure. If I was in some small way of assistance, then you have most certainly enriched my day."

The Sheriff puzzled over this, off and on, for the rest of the day: he had a good memory for faces and names, but he was prepared to swear he'd never seen Mrs. Carruthers before.

He never did figure it out.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I do worry about the Mistress, the maid wrote, her pen loud on good rag paper: it was quiet, it was late, and she'd promised herself she would write her mother at least every other week. Postage was dear and delivery was uncertain but she still tried -- a promise is a promise! she thought fiercely, as she dipped the leaf shaped nib in good India ink and wiped it delicately against the inside of the inkwell's thick glass neck.

She and that great grand mare of hers, and that great bear of a dog all three walked the pasture today.

She wished to go see her good friends at the Macneil horse ranch, but she did not wish to jostle herself in the buggy, and she laughed when she told me if she dare ride her mare, her get may fall from her, she would be spread so wide.

Mother dear, her horse is taller than I am -- I cannot see over its back, I am most of a head shorter than its spine -- the Mistress could as well saddle and ride your kitchen table as ride the great broad back of that shining black mare.

In all of Ireland I never saw as large a horse.

Mary looked up, remembering, and smiled as her eyes saw through the black-glass mirror of the nighttime windowpane, and saw the green pastures of her father's farm, and the fair she and her brothers attended every year, especially the horse races and the auctions.

She blinked and composed her next line.

I believe the Mistress to be a Wise Woman.

She speaks of the bairn she carries as if the lad were here and running about on fine strong legs, laughing in the sunlight.

She describes his eyes as a good Welsh blue, and a high tenor voice that will fall flawlessly into a grand strong manly tenor as he seasons, and she describes him running with the wind, and teaching him to shoot his father's great bow, and it longer than the Mistress is tall.

She speaks of things she's seen, things that are not yet, and Mother, her words run like fingers of cold water through me when I hear her speak them.

When last we two went to the Mercantile, she saw a dear friend and before she was within arm's reach she clapped her hands and laughed, "Nellie, you're pregnant!"

Nellie was surprised by this, but the Mistress's words were true: the doctor and the midwife both said as much.

She looked at two lads on the street and turned away quickly.

I touched her elbow and asked what was wrong.

I saw she bit her bottom lip and shook her head, and just then the jingle of harness and galloping hoofbeats and the shout, "Runaway!"

He was killed by the runaway team and wagon, Mother, and the Mistress saw it happen.

She saw it before it happened.

The maid rested her forehead against the back of her off hand, biting her own bottom lip at the memory, then she carefully wiped the steel nib clean, replaced the stopper in the ink well, rose slowly and, cupping her hand at the top of the chimney, puffed out the oil lamp.

[Cheyenne Culpepper 32827]

guess I shud get busy here too,,,, If I do, Cali will too,,,

[Cheyenne Culpepper 32827]

That left the three of us to track the lone outlaw who had escaped the slaughter of his gang. Our second horses were paying off big time for the tracks we were following were getting fresher the futher we rode. We were rewarded for our hard riding when we saw movement as we crested a rise. A single rider stopped at a water hole, he was laying flat on his stomach with his head in the water. FOOL!!!! His horse was near him but the reigns were loose, it wouldn't take much to spoke a tired horse.

 

We dismounted and I pulled my Sharps from it's resting place and found a smooth place to lay. I brought the glass to my eye and found the water hole, the fool still was laying there gulping water. His horse showing more sense than he, was looking straight at us, I drew a bead about a foot away from the man's head and squeezed the trigger.

 

A plume of water rose from the bullet's smash into the water, the horse didn't need anymore convincing, he was in full trot instantly and then stopping about a hundred yards away. The man jerked his head up and standing on his knees drew a pistol as he looked in our direction and the cloud of smoke rising from us.

 

I chambered another round and put the shot just in front of him, covering him in debris from the bullet and rock.

 

He started to try to aim at us but a round from Calico's Winchester found his shoulder, throwing him back into the water hole and his pistol flying up into the air.

 

By the time we got to the water hole the man had bled out, his lifeless body floating face down. We quickly drug him quickly from the hole to prevent tainting the water.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Sir ... I've been thinking."

Joseph held up a rifle-long stick, one end braced against the hawk post, the other set just above his belt buckle: one smooth motion he made, the hand forged Smith knife drove neatly into the poplar post, head high with the lad.

Jacob was not watching his son; he was frowning a little, his bottom jaw thrust out, the pale-eyed eldest son, the very image of his pale eyed sire.

Little Joseph, on the other side of the house and out of sight of his Pa and Grampa, held the stick with one hand and turned to work the throwing knife loose with the other.

"Sir, I'm recalling Miz Calico."

The Sheriff looked at his son, his head inclining ever so slightly: Go on, the hint of a nod said.

"Sir, it meant the world to me when she was so tickled to find I could run a Dutch oven."

Linn nodded slowly, wisely.

"I reckon she was tickled to eat someone else's cookin'," he said quietly, his mind clearly on another matter: "especially when the cookin' is good."

"Yes, sir."

The Sheriff waited; he knew Joseph was still chewing on an idea.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Jacob?"

"Sir, I reckon like attracts like, and I don't know Cheyenne a'tall."

The Sheriff waited, knowing his son was working on a conclusion.

"Sir, I might be wrong, but I would reckon that-there Cheyenne is a patient and long suffering sort."

The Sheriff pressed his bottom lip up into his iron grey mustache as he nodded thoughtfully.

"I would reckon he is quick to listen, slow to anger and slow to speak."

Joseph looked long into the horizon.

"But I could be wrong."

The Sheriff considered his words carefully.

"I reckon," he said at length, "he is just so."

"Then, sir, am I correct in believing Miz Calico is equally circumspect, in word and in deed?"

"Oh, I would reckon so," his father drawled. "I would reckon she is just the sweetest and most patient sort and she'd not hurt a fly unless she just had to."

"She's that dangerous, then."

"Her and her husband both."

Silence grew between the pair.

Supper had been with the full crew of threshers; harvesting was a community affair: the corn crop came ripe first, just short of a fortnight before,and they'd had a shucking bee there in Jacob's barn, with a fiddle and a five string banjo, a jaw harp and a gut bucket bass made out of a genuine gut bucket -- the number 2 washtub with a seam busted, it would not hold water anymore but was suitable for turning into an erstwhile musical instrument. They'd shucked corn, laughed, shucked corn, told outrageous lies, shucked corn, square danced and when all was done everyone was pleasantly tired, everyone knew everyone else's business and everybody got fed.

Feeding the threshers was also a community affair: the men folk tore into the crop, the women cooked, many hands and many forks pitched wheat into the steam driven, belt operated thresher, the horse drawn, bright red McCormick harvester cut the crop and laid it in neat windrows, where it was raked and pitched onto a wagon and from there taken to the thrashin' machine: what straw wasn't burnt running the donkey engine, went into the barn for winter bedding for the live stock.

Now, with the work done, the plank tables cleared off and taken down, the planks stacked and empty hogsheads set back on a wagon and hauled off, father and son sat on the deacon's bench, each feeling the effects of a long day's work.

The sound of a thrown knife driving into laminated poplar twitched the Sheriff's right ear, the way his ear twitched when he heard a word pronounced differently, or heard it with a different accent.

"Joseph practicin' up?" he drawled.

"Yes, sir," Jacob nodded slowly, his pale eyes roaming the horizon.

"He's gettin' good, last I saw."

"Yes, sir," Jacob replied. "He is."

"Good," the Sheriff grunted, and Jacob was pleased at his father's approval.

Silence again, but a comfortable silence, as is only found between good friends: when found between father and son, and found with comfort, it forms a good memory, and Jacob would remember into his own old age that he and his father could sit, thus, in companionable silence.

Annette opened the door and whistled, a delicate, almost ladylike yoo-hoo whistle: "I've some pie left," she called, "and I don't want it getting stale!"

From the other side of the house, Joseph pulled his blades free, thrust the hand forged Smith knives back into their triple sheath and scampered around the house, almost running into his long tall Grampa, who was unfolding his frame from the deacon's seat.

"Joseph," the Sheriff said, his voice dead serious and his eyes anything but, "do you reckon we'd ought to eat some of that-there pie?"

Joseph grinned up at his Grampa. "Yes, sir!" he declared, his knuckles proudly on his belt and his elbows stuck out.

The Sheriff winked solemnly at his grandson and the towhead winked back.

"Let us be went," the Sheriff said, and three Keller men turned to tend this delightful duty.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Angela Keller closed her dark eyes and leaned her head against her Daddy's chest.

Linn held his little girl and leaned back in his chair, laying his cheek against her hair, smelling soap and lilac water and that indefinable something that defines a cub of one's own litter: a scent, a smell, just beyond the range of human detection, yet palpable to a parent.

"Daddy?" Angela said in a surprisingly little-girl voice.

Linn rumbled in reply, an undefined "Mmm?" that sounded like a monstrous great bear rumbling in a deep, dark cave under a great stone mountain, or so it seemed to Angela's ear, pressed as it was against his warm, reassuring chest.

"Daddy, do you remember when you found Sarah?"

The Sheriff's eyes snapped open and he drew back a little, surprised: his pale eyes blinked a few times, rapidly, and Angela's dark and lovely eyes blinked slowly, her long lashes sweeping the air, and the Sheriff felt like his stomach dropped a little better than a half mile.

Mein Gott, the man thought, my little girl is growing up! -- and for a moment he remembered another pair of dark eyes, laughing eyes, sparkling and dancing eyes and fiddle music and the Virginia reel as they celebrated the Sheriff's wedding, and he danced with his dark-eyed niece --

The Sheriff seized his spinning thoughts, brought them to a brutal halt, returned to the question.

He nodded, and as he did he smelled wood smoke and blood, he smelled death and clean mountain air, he smelled freshly tore up dirt and that stomach turning odor that comes of human bodies ripped open, and for a brutal moment he was standing in the middle of a derailment, a tragedy, the last time the Z&W Railroad ever used iron rails: the rail was cast, brittle; a rail end whipped up and impaled a passing passenger car, gutting it open.

The Sheriff was a veteran of that damned War and was no stranger to men's bodies ripped, blown, cut, impaled, but this ...

Angela felt him shiver and she twisted in his arms, hugging him suddenly, almost desperately, and his arms tightened around her in return.

He remembered seizing one of the wooden benches and hauling it off a woman's body.

Her head was missing, as was one arm, but the other arm held a bundle, and the bundle wiggled, and a tiny little arm thrust out and waved, and the Sheriff leaned down and seized it and as he picked it up he realized the underside of the bundle was saturated with blood and the little arm was the color of slate and he laid the dying infant back on its dead mother's bosom and clamped his jaw tight shut, as tight as the lid he clamped on his feelings.

He seized another bench and saw a little girl's leg, the stocking was shockingly clean, white, her shoe was worn but it was clean.

He picked up the bench and threw it, anger plain in the violence of his act, and he squatted, pulling debris away.

The child was shivering a little, her eyes were barely open: he brushed the hair back from her face, his fingers gentle: there was a scrape on her cheek bone, but that was the only damage he saw.

She turned her head, looked up, her eyes wide, as if seeing something between herself and the high, cloudless sky above, then she looked at the Sheriff and in a little-girl voice she said, "My name is Sarah and I'm scared."

"Honey, are you hurt?" the Sheriff asked, his voice gentle, and Sarah's left arm locked her rag doll tight in the crook of her elbow.

The Sheriff blinked, took a long breath, returned to the here-and-now: Angela was in his lap, warm and real and solid, and he was in his own home, under his own roof, at his own desk.

He hugged Angela again and whispered, "Why are you wondering?"

Angela's eyes were serious, her voice almost so: "Daddy, Sarah is grown up and married."

The Sheriff nodded, curious.

"When I get grown up and married, will I still be your princess?"

The Sheriff grinned, then he chuckled, and then he took his little girl under the arms and thrust her up toward the ceiling, spinning around and laughing quietly: he brought his giggling child down -- I won't be able to do this much longer! he thought -- and he knelt, holding both Angela's warm, soft, pink hands in his.

"Princess," the Sheriff said, "I am going to tell you a secret, and you must not ever tell anyone else."

Angela's face grew as solemn as her eyes had been a moment before and she nodded, listening carefully.

"No matter how old a daughter becomes," the Sheriff said quietly, his hands firm around his daughter's, "she is always, always, Daddy's little girl."

"Even when she's married?"

The Sheriff smiled.

"When a girl is old enough to marry, she becomes a woman, and a woman gives her heart to her husband. If he is any kind of a husband at all, he will put her on a pedestal and treat her like a Queen."

Angela frowned. "Does that mean I will be Daddy's little queen?"

The Sheriff laughed. "No, sweetheart," he replied, brushing a curl of hair back from her cheek. "Your Mama was my Queen."

"Oh." Angela frowned a little, looking down, her bottom jaw thrusting out as she thought.

Her face brightened and she looked at her Daddy and asked, "Daddy, you gonna get a new Queen?"

The Sheriff laughed and hooked a thumb at his desk.

"I was just going through the Sears & Sawbuck catalog," he said, turning his head a little and then looking back, "and I didn't see any Queens listed. They've got everything else but no Queens, so no I don't reckon I'll be a-gettin' one anytime soon."

Angela nodded.

"The twins are asleep," the Sheriff said, touching the tip of Angela's nose with a delicate fingertip, "and you should be too. You have school tomorrow."

"Yes, Daddy," Angela said obediently, turning; the Sheriff scooped her up and carried her upstairs to her bedroom.

Angela wiggled a little as her Daddy tucked her in and kissed her forehead, and she whispered, "Night, Daddy," as he cat footed out of her room.

He was drawing her door shut when he heard another whisper.

"Night, Mommy."

Angela heard her Daddy go into his own room, and not long after, she heard kind of a funny sound, and she had to think a little before she realized what she'd heard.

Her Daddy was laughing, quietly, so as not to wake anyone, but laughing.

Angela had no way of knowing her Daddy paused between getting into his nightshirt and crawling in the bunk: she could not know that he stood and looked at the portrait of Esther and himself, taken on their honeymoon just before she'd been thrown off the riverboat by a thief, the thief the Sheriff shot, just before he and four Nantucket whalers seized the riverboat's skiff and rowed to the swirl where Esther'd gone down, just before he spun a borrowed lariat and made the and only accurate roping toss he'd ever made in his entire life, just as Esther fought her way to the surface.

He was laughing, quietly, remembering how Esther challenged an insulting German count to a duel of honor, and how she'd crossed steel with the man, and given him a second Heidelberg scar before she soundly, swiftly, efficiently, beat him seven ways from Sunday, spanked the blade from his hand and put her own honed Solingen Schlager to his throat and told him that he could retract his insult, or he could leave his ghost here on the river.

The Sheriff remembered the thousand memories of his wife, and all that she was, and then he thought of Angela and the Sears and Roebuck catalog, and he looked at the portrait and then at the ceiling, and finally he opened a closet door and pulled out the one gown he'd kept.

He buried his face in the fabric and he remembered the last time she wore it, how she plunged her face into a bouquet of roses, her eyes closed, for she dearly loved her roses ... and he drew back his face and laughed a little ... he laughed as the lines of wet streaked down his cheeks.

"I don't reckon," he whispered, "I'll be orderin' me a queen from Sears and Sawbuck."

If the Sheriff's grief hadn't hit him so hard, he might have noticed the sudden scent of roses in the room.

[Calico Mary]

I had hoped the man would surrender peacefully, but it was not to be. The shot I took was an easy one, but I was aiming to wound, not to kill. Unfortunately he flinched just as I pulled the trigger, and the bullet must have hit an artery or something instead of the arm I was trying to hit. I was starting to get a little tired of killing, but the man did have it coming after all. We pulled him from the water and checked all his pockets but they were empty.

 

I noticed Lone Wolf glancing over at the man’s horse, which was still standing a little ways away watching us. Cheyenne quickly whispered something to the young brave, who then took some sugar cubes from his saddle bags and slowly moved towards the strange horse. Cheyenne and I stayed put, it was best to let Lone Wolf handle this alone, all three of us might have spooked the animal into running away. It didn’t take long before our young friend was able to grab the horse’s reins and led him back over to us, munching the sugar cubes the whole way.

 

We were able to get the outlaw’s saddle bags with no trouble, and quickly started to go through them. The stolen money was in one of them, the other held a second set of clothes, but not much else. I did notice something that looked out of place in the one with the money, and reaching in I pulled out an envelope that had been half buried in among the bills. To my shock, the return address showed the name Frank Culpepper, with an address in Virginia listed below it! The envelope was addressed to an Angus Fraiser from Denver, was the dead man Frasier? And if so why was Junior writing to him? I quickly lifted the flap of the envelope, but there was no letter inside. I showed the envelope to Cheyenne, and he looked as confused to read it as I felt. We went back and searched through both saddle bags again looking for the letter that Junior had sent, but there was no sign of it.

 

“I was going to leave this feller for the scavengers, but maybe we better find out if he is this Angus Fraiser, and if so Junior is going to have a lot of explaining to do!” Cheyenne told me, and I agreed. “Maybe we could take him to Firelands,” I said, “We aren’t that far away and maybe Sheriff Keller could help us identify him.” Cheyenne nodded, and between him and Lone Wolf they got the dead outlaw up onto his horse and tied the body securely. Lone Wolf told us, “You two can take the body to your friend, I am going to see if I can follow those Ute and find Eddie. If you make it back to the ranch before me, please tell Little Flower that I will not let anything bad happen to him.” With that, he mounted his horse and rode off in the direction the Ute and Eddie had gone.

 

Maybe this was for the best, we certainly didn’t need his help getting the body to Firelands, and I felt better knowing Eddie would not be alone. I still wasn’t sure why he had decided to go off with the Ute warriors, but it had been his decision. Cheyenne grabbed the reins of the outlaw’s horse, and we headed in the direction of Firelands. As we got going, Cheyenne glanced over at me and said, “Darn it….it just occurred to me that we’ll be going in the wrong direction….Grizz’s place and his hot springs are the other way!” I just sighed, there was just no changing that man….

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I do not get mad easy.

It takes some work to get under my hide most days, but the surest fastest way to light off my fuse is either to call me a liar, or accuse me falsely.

I swore an oath many years agone to learn to subdue my passions and it's a good thing, elsewise I'd likely have jerked the hide off that sneering Easterner and sent him naked back to the civilized lands.

I was a-tellin' the big red headed Irish fire chief about a conversation I had with an old timer not long ago, an old feller who knew these mountains like most men know their wife's face, and how the old gent told me about the scariest trip he'd made in this lifetime, when he run a canoe down the Green River.

The Easterner allowed as I was a liar, as no man could run forty miles of white water and live to tell the tale, and when he uttered the words, "You are a liar," why, the Jewel come to an absolutely silent stop.

Chairs scooted back as men drew shy of us.

Call a man a liar and it's a shootin' affair, unless it's a knife affair, or one or t'other decides to stomp the other into the ground.

I reckon the Easterner knew he'd just made a serious mistake, for he looked to his left and then to his right, turning nothing but his eyes.

I stood up slow and kicked the chair from behind me and the sound was loud in the hold-your-breath silence.

"Mister," I said, "no man calls me that and lives. Fill your hand."

I did not raise my voice.

I did not have to.

"You're the Sheriff," he said, surprise in his voice. "You ... you can't ..."

"You called me a liar," I said, my voice quiet. "Call a man a liar out here and it comes to a killin'. Fill your hand."

"Fill ... my ...?"

Sean belched loudly, set his mug carelessly down on the polished mahogany bar top.

"He means, y' flea brained clod, he's goin' ta kill ya, an' ya can try an' kill him first or he'll just turn ye int' hog food."

"Pigs ain't et in most of a day," a local ranch hand nodded agreeably. "I reckon they're willin' t' eat a man, shot up some or dead, they won't care."

"Which will it be?" I asked quietly, and all the insanity of that damned war come a-floodin' over me like I was standing under a Niagara of pure unadulterated blood lust. I wanted to kill this fellow in the worst way and only the fact that he wasn't moving kept me from it. "Which will it be, stranger? Knives or guns? You choose, or I choose."

What will he learn? a voice whispered inside my head.

If he dies he will learn nothing.

I stood there just a half inch from quivering like a hound dog on a hot track, I was a set trigger drawn back and needing only the lightest touch to set myself off.

"No man can run the Green," the Easterner said uncertainly, his hands awkwardly away from his sides, his coat still closed.

"Never said I did."

My voice never rose and I did not need to put an edge on it.

"I said a man I trust told me he did. You want to call him a liar, he'll cut your head off and stick it on a box elder stake for all the world to see, he'll skin out your miserable carcass with a soup spoon and then he'll proceed to get reeeeal mean with you."

The fellow turned his palms toward me, fingers spread. "I never called you a liar, Sheriff."

"Ye're a damned liar yersel'," Sean bellowed, coming indiginantly upright from his comfortable slouch against the bar. "I heard ye wi' me own ears!"

"You can take it back," I suggested. "You can admit before all men here assembled that you lied. Your word will never be good again. No man will believe a word you say, no business deal you offer will be trusted. You might as well go back East where people settle things in court and pay good money to attorneys to bring lawsuits against one another. Out here we settle things quite a bit faster."

"Yes." The stranger's voice was a dry whisper, his tongue flicking out and back in as if to wet dry lips with a dry mouth.

My left hand launched of its own accord, my left hand Colt thrust out and the engraved revolver rolled up in my hand and the sound of the .44 was muffled, distant, and I saw the center button disappear from the Easterner's vest.

My second shot caught him just under the nose and I am not sure which hit the floor first, his sleeve gun or him.

I remember kicking the empty out of the fired chamber, I remember dunking a fresh round in and setting the hammer nose back down on my buryin' money I keep rolled up in the empty chamber of each of my Colts, and I remember Sean thumping my back in happy congratulation that I nailed the treacherous coward before he could bring that sleeve gun to bear.

It was not until later that night, once I was back under my own roof and after I'd tucked my young'uns in for the night and I retired my own self that I finally remembered seeing that sleeve gun shoot out into his hand and his hand start to raise.

[Cheyenne Culpepper 32827]

Firelands wasn't too far, maybe four hours or so,, but we'd never make it before nightfall and without knowing the way real well without a good trail, we would need to camp for the night as soon as we found a good spot. A waterhole would be nice, we could water the horses, but we cud get cleaned up as well.

 

I could tell Calico wasn't her normal self after killing that man when she had only wanted to wound him. She wasn't nearly as tough inside as she let on at times. I pushed my mount over next to hers and took her hand as we rode silently on towards Firelands.

 

The horses smelled the waterhole on up ahead before Calico and I saw it, we let the extra horses loose before we got there and they took off for the water. Once we got to the waterhole and saw that it was a good spot to spend the night we dismounted and I took the dead man from the horse he had been on and laid him on the ground. Before I got that done Calico was already soaking clothes and all in the waterhole.

 

I unsaddled the horses before I got out of my buckskins and joined her.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Sunrise come up with a God-awful spray of color.

Mornings are like that sometimes, it looked like the sun was shooting gold straight in the air, broad shafts of glory and some gauzy pink and purple clouds low against the horizon and the mountains like great teeth biting into the firmament.

Cannonball always did like mornings and I always did too, and she was showing it: she was lifting her forehooves in great curled paces, for all the world like Sarah's big black Frisian, not so much pacing as dancing.

I threw my head back and laughed and that wasn't the smartest thing to do, for every now and again Cannonball liked to show me she had a mind of her own, and damned if she didn't dump me right into the middle of the coldest crick that run downhill out of these mountains.

I landed flat on my back and let out a roar like a wounded bull, least until I got a face full of water, and Cannonball stood there lookin' at me all innocent like it was my fault, and then Cheyenne looked solemnly down at me with his eyes a-laughin' and his face as sober as the old Judge, and he deadpanned "Gettin' yer Saturday night bath a little early, ain't ye?"